Walter Lippmann

When I was ten years old, in the summer of 1956, I took a four-day train trip with my maternal grandmother from Los Angeles to Syracuse, New York, where my mother was raised. I can’t recall the thinking behind this trip, but it was memorable in many ways. 

Syracuse was memorable for being hot and not Los Angeles. I walked down my mom’s childhood street, East Genesee, where young Rod Serling (doo-doo-doo-doo/doo-doo-doo-doo) used to greet her. There were strange names of things, like Onondoga Lake, strange at least to me because L.A. has no lakes or onondogas. The city seemed small in my mind because I thought the size of L.A. was normal. 

I stood in front of Syracuse University and watched a young man throw rocks at the lights over the entrance, smashing some. He looked at me and said, “I’m just upset.” 

We stayed with my grandmother’s two surviving sisters, who were memorable for sure. More about them some other time. I’ll just say that Lithuania must have been some place! 

There was another memory- this one from the train ride back to L.A.- that was jiggled into my frontal lobe this morning while I watched a vintage Youtube clip of Noam Chomsky discussing Mikhail Bakunin, 19th century proponent of “collective anarchy.” Can you guess the connection between these random elements and the train trip with my grandmother? Give up? Well, in the Youtube clip Chomsky makes a reference to Walter Lippmann, American journalist prominent from the 1920’s to the 60’s, whom Chomsky refers to as a “progressive intellectual.” Long story longer, on the trip back to Los Angeles, Lippmann was on the train. 

I had been staring out the window at midwest flatlands when my grandmother, an accomplished schmoozer, rushed up to tell me that a famous journalist was on the train, and he wanted to meet me.  Of course I didn’t know Walter Lippmann from Adam, but I dutifully followed my grandmother through several cars, particularly relishing the rocking chaos and noisy intrusion of the elements in the connecting platforms. 

We stopped in the aisle in one of the cars and looked down at a well-dressed and groomed man in his 60’s who was sitting alone reading. My grandmother introduced me to Walter Lippmann, the first famous person I had ever met, though he was not famous to me. I felt the familiar pressure of not knowing how to respond to an adult. Lippmann looked fondly at me, but he did not say anything about progressive intellectualism, which makes sense because I was a dumb kid with no virtues beyond the sweetness of youth, and I would not have understood a word he said. 

I don’t remember what he did say. He probably asked me how I liked school. I would have found that question as hard as any other.  I was near mute in my responses. 

As I watched the Chomsky clip I remembered how frustrating and wasteful the encounter with Lippmann had seemed to young me.  If only I had known anything!   In later years the feeling of waste grew as I learned that Lippmann was a critical political interpreter for millions of people. He was behind President Woodrow Wilson's "14 Points" at the close of World War I.  He coined the term “cold war” and created the modern meaning of "stereotype" (formerly "relief printing plate").  Few people have this much impact on their language, and all I could do was stare at him.  

Well, through the magic of literature, I’m going to attempt something rather daring.  If you will bear with me, I plan to initiate a “wormhole” through which my mentality will travel back to that train in 1956 and infuse my prepubescent brain with the requisite knowledge for a decent conversation with Walter Lippmann.  That’s the theory.  I have a wormhole spell I picked up from a character of my acquaintance. Would you like to try it too?  Ok, here goes.   Repeat this with me and perhaps we’ll meet: 

I call you from a crevice near

Have no regret and have no fear

Oh wormhole mine forever dear

Collapse a distant past to here! 

Man, what’s happening?  Oh yeah, I’m entering the mind of ten year old me!  First observation: No wonder I was uncomfortable meeting Lippmann.  Talk about a blank slate!  My young brain is devoid of understanding or perspective on so many levels.  Any personality in there is a restless sea of emotion and longing.  There is no basis whatever for discourse with Lippmann. 

Now for the delicate operation, as I insert the "stereotype" and “cold war” material into my young head.  Upload complete!  Now to activate voice control.  I’m pushing metaphorical buttons.  Uh oh, something’s happening…did we just lose an hour?  Do you remember?  Here’s what I recall: 

Hello Mr. Lippmann, it’s nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you, Douglas. 

My grandmother is beaming.

Mr. Lippmann, how did you get everyone in the world to use the new definition of ‘stereotype’ that you made up?

I don’t know. I didn’t expect that to happen.

Did you expect everyone to start using ‘cold war’ too, after you made that up?

The phrase was from my book, ‘Cold War.’ It’s flattering that so many people found it apt.

Yes, it certainly was apt. 

Young me is getting into it, never suspecting where the useful knowledge is coming from.  Now young me’s enthusiasm for the new normal is taking an unexpected turn, as young me grows neurons which invade my adult mind, making permanent connections to my knowledge base.  The results appear bizarre if not disturbing, as my first more youthful questions are replaced with questions of a more adult cast. 

Mr. Lippmann, are you an elitist?

Hmm, Douglas, do you know what an elitist is?

Yes, it’s a person who thinks they’re better than everyone else.

I don’t think that I’m better than everyone else. Do you think you are?

I…well…. 

Strangely that question is as hard for adult me as young me.

I mean, I don’t know what’s better or not better, Mr. Lippmann, but you wrote that you don’t think the general public can run humanity’s affairs. 

My grandmother frowns. 

Is that so? You read on a high level for a ten year old!

I do? I mean, thank you. You wrote that when people watch the news they are not educated by it.  You said the news constructs a picture of reality that is 'imperfectly recorded,' and 'too fragile to bear the charge as an organ of direct democracy.'

Lippmann glances at my grandmother, who is in a suppressed rage. He looks back at me. 

