April 5, 2016 • 56 mins
During the Second World War, Melanesian islanders encountered the vast, commercial systems of Allied and Japanese forces. Cargo Cults sprang up in the wake of such contact, typified by deification and a ritualistic appeal to the impossible return of material wealth. What can such encounters tell us about science, programing, sustainability and the human condition? Robert and Christian explore in this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Wham and I'm Christian Saga, and
today we're gonna be talking about cargo colts. But we're
not just gonna approach it um from my anthropological stand form.
(00:24):
We're looking at this in terms of what it says
about our understanding of science, programming, uh, the environment in
which we live. In a way, it's a deceptively deep topic. Yeah,
I'm really interested in this because I feel like we're
not just going to be explaining something for the audience,
but like that it has applications to our every day
(00:45):
and also to the way that we view science. Um.
Similar to the sort of what we did with that
Wicked Problems episode a couple of weeks ago exactly, this
one should be a good conversation starter as well. So
before we get into that, though, we just want to
remind you podcasting that's not all we do. We're also
writers and video performers. That's that's a weird way to
describe ourselves, but yeah, we do videos as well about
(01:09):
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(01:29):
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make fun of our haircuts whatever. That's what we're there for.
(01:51):
And it's a it's our own little cargo cult right yeah. Now,
but before we get into it, we're just gonna just
initially define cargo cults. So this is where you have,
you know, an indigenous population um in an island environment
rather cut off from the rest of the world, and
then they are suddenly privy to the wonders and marvels
(02:13):
and materialism of the greater outside world, of of of
modern civilizations and all of their products and goods, and
then how they respond to that, Uh, maybe they end
up building up you know, sort of fake airstrips or
even airplane effigies to try and lure the foreigners back
(02:33):
so that they can receive their bountiful goods once more. Yeah,
and this may sound like something that's like a fairly
isolated incident, but it's actually it happened with hundreds of
different native people's in the Melanesia region, especially during World
War two. Um, in the Pacific theater, I guess is
how they would put it. But anthropologists after and during
(02:53):
the war found a lot of these organizations and they
were all basically operating around along the same lines that
you're talking about here, um building these fake runways, fake wharves.
I mean, we I'm calling them fake, but they to
them they were real. They were building radio towers out
of bamboo. Yeah, they were in a way. They were
like I kept to keep thinking of them as as
affigies as uh as you know, it's almost like a
(03:16):
you know, a holy icon to try and bring back
this presence. Yeah. Absolutely so. The I think the modern
day names for some of the places that you would
recognize or Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanua to
New Caledonia and Fiji. So I mean actually, like we
hear some of those Fiji we think of as being
like a resort place, right, but you know this, not
(03:40):
too long ago there were people there who thought, hey,
if I build an airstrip, uh, it will bring some deity,
will bring me cargo goods that will make my life
better and basically a send me to a paradise. Right. Yeah,
And these are also areas where um anthropologists, even up
into recent times here have been able to explore really
(04:03):
more more ancient and primal ways of viewing the world
through local beliefs. It's really been a you know, a
rich place to study how the human condition works. Yeah,
it's especially interesting. Uh, we have some examples. And in fact,
that John From movement in particular, is I believe still
going today. There's still even though the people who are
(04:26):
involved in that movement, some of them have been to
western civilized quote unquote countries and they've seen what is
out there in the rest of the world, they still
hold onto this belief that a guy named John From
is going to show up one day with a bunch
of stuff. Now, this whole topic, especially as we begin
to dive into it and and as we explore it
(04:48):
in greater depth. Uh, it's easy to sort of look
at it in very black and white terms, to look
at it in terms of modern and primitive of you know,
of Western and Pacific. Uh. So to sort of ground
our exploration, I want to introduce a very sci fi
uh forward thinking concept here, and this is uh, the
(05:10):
idea of an outside context problem. This was this was
coined by sci fi author one of my personal favorites, E.
And M. Banks, in his culture book Accession. Now, this
this occurs. An outside context problem occurs when a society
or civilization encounters a problem, threat, or complication that they
have no context to prepare for or perhaps even efficiently
(05:34):
deal with. So the classic example is a colonial warship
arriving on the shores of a primitive society. Uh. In
the book Accession, it's an object from outside the known
universe and seemingly older than the known universe popping into
an existence. Now, another example, and this is apparently the
the inspiration for for banks creation of the term outside
(05:55):
context problems is that he uh, back in the day
he was playing the original version of sid Meier's civilization
and UH, if you've ever played this, it's uh, you know,
it's you take control of different civilizations and then you're
you're you're going up this technology tree. And so sometimes
you're often you're encountering other civilizations at the same technological level,
(06:16):
but sometimes there's a discrepancy and UM and for instance,
one might find oneself in a situation playing this game
where you're encountering a modern battleship while you're still stuck
using wooden sailing ships. Outside context problem. You couldn't possibly
prepare for it now, and an outside context problem is
often fatal. Most societies and civilizations only ever encounter one
(06:38):
of these things. UH, and history provides us with numerous
examples of how these typically play out. UH. Most of
them seem to come to us through you know, the
more recent time and more recent times the colonial expansion
of the imperialist European powers, but we also see some
thought provoking examples from the twentieth century UM, particularly with
(06:59):
car occults, which we're discussing here because essentially what we're
dealing with is how a society, how a culture responds
to UH an outside context problem to contact with this
with this force, with this world that is so vastly
different from what they were prepared for. And what do
you do? Do you do? You? You do? You? You
(07:21):
are you just consumed by this power? You just completely
wiped out by it is? Does everything that you were
previously come to an end? Uh? Do you do you
somehow miraculously hold out like the you know, the heroes
and some sort of science fiction story, or do you
find some sort of middle ground? Yeah, it's kind of
interesting too, because going back to what you're saying about
(07:43):
the um, the idea of looking at these cultures as
primitive from our lens, I think it's helpful to think
about this both from like try to put yourself in
their shoes first of all, but then also try to
put yourself in that like civilization mode where we're in
present day society, and like, I don't know, I'm trying
to think of like a sci fi example of this,
(08:04):
like some portal opens up and a huge alien spaceship
comes out, and the aliens come down, and they don't
necessarily want to make war with us immediately, but you know,
they're so technologically superior to us that they seem like gods. Yeah,
It actually reminds me of the Cat Stephens song Longer Boats.
Do you remember this one? Not particularly? Okay, Uh, it's uh.
(08:27):
When I would hear it when I was younger, I
always it always brought to mine images of indigenous people's
encounters with colonial Europeans. Right, But apparently Stevens has said
in interview that the song was about an encounter with aliens, right, Yeah,
so it makes a little bit more sense. Yeah. So,
But it's kind of interesting because it works either way
in the same way that anything we're talking about in
(08:49):
terms of cargo cults at it could easily apply to
a sci fi scenario in which we encounter an alien civilization. Yeah,
and so I think, like we can use cargo cults
this sort of metaphor isn't the right word, but like
a model to apply to all of humanity, regardless of
where they are technologically or culturally, and sort of look
at it and say, like, this is how we as
(09:11):
human beings are going to respond to things that are
outside of our imagination. Basically, um, and we have examples
of that, specifically UM talking about science and sort of
how we deify science in our modern day culture. But
then also it's really interesting bit in here in the
research about programming and companies and how they go forward
(09:34):
in a kind of cargo cult manner as well. Yeah, yeah,
so it it really has roots that extend far beyond
the mere uh you know, geographical area of the South
Pacific here. So, as we previously mentioned, it would be
easy to mistake cargo culture, cargoism as it's often referred
as the mere worship of a technologically superior civilization. It
(09:56):
it brings to mind Arthur C. Clark's third law, which
states any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. And
that's that's that's a great law, and it's but but
but at times it can it can allow you, with
this situation to sort of stop at that point, right, Um,
But the the anthropological evidence seems to suggest something more
complex than that, though they're not less powerful by any means,
(10:19):
because remember, these cargo shipments, airplanes, aircraft, all of it
is making an impression on the people with an existing cosmology.
They didn't just you know, fall out of the womb
and then perceive these with these wonders and cast everything
else aside. They already already had a fully formed, though
different worldview and then suddenly they're encountering you know, in
(10:39):
the case of World War two, I think it's important
for us to remember, and we have to sort of
put ourselves in a different frame of mind the further
we get away from it in time. But this was
a time of true global war in which we had
economic engines of total war encircling the globe. It was.
It was a true world war, which is a little
alien for for us to consider. Yeah, given where we
(11:03):
are in time. Well, that's That's one of the things
about cargo cults that I think makes again like manifest
about just human culture in general, is that, like it's yeah,
like we in modern civilization can imagine the scenarios that
are outside of our own personal like right in front
of us experiences like for instance, economics, right, Like we
(11:23):
we think we have a grasp on that idea, but
we're not actually witnessing the events that lead to it.
So it's sort of in its own way imaginary, right, Uh.
And I think that that's essentially what they were encountering
as well, when they would you know, see this uh
new age basically showing up in front of them, starting
(11:43):
with cargo deliveries coming to colonial officials, and they said, well,
it just seems like these people are writing down stuff
on scraps of paper, and then when they do that,
a ship shows up and delivers a bunch of things
they need. So we do the same thing, right, And
obviously it doesn't quite work that way. As H. Richard
(12:03):
Feynman says, and we're gonna probably repeat a lot in
this episode, the planes didn't come. One of the other
things that's interesting here too is conflict arises out of
these cargo cults as well. I mean, sometimes the foreigners
will show up with the cargo and they'll be seen
as having intercepted and stolen the cargo that was actually
(12:25):
meant for the native peoples of this region. Right, So
they'll think, oh, well that was Hey, I I wrote
my note on the piece of paper and it didn't
show up for me. And then all of a sudden,
you show up and you've got all this stuff. You've
got I don't know, radios and microwaves or whatever. Uh,
that that's got to be mine. You must have stolen it, right,
And so that leads to conflict. In fact, the Japanese
during World War Two saw they became highly unpopular in
(12:47):
this region, um, mainly because they tried to disarm and
disperse the population. But the natives essentially thought that they
were interfering with this kind of cargo cult mentality and
attacked their warships with canoes, uh, And they thought that
they would be invulnerable because they doused themselves in a
kind of holy water, but then they were slain by
Japanese machine guns. So it's really tragic actually when you
(13:09):
think about it on a kind of larger scale. But
of course, you know, all of World War two was
and so where this ties into, I think stuff that
we're beginning to see in in modern society as well,
is the idea that like there's a connection between the
cargo being delivered and the deity manifesting and the end times, right,
that like this is the end of our modern are
(13:32):
not ours, but like the way of living that we
understand is ending, and a new age will be brought
about by this arrival, right, Uh. Essentially a limitialist worldview. Yeah,
I've seen it referred to that way and in a
couple of the literature pieces of literature that we read
for this piece. But yeah, that like some kind of
cataclysmic event has to happen first before the paradise occurs,
(13:56):
and so subsequently then there's this like weird logical behavior
that they have because they're like, well, it's all gonna end,
so let's just burn to the ground anyways, right, Like,
let's we'll destroy all of our actual resources because who
cares That airplane is going to come and bring us
the cargo that we need and we're never gonna have
to worry about growing crops or um maintaining livestock again. Right. So,
(14:19):
I actually have a personal experience with a situation very
similar to this that's happening in my life right now,
and I think it's worth sharing with the listeners because
maybe you have something else going on that's similar. My
father believes that the end of the world is coming, uh,
very strongly. Not only does he believe that's coming, he
has a date. He thinks it's going to happen on
(14:39):
October one of this year. Um. And so he is
currently in the middle of making what I call his
magical Mystery Tour. Uh. He's touring around the world going
to see all of the sites that he either hasn't
gotten to see yet, Like he went to Jerusalem, or
he just took his wife to New York City or
visiting family members that he hasn't seen in a long time,
(15:01):
because he thinks this is the end. Uh. And it's
when I was reading about these cargo cults, I was like, oh,
this is what's good. Like it seems crazy to me,
but it's the same thing that's kind of going on
with my dad, right that he's like, well, in order
for Paradise to show up, right, because it's this is
very deeply connected to his beliefs in Christianity. Um, he
(15:22):
thinks that it has to it has to all be
destroyed first, right, Like we can't imagine a world without
a new world, without an apocalypse. Yeah, I mean, you're right.
