One World Kluge

One World Kluge

By John Taylor; 2006 June 15

Today let us start with a new word, at least for me. It is "kludge," pronounced "KLOOJ." Kludge came into prominence in the high tech world around the time that the UHJ first formed, in the early 1960's. It means, according to the engineer who coined it, "an ill-assorted collection of poorly-matching parts, forming a distressing whole." I had confused it in both meaning and pronunciation with "fudge," (in the sense of cheating by mashing figures together) but kludge comes from a German word for "witty." A system that is kludged is cleverly put together from cannibalized parts and it works adequately; it may threaten to fail at any time because its components were not meant for the job they are doing, but it gets by. It acts as a demonstrator.

Last year, I bought an el cheapo digital camera that acted for us as just such a demonstrator, if not a pure kludge. It worked as advertised but using it rapidly exposed severe inadequacies. It had a back panel display but no viewfinder, so I could not take pictures outside in the sun. It had no flash so I could not take pictures in most indoor lighting situations. If you cut out the great outdoors and indoor situations too, that leaves very little! My el cheapo digicam was an instant kludge, serviceable only by demonstrating to all of us exactly what we really needed in a camera. Our next camera acquisition was closer to the high end, "prosumer" market.

In the rapidly evolving world of electronics, then, circuits and microchips are kludged together intentionally, they serve for a time while users learn its inadequacies. Since it happens that these experienced users are the designers of the next generation kludges are followed by new, integrally designed, miniaturized systems. Quilt works that they are, kludges are just the practical phase of the stochastic learning process. They are responsible for the dizzyingly rapid evolution of computers and microchips. I daresay that without kludges the spectacularly rapid expansion in chips and memory storage media would have taken centuries rather than decades.

I had just learned this new word when I read the following quote from the Guardian, which the House gave prominence by citing towards the start of the Peace Message:

"If long-cherished ideals and time-honoured institutions, if certain social assumptions and religious formulae have ceased to promote the welfare of the generality of mankind, if they no longer minister to the needs of a continually evolving humanity, let them be swept away and relegated to the limbo of obsolescent and forgotten doctrines. Why should these, in a world subject to the immutable law of change and decay, be exempt from the deterioration that must needs overtake every human institution? For legal standards, political and economic theories are solely designed to safeguard the interests of humanity as a whole, and not humanity to be crucified for the preservation of the integrity of any particular law or doctrine." (Shoghi Effendi, World Order of Baha'u'llah, 42)

What Baha'i and modernism in general are about, then, in the areas mentioned, ideals, institutions, assumptions, religious formulae, is learning how to kludge. As Shoghi Effendi says, "legal standards, political and economic theories" exist solely to serve the "interests of humanity as a whole." Not part, the whole human race. Jesus defined it long before the invention of science: "The sabbath is for man, not man for the sabbath." The sabbath, and all sacred laws and institutions, must act as kludges, however permanent they seem to be. Why does that have to be? After all, holy and sacred imply eternal and untouchable. The Guardian tells us why, it is of the nature of this world of materiality: "...in a world subject to the immutable law of change and decay." Material falls apart, only spirit holds, integrates, acting invisibly from a distance.

In order to kludge the first thing to learn is how to use the garbage can, how to detach our hearts and toss our precious treasures into the "limbo of obsolescent and forgotten doctrines." Okay, make the garbage can a recycling bin instead, since most kludges are made up of good circuits that can be melted down and reused. (Interesting that the Guardian uses the word "limbo," since that very doctrine has come into question by the Catholic church; turns out that it was never fully a dogma, it was a sort of rumor; the new Pope Benedict is about to toss limbo itself into, well, I guess it has to be the recycling bin of obsolescent doctrines) To survive as a race, to advance quickly, to "minister to our needs," we all need to learn to judiciously use the recycle bin, to kludge everything until we design something better.

Since I mention Catholicism here, I heard lately a rather witty way of describing the difference between Apple and Windows computer users in terms of religion. Apple users are like Catholics and Windows users are Protestants. That is, an Apple computer is meant to be used as is, like an appliance. It is difficult to take them apart, whereas Wintel computers usually can be reduced to a pile of rubble in minutes with only a screwdriver. They can be hacked, upgraded and improved. The Protestants who use them usually learn at least to replace RAM memory, even if the younger ones are otherwise totally unfamiliar with how to use a screwdriver. If that is true I am a protestant bred in the bone; I bought an Apple and after a matter of weeks grew to hate it. I traded it away at my first opportunity.

Protestant Wintel owners may be more likely to know what the word "kludge" means than Catholic Apple users, but I think that a kludge takes in both as stages. The chaos of Protestantism is followed by the complete, unchangeable, miniaturized order of Catholicism; both are successive stages in a single learning process. To hack a kludge and produce a replacement involves both branches of Christianity ... so perhaps a better religious metaphor would be a Muslim, for the Qu'ran teaches believers to in effect kludge Holy Writ, to pick and choose what is useful and apply that only:

"Those who listen to the word, then follow the best of it; those are they whom Allah has guided, and those it is who are the men of understanding." (Q39:18, Shakir)

Baha'u'llah gave the same kludgy advice to the Sultan responsible for banishing Him,

"Gather around thee those ministers from whom thou canst perceive the fragrance of faith and of justice, and take thou counsel with them, and choose whatever is best in thy sight, and be of them that act generously." (Baha'u'llah, Summons, 209)

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John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com