February 26, 2003

• Unintended Consequences
  

  I’ve been working on this blog for a couple of days. I prudently started it in a text editor as I do with most of my lengthier pieces. I consider this a prudent course because xTools tends to dump my work into some black hole somewhere when I least expect it. Today’s blog has circled back upon itself in such rampant self-referential splendor so many times that I’m surprised Notepad hasn’t crashed on me.

  
  

  The inspiration came from one of the videos Greyfox brought home: Blood Work, produced and directed by and starring Clint Eastwood, from a book by Michael Connolly. Early in the story, before the ace investigator barges in, the cops are assuming that their new serial robber-killer is a two-time-convicted felon intent on making sure there are no living witnesses to his subsequent robberies. This reminded me of unintended consequences.

  
  

  Escalated homicidal violence in what used to be simple stick-ups is only one of many unintended consequences of the three-strikes-and-you’re-out law. I wonder how many of the hysterical law and order advocates and legislators responsible for the law even paused to consider consequences. I’m always tracing time-lines into the future, projecting what might result from this or that choice I might make. The Old Fart tells me that not many people do this. I wonder why.  Even with my foresight, limited as it is, I have enough unintended consequences blindsiding me to keep life interesting. I breathe a little sigh of relief each time I cruise past the wreckage of some poor reckless fool who winds up on some reef that I’ve avoided.

  
  

  When I decided to blog on unintended consequences, I immediately thought of Mary Catherine Bateson. When I first heard of Cathy Bateson, I envied her. She’s the daughter of two people I’ve long admired: Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead. Mead made anthropology sexy and trendy with Coming of Age in Samoa. Bateson made diverse disciplines come together in Steps to an Ecology of Mind. He coined the term cybernetics. He could electrify a lecture hall–I heard him at Lane Community College in Eugene, OR, in ’68 or so. When I first thought about being the daughter of such a pair, the dinner conversation… wow!

  
  

  Then I learned that Cathy Bateson was, “the most studied baby in the world.” Mead observed and recorded her every move.  I wonder what unintended consequences there were to Cathy’s psychosocial being.  I wonder, but I wouldn’t want to find out for myself.  That did it for me, no more envy. It would have been “interesting”, but I’m okay with not having grown up under a microscope in the hands of a control freak.

  
  

  Mead was one of those anthropologists who introduced her own customs and values into the exotic cultures she studied… as opposed to the ones who went native, more my style. Bateson and Mead had an ongoing debate over unintended consequences. Bateson advocated not tinkering with natural or cultural systems, basically a philosophy of, “if it works, don’t fix it.” Mead thought it better to “fix” things that were “wrong” with the exotic cultures. There are Samoan Christians in muumuus in Alaska, mostly in Anchorage, thanks to Margaret Mead.  I have met some of them. The ones I talked to are New Sourdoughs: sour on Alaska and not enough dough to get home. Whenever I see a Samoan around here, it reminds me of Margaret Mead.

  
  

  In case you missed it, this is related to my corpus callosum blog just before this one. Or, at least they’re connected in my twisted mind. Thinking or not-thinking about what one believes has a potentially catastrophic connection with thinking or not-thinking about probable consequences of acts. Catastrophic cascade effects can follow inadequate or ill-advised tinkering with ecosystems, sociopolitical institutions, structures of all sorts, and people.

  
  

  Often a law meant to deter some practice just makes the practice more chaotic or intense in its expression. For example, take alcohol prohibition. In some sense, all change, all growth, is revolutionary and catastrophic. Sometimes it’s productive, sometimes not, and often no one knows and few even consider what would have been down that road not taken. I can’t help considering it, and wouldn’t want to stop if I could.  Here’s a sampling of what I found on Google:

  
  

  
  
  • “The law of unintended consequences, often cited but rarely defined, is that actions of people–and especially of government–always have effects that are unanticipated or “unintended.” Economists and other social scientists have heeded its power for centuries; for just as long, politicians and popular opinion have largely ignored it.” Rob Norton The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics

  
  
  • Chlorine compounds used to disinfect water supplies react with organic matter to produce chloroform and a variety of other trihalomethanes (THMs). Several THMs are known carcinogens and U.S. EPA standards limit them to a range of parts-per-billion in water sources. Claiming that they were responding to the questions raised by the U.S. EPA over the safety of THMs, officials in Peru began, in the late 80s, shutting down some of the chlorinators in the capital city, Lima, as well as in other cities and towns.
    
    “In January 1991, an outbreak of cholera began in several towns just north of Lima. Within weeks the epidemic of this dangerous disease (the first epidemic of cholera in the Western hemisphere in a century) spread throughout Peru and eventually through much of South and Central America. Once introduced into a city, town, or village, the disease spread rapidly through contaminated, but now unchlorinated, water supplies. By Dec. 31, 1992 – 23 months after the epidemic began, a total of 731,312 cases had been recorded with 6,323 deaths.”

  
  
  • “…Violence against Women Act. This law, passed as a part of a larger crime bill in 1994, makes it illegal to possess a firearm after conviction of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence. Furthermore, the law amended the Gun Control Act of 1968, which had allowed those convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence to have a gun. Now, this same group of criminals forfeits its gun rights. Because of this provision, prosecutors think twice when charges are brought against soldiers for domestic abuse. If a conviction occurs, the solider now loses the only item that makes them useful: their gun. But, if prosecutors do not pursue the charges, offenders may well believe they can get away with domestic abuse or other crimes again.”

  • 6:24 pm
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