I mean the ideas that are wrapped up in cargoism,
they are not that dissimilar from from many of the
the ideas existing in in in various Christian movements that
(15:44):
are very much based on the imminent into the world
as we know it, the imminent return of a savior.
And he creates a very dramatic model for the near
future with with a with a more or less definite
timeline to work with. Whereas maybe that's part of the
attraction of it, right, is that it gives you a
definite timeline for for the future that is just not
(16:06):
realistic outside of this particular worldview. Yeah, I mean for me, like,
and you know, I don't want to dive to down
the personal hole for for myself here, just because that
probably wouldn't be fair to the audience. We should cover
the topic at hand here. But looking at my dad's
experience with it, like it seems to me like it's
more of an issue of like he's come to this
point where he doesn't really see how he fits in
(16:28):
to the modern world, right, Like, um, it's it's like
almost like it's grown past him. And so the way
that he deals with that is saying, well, then, of
course that like if I'm irrelevant, then that must mean
the world's gonna end, right that like there's some kind
of imaginary it's easier to create something that's fantastical, right,
(16:49):
like in the magical thinking terms than it is to
sort of come to grips with the complexities of reality. Yeah,
and apocalypse is kind of the uh, it's kind of
the reset, but it's kind of the age quit even yeah,
of life, right, Yeah, I don't know if others out
there have experiences with like something like that, or if
I know, it seems pretty crazy to me when I
(17:10):
when I hear my family members talk about this, but
you know it is it's just kind of interesting like
that you can see somebody in two sixteen sort of
initiating the same behaviors of I'm just gonna leave all
that other stuff behind and let it basically uh lay fallow.
Uh and and because why bother right, like the it's
(17:31):
it's the apocalypse is coming anyways, um and and all
the goodies will come my way. I don't need to
really worry about like earning money or I don't know,
um that farming my fields. As the example goes with
cargo cults, and of course it just brings us to
the question of of how do you interpret the idea
of cargoism, How do you interpret cargo itself or cargo
(17:52):
as it's known in the Pigeon English is of melan Asia,
Because on one hand, it's something that a cargo cult,
you know, lead or instigated by a charis attic leader.
That's always important to remember there are there are strong
elements of cults as we know it inherent in these
cargo cults. Um. So the uh they asked for it
through dance, through marching, ritual communication with spirits, in the
(18:14):
building of these effigies in some cases, so in its
most literal form, we're talking about cargo as money or
Western manufactured goods that are shipped into the island, and
massive amounts particularly that we're talking about that you know,
during the Pacific War. The most remarkable version, of course,
is just about the recreation of landing strips and airplanes, um,
you know, making it possible for these items to return. Yeah,
(18:38):
I mean in down to wharves and warehouses and the
radio towers. One is the one that kept getting me.
They would actually build antennas, and it was like they
didn't understand what an antenna was, but they saw what
it looked like, and they knew there was some kind
of cause and effect between the antenna and the cargo arriving, right. Um,
so they did their best to replicate that. You know.
(18:58):
I didn't encounter the in the material we're looking at,
But I wonder to what extent um cargo cultism plays
into ancient astro not beliefs. I'm assuming there's a strong
connection there. Uh, But I'm not done. I'm not that
familiar with all the ancient haster not the materials out there. Yeah,
I don't. I don't know if you've ever done an
episode on it before. I'm wondering if the conspiracy guys
(19:21):
here at how stuff works or do stuff they don't
want you to know, have done something on it. But
can you just briefly summarize that for our audience. This
is the idea that extraterrestrial visitors or I think in
some cases you know, maybe it's somebody from the future,
but anyway, some Essentially, it's saying that humanity as we
know it was shaped by an outside context um event
(19:41):
earlier in its existence. So you know, space aliens came
and showed us how to make bread. It's sort of
like the Stargate model, right, Like I think Stargate is
sort of based off of that idea that, like the
deities that were worshiped in ancient Egypt were actually technologically
advanced aliens. There's something long list, and you know, I
could see if someone were looking at the cargo cult model,
(20:03):
you could take that model apply it to ancient civilizations
and you could try and make you know, you try
and bring the two together and say, well, they built
this particular monument uh as a kind of you know,
fake radio tower. They were trying to um to recreate
the form, though we're unable to understand the function of
you know, very technologically advanced items. And I brought up
(20:26):
economics earlier, So here's kind of an example of how
the economics aspect played out in this region in a
similar way to the cargo cult thing wasn't necessary. I mean,
they were connected, but it wasn't necessarily an example of it.
But so, for instance, they would find, hey, we're trading
with these colonials that have shown up all of a sudden,
I don't know what. They're giving them cava maybe uh,
(20:49):
and are selling them and uh, it's worth thirty pounds
one week, right, And so they think, okay, this unit
of cavas worth thirty pounds. And then a couple of
weeks later, the colonials show up and they say, we're
only going to give you five pounds for it now,
and they go, well, what are you talking about? Why
it was it's worth thirty pounds uh. And because they
have no you know, outside context for understanding like fluctuations
(21:12):
of the value of a pound or the value of
cava or whatever. Uh it, it doesn't make sense for them, right,
and that to us seems like a basic cause and
effect type thing, right, but then extrapolate that outwards to
like a d if it proportion, right. Yeah. So so
with this literal idea of cargo, uh it's it's easy
(21:34):
to see why many of these cults flared up and
then died out right, because you can only build fake
airplanes and landing strips and radio towers so long. You
can only pray to these gods that people have seen
so long before there it becomes apparent they're not coming
back and you're not getting any of these material items. However,
(21:57):
let's go back to that idea that there's very much
a merger of ideas going on here, that these are
people that had existing mythologies, that had an existing worldview,
and they were impacted by the trauma of this outside
context problem and not just completely reshaped by it. Yeah.
It reminds me of the way that Catholicism has affected
(22:18):
some localities like mystical or supernatural beliefs, and they've sort
of mixed together. Right. Um, I think the common one
that a lot of people think of is like voodoo
and hoo doo. It is. Actually somebody actually just wrote
into us recently and asked us, asked us to do
an episode on the difference between the two. And I
don't really feel confident that in having done the research
(22:39):
enough to explain it right here, but maybe we'll do
something on that in the future. But like something like that,
that merger of cultures is sort of what's going on here, right, Yeah. Yeah,
So but it's like capital intersecting with religion. Yeah, yeah, indeed.
I mean you end up with a sort of a
metaphorical cargoism, where where cargo or or cago can also
(23:00):
mean a number of things including return of dead ancestors,
achievement of balanced exchange, relations with Europeans, um, you know,
sense of honor and self worth, desire for political sovereignty,
the transformation and transcendence of everyday reality. So so cargo,
the thing you're you're asking for, becomes less about this
(23:21):
material delivery and more of a spiritual delivery. Yeah. And
so today the ones that survived, like we're gonna talk
to you about John from uh, they maybe they're still
cargo cults, or maybe they've stopped being cargo cults, and
they've merged into becoming churches or what we recognized as
a church, or even a political party or a business organization. Right, Like,
(23:43):
I guess it's like their version of um, like an
Elks lodge or something like that. Yeah, yeah, they are
Knights of Columbus. I don't know. Sorry, that's like a
New England reference. I don't know do they we're in Atlanta.
Do they have Knights of Columbus and Elks lodges down here?
They have Elk lodges. I'm not totally certain about Knights
of Columbus. Oh, that's probably not really our bag anyways.
(24:05):
I don't know that we would necessarily know. Um well,
I the Elks clubs were really big when I grew up,
Like that was very much a too important part of
the local community. Um So, some anthropologists argue that a
lot of this boils down to the manner by which
Melanesian cultures embrace a and this is a from anthropologist
(24:27):
Lamont and Lyndstrom. That's an awesome name. He uh says
that they embrace they quote constant background of imminent cargoism
or expectation of sudden episodic change, which I really like
that definition because it plays into nice nicely to this
idea of the trauma of the outside context problem. And
I have a few other just quick definitions of cargoism
(24:50):
that come from a few of these from a few
different sources we looked at, and I just want to
roll through them just so we had just to make
sure we have that firm grounding before we continue. UM.
Christian Science Monitor correspondent Nick Squire's uh defined it as
quote a highly complex reaction by bewildered Islanders to the
influence of Western modernity. UH. Kirk Huffman, a British anthropologist
(25:12):
who lived in Venatu for seventeen years. UH the defined
it as quote a way for traditional people to come
to terms with colonialism and Christianity. And Ralph Reagan Reagan AVU,
director of the Vanatu Natural Cultural Council UM, says quote
it's basically a cultural preservation movement and melds exposure to
(25:34):
the West with old belief systems. It served people well uh.
And he he also describes it as kind of a
rejection of fully packaged Christianity. So it all comes back
around to this idea that cargo cults were kind of
the middle ground survival method, and so that they you know,
they they couldn't they couldn't do nothing but change. But
this there was a way to change that didn't mean
(25:56):
just completely giving in to what the colonials wanted you
to be. Yeah, which is I mean, I guess like
we'll have to wait until the aliens show up and
conquer us. But like that's kind of how I imagine
it would go, right, unless it goes I mean, there's
so many science fiction portrayals of first contact like that.
But but I suppose the other option is that it
(26:16):
could just be like utterly violent, you know. Okay, so
we're about to take a break, but when we come back,
we're going to talk about two specific examples of cargo cults,
the John From Movement and the Prince Philip Movement. Okay,
we're back, so let's get into John From. This is
(26:38):
really like the it's really well laid out in this
long form article in Smithsonian magazine. And uh I I
was absolutely kind of enthralled by this story of I mean,
I don't I don't remember when the piece was written.
It was relatively recent though, right, And this guy went
and visited this cult and talk to all of them
(27:00):
interviewed them, and it us cults almost doesn't feel like
the right term to use, you know. Cargo cult is
the term the anthropologist coined to describe this, but this
one's been going for so long that it doesn't really
feel like that. Yeah, and the Smithsonian article in question
is in John they Trust, and we'll make sure there's
a link to it on a landing page for this
(27:20):
episode step to Blow your Mind dot com. But yeah,
John From, Uh, who is John From? Well, John From
is probably John from America that we think that's the
supposed root of it. Nobody really knows who this guy is.
