The Daily Reckoning PRESENTS: Why is it you can hold a perfectlyintelligent conversation with a person about any various number of things,but when the topic is changed to the "War on Terror", or global warming,an otherwise clever person begins parroting nonsense they heard yesterdayon MSNBC? Bill Bonner explores...ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL...and better damned well stay that wayby Bill Bonner"It is largely a matter of scale...in fact, it could all be reduced to amatter of scale," said a visitor yesterday.We were talking about the way things work...and why there is such a bigdifference between the way people are able to function reasonably well insmall groups and the way they seem to blow themselves up in large ones."Yes," our friend went on, "Once you get beyond what is usually known asthe 'human scale,' things lose all their meaning."It is a question that has puzzled us for years: how is it that areasonably intelligent man can perfectly well drive through trafficwithout killing himself, but ask the same man his thoughts on globalwarming, the war on poverty or public education...and what you get is suchpreposterous nonsense you can barely believe your own ears? We have mentioned many times that there is a world of difference between aNew England town meeting and the U.S. federal government. The size of theNew England town meeting is one that the human brain is prepared to dealwith. At the town meeting, a man can know which of the people he isdealing with is a moron and which is a self-interested hustler. But when it comes to national politics, the same man is totallyill-equipped...like a mechanic who shows up with a pair of pruningshears...or a veterinarian with a wrench in his hand. He is ignorant ofthe facts...innocent of the procedures...and completely helpless in frontof the controls. He can't tell the connivers from the honest bumblers. Hehas lost the points of reference that are meaningful to him. He is like adriver who looks ahead and sees only fog. He turns the steering wheel tothe left...but the car lurches to the right. He puts on the breaks and thecar speeds up!What can the poor fellow do...but resort to lies and suchuber-simplifications as take your breath away. "If we don't fight thecommies in Vietnam," he said in 1965, "we'll have to fight them inCalifornia!" "If you want better educated people, you have to spend moreon public education," he said in 1975. "If we don't stand up to the EvilEmpire, it will take over the world," he said in 1985. "If you invest in abalanced portfolio of stocks, you will always make money over the longrun," he said in 1995. What can he do? He replaces local knowledge and experience with emptyslogans. He replaces the detailed evidence before his own eyes with broadcategorical generalizations. Meanwhile, the precise figures and intricatecalculations that he would make on his own give way to statistics andaverages. The world on TV becomes the woodcutter's world too...a world where thelocal details are washed out and replaced by caricatures and nationalaverages. It gives rise to a whole new understanding of things. Standardsare set, not according to local custom or individual experience...butaccording to the great wash of national broadcasting and advertising inwhich particularities are bleached out.... local colors faded. Everythingcomes to be seen through the grayish, white light of nationalbroadcasting. Instead of speaking his local dialect, he is soon speaking the linguafranca of the nightly news. Instead of wearing the clothes he likes, he isdressed to suit The Gap or Brooks Brothers. As the scale of his world increases, local nuance and particularities losetheir appeal. The man begins to see himself and his world in new terms. Itno longer matters whether his house is comfortable and attractive on histerms; now it has to be acceptable in national terms. He comes to realizethat many people are lodged in 'substandard' housing. Of course, the wholeidea makes no sense whatever without a standard. And the standard ishardly one that the man can set for himself. Instead, it is a standard setby people with no detailed knowledge whatsoever. It is a standard based onaverages...generalities...and public information. How many square feet perperson? How much heating? How much air-conditioning? Then, to make surethat all houses meet their standards, rules are imposed - buildingcodes...zoning rules...materials standards. The owner can no longer askhimself - 'is this house safe enough for me?' Now, the question is: doesthis house meet modern safety standards? By the new standards even the SunKing, Louis 14th, probably lived in 'substandard' housing. Education, too, takes on a new look. It is not enough to learn things; inany case, the busybodies are incapable of organizing real, individuallearning. What they can organize is education... with the learning removedor standardized to fit into some new larger national standard. 