Linking up with Turkey

After the American Century

I see in the news that Turkey is about to link its electrical system to Europe's, by way of Greece and Bulgaria. Such things are often regarded to be merely technical, but they are more than that. In the past such interconnections have anticipated closer political and economic ties. During the later years of the Cold War electrical links were established across the Iron Curtain years before the collapse of the Soviet system. 

Turkey is initially only joining the grid for a one year trial, but barring technical problems, one assumes it will then become permanent. Access to Turkey's hydroelectric power could provide greater balance in the grid as a whole. It could also make possible more pumped-storage projects, in which wind and solar energy are "stored"by pumping water up to a higher elevation, against the time when demand rises again, or the wind does not blow or sunshine is weak. Then the water is released and turns a turbine to make electricity that is far more valuable than the electricity from off-peak production that was used to store the water.

Norway and Holland have a pumped storage arrangement of this sort, which means that off-peak power production in Holland is stored as hydro power in Norway. They built an undersea cable to make the arrangement a direct connection. Such interconnections build trust between countries and create mutual advantages.

It is particularly significant that the old enemies, Greece and Turkey, are going to trust one another in this way. Ideally, both countries could eventually save huge sums if they stopped investing in military hardware to protect themselves from each other. The new link is also a small step toward resolving the Cyprus question.

It is not just an electrical connection, it is a move toward friendlier relations and an intelligent technical integration. Interestingly, the engineering and electrical work was done in good part by General Electric, so the profits and benefits are not limited to the Balkans and Turkey.

Pakistan: Can a Nuclear Power Still be a Victim?

After the American Century

The devastating floods in Pakistan that have affected 20 million people dominate the news. As all too often this is presented as a natural disaster in which people are simply victims who need our help. This is true enough of the peasants trapped on high ground who have lost their homes, their fields, and their livestock. But it is not true of Pakistan as a nation, which has spent billions of dollars developing a nuclear arsenal, which it should have spent instead on dams and flood control. It is hard to see a nuclear power with 170 million people as simply a victim, especially when it seems that Pakistan shared its weapons technology with North Korea.The New York Times reported last year that Pakistan employed tens of thousands of people in its nuclear program, and that it is rapidly increasing the size of its arsenal.

That money would have been much better spent on flood control, on preventing the growing population from settling on flood plains, on building hydroelectric dams, and on vast tree planting projects to help absorb water, hold soil, and slow down flooding. A great deal could have been done, but instead money was spent to build nuclear bombs.

In this moment of need, ordinary people give to flood relief, but governments should tie future aid to real change in Pakistan's priorities. Otherwise, aid donors end up building dams and levees so Pakistan can spend money on weapons of mass destruction. Pakistan is now pursuing a policy of of double devastation: floods now, nuclear war later. 

Pakistan has the resources and the talent, as well as the sheer size, needed to be a great nation. But it has not developed its educational system sufficiently. It has allowed religious fundamentalism to flourish, invested vast sums in its military, assassinated its leaders, and even persecuted its lawyers. It needs to find moderation and compromise in politics and to be better at selecting its priorities. Of course we should aid Pakistan's suffering millions. But even if I am very much a skeptic when it comes to the idea of divine intervention in human affairs, it is tempting, though wrong-headed, to see Pakistan's problems as its punishment.

No Safety Net

After the American Century

The American unemployment system does not work well if a recession lasts much more than one year. To be precise, benefits run out after 99 weeks. The first people laid off in 2008 have now reached that point, and they are losing their homes, their cars, and everything familiar in their lives. The Congress is not doing anything for them. In fact, it had trouble getting itself to extend benefits to 99 weeks.

Contrast the New Deal in 1933. President Roosevelt created work programs for the long-term unemployed. They did not pay well, but they gave people enough to live on, a sense of purpose and hope for the future. These programs also helped reforest and replant areas that had been misused, built parks and recreation areas, improved roads, and much else. The money was by no means wasted, and the human capital was not lost either.

Indeed, some important writers were given jobs preparing comprehensive guidebooks to every state in the union, and others worked as actors and directors for an arts program that was supported by the government. Today the United States seems far less able to find creative ways to deal with the crisis.

Unless the economy improves soon, the US Congress might want to learn from the successes of the New Deal.

Education: Top-Down State Control

After the American Century

Each year at the end of July roughly the same story appears in most European countries. Thousands of applicants for higher education have been denied entrance. There are not enough places to fill demand. In part, this is because many more want to be doctors than any state can afford to educate and because certain trendy subjects attract a crowd - notably journalism and media studies.

But there is a deeper problem, which is that state bureaucrats believe they are wiser than the students or the professors, and think that no education should be offered unless there seems to be certain employment available. The bureaucratic mind does not like uncertainty, creative interpretation, or imagination. The ideal education, from the bureaucratic perspective, is one that teaches a certain skill which fills an obvious social need, such as nursing. Subjects that develop abstract thinking, creativity, and interdisciplinary capabilities are viewed with suspicion. Every year the press obediently repeats, with a sneer, that there is a limit to how many philosophers or literary critics a society needs.

Strictly speaking, it is true that the market for full-time literary critics or philosophers is small. But the need for critical thinking and creativity is great, and the vocational approach to education will not cultivate the mind. Likewise, if we train only carpenters and no architects, then building innovations will be few and far between, and the buildings will be as bad as public housing planned by bureaucrats. But this example is still too vocational. I know a successful comic book artist in New York who received his BA in geology - and he swears that every landscape he draws is geologically feasible, though that is not the main reason he has steady work. A woman I knew in graduate school did not become a historian but opened an excellent restaurant.  A fellow I knew as an undergraduate majored in English but became a successful radio announcer.

In short, the bureaucrats and the newspapers are not thinking ahead. They imagine that the skills we can identify today are all that is needed to solve the problems or seize the possibilities of tomorrow. Isn't it more likely that we cannot fully imagine the future, and the best thing we can offer students is teaching them how to learn, how to create, and how to think critically? People's careers are not all going to be predictable, i.e. one studies nursing and becomes a nurse for 40 years. I know a successful computer programmer who studied English, and a brilliant real estate agent who studied art history. Likewise, the first generation of computer programmers by definition was not trained to do that work, and many pioneers of the Internet emerged from the counter-culture.

Moreover, the rationale for education is not merely vocational. Education is also needed to ensure that citizens are competent to vote intelligently, to debate effectively, and to consume wisely. A narrow, vocational education is not going to produce citizens who can do these things well. 

Why try to force students into careers that they do not want, by creating quotas for non-vocational subjects? Why not show a little humility and flexibility in Ministries of Education? Top-down state control of education is undemocratic and counter-productive. The careers people actually have are far more numerous than the courses of study can ever be, and a vocational approach will only be able to prepare students for a fraction of the jobs of tomorrow.