Very good, Douglas, but you are conflating a critique of the media with a belief that elites should rule. 

I'm feeling something strange happening, a sort of merger of youth and age.  I'm not sure how to form my words.  Lippmann notes my hesitation. 

Douglas, do you know what ‘conflate’ means?

I think it’s when two people fart at the same time. 

What is happening to me?  Is there a hint of smile on Lippmann’s face?  There is no such hint on my grandmother’s face.  I try to salvage the situation. 

Mr. Lippmann, do you think that elites should rule? 

Lippmann is looking at me the way you might look at a chess-playing chicken. 

That’s not a valid question, Douglas, because elites do rule, by definition. You might as well ask if birds should fly. 

Should they? 

 Lippmann laughs.  I feel clever.  I want more approbation, so I continue. 

Mr. Lippmann, you wrote in 1922 that ‘mass man functions as a bewildered herd who must be governed by a specialized class.’

Douglas, I’m just describing reality, not saying it’s good.

Have you heard of Noam Chomsky?

No. 

He said that you believe that 90% of the population are "ignorant, meddlesome outsiders," and that we need to be ruled by "the wise men…you know…the smart people."

Is that so, Douglas? Sounds like Mr. Chomsky is one of those smart people himself. 

He is a professor of linguistics at MIT.

So, is he a member of an elite?

I guess, maybe. 

Out of nowhere I have an intense need to pee, and I'm so restless I long to turn from Lippmann and my grandmother and skip down the aisle, push the heavey metal door open and step through, finally expressing my energies and maybe fluids in the interstitial madness of the coupling platform.  

But my grandmother has had enough. She thanks Lippmann profusely and demands that I shake his hand and thank him, which I do.  A quick glance into Lippmann’s eyes tells me that little harm has been done to the universe.  On the walk back to the restroom and our seats my grandmother is silent.  When we sit, she sighs. 

Dougie, sometimes I don’t understand you. 

I'm too busy trying to unplug the weird connections in my head to reply.  Through the window I see vast plains roll by. 

What controls us?

Why do people do the self-destructive things they do? Why is the human brain, so impressive in its versatility, overrun with dangerous and ill-advised impulses, inducing us, for instance, to build complex civilizations based on fantasies and wishful thinking, then compress ourselves into cramped, frustrating living spaces where we long for violent outlets?   We fancy ourselves to be exceptionally intelligent, as animals go, but much of the time we appear to have no more mental heft than the blindly self-destructive victims of parasites.

Parasites have been on my mind since reading Carl Zimmer's book, Parasite Rex which describes the perpetual struggle between large multicellular creatures like us and the parasites who feed off them. In the course of this struggle, parasites often employ mind control against their hosts.  Zimmer describes numerous instances where parasites invade the brains of their hosts to make them, for instance, forget their fears of natural predators, the intent being to get the host eaten so the parasite can embark on its next life-stage in the predator.  For the benefit of parasitic reproduction, fish float in front of herons, ants wait atop grass stalks for hungry birds, caterpillars leave the safety of their camouflage.  

Some parasites are multicellular, large creatures themselves.  The parasitic emerald wasp injects chemicals into a cockroach's brain that turn it into a "zombie slave," then lays one egg on the cockroach's underbelly.  The roache's brain has been changed so that all interest in caring for roach offspring is replaced with deference to the wasp larva.  As the larva grows, it burrows into the roach, eating its internal organs in a precise order ensuring that the roach stays alive long enough to function as a wasp womb.  After that, the young wasp tosses the shrivelled roach corpse away.

We have no evidence that familiar human compulsions are caused by parasites, but it's likely they are caused by something other than the human intellect.  What sort of intellect would go to war for no good reason, which our species will do on a dime. Desire for war on its own merits might be diagnosed as abnormal and suicidal by human medical practice, and those suffering from it could well be victims of mind control, whether by parasites or fellow humans (who themselves might be under parasitic control).

If we find however that our thralldom to irrational behavior does not derive from parasites, we might investigate transposons, mysterious genetic manipulators which originated, somehow, "outside" us, and have since taken up residence in our DNA. Geneticists don't know much about transposons, other than that they can edit our DNA and affect our basic structure.  There is conjecture that transposons account for the non-inherited differences between identical twins, and for significant non-inherited behaviors in everyone.  Exactly what those behaviors are and what purposes they might serve is unknown.

Transposon theory provides less explanation than parasite study, because at least with parasites we know the host is forced to serve the survival interests of the parasite.  We don't even know if transposons are alive, let alone promoting an agenda.  We only know they are there, influencing us.

Zimmer describes a theory of sex, including human sex, common among parasitologists, in which the purpose of sexual reproduction is to provide a continual reshuffling of host-species' genes, a process necessary to keep pace with and defend against parasitic evolution.  Reproduction is hardly a non-survival oriented activity- we only survive if we reproduce- but could the system be hijacked?  Our compulsion to sexually reproduce without resources to care for our young, with no concern about overpopulation, resulting in seven billion anxious, pessimistic humans trapped on earth to plot against each other, is clearly not the result of an intellectual process.

Our longing for war could very well grow out of a parasite enhanced obsession with reproduction, after which the parasites lead the resulting oversized human population to war and mass death.  The human die-off may then enable some further stage in the parasite's life cycle.

Our intellects are muffled and controlled by forces we can't see. These forces might emanate from parasites or transposons, or from members of our own species. Maybe our next step will be to truly elevate the human intellect, perhaps meeting parasites mind to mind and working with them. Or maybe we could continue to float on the surface waiting for herons.