'Educators'can't be bothered with individual students as they actually are, nor evenwith local curricula. Everyone has to learn the same thing. And they haveto learn it the same way. The world may be infinitely complex and detailedbut in the national educational program, the details have to be knockedoff...like the fine detailed trim work from an old house...so that allthat is left is measurable, standardized space, which can be quantifiedand allocated by bureaucrats, who may have never met a single student intheir entire lives. Are educational standards falling short? Spend moremoney to increase the space! Who cares if anyone is actually learning? The critical thing is that allstudents get the same claptrap pounded into their poor heads, so that theyleave the machinery with the same prejudices and illusions.The woodchopper from New Hampshire may soon discover, too, that he livesnot only in a 'substandard' hovel, but that he is 'poor.' Poverty isalways a relative measure, but relative to what? A man may be perfectlyhappy with his lot in life. He may have no running water, no central heat,and no money. Imagine him tending his garden, feeding his chickens, andfixing his tattered roof. Out in the woods, he may even have set up astill for refining the fruits of the earth into even more pleasurabledistillates. In fact, by all measures that matter to him, he could have arich, comfortable and enjoyable life. But as the scale of comparisongrows, the details that make his life so agreeable to him disappear in aflush of statistics. He finds that he is below the 'poverty line.' Hediscovers that he is 'disadvantaged' and 'under-privileged.' He may evenbe delighted to realize that he has a 'right' to 'decent housing.' Maybehe will qualify for food stamps. The idea of being 'poor' may never have occurred to him before. He maylive in a part of the world where everyone is about as poor as he is...andall perfectly happy in their poverty. But now that the spell is on him, itsits like a curse. Poverty seems like something he has toescape...something he has to get out of ...something that someone hadbetter to do something about!His new scaled-up consciousness has turned him into a malcontent. The poorman, previously happy in his naïve particulars, is now miserable in hisrole as a poverty-stricken hick.But the worst thing about it, TV and popular opinion twist him towardsthinking that it is the public view of himself - not his own private view-- that really matters. In a matter of months he has forgotten how contenthe really is. He might as well be a stock market investor; the publicspectacle has turned him into a chump. He sees himself on television...asan unfortunate hillbilly. The national newspapers say he needs help. Theyeven make fun of the way he talks. And now the revenuers are in the woodslooking for his still! All over the world, local customs, styles, manners, accents aredisappearing. As the scale increases, with the expansion of the globalizedmarket economy, people are being homogenized, leveled. Their food, theirmusic, their clothes - all are becoming standardized, mongrelized.While it is true that regional variations hang on in vestigial, folkloricform, whether you go to New Orleans, Nashville or Vienna, you will hearabout the same music, find the same fashions in the same shops, and beable to eat the same McDonalds' hamburger. An investor in Bombay speaks the same language as one in New York. Yet, itis the particularities of investments that make the difference betweeninvestment failure and investment success, the very things the worldfinancial media cannot be bothered with - the kind of precise, detailed,particular, local knowledge that you really need for investment success.Instead, what you get is the standardized imprecise broadcast news. Andwhat the investor gets is the equivalent of a public school education; heknows nothing much...and thinks he knows everything.And since all investors know pretty much the same thing - which is to say,they all share the same illusions and take them for wisdom - the marketstend to reflect the popular fashions as if they were the season's latestblue jeans.A man knows perfectly well that he needs to be able to defend himself.Around the hills of New Hampshire, he may judge the risk of attack so slimthat he goes unarmed. But walking through the back alleys of Manchester hemay wish he were packing heat.But as the scale increases, he is unable to judge the risk. Give him alittle TV news and he is ready to go to war with people he has never met,in places he has never been, for reasons he will never understand. Hereagain, the scale of the thing makes a mug of the man. He cannot know thefacts, the people, or even the theory; he doesn't know what he's buying,but he's ready to pay with his life. Even in matters as personal as health, a man soon finds himself the victimof scale. The state of his health scarcely matters. What matters isstatistics. He is overwhelmed by the slogans and prejudices of thenational media. Does he weigh too much? Does he get enough exercise? Doeshe eat enough seafood? Should he have a check-up every year; what do thestatistics say? What do the papers tell him? The large-scale chatter doesn't even stop at the bedroom door. He may haveenjoyed a perfectly satisfactory sex life. But now he is confronted withcomparisons...with averages...with the statistical expectations of thenational press. Is he doing it often enough? Is he doing it well enough?Before, these matters were personal and private. In the company of hiswife, the two of them set their own standards. But now, there is no suchthing as a private matter. There is scarcely anything that is so private,so personal, so detailed, so local, and so important that it does notyield to large scale standardization. No longer does he know what really matters except by reference to thepublic spectacle, from how frequently people make love to what kind ofmisgovernment they have in Iraq.We are now all equal...all the same, all the time. We live in the samehouses...we eat the same food and suffer the very same illusions as everyone else. If we are unhappy, it is because the TV says we should be. Bill BonnnerThe Daily Reckoning