A New Year's resolution, like statistics, is fiction in its most uninteresting form. Here is my fiction for 2002. My first resolution is to convince the airline industry and the FAA how to improve security, revive air travel and save the American economy. Very simply, from now on all passengers should fly baggage free checked or carry-on.
What about clothing and personal items at the other end of the trip? For travelers on a budget, i.e., those in coach class, an entire franchise industry of inexpensive, disposable clothes will spring up in airports, shopping centers and towns all across America. The demand will drive the development and production of fabulous new biodegradable materials and throwaway haute couture fashions.
Well-heeled travelers, i.e., those in first class, will support the traditional haberdashery economy by buying just enough new clothing for their stay say, a few shirts, ties, slacks, dresses or business suit. Then, before flying home, they'll donate the lot to the less fortunate, a shelter or clothing charity. In time, America will boast the best dressed population in the world.
Change of clothes?
America being entrepreneurial, I can also envision an innovative enterprise in which travelers will merely exchange clothes on the fly, modeled after the Dutch system of cycling commuters sharing bicycles. At airports, departing travelers would hand their suitcases to arriving ones; upon arriving at their destination airport, they would get suitcases from departing travelers. For a fee, start-up companies, such as ShareWear, Inc., would make the necessary reservations, matching travelers, times, destinations and terminals, as well as taste and size in clothing. Travelers would pack for their ShareWear, Inc. partners. Free spirits, socialists, stand-by fliers and Dutch cyclists would forgo the fee and the reservation, opting for the luck of the draw.
College farm teams?
After the FAA, my second resolution for 2002 is to convince the NCAA to revamp the funding of collegiate athletics. Every professional hockey team in the NHL and every professional baseball team in the American and National leagues support expensive farm clubs to nurture and train the young players that might make it to the big leagues. However, in professional football or basketball, university athletic programs provide this training for free; college teams are free farm clubs for the NFL and NBA.
A fairer and more rational approach would be for NBA and NFL teams to pay schools a fee for every player they draft from that program. Further, the fee schedule could be graduated to promote graduation rates (pun intended) and discourage NBA and NFL teams from drafting college players before their senior year. For example: $1 million for a senior chosen in the draft, $2.5 million for a junior, $5 million for a sophomore, and $10 million for a freshman. That way pro teams will pay their fair share of collegiate athletics, yet think twice before robbing the college cradle.
After the NCAA and FAA, my third resolution for 2002 is to convince the Kansas Legislature to raise the level of public investment (i.e., taxes) in essential Kansas enterprises, such as K-12 and higher education, social programs for all citizens, the cultural life of Kansas communities, the health of Kansas environments, and research and library facilities to advance knowledge in science, art and the humanities. These investments should comprise a strategic portfolio of blue chip, growth and risk-venture funds, with multiple payoffs expected in the short, medium and long term.
For example, education is a high-growth investment with enormous medium- and long-term payoffs in a skilled, productive work force, an informed, literate electorate, reduced crime and healthcare costs, and other social and economic benefits. Healthy natural environments are a blue-chip investment with a long-term payoff in agricultural production, food safety, clean air, clean water, tourism, public health, and buffering of environmental extremes, such as droughts and floods. Social and cultural services are a blue-chip investment for the long-term quality of life of every Kansan. And investments in research and research facilities are both high-growth and risk-venture, typically providing a 400 percent economic return to the state. KU researchers won more than $100 million in research grants last year, which will generate a $400 million impact in economic growth and in knowledge for a better society.
Tribal tendencies
Lastly, and most seriously, I have resolved to resist tribal tendencies in 2002 and beyond . Last year in this column I predicted that science would discover a supergene in humans that codes for tribalism. Researchers haven't found the gene yet, but the tragic events of Sept. 11 and the ensuing war in Afghanistan add to the longstanding evidence of its existence.
Humans seek the slightest excuse to form tribes, from ethnic and cultural groups (Serbians vs. Kosovars; Hutus vs. Tutsis), to religions (Catholics vs. Protestants; Muslims vs. Hindus) to states (Kansas vs. Missouri) to university alumni (KU vs. K-State) to academic departments (fill in the disciplines of your choice). Whether good-natured or deadly, feelings of tribal identity are visceral and pervasive. Tribalism appears to be primeval, a genetic legacy from our primate evolutionary past.
The tribalism gene, I also predicted, would be shown to have a trigger switch that can turn benevolent feelings of tribal identity, such as ethnic pride, into "ethnic cleansing," a euphemism for the deliberate extermination of a rival tribe and its genes. Throughout human history, the line between ethnic pride and ethnic cleansing has been razor thin and drawn in blood. It runs through centuries of ethnic, racial and religious conflict and the genocides in our own time. If pride in common roots is "natural," it also seems to harbor a darker, deep-seated undercurrent of genetic primacy.
A sad example of tribalism occurred shortly after Sept. 11, when groups of ordinary Americans were blamed for the attacks. According to the Rev. Jerry Falwell, "The pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians...the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America, I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen'."
Oscar Wilde said that good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific laws. Well, here goes. I will avoid tribalism like the plague, at least until we discover how to keep it benevolent. A happy, non-tribal new year.
Leonard Krishtalka is director of the Natural History Museum & Biodiversity Research Center at Kansas University.
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