The New Naturalist has an awful lot to do with self-development, and increasing one’s capacity to remain steadfast in the pursuit of understanding the truth of a given situation. It means being able to follow a dark, corrupt story right to its bitter end of immeasurable human suffering without losing your marbles. And without resorting to blindly lashing out at the world. The number of ways that we are being royally fucked by the methods humanity has chosen to operate at a global scale have yet to be exhaustively accounted for. And you can be sure that if this accounting were to be done, the person, or people, who got their hands dirty exposing the corruption for what it was would be quickly and quietly routed out (by any means necessary…) Or, the story would be so thoroughly distorted by the culpable bad-faith actors that the truth of the matter would get lost in the artificial fog of their half-truths and un-truths. (Read Naomi Oreskes’ “Merchants of Doubt” or Ben Goldacre’s “Bad Pharma” for information on that sort of thing.) In the past, it may have been honourable to expose corruption for what it was, but the corrupt, bad-faith actors have cottoned on to such exposure campaigns, and have (predictably) evolved effective defense mechanisms against such exposure (again, Oreskes and Goldacre.) The New Naturalist understands that such a pursuit is no longer honourable, but foolish. Martyrdom won’t actually solve the problem. Nor will marches, street rallies, or protests.
I’m not claiming to have figured out the formula for actually solving the wide-spread problem of corruption in our world. I simply want to establish some pre-conditions we’ll have to agree upon if we’re to live to see corruption successfully reduced to an absolute minimum.
Perhaps that’s a useful pre-condition to begin with: We must understand that completely abolishing corruption from any system is impossible. To believe otherwise will guarantee our failure. As we can see so clearly in our society today (if we’re courageous enough to develop the eyes to see it!) corruption pays. That’s why this strategy is so prevalent. Those who adopt this strategy win, relative to their non-corrupt competitors. Our goal is not to abolish corruption completely, but to implement structures that allow our society to function optimally, while minimising corruption by disincentivising it. Corruption must become more costly than beneficial.
This leads into a second important point about corruption: it is the fault of the system, not the fault of the individual bad-faith actor who is directly responsible for the corrupt action. This is to say that the corrupt action was taken because the niche that made it an advantageous action was left open by the structures we have chosen to implement that allow our society to function.
If this sounds too abstract, just stick with me! This abstract understanding of the corruption problem makes understanding particular instances of the corruption problem much easier.
When an opportunity for short-term gain (at the expense of long-term sustainability) presents itself, you can be sure someone is going to exploit it for themselves. When there is a short-term reward for an action which has first-, second-, or third-order effects that ultimately negatively affect the long-term sustainability of that action, you can be sure someone is going to take that action for selfish gain. Why wouldn’t they…? If our strategy to rout out corruption consists of us trusting in the good will of our fellow human beings, we’re doomed. Understand that corruption is not the fault of the bad-faith actor who chooses the corrupt choice, despite their being directly responsible for it. If it weren’t this particular bad-faith actor, it would be some other bad-faith actor. The corruption is the fault of the structures that create the niche for it. It is no use blaming the bad-faith actor, as long as the niche remains, corruption will flourish. Although the blame game can be cathartic and purgative, it is not the strategy by which we will solve this insidious problem. We must first re-frame our understanding of corruption in these terms if we are to successfully reduce it to an absolute minimum in our society. Corruption is not the fault of the individual who chooses the corrupt choice, it is the fault of the niche that made that choice advantageous.
Let’s now zoom in on the individual candidate for the status of The New Naturalist, and see what he/she can do with their own lives to begin on the journey towards beating corruption.
To understand that this is a collective problem, at the scale of how we choose to structure our society, is a good starting point. That’s not to say the individual is completely powerless when it comes to solving this problem. It means that this will be a collective effort. It requires many, many, many intelligent, mature, cooperative individuals. Your goal, as a future “New Naturalist” is to become one of those urgently needed adults who will contribute to reducing the insidious problem of corruption to an absolute minimum.
How does an individual prepare themselves for such a role? Preparation is necessary because boldly facing corruption head-on can be quite the overwhelming task.
First-off, resist the temptation to deny or suppress that sinking, crushing feeling you’re bound to feel when exposed to a particular instance of corruption in your life. The temptation is to turn around, and remain blissfully ignorant. But you must resist this for at least two reasons. 1) It’s too late, you’ve had the initial exposure. You won’t be able to forget it. And 2) The temptation to turn away is the same impulse as that experienced by the bad-faith actor who decides to exploit a corruption niche. Just as the person who exploits such a niche is gaining in the short-term at the expense of long-term sustainability, so too your succumbing to denial will prove disastrous in the long-run, despite it providing a false sense of short-term relief. This is one of the curses of being a candidate for the status of New Naturalist. There is no turning back. You have no choice, but to accept the Call to Adventure. And an adventure it most definitely is!
Become the type of person who has learned how to accept and process somewhat traumatic, harsh truths about reality. This type of person is in short supply, and high demand. It is well worth your time. Understand yourself not as a fragile, vulnerable, weak human, but as an antifragile, well-rounded, strong human. This is why The New Naturalist is, in large part, about self-development. We must actively develop these latent qualities that lie dormant within each one of us. We do so by exposing ourselves to incrementally greater stressors, each time, our bodies will produce an over-compensatory response that renders us stronger for the next stressor.
Become a person who actually solves problems, as opposed to one who sanctimoniously insists that these problems must be solved. To become such a person, you must first resist the temptation to deny the ugly reality of a given situation you’ve been exposed to, and learn how to work with it. This is one of your tasks as candidate for the status of New Naturalist.
Instead of letting yourself become depressed by the knowledge of some particular instance of deep corruption, let it infuriate you. Let it light the fire in your belly. Let it activate and motivate you. I think there has to be an element of animalistic wildness to the future New Naturalist. You must expose yourself to this infuriating material, which might cause you to go berzerk, and then trust that you have the capacity to channel that fury in a creative, and productive manner. There is the danger that you will fail to harness such a fury, but that’s the risk you’ll have to take. How exciting! Are you up for this?