There's a um, you know, record within their culture of him, obviously,
(27:41):
but we don't know who John From was. Apparently it
happened in like the nineteen thirties, right, Yeah, Yeah, and
it uh And it it ties in perfectly. It's it's
basically the main example of CARGOI isom and it it
ties into everything we've discussed so far. It entails the
sort of paradoxical promise of both uh you know, returned
and preserved customs uh and the alien materialism of the
(28:05):
distant US, you know, engaging in both uh, both literal
and metaphorical cargo. Uh. This has been very much the
one on the model of cargoism where we see the
construction of the fake airplanes and radio towers and landing strips,
um and it's uh, it's still going. Uh. February is
(28:25):
John From Day where the faithful celebrate um John From
and continue to pray for his return. Yeah, and the
ideas you know, like like we've described with cargo cults before,
in this episode, he's going to return one day. Uh.
And this is to clarify, this is in Venua to
on the remote island of tana Um and he's going
(28:46):
to show up, and he's gonna bring radios, TVs, trucks, boats, watches,
ice box machines, medicine, Coca Cola, and many wonderful things.
I'm glad Coca Cola made it in there because it
is it's a pretty wonderful thing. Uh. I didn't in
this episode, but yeah, like uh, it's just interesting. Basically
the idea is, and you know, in the mythos of
(29:08):
John From he's a white man who showed up, Uh
told them, Hey, you don't need to go along with
what these colonialists are telling you to do. Follow me
and I'll be back. I'm gonna go away, but I'm
gonna come back and I'm gonna bring stuff to you.
You know. I'm glad you mentioned the Coca Cola specifically,
because if you if you want to get into the
idea of of of of commercial globalization, realization has its
(29:34):
own kind of religion and cult, visit the Coca Cola
Museum here in Atlanta because it is light entering the
spaceship temple of a of a of a consumerist church. Uh.
And I say that without any you know, comment on
the product itself. But it's like, it's like if John
Draper at the end of of mad Men really did
(29:56):
found his own religion in a way he did. I mean, really,
if you're confused by the ending of the Madman series,
go to the Coca Cola Museum because that is kind
of the more sense. Yeah, that well, that everything will
make sense. You're like, oh John John Hamm's Don Draper
becomes God at the end of mad Man. I can
definitely attest to the cult of Coca Cola in my
(30:16):
international travels. I mean, it's everywhere obviously, and it uh,
it tastes differently wherever you're going. In fact, I have
never been to the Coca Cola Museum despite having lived
here for ten years. But uh, I climbed the Great
Wall of China when I was sixteen years old, and
I remember, um, there was like a like sort of
like a rest point, right, and you could buy snacks,
(30:39):
and there are obviously snacks that were meant to be
for Westerners who were going across the Great Wall of China.
And they had something called Choca Cola and it was
designed to look exactly like a you know, a red
and white Coca Cola design, but it tasted kind of
like if you mixed hot coca cola with you who
and and uh and it was flat. And I was like, oh, okay,
(31:04):
like this isn't what I was expecting, but you know,
it's yeah, it's kind of like reached. It's a it's
the specter of consumerist or the hydra of consumerist products. Right.
It's tentacles are everywhere. So one of my favorite parts
about this John from America article was that the the
guy who wrote it mentioned in particular how he spoke
(31:29):
to the various leaders because they actually divided into two
separate and there was almost like a civil war between them.
I think they actually ended up having like a battle
with axes or something like that that's described at one
point it sounded awful, but um, one of the leaders
had been to America and had spent time in California,
and he was like, so you've been, You've seen where
(31:52):
the cargo comes from. Why do you still, you know,
espouses beliefs And he says. The guy's response was, well,
you know, you Americans have been waiting for Christ to
come back for two thousand years. How's it any different? Yeah,
And that really kind of hit me and went, oh yeah, okay, sure, yeah,
And it's it's also worth worth noting you mentioned, like
(32:13):
this individual has been to the to the US and
what there are certain individuals in any of these movements
that have they they they they have had the experience
of of greater contact with the outside world. But most
of the people who follow these the belief systems, they
do not. They live in very um, very rural areas
(32:34):
with very limited access to any of the modern communication
infrastructure that we take for granted. So let's talk about
Prince Philip. That's the other one. Uh, And it's again
like another one that's that's uh, you know, highly connected
to Western culture sort of infiltrating these societies. Yeah, the
Prince Philip movement, they venerate Britain's Prince Philip, husband to
(32:57):
Queen Elizabeth the second born as of this recording, still kicking, uh,
still kicking at the age. Uh. They cherished portraits of
Prince Philip. They hold the feasts on his birthday, and
they say things like, this is a quote he is
(33:17):
he is a god, not a man. Sometimes we hear
his voice, but we can't see him. So uh. This
on the surface also sounds like just it's easy to
take a very black and white view with this. You
just imagine, uh, you know, the indigenous people they see
this esteemed royal individual from uh, you know, a modern society,
(33:39):
and they decide, this is a god, let's worship him.
But it's a little more complicated than that. Um. The
same thing ended up happening during World War Two with
with Roosevelt. One of the cargo cults referred to him
as Russa Fell, the friendly King of America, and he was,
you know, one of the deities that they thought would
bring them this sort of paradise. Yeah. Yeah, and it
(34:01):
and it The thing is it ends up it ties
into traditional beliefs that they already had, including an ancient
prophecy that the son of a mountain spirit would venture
far away in search of a powerful woman to marry.
When this ties in particularly to UH to Prince Philip
movement here. So anyway, they have this idea of the
mountain spirit marrying a powerful woman. So then they get
(34:23):
Christian missionaries that that visit with tales of Christ. They
blend some of that in. Then the locals began to
see all the esteem that was afforded to Queen Elizabeth
the Second UH and combined the ideas of their son
of a mountain spirit with q E two's royal consort
here UH and this would have been the nineteen fifties
or sixties, and Polife were bolted even more when the
(34:46):
royal couple actually visited Vanato in nineteen seventy four. And
there's apparently been an exchange of photographs and tribal icons
and honors. I think like a club was sent UH
to Prince Philip. UH. They don't hang out together, but
they have sort of a limited exchange, but there's a
(35:07):
kind of So for me, there's an interesting like, I
don't know how to put it, Like I guess that
we in America don't do so as much, but I
know in Great Britain that there is like this weird
celebrity slash deification reverence for the royal family, right. And
so if you're in the royal family, if you're Queen Elizabeth,
(35:27):
you're already fairly used to that, right, like that's been
most of your life. Then when you go to this
far away place and these people literally revere you as
a god, Um, I wonder like if there's impact to that.
It's it's weird. It reminds me a lot of the
Rastafari movement. Of course, um believe that that highly Selassie,
(35:51):
the former Emperor of of the Ethiopia, was the Messiah
and uh, and so you had this situation where during
his life time, you know, he's in Ethiopia, but in
Jamaica there is this growing number of people who believe
that he is divine. And then how does he deal
with that? I mean, because he you know, it's it's
not polite to completely, you know, squash their ideas. But
(36:14):
then to what extent can you play along with it
without you know, becoming delusional. Yeah, I guess I suppose
like we'd like to think that somebody like Queen Elizabeth is,
even though she's royal, that she's also decent enough to
sort of not allow people to think that she's actually
like a supernatural entity. Right, Well she's not, but her husband,
(36:36):
but her husband is. I guess that's fair. Yeah, Well,
you know, I'm I actually I am not certain exactly
what they think of her. But surely if she's the
the queen and there, and if she's the spouse of
a god, then then she's at least the Dammi God. Right.
But yeah, it's fascinating, especially since it's occurring with people
who who were already we in what we think of
(36:57):
as being modern and better and not primitive, right, are
already revering these people in a way that's bordering on religious. Yeah,
and then but then also to what extent you know, again,
it's the melding too. So are they taking an existing
belief system and sore just wrapping it in the skin
Prince Philip, or or are they trying to understand these
(37:19):
distant British royal figures by wrapping them in the myth
or maybe it's a little bit of both. Yeah, I'd
love to hear if anybody out there has a little
bit more of a connection to this. I wonder if
maybe this is something that our British listeners are a
little bit more familiar with. Also, when you say wrapping
them in the skin of Prince Philip, immediately think that, like,
that's going to be the eli Roth version of this, right,
Like he'll make some torture porn movie about a cargo cult,
(37:43):
but they actually take the royal skin and just wrap
it around the cargo at the end of the movie. Well, yeah,
I could see that happening. Alright. Well, let perfect segue
to talk about cargo cult science. Yeah, yeah, cargo cult
science and UH. As we mentioned already, this idea comes
to us from American theoretical physicist Richard Feynman, who lived
(38:05):
nineteen eighteen through UH and particularly he laid this out
in the nineteen seventy four cal Tech commencement speech, which
is available online and it's also published in some of
his books. Um, but he uses cargo cults as a
metaphor for the public's interest in pseudo science. In particular,
he invoked the cargoist use of landing strips, etcetera. In
(38:30):
the John From movement, and his main targets worse when
he was going after stuff like esp UFOs, natural medicines, um,
these things that often seem scientific or their cloaked in science,
but there's something missing. As you quoted him earlier, the
planes don't land. Yeah, and Feineman. Uh. You know, he
basically took it from looking at quote unquote pseudoscience, which
(38:54):
doing a show like Stuptable in your mind. We both
investigate and here that term thrown around a lot. Um.
But he determined that actually, like even outside of pseudo science,
we don't really live in a scientific world. We like
to think that we do, but we don't. Um. But yeah,
you're right. Like he was investigating mysticism, things like isolation
(39:14):
tanks and John C. Lily, which we've covered recently. Even psychotherapy.
He was convinced that a lot of psychotherapy was all
similar to cargo cultism. Uh. And I love this story
that was in this article that we looked at for
this UM. He went to the famed I don't know
what you call it as it is. It at slin
(39:35):
It's I believe it's in California. It's like one of
those sort of resort slash um body mind therapy places,
and he was there. The story goes that he was
there investigating and he was hanging out in a hot
tub and there was a guy and a girl next
to him in the hot tub, and the guy says
to the girl, Hey, can I practice my massage techniques
(39:58):
on you? And she says yeah, sure, okay, and uh
he starts rubbing her feet in the bathtub in front
of Richard Feynman and he goes, I think I think
I'm on your pituitary gland right now, And Fineman goes, uh,
you're pretty far away from it, buddy, and realizes like that,
actually this guy was a reflexology student there at the
(40:20):
Center and had been studying the science of reflexology, which
is something I'd love to cover for the show. Um
and but but he like had no basic principal understanding
of where things were in the body and thought the
pituitary gland was in your foot. Yeah, that's that's one
of Fineman is one of these guys who in all
of his writings, he's he's always throwing out these interesting
(40:43):
little stories about himself. Uh that you know that they're
often amusing. Uh there, here's a quote from this particular speech.
He said that kind of sums up a lot about
what we're talking. Says, So, I call these things cargo
cult science because they follow all the apparent precepts and
forms of science of investigation, but they're missing something essential
because the planes don't land. So the form is perfect,
(41:06):
it looks like it did before, but it doesn't work.
It's it's it's form over function. It's kind of like
it's a surface level understanding and deification of a thing
without understanding how it actually works. There's something missing and
what is that? Yeah, and so, like I said, like,
he extrapolates that outwards later on from the pseudoscience world
(41:29):
to the reality that he's working within in uh scientific academia,
and he basically comes to the collusion that our science
is basically to us is well, just give all the
information that you've looked at to other people and that
will help them judge the value of your contribution. Right.
That's essentially how he viewed peer view uh science and um.
(41:50):
But then he said, what about all these revelations in
the past where like we've done scientific experiments, they have
been published articles we've accepted them is fact, and then
twenty fifty a hundred years later, we look back and
we go, oh, they carried the two wrong on that equation.
We've been totally wrong about this the whole time, and
(42:12):
we reassess it and then realize, well, that that scientific
system didn't really work, but this time it will. You know. Yeah, well,
I think and that it gets I mean, you know, ultimately,
what he's arguing is missing in these these models of
cargo cult sciences, scientific integrity and strict adherence to the
scientific method. So in a way, what we're talking about
here is realizing that scientific knowledge itself can have errors
(42:37):
in it, but it's the but the scientific method that
is the path where we by which we continue to
change our scientific understanding of the world. We continue to
evolve it and and realize where we've made mistakes. Uh,
where past theories were inaccurate. Uh. And you know, to
his point, you have to be ready to fail. You
have to make your material um readily avail well so
(43:00):
that individuals can point out that critics can point out
where you may have gone wrong as well as read
you know, where you think you went right. Yeah, he
there's a point sort of towards the end of this
article that we read where Fineman starts talking about sort
of you know, if you've worked in the public sector
or well, I guess it's not necessarily a public sector.
If you've just worked in academia, especially doing science, you
(43:22):
know that for some particular reasons, there's there's dirty financial
realities behind it, right, And he said, you know, if
we are only publishing the results that make us look good,
that's dishonest. And he had a bunch of contemporaries that
we're doing. You know, they would say, well, these results
didn't come out the way that we need them too
for us to get funding to do the thing we
want to do, So we're not going to share them
(43:43):
with the world. Now here's where I'm going to take
it a little bit step further. And I imagine that
there's some people out in the audience who are going
to disagree with me strongly, So uh, send those angry
tweets or hate mail to uh blow the mind at
how stuff works dot Com. I thought you're gonna give
Joe's address, Oh yeah, at Joe McCormick. No, Uh, I
(44:05):
would say, if if Fineman was you know still looking
at this today in modern society, we're looking at science
to provide us with the cargo and to bring us
the paradise, the same way that we look down on
the Melanese for doing so right. We think of without
really understanding it too. We think of science is sort
(44:26):
of the religion that's going to bring us the thing eventually. Uh.
And I see this especially in science entertainment, both on
television and social media and yes podcasts. Uh And and
you know some of our peers out there that there's
sort of just a like, wow, isn't science great? Look
at this? Look at this thing that we found out
(44:47):
about science? Weird? Huh cool. Look, it's defining the world
for you, but there's no like real understanding of what
it actually means. It's just taking like another sort of
framework and substituting it for cargo cultism. Yeah. It's just
the sort of the deification of of a science effigy, loving,
(45:07):
loving the form, loving the things that it's given us,
but not really necessarily involving a deep understanding of how
it works and how it has brought us these things,
and being able to properly extrapolate what it can realistically
give us in the future. I mean, this is the
thing that I feel like a lot of us fall
(45:29):
into at varying levels. So I'm not saying that everybody
necessarily has this sort of yea science bumper sticker level
of understanding, you know, an appreciation for science. But but
even just you know, the average person, you can sort of,
you know, subconsciously decide, Hey, you know, I don't really
need to worry about my life, my quality of life
(45:52):
in twenty forty years because science will surely figure that out.
I don't have to worry about this particular um ecological
cold problem. I don't have to worry about climate change
because the sciences is there. We can figure it out.
I don't need to worry about um, you know, like
a comet or meteorite and crashing into the Earth because
the sciences is coming together on that. Science is going
(46:14):
to reach its divine hand in and snatch that planetary
body away before it can destroy me. Yeah. We almost
see that in a lot of our like a sort
of tent pole, big blockbuster apocalyptic movies, right Like a
lot of times now, the hero who solves the problem,
whether it's the comet coming at Earth or it's aliens
(46:34):
showing up on our doorsteps. Yeah, I mean Independence Day
like that is that is total cargo cult science, cargo
cult computer science. I guess where it's just like, oh,
don't worry, science has got this computer hacker comes in
and then it just all taken care of and awards
off a complete outside context problem that really would it
(46:54):
should have just wiped out everybody. And yeah, it's silly,
but we also just sort of accept it because science,
it's is somewhat of a religion for us. Now. Um.
Feynman had a quote about this. He said, science is
the belief in the ignorance of experts. And I like
that especially um. And he also said that, you know,
it's up to all of us to assess the premises
(47:15):
and conclusions that are presented to us by scientific research.
It's not just we shouldn't just accept some panel of invisible,
peer reviewed people telling us this is good, this, this
will do it. Um. And I'd like to think, you know,
this applies to our show. We try to do that
in the research and uh, but I think also, as
(47:35):
we suggested in that Wicked Problems episode that we did,
that it's up to all of us to participate. So, yeah,
Robert and Joe and I can sit here and relay
all these facts and papers to you, but don't just
take it as you know, the religious fact, right, Like,
go out there and get involved yourself. Look at some
of the stuff yourself. I think you'll find some stuff
(47:56):
between the lines that we're not necessarily picking up on.
Everybody approaches this different indeed. All right, So this brings
us to the idea of cargo cult programming UM. And
this was coined by software engineer Steve McConnell in two
thousand and He was very much playing off Feynman's definition
of cargo cult science, even quoting him in the intro.
(48:16):
And this again harkins to the notion of fake airfields,
meant to invoke the return of cargo UM, the idea
that the cargoists understood the form but not the content. Likewise,
some programmers, according to McDonald right that they think that
they know what code does, they know how it, but
they don't know how it does it. They can't make
(48:37):
meaningful changes to the code. They can only tinker and
toy with the pre existing form. Yeah, this is UM
an extended argument in UM. Are you familiar with Douglas Rushkov, No,
I don't believe so. He's a he's a really interesting
media theorist, and he had this book came out a
couple of years ago called Programmer, Be Programmed. The essential
argument was, you know, all of us in modern days
(49:00):
society are interacting with our phones or interacting with our computers.
We get how the operating system works. Some of us.
We we get that, right, Like we we know how
to like make it do the things we wanted to do,
but we don't understand it beneath that layer. And that subsequently,
that kind of misunderstanding can lead to us being uh
(49:20):
co opted or manipulated in some ways. Um. And I
think largely his argument is like economically, but uh, that's
kind of the same thing here, right, it's like, understand
it just a little bit deeper. I don't think like
these guys are making the argument that we should all
become like professional level coders here, but sort of understand
how things work under the hood a little bit so
(49:41):
that those who do aren't able to take advantage of you. Yeah.
And and in in a sense too, it also gets
into the idea, you know, standing on the shoulders of giants, right,
where you have this accumulated system and no, no one
really understands everything about it, so all we can do
is just tinker with it and change it a little
(50:02):
bit without really creating any kind of perhaps necessary drastic
changes that would actually improve the product. So McConnell says
that the cargo cult programmers refused to acknowledge the tradeoffs
involved in either process oriented or commitment oriented development. Uh,
and the difference they're being like a process oriented um
(50:25):
development involves like, you know, strict adherence to this is
how we create things. And then the commitment oriented is
like everybody here really knows their stuff, give them the
freedom in the space they need to do it. This
is like another application of again like these are cargo cultism,
I think, and wicked problems are highly connected. Because McConnell
sort of lays out look like those are two theories
(50:47):
of running an organization. But there are impostor organizations out there, right,
and so he calls like the process impostor organizations are
the ones that they see a successful company and they go, well,
how are they succes sessful? They're generating a lot of
documents and they have a lot of meetings so we
should do the same things, will generate a lot of documents,
and we'll have a bunch of meetings. But then they
(51:08):
don't understand that this is that's not what makes the
other people successful, right, That's not what's responsible for it.
And likewise the commitment one. There's impostors as well, where
they say, well, that organization, I think Microsoft was the
example he used at the time, was that organization. They
don't generate a lot of documents. They offer stock options
to their employees, and they expect that their employees will
(51:29):
work a lot of overtime, So we should do the
same thing. Uh, we should do that, And they don't
realize that's not what leads to success. The reason why
people are working the overtime is because they love their jobs.
They love what they're doing, and that's what's leading to
the success. Yeah. Yeah, And certainly I think there are
their applications for this and pretty much any discipline in
any business, Like to what extent does an individual or
(51:51):
an organization really understand the business or the product in
which they are engaged into. What extent are they just
they build those airplane effigies? Are they just creating the
things that seem to be to line up with success
and hoping that the cargo comes alright. So the final
idea I want to mention, and we've, as with all these,
(52:12):
we've kind of touched on some of this already is
the idea of cargo cult sustainability. And this is another
idea that came out of the seventies, UH, from this
time from sociologist William R. Caton Jr. In his paper
Environmental Optimism Cargo Cults in Modern Society from we assume
that our technological advancement will save us as it seemingly
(52:33):
has in the past, without really backing that idea up
very well. Instead, quote runaway world technology reduces rather than
enhances the habitats carrying capacity. All forms of human organization
and behavior that are based on the obsolete assumption of
limitlessness will necessarily change somehow to forms that are combatible
(52:54):
with finite limits of the world ecosystem. Um. Here's another quote.
This is from Overshoot, which was one of the books
by William R. Katon Jr. Said, quote the type two
cargo cult which we're talking about here, Uh belief held
that great technological breakthroughs would inevitably occur in the near
(53:15):
future and would enable man to continue indefinitely expanding the
world's human caring capacity. This was a mere faith in
a faith like stock market speculation. It had no firmer
basis than naive statistical extrapolation, the uncritical supposition that past
technological advances could be taken as representative samples of an
(53:37):
inherently unending series of comparable achievements. And I think that
that nicely sums it up. He he ends up breaking
it down even in an even greater detail, talking about
our our belief that they'll be unlimited food, unlimited alternatives,
unlimited energy that will be able to you know fully
harness the Sun's power, um that there'll be other technological escapes,
(53:58):
and even ideological escape will prevent themselves. So get from
the idea that we think the technology will come and
we think that we can change and that in our
ascension we can change the rules of the game that
we are losing. You know what that sounds like to me?
Uh the like inherent optimism of Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek
vision that like, eventually we're going to get to a
(54:20):
point where like we can just uh print food, you know,
and we don't need to worry about food, and we
don't need to worry about energy. Uh, and we won't
need to worry about war on Earth. Uh. It'll be
the you know, exploring the rest of the universe that
that brings about those problems again. Yeah, we just have
faith that the cargo will come and we don't think
(54:41):
about all the steps necessary mechanisms responsible for that happening. Yeah, exactly.
All right, So there you have it. I think we're
gonna leave it there. Um, you know, we hope this
one will be a great topic to just stir up
conversation about, you know, about where we are now, about
where we've been in the past, and where we're going
to go in the future, both in reality and in
(55:02):
our various science science fiction models out there. Yeah. So,
if you have insights to add to this, or maybe
you had some kind of epiphany while you're listening to this,
or maybe you're furious at me or Robert right now,
you can write into us, first of all, on Facebook,
Twitter tumbler. I suppose you could also write into us
on Instagram. I don't quite know how that works yet,
but I guess we'll maybe post an image of the
(55:22):
episode to go along with us. Uh, so you could
write in there too, uh let us know what you think.
Or you can just get in touch with us the
old fashioned way and send love or hate mail to
blow the mind at how stuff works dot com. Well
(55:46):
more on this than thousands of other topics. Is it
how stuff works dot Com? Love ber twent five pot
proper
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Wham and I'm Christian Saga, and
today we're gonna be talking about cargo colts. But we're
not just gonna approach it um from my anthropological stand form.
(00:24):
We're looking at this in terms of what it says
about our understanding of science, programming, uh, the environment in
which we live. In a way, it's a deceptively deep topic. Yeah,
I'm really interested in this because I feel like we're
not just going to be explaining something for the audience,
but like that it has applications to our every day
(00:45):
and also to the way that we view science. Um.
Similar to the sort of what we did with that
Wicked Problems episode a couple of weeks ago exactly, this
one should be a good conversation starter as well. So
before we get into that, though, we just want to
remind you podcasting that's not all we do. We're also
writers and video performers. That's that's a weird way to
describe ourselves, but yeah, we do videos as well about
(01:09):
science and education. You can find all of that stuff
at stuff to Blow your mind dot Com. That's our mothership.
That's where we keep all of the goodies. And if
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We're on Twitter, We're on Tumbler, and we are now
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and you can also catch up with us on Fridays.
(01:29):
We live stream on Fridays at noon Eastern Standard time.
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We will let you know on all those platforms I
mentioned above, whether it's one or the other earlier that day.
So check us out if you want to come and
ask us some questions, see what we look like, and uh,
make fun of our haircuts whatever. That's what we're there for.
(01:51):
And it's a it's our own little cargo cult right yeah. Now,
but before we get into it, we're just gonna just
initially define cargo cults. So this is where you have,
you know, an indigenous population um in an island environment
rather cut off from the rest of the world, and
then they are suddenly privy to the wonders and marvels
(02:13):
and materialism of the greater outside world, of of of
modern civilizations and all of their products and goods, and
then how they respond to that, Uh, maybe they end
up building up you know, sort of fake airstrips or
even airplane effigies to try and lure the foreigners back
(02:33):
so that they can receive their bountiful goods once more. Yeah,
and this may sound like something that's like a fairly
isolated incident, but it's actually it happened with hundreds of
different native people's in the Melanesia region, especially during World
War two. Um, in the Pacific theater, I guess is
how they would put it. But anthropologists after and during
(02:53):
the war found a lot of these organizations and they
were all basically operating around along the same lines that
you're talking about here, um building these fake runways, fake wharves.
I mean, we I'm calling them fake, but they to
them they were real. They were building radio towers out
of bamboo. Yeah, they were in a way. They were
like I kept to keep thinking of them as as
affigies as uh as you know, it's almost like a
(03:16):
you know, a holy icon to try and bring back
this presence. Yeah. Absolutely so. The I think the modern
day names for some of the places that you would
recognize or Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanua to
New Caledonia and Fiji. So I mean actually, like we
hear some of those Fiji we think of as being
like a resort place, right, but you know this, not
(03:40):
too long ago there were people there who thought, hey,
if I build an airstrip, uh, it will bring some deity,
will bring me cargo goods that will make my life
better and basically a send me to a paradise. Right. Yeah,
And these are also areas where um anthropologists, even up
into recent times here have been able to explore really
(04:03):
more more ancient and primal ways of viewing the world
through local beliefs. It's really been a you know, a
rich place to study how the human condition works. Yeah,
it's especially interesting. Uh, we have some examples. And in fact,
that John From movement in particular, is I believe still
going today. There's still even though the people who are
(04:26):
involved in that movement, some of them have been to
western civilized quote unquote countries and they've seen what is
out there in the rest of the world, they still
hold onto this belief that a guy named John From
is going to show up one day with a bunch
of stuff. Now, this whole topic, especially as we begin
to dive into it and and as we explore it
(04:48):
in greater depth. Uh, it's easy to sort of look
at it in very black and white terms, to look
at it in terms of modern and primitive of you know,
of Western and Pacific. Uh. So to sort of ground
our exploration, I want to introduce a very sci fi
uh forward thinking concept here, and this is uh, the
(05:10):
idea of an outside context problem. This was this was
coined by sci fi author one of my personal favorites, E.
And M. Banks, in his culture book Accession. Now, this
this occurs. An outside context problem occurs when a society
or civilization encounters a problem, threat, or complication that they
have no context to prepare for or perhaps even efficiently
(05:34):
deal with. So the classic example is a colonial warship
arriving on the shores of a primitive society. Uh. In
the book Accession, it's an object from outside the known
universe and seemingly older than the known universe popping into
an existence. Now, another example, and this is apparently the
the inspiration for for banks creation of the term outside
(05:55):
context problems is that he uh, back in the day
he was playing the original version of sid Meier's civilization
and UH, if you've ever played this, it's uh, you know,
it's you take control of different civilizations and then you're
you're you're going up this technology tree. And so sometimes
you're often you're encountering other civilizations at the same technological level,
(06:16):
but sometimes there's a discrepancy and UM and for instance,
one might find oneself in a situation playing this game
where you're encountering a modern battleship while you're still stuck
using wooden sailing ships. Outside context problem. You couldn't possibly
prepare for it now, and an outside context problem is
often fatal. Most societies and civilizations only ever encounter one
(06:38):
of these things. UH, and history provides us with numerous
examples of how these typically play out. UH. Most of
them seem to come to us through you know, the
more recent time and more recent times the colonial expansion
of the imperialist European powers, but we also see some
thought provoking examples from the twentieth century UM, particularly with
(06:59):
car occults, which we're discussing here because essentially what we're
dealing with is how a society, how a culture responds
to UH an outside context problem to contact with this
with this force, with this world that is so vastly
different from what they were prepared for. And what do
you do? Do you do? You? You do? You? You
(07:21):
are you just consumed by this power? You just completely
wiped out by it is? Does everything that you were
previously come to an end? Uh? Do you do you
somehow miraculously hold out like the you know, the heroes
and some sort of science fiction story, or do you
find some sort of middle ground? Yeah, it's kind of
interesting too, because going back to what you're saying about
(07:43):
the um, the idea of looking at these cultures as
primitive from our lens, I think it's helpful to think
about this both from like try to put yourself in
their shoes first of all, but then also try to
put yourself in that like civilization mode where we're in
present day society, and like, I don't know, I'm trying
to think of like a sci fi example of this,
(08:04):
like some portal opens up and a huge alien spaceship
comes out, and the aliens come down, and they don't
necessarily want to make war with us immediately, but you know,
they're so technologically superior to us that they seem like gods. Yeah,
It actually reminds me of the Cat Stephens song Longer Boats.
Do you remember this one? Not particularly? Okay, Uh, it's uh.
(08:27):
When I would hear it when I was younger, I
always it always brought to mine images of indigenous people's
encounters with colonial Europeans. Right, But apparently Stevens has said
in interview that the song was about an encounter with aliens, right, Yeah,
so it makes a little bit more sense. Yeah. So,
But it's kind of interesting because it works either way
in the same way that anything we're talking about in
(08:49):
terms of cargo cults at it could easily apply to
a sci fi scenario in which we encounter an alien civilization. Yeah,
and so I think, like we can use cargo cults
this sort of metaphor isn't the right word, but like
a model to apply to all of humanity, regardless of
where they are technologically or culturally, and sort of look
at it and say, like, this is how we as
(09:11):
human beings are going to respond to things that are
outside of our imagination. Basically, um, and we have examples
of that, specifically UM talking about science and sort of
how we deify science in our modern day culture. But
then also it's really interesting bit in here in the
research about programming and companies and how they go forward
(09:34):
in a kind of cargo cult manner as well. Yeah, yeah,
so it it really has roots that extend far beyond
the mere uh you know, geographical area of the South
Pacific here. So, as we previously mentioned, it would be
easy to mistake cargo culture, cargoism as it's often referred
as the mere worship of a technologically superior civilization. It
(09:56):
it brings to mind Arthur C. Clark's third law, which
states any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. And
that's that's that's a great law, and it's but but
but at times it can it can allow you, with
this situation to sort of stop at that point, right, Um,
But the the anthropological evidence seems to suggest something more
complex than that, though they're not less powerful by any means,
(10:19):
because remember, these cargo shipments, airplanes, aircraft, all of it
is making an impression on the people with an existing cosmology.
They didn't just you know, fall out of the womb
and then perceive these with these wonders and cast everything
else aside. They already already had a fully formed, though
different worldview and then suddenly they're encountering you know, in
(10:39):
the case of World War two, I think it's important
for us to remember, and we have to sort of
put ourselves in a different frame of mind the further
we get away from it in time. But this was
a time of true global war in which we had
economic engines of total war encircling the globe. It was.
It was a true world war, which is a little
alien for for us to consider. Yeah, given where we
(11:03):
are in time. Well, that's That's one of the things
about cargo cults that I think makes again like manifest
about just human culture in general, is that, like it's yeah,
like we in modern civilization can imagine the scenarios that
are outside of our own personal like right in front
of us experiences like for instance, economics, right, Like we
(11:23):
we think we have a grasp on that idea, but
we're not actually witnessing the events that lead to it.
So it's sort of in its own way imaginary, right, Uh.
And I think that that's essentially what they were encountering
as well, when they would you know, see this uh
new age basically showing up in front of them, starting
(11:43):
with cargo deliveries coming to colonial officials, and they said, well,
it just seems like these people are writing down stuff
on scraps of paper, and then when they do that,
a ship shows up and delivers a bunch of things
they need. So we do the same thing, right, And
obviously it doesn't quite work that way. As H. Richard
(12:03):
Feynman says, and we're gonna probably repeat a lot in
this episode, the planes didn't come. One of the other
things that's interesting here too is conflict arises out of
these cargo cults as well. I mean, sometimes the foreigners
will show up with the cargo and they'll be seen
as having intercepted and stolen the cargo that was actually
(12:25):
meant for the native peoples of this region. Right, So
they'll think, oh, well that was Hey, I I wrote
my note on the piece of paper and it didn't
show up for me. And then all of a sudden,
you show up and you've got all this stuff. You've
got I don't know, radios and microwaves or whatever. Uh,
that that's got to be mine. You must have stolen it, right,
And so that leads to conflict. In fact, the Japanese
during World War Two saw they became highly unpopular in
(12:47):
this region, um, mainly because they tried to disarm and
disperse the population. But the natives essentially thought that they
were interfering with this kind of cargo cult mentality and
attacked their warships with canoes, uh, And they thought that
they would be invulnerable because they doused themselves in a
kind of holy water, but then they were slain by
Japanese machine guns. So it's really tragic actually when you
(13:09):
think about it on a kind of larger scale. But
of course, you know, all of World War two was
and so where this ties into, I think stuff that
we're beginning to see in in modern society as well,
is the idea that like there's a connection between the
cargo being delivered and the deity manifesting and the end times, right,
that like this is the end of our modern are
(13:32):
not ours, but like the way of living that we
understand is ending, and a new age will be brought
about by this arrival, right, Uh. Essentially a limitialist worldview. Yeah,
I've seen it referred to that way and in a
couple of the literature pieces of literature that we read
for this piece. But yeah, that like some kind of
cataclysmic event has to happen first before the paradise occurs,
(13:56):
and so subsequently then there's this like weird logical behavior
that they have because they're like, well, it's all gonna end,
so let's just burn to the ground anyways, right, Like,
let's we'll destroy all of our actual resources because who
cares That airplane is going to come and bring us
the cargo that we need and we're never gonna have
to worry about growing crops or um maintaining livestock again. Right. So,
(14:19):
I actually have a personal experience with a situation very
similar to this that's happening in my life right now,
and I think it's worth sharing with the listeners because
maybe you have something else going on that's similar. My
father believes that the end of the world is coming, uh,
very strongly. Not only does he believe that's coming, he
has a date. He thinks it's going to happen on
(14:39):
October one of this year. Um. And so he is
currently in the middle of making what I call his
magical Mystery Tour. Uh. He's touring around the world going
to see all of the sites that he either hasn't
gotten to see yet, Like he went to Jerusalem, or
he just took his wife to New York City or
visiting family members that he hasn't seen in a long time,
(15:01):
because he thinks this is the end. Uh. And it's
when I was reading about these cargo cults, I was like, oh,
this is what's good. Like it seems crazy to me,
but it's the same thing that's kind of going on
with my dad, right that he's like, well, in order
for Paradise to show up, right, because it's this is
very deeply connected to his beliefs in Christianity. Um, he
(15:22):
thinks that it has to it has to all be
destroyed first, right, Like we can't imagine a world without
a new world, without an apocalypse. Yeah, I mean, you're right.
I mean the ideas that are wrapped up in cargoism,
they are not that dissimilar from from many of the
the ideas existing in in in various Christian movements that
(15:44):
are very much based on the imminent into the world
as we know it, the imminent return of a savior.
And he creates a very dramatic model for the near
future with with a with a more or less definite
timeline to work with. Whereas maybe that's part of the
attraction of it, right, is that it gives you a
definite timeline for for the future that is just not
(16:06):
realistic outside of this particular worldview. Yeah, I mean for me, like,
and you know, I don't want to dive to down
the personal hole for for myself here, just because that
probably wouldn't be fair to the audience. We should cover
the topic at hand here. But looking at my dad's
experience with it, like it seems to me like it's
more of an issue of like he's come to this
point where he doesn't really see how he fits in
(16:28):
to the modern world, right, Like, um, it's it's like
almost like it's grown past him. And so the way
that he deals with that is saying, well, then, of
course that like if I'm irrelevant, then that must mean
the world's gonna end, right that like there's some kind
of imaginary it's easier to create something that's fantastical, right,
(16:49):
like in the magical thinking terms than it is to
sort of come to grips with the complexities of reality. Yeah,
and apocalypse is kind of the uh, it's kind of
the reset, but it's kind of the age quit even yeah,
of life, right, Yeah, I don't know if others out
there have experiences with like something like that, or if
I know, it seems pretty crazy to me when I
(17:10):
when I hear my family members talk about this, but
you know it is it's just kind of interesting like
that you can see somebody in two sixteen sort of
initiating the same behaviors of I'm just gonna leave all
that other stuff behind and let it basically uh lay fallow.
Uh and and because why bother right, like the it's
(17:31):
it's the apocalypse is coming anyways, um and and all
the goodies will come my way. I don't need to
really worry about like earning money or I don't know,
um that farming my fields. As the example goes with
cargo cults, and of course it just brings us to
the question of of how do you interpret the idea
of cargoism, How do you interpret cargo itself or cargo
(17:52):
as it's known in the Pigeon English is of melan Asia,
Because on one hand, it's something that a cargo cult,
you know, lead or instigated by a charis attic leader.
That's always important to remember there are there are strong
elements of cults as we know it inherent in these
cargo cults. Um. So the uh they asked for it
through dance, through marching, ritual communication with spirits, in the
(18:14):
building of these effigies in some cases, so in its
most literal form, we're talking about cargo as money or
Western manufactured goods that are shipped into the island, and
massive amounts particularly that we're talking about that you know,
during the Pacific War. The most remarkable version, of course,
is just about the recreation of landing strips and airplanes, um,
you know, making it possible for these items to return. Yeah,
(18:38):
I mean in down to wharves and warehouses and the
radio towers. One is the one that kept getting me.
They would actually build antennas, and it was like they
didn't understand what an antenna was, but they saw what
it looked like, and they knew there was some kind
of cause and effect between the antenna and the cargo arriving, right. Um,
so they did their best to replicate that. You know.
(18:58):
I didn't encounter the in the material we're looking at,
But I wonder to what extent um cargo cultism plays
into ancient astro not beliefs. I'm assuming there's a strong
connection there. Uh, But I'm not done. I'm not that
familiar with all the ancient haster not the materials out there. Yeah,
I don't. I don't know if you've ever done an
episode on it before. I'm wondering if the conspiracy guys
(19:21):
here at how stuff works or do stuff they don't
want you to know, have done something on it. But
can you just briefly summarize that for our audience. This
is the idea that extraterrestrial visitors or I think in
some cases you know, maybe it's somebody from the future,
but anyway, some Essentially, it's saying that humanity as we
know it was shaped by an outside context um event
(19:41):
earlier in its existence. So you know, space aliens came
and showed us how to make bread. It's sort of
like the Stargate model, right, Like I think Stargate is
sort of based off of that idea that, like the
deities that were worshiped in ancient Egypt were actually technologically
advanced aliens. There's something long list, and you know, I
could see if someone were looking at the cargo cult model,
(20:03):
you could take that model apply it to ancient civilizations
and you could try and make you know, you try
and bring the two together and say, well, they built
this particular monument uh as a kind of you know,
fake radio tower. They were trying to um to recreate
the form, though we're unable to understand the function of
you know, very technologically advanced items. And I brought up
(20:26):
economics earlier, So here's kind of an example of how
the economics aspect played out in this region in a
similar way to the cargo cult thing wasn't necessary. I mean,
they were connected, but it wasn't necessarily an example of it.
But so, for instance, they would find, hey, we're trading
with these colonials that have shown up all of a sudden,
I don't know what. They're giving them cava maybe uh,
(20:49):
and are selling them and uh, it's worth thirty pounds
one week, right, And so they think, okay, this unit
of cavas worth thirty pounds. And then a couple of
weeks later, the colonials show up and they say, we're
only going to give you five pounds for it now,
and they go, well, what are you talking about? Why
it was it's worth thirty pounds uh. And because they
have no you know, outside context for understanding like fluctuations
(21:12):
of the value of a pound or the value of
cava or whatever. Uh it, it doesn't make sense for them, right,
and that to us seems like a basic cause and
effect type thing, right, but then extrapolate that outwards to
like a d if it proportion, right. Yeah. So so
with this literal idea of cargo, uh it's it's easy
(21:34):
to see why many of these cults flared up and
then died out right, because you can only build fake
airplanes and landing strips and radio towers so long. You
can only pray to these gods that people have seen
so long before there it becomes apparent they're not coming
back and you're not getting any of these material items. However,
(21:57):
let's go back to that idea that there's very much
a merger of ideas going on here, that these are
people that had existing mythologies, that had an existing worldview,
and they were impacted by the trauma of this outside
context problem and not just completely reshaped by it. Yeah.
It reminds me of the way that Catholicism has affected
(22:18):
some localities like mystical or supernatural beliefs, and they've sort
of mixed together. Right. Um, I think the common one
that a lot of people think of is like voodoo
and hoo doo. It is. Actually somebody actually just wrote
into us recently and asked us, asked us to do
an episode on the difference between the two. And I
don't really feel confident that in having done the research
(22:39):
enough to explain it right here, but maybe we'll do
something on that in the future. But like something like that,
that merger of cultures is sort of what's going on here, right, Yeah. Yeah,
So but it's like capital intersecting with religion. Yeah, yeah, indeed.
I mean you end up with a sort of a
metaphorical cargoism, where where cargo or or cago can also
(23:00):
mean a number of things including return of dead ancestors,
achievement of balanced exchange, relations with Europeans, um, you know,
sense of honor and self worth, desire for political sovereignty,
the transformation and transcendence of everyday reality. So so cargo,
the thing you're you're asking for, becomes less about this
(23:21):
material delivery and more of a spiritual delivery. Yeah. And
so today the ones that survived, like we're gonna talk
to you about John from uh, they maybe they're still
cargo cults, or maybe they've stopped being cargo cults, and
they've merged into becoming churches or what we recognized as
a church, or even a political party or a business organization. Right, Like,
(23:43):
I guess it's like their version of um, like an
Elks lodge or something like that. Yeah, yeah, they are
Knights of Columbus. I don't know. Sorry, that's like a
New England reference. I don't know do they we're in Atlanta.
Do they have Knights of Columbus and Elks lodges down here?
They have Elk lodges. I'm not totally certain about Knights
of Columbus. Oh, that's probably not really our bag anyways.
(24:05):
I don't know that we would necessarily know. Um well,
I the Elks clubs were really big when I grew up,
Like that was very much a too important part of
the local community. Um So, some anthropologists argue that a
lot of this boils down to the manner by which
Melanesian cultures embrace a and this is a from anthropologist
(24:27):
Lamont and Lyndstrom. That's an awesome name. He uh says
that they embrace they quote constant background of imminent cargoism
or expectation of sudden episodic change, which I really like
that definition because it plays into nice nicely to this
idea of the trauma of the outside context problem. And
I have a few other just quick definitions of cargoism
(24:50):
that come from a few of these from a few
different sources we looked at, and I just want to
roll through them just so we had just to make
sure we have that firm grounding before we continue. UM.
Christian Science Monitor correspondent Nick Squire's uh defined it as
quote a highly complex reaction by bewildered Islanders to the
influence of Western modernity. UH. Kirk Huffman, a British anthropologist
(25:12):
who lived in Venatu for seventeen years. UH the defined
it as quote a way for traditional people to come
to terms with colonialism and Christianity. And Ralph Reagan Reagan AVU,
director of the Vanatu Natural Cultural Council UM, says quote
it's basically a cultural preservation movement and melds exposure to
(25:34):
the West with old belief systems. It served people well uh.
And he he also describes it as kind of a
rejection of fully packaged Christianity. So it all comes back
around to this idea that cargo cults were kind of
the middle ground survival method, and so that they you know,
they they couldn't they couldn't do nothing but change. But
this there was a way to change that didn't mean
(25:56):
just completely giving in to what the colonials wanted you
to be. Yeah, which is I mean, I guess like
we'll have to wait until the aliens show up and
conquer us. But like that's kind of how I imagine
it would go, right, unless it goes I mean, there's
so many science fiction portrayals of first contact like that.
But but I suppose the other option is that it
(26:16):
could just be like utterly violent, you know. Okay, so
we're about to take a break, but when we come back,
we're going to talk about two specific examples of cargo cults,
the John From Movement and the Prince Philip Movement. Okay,
we're back, so let's get into John From. This is
(26:38):
really like the it's really well laid out in this
long form article in Smithsonian magazine. And uh I I
was absolutely kind of enthralled by this story of I mean,
I don't I don't remember when the piece was written.
It was relatively recent though, right, And this guy went
and visited this cult and talk to all of them
(27:00):
interviewed them, and it us cults almost doesn't feel like
the right term to use, you know. Cargo cult is
the term the anthropologist coined to describe this, but this
one's been going for so long that it doesn't really
feel like that. Yeah, and the Smithsonian article in question
is in John they Trust, and we'll make sure there's
a link to it on a landing page for this
(27:20):
episode step to Blow your Mind dot com. But yeah,
John From, Uh, who is John From? Well, John From
is probably John from America that we think that's the
supposed root of it. Nobody really knows who this guy is.
There's a um, you know, record within their culture of him, obviously,
(27:41):
but we don't know who John From was. Apparently it
happened in like the nineteen thirties, right, Yeah, Yeah, and
it uh And it it ties in perfectly. It's it's
basically the main example of CARGOI isom and it it
ties into everything we've discussed so far. It entails the
sort of paradoxical promise of both uh you know, returned
and preserved customs uh and the alien materialism of the
(28:05):
distant US, you know, engaging in both uh, both literal
and metaphorical cargo. Uh. This has been very much the
one on the model of cargoism where we see the
construction of the fake airplanes and radio towers and landing strips,
um and it's uh, it's still going. Uh. February is
(28:25):
John From Day where the faithful celebrate um John From
and continue to pray for his return. Yeah, and the
ideas you know, like like we've described with cargo cults before,
in this episode, he's going to return one day. Uh.
And this is to clarify, this is in Venua to
on the remote island of tana Um and he's going
(28:46):
to show up, and he's gonna bring radios, TVs, trucks, boats, watches,
ice box machines, medicine, Coca Cola, and many wonderful things.
I'm glad Coca Cola made it in there because it
is it's a pretty wonderful thing. Uh. I didn't in
this episode, but yeah, like uh, it's just interesting. Basically
the idea is, and you know, in the mythos of
(29:08):
John From he's a white man who showed up, Uh
told them, Hey, you don't need to go along with
what these colonialists are telling you to do. Follow me
and I'll be back. I'm gonna go away, but I'm
gonna come back and I'm gonna bring stuff to you.
You know. I'm glad you mentioned the Coca Cola specifically,
because if you if you want to get into the
idea of of of of commercial globalization, realization has its
(29:34):
own kind of religion and cult, visit the Coca Cola
Museum here in Atlanta because it is light entering the
spaceship temple of a of a of a consumerist church. Uh.
And I say that without any you know, comment on
the product itself. But it's like, it's like if John
Draper at the end of of mad Men really did
(29:56):
found his own religion in a way he did. I mean, really,
if you're confused by the ending of the Madman series,
go to the Coca Cola Museum because that is kind
of the more sense. Yeah, that well, that everything will
make sense. You're like, oh John John Hamm's Don Draper
becomes God at the end of mad Man. I can
definitely attest to the cult of Coca Cola in my
(30:16):
international travels. I mean, it's everywhere obviously, and it uh,
it tastes differently wherever you're going. In fact, I have
never been to the Coca Cola Museum despite having lived
here for ten years. But uh, I climbed the Great
Wall of China when I was sixteen years old, and
I remember, um, there was like a like sort of
like a rest point, right, and you could buy snacks,
(30:39):
and there are obviously snacks that were meant to be
for Westerners who were going across the Great Wall of China.
And they had something called Choca Cola and it was
designed to look exactly like a you know, a red
and white Coca Cola design, but it tasted kind of
like if you mixed hot coca cola with you who
and and uh and it was flat. And I was like, oh, okay,
(31:04):
like this isn't what I was expecting, but you know,
it's yeah, it's kind of like reached. It's a it's
the specter of consumerist or the hydra of consumerist products. Right.
It's tentacles are everywhere. So one of my favorite parts
about this John from America article was that the the
guy who wrote it mentioned in particular how he spoke
(31:29):
to the various leaders because they actually divided into two
separate and there was almost like a civil war between them.
I think they actually ended up having like a battle
with axes or something like that that's described at one
point it sounded awful, but um, one of the leaders
had been to America and had spent time in California,
and he was like, so you've been, You've seen where
(31:52):
the cargo comes from. Why do you still, you know,
espouses beliefs And he says. The guy's response was, well,
you know, you Americans have been waiting for Christ to
come back for two thousand years. How's it any different? Yeah,
And that really kind of hit me and went, oh yeah, okay, sure, yeah,
And it's it's also worth worth noting you mentioned, like
(32:13):
this individual has been to the to the US and
what there are certain individuals in any of these movements
that have they they they they have had the experience
of of greater contact with the outside world. But most
of the people who follow these the belief systems, they
do not. They live in very um, very rural areas
(32:34):
with very limited access to any of the modern communication
infrastructure that we take for granted. So let's talk about
Prince Philip. That's the other one. Uh, And it's again
like another one that's that's uh, you know, highly connected
to Western culture sort of infiltrating these societies. Yeah, the
Prince Philip movement, they venerate Britain's Prince Philip, husband to
(32:57):
Queen Elizabeth the second born as of this recording, still kicking, uh,
still kicking at the age. Uh. They cherished portraits of
Prince Philip. They hold the feasts on his birthday, and
they say things like, this is a quote he is
(33:17):
he is a god, not a man. Sometimes we hear
his voice, but we can't see him. So uh. This
on the surface also sounds like just it's easy to
take a very black and white view with this. You
just imagine, uh, you know, the indigenous people they see
this esteemed royal individual from uh, you know, a modern society,
(33:39):
and they decide, this is a god, let's worship him.
But it's a little more complicated than that. Um. The
same thing ended up happening during World War Two with
with Roosevelt. One of the cargo cults referred to him
as Russa Fell, the friendly King of America, and he was,
you know, one of the deities that they thought would
bring them this sort of paradise. Yeah. Yeah, and it
(34:01):
and it The thing is it ends up it ties
into traditional beliefs that they already had, including an ancient
prophecy that the son of a mountain spirit would venture
far away in search of a powerful woman to marry.
When this ties in particularly to UH to Prince Philip
movement here. So anyway, they have this idea of the
mountain spirit marrying a powerful woman. So then they get
(34:23):
Christian missionaries that that visit with tales of Christ. They
blend some of that in. Then the locals began to
see all the esteem that was afforded to Queen Elizabeth
the Second UH and combined the ideas of their son
of a mountain spirit with q E two's royal consort
here UH and this would have been the nineteen fifties
or sixties, and Polife were bolted even more when the
(34:46):
royal couple actually visited Vanato in nineteen seventy four. And
there's apparently been an exchange of photographs and tribal icons
and honors. I think like a club was sent UH
to Prince Philip. UH. They don't hang out together, but
they have sort of a limited exchange, but there's a
(35:07):
kind of So for me, there's an interesting like, I
don't know how to put it, Like I guess that
we in America don't do so as much, but I
know in Great Britain that there is like this weird
celebrity slash deification reverence for the royal family, right. And
so if you're in the royal family, if you're Queen Elizabeth,
(35:27):
you're already fairly used to that, right, like that's been
most of your life. Then when you go to this
far away place and these people literally revere you as
a god, Um, I wonder like if there's impact to that.
It's it's weird. It reminds me a lot of the
Rastafari movement. Of course, um believe that that highly Selassie,
(35:51):
the former Emperor of of the Ethiopia, was the Messiah
and uh, and so you had this situation where during
his life time, you know, he's in Ethiopia, but in
Jamaica there is this growing number of people who believe
that he is divine. And then how does he deal
with that? I mean, because he you know, it's it's
not polite to completely, you know, squash their ideas. But
(36:14):
then to what extent can you play along with it
without you know, becoming delusional. Yeah, I guess I suppose
like we'd like to think that somebody like Queen Elizabeth is,
even though she's royal, that she's also decent enough to
sort of not allow people to think that she's actually
like a supernatural entity. Right, Well she's not, but her husband,
(36:36):
but her husband is. I guess that's fair. Yeah, Well,
you know, I'm I actually I am not certain exactly
what they think of her. But surely if she's the
the queen and there, and if she's the spouse of
a god, then then she's at least the Dammi God. Right.
But yeah, it's fascinating, especially since it's occurring with people
who who were already we in what we think of
(36:57):
as being modern and better and not primitive, right, are
already revering these people in a way that's bordering on religious. Yeah,
and then but then also to what extent you know, again,
it's the melding too. So are they taking an existing
belief system and sore just wrapping it in the skin
Prince Philip, or or are they trying to understand these
(37:19):
distant British royal figures by wrapping them in the myth
or maybe it's a little bit of both. Yeah, I'd
love to hear if anybody out there has a little
bit more of a connection to this. I wonder if
maybe this is something that our British listeners are a
little bit more familiar with. Also, when you say wrapping
them in the skin of Prince Philip, immediately think that, like,
that's going to be the eli Roth version of this, right,
Like he'll make some torture porn movie about a cargo cult,
(37:43):
but they actually take the royal skin and just wrap
it around the cargo at the end of the movie. Well, yeah,
I could see that happening. Alright. Well, let perfect segue
to talk about cargo cult science. Yeah, yeah, cargo cult
science and UH. As we mentioned already, this idea comes
to us from American theoretical physicist Richard Feynman, who lived
(38:05):
nineteen eighteen through UH and particularly he laid this out
in the nineteen seventy four cal Tech commencement speech, which
is available online and it's also published in some of
his books. Um, but he uses cargo cults as a
metaphor for the public's interest in pseudo science. In particular,
he invoked the cargoist use of landing strips, etcetera. In
(38:30):
the John From movement, and his main targets worse when
he was going after stuff like esp UFOs, natural medicines, um,
these things that often seem scientific or their cloaked in science,
but there's something missing. As you quoted him earlier, the
planes don't land. Yeah, and Feineman. Uh. You know, he
basically took it from looking at quote unquote pseudoscience, which
(38:54):
doing a show like Stuptable in your mind. We both
investigate and here that term thrown around a lot. Um.
But he determined that actually, like even outside of pseudo science,
we don't really live in a scientific world. We like
to think that we do, but we don't. Um. But yeah,
you're right. Like he was investigating mysticism, things like isolation
(39:14):
tanks and John C. Lily, which we've covered recently. Even psychotherapy.
He was convinced that a lot of psychotherapy was all
similar to cargo cultism. Uh. And I love this story
that was in this article that we looked at for
this UM. He went to the famed I don't know
what you call it as it is. It at slin
(39:35):
It's I believe it's in California. It's like one of
those sort of resort slash um body mind therapy places,
and he was there. The story goes that he was
there investigating and he was hanging out in a hot
tub and there was a guy and a girl next
to him in the hot tub, and the guy says
to the girl, Hey, can I practice my massage techniques
(39:58):
on you? And she says yeah, sure, okay, and uh
he starts rubbing her feet in the bathtub in front
of Richard Feynman and he goes, I think I think
I'm on your pituitary gland right now, And Fineman goes, uh,
you're pretty far away from it, buddy, and realizes like that,
actually this guy was a reflexology student there at the
(40:20):
Center and had been studying the science of reflexology, which
is something I'd love to cover for the show. Um
and but but he like had no basic principal understanding
of where things were in the body and thought the
pituitary gland was in your foot. Yeah, that's that's one
of Fineman is one of these guys who in all
of his writings, he's he's always throwing out these interesting
(40:43):
little stories about himself. Uh that you know that they're
often amusing. Uh there, here's a quote from this particular speech.
He said that kind of sums up a lot about
what we're talking. Says, So, I call these things cargo
cult science because they follow all the apparent precepts and
forms of science of investigation, but they're missing something essential
because the planes don't land. So the form is perfect,
(41:06):
it looks like it did before, but it doesn't work.
It's it's it's form over function. It's kind of like
it's a surface level understanding and deification of a thing
without understanding how it actually works. There's something missing and
what is that? Yeah, and so, like I said, like,
he extrapolates that outwards later on from the pseudoscience world
(41:29):
to the reality that he's working within in uh scientific academia,
and he basically comes to the collusion that our science
is basically to us is well, just give all the
information that you've looked at to other people and that
will help them judge the value of your contribution. Right.
That's essentially how he viewed peer view uh science and um.
(41:50):
But then he said, what about all these revelations in
the past where like we've done scientific experiments, they have
been published articles we've accepted them is fact, and then
twenty fifty a hundred years later, we look back and
we go, oh, they carried the two wrong on that equation.
We've been totally wrong about this the whole time, and
(42:12):
we reassess it and then realize, well, that that scientific
system didn't really work, but this time it will. You know. Yeah, well,
I think and that it gets I mean, you know, ultimately,
what he's arguing is missing in these these models of
cargo cult sciences, scientific integrity and strict adherence to the
scientific method. So in a way, what we're talking about
here is realizing that scientific knowledge itself can have errors
(42:37):
in it, but it's the but the scientific method that
is the path where we by which we continue to
change our scientific understanding of the world. We continue to
evolve it and and realize where we've made mistakes. Uh,
where past theories were inaccurate. Uh. And you know, to
his point, you have to be ready to fail. You
have to make your material um readily avail well so
(43:00):
that individuals can point out that critics can point out
where you may have gone wrong as well as read
you know, where you think you went right. Yeah, he
there's a point sort of towards the end of this
article that we read where Fineman starts talking about sort
of you know, if you've worked in the public sector
or well, I guess it's not necessarily a public sector.
If you've just worked in academia, especially doing science, you
(43:22):
know that for some particular reasons, there's there's dirty financial
realities behind it, right, And he said, you know, if
we are only publishing the results that make us look good,
that's dishonest. And he had a bunch of contemporaries that
we're doing. You know, they would say, well, these results
didn't come out the way that we need them too
for us to get funding to do the thing we
want to do, So we're not going to share them
(43:43):
with the world. Now here's where I'm going to take
it a little bit step further. And I imagine that
there's some people out in the audience who are going
to disagree with me strongly, So uh, send those angry
tweets or hate mail to uh blow the mind at
how stuff works dot Com. I thought you're gonna give
Joe's address, Oh yeah, at Joe McCormick. No, Uh, I
(44:05):
would say, if if Fineman was you know still looking
at this today in modern society, we're looking at science
to provide us with the cargo and to bring us
the paradise, the same way that we look down on
the Melanese for doing so right. We think of without
really understanding it too. We think of science is sort
(44:26):
of the religion that's going to bring us the thing eventually. Uh.
And I see this especially in science entertainment, both on
television and social media and yes podcasts. Uh And and
you know some of our peers out there that there's
sort of just a like, wow, isn't science great? Look
at this? Look at this thing that we found out
(44:47):
about science? Weird? Huh cool. Look, it's defining the world
for you, but there's no like real understanding of what
it actually means. It's just taking like another sort of
framework and substituting it for cargo cultism. Yeah. It's just
the sort of the deification of of a science effigy, loving,
(45:07):
loving the form, loving the things that it's given us,
but not really necessarily involving a deep understanding of how
it works and how it has brought us these things,
and being able to properly extrapolate what it can realistically
give us in the future. I mean, this is the
thing that I feel like a lot of us fall
(45:29):
into at varying levels. So I'm not saying that everybody
necessarily has this sort of yea science bumper sticker level
of understanding, you know, an appreciation for science. But but
even just you know, the average person, you can sort of,
you know, subconsciously decide, Hey, you know, I don't really
need to worry about my life, my quality of life
(45:52):
in twenty forty years because science will surely figure that out.
I don't have to worry about this particular um ecological
cold problem. I don't have to worry about climate change
because the sciences is there. We can figure it out.
I don't need to worry about um, you know, like
a comet or meteorite and crashing into the Earth because
the sciences is coming together on that. Science is going
(46:14):
to reach its divine hand in and snatch that planetary
body away before it can destroy me. Yeah. We almost
see that in a lot of our like a sort
of tent pole, big blockbuster apocalyptic movies, right Like a
lot of times now, the hero who solves the problem,
whether it's the comet coming at Earth or it's aliens
(46:34):
showing up on our doorsteps. Yeah, I mean Independence Day
like that is that is total cargo cult science, cargo
cult computer science. I guess where it's just like, oh,
don't worry, science has got this computer hacker comes in
and then it just all taken care of and awards
off a complete outside context problem that really would it
(46:54):
should have just wiped out everybody. And yeah, it's silly,
but we also just sort of accept it because science,
it's is somewhat of a religion for us. Now. Um.
Feynman had a quote about this. He said, science is
the belief in the ignorance of experts. And I like
that especially um. And he also said that, you know,
it's up to all of us to assess the premises
(47:15):
and conclusions that are presented to us by scientific research.
It's not just we shouldn't just accept some panel of invisible,
peer reviewed people telling us this is good, this, this
will do it. Um. And I'd like to think, you know,
this applies to our show. We try to do that
in the research and uh, but I think also, as
(47:35):
we suggested in that Wicked Problems episode that we did,
that it's up to all of us to participate. So, yeah,
Robert and Joe and I can sit here and relay
all these facts and papers to you, but don't just
take it as you know, the religious fact, right, Like,
go out there and get involved yourself. Look at some
of the stuff yourself. I think you'll find some stuff
(47:56):
between the lines that we're not necessarily picking up on.
Everybody approaches this different indeed. All right, So this brings
us to the idea of cargo cult programming UM. And
this was coined by software engineer Steve McConnell in two
thousand and He was very much playing off Feynman's definition
of cargo cult science, even quoting him in the intro.
(48:16):
And this again harkins to the notion of fake airfields,
meant to invoke the return of cargo UM, the idea
that the cargoists understood the form but not the content. Likewise,
some programmers, according to McDonald right that they think that
they know what code does, they know how it, but
they don't know how it does it. They can't make
(48:37):
meaningful changes to the code. They can only tinker and
toy with the pre existing form. Yeah, this is UM
an extended argument in UM. Are you familiar with Douglas Rushkov, No,
I don't believe so. He's a he's a really interesting
media theorist, and he had this book came out a
couple of years ago called Programmer, Be Programmed. The essential
argument was, you know, all of us in modern days
(49:00):
society are interacting with our phones or interacting with our computers.
We get how the operating system works. Some of us.
We we get that, right, Like we we know how
to like make it do the things we wanted to do,
but we don't understand it beneath that layer. And that subsequently,
that kind of misunderstanding can lead to us being uh
(49:20):
co opted or manipulated in some ways. Um. And I
think largely his argument is like economically, but uh, that's
kind of the same thing here, right, it's like, understand
it just a little bit deeper. I don't think like
these guys are making the argument that we should all
become like professional level coders here, but sort of understand
how things work under the hood a little bit so
(49:41):
that those who do aren't able to take advantage of you. Yeah.
And and in in a sense too, it also gets
into the idea, you know, standing on the shoulders of giants, right,
where you have this accumulated system and no, no one
really understands everything about it, so all we can do
is just tinker with it and change it a little
(50:02):
bit without really creating any kind of perhaps necessary drastic
changes that would actually improve the product. So McConnell says
that the cargo cult programmers refused to acknowledge the tradeoffs
involved in either process oriented or commitment oriented development. Uh,
and the difference they're being like a process oriented um
(50:25):
development involves like, you know, strict adherence to this is
how we create things. And then the commitment oriented is
like everybody here really knows their stuff, give them the
freedom in the space they need to do it. This
is like another application of again like these are cargo cultism,
I think, and wicked problems are highly connected. Because McConnell
sort of lays out look like those are two theories
(50:47):
of running an organization. But there are impostor organizations out there, right,
and so he calls like the process impostor organizations are
the ones that they see a successful company and they go, well,
how are they succes sessful? They're generating a lot of
documents and they have a lot of meetings so we
should do the same things, will generate a lot of documents,
and we'll have a bunch of meetings. But then they
(51:08):
don't understand that this is that's not what makes the
other people successful, right, That's not what's responsible for it.
And likewise the commitment one. There's impostors as well, where
they say, well, that organization, I think Microsoft was the
example he used at the time, was that organization. They
don't generate a lot of documents. They offer stock options
to their employees, and they expect that their employees will
(51:29):
work a lot of overtime, So we should do the
same thing. Uh, we should do that, And they don't
realize that's not what leads to success. The reason why
people are working the overtime is because they love their jobs.
They love what they're doing, and that's what's leading to
the success. Yeah. Yeah, And certainly I think there are
their applications for this and pretty much any discipline in
any business, Like to what extent does an individual or
(51:51):
an organization really understand the business or the product in
which they are engaged into. What extent are they just
they build those airplane effigies? Are they just creating the
things that seem to be to line up with success
and hoping that the cargo comes alright. So the final
idea I want to mention, and we've, as with all these,
(52:12):
we've kind of touched on some of this already is
the idea of cargo cult sustainability. And this is another
idea that came out of the seventies, UH, from this
time from sociologist William R. Caton Jr. In his paper
Environmental Optimism Cargo Cults in Modern Society from we assume
that our technological advancement will save us as it seemingly
(52:33):
has in the past, without really backing that idea up
very well. Instead, quote runaway world technology reduces rather than
enhances the habitats carrying capacity. All forms of human organization
and behavior that are based on the obsolete assumption of
limitlessness will necessarily change somehow to forms that are combatible
(52:54):
with finite limits of the world ecosystem. Um. Here's another quote.
This is from Overshoot, which was one of the books
by William R. Katon Jr. Said, quote the type two
cargo cult which we're talking about here, Uh belief held
that great technological breakthroughs would inevitably occur in the near
(53:15):
future and would enable man to continue indefinitely expanding the
world's human caring capacity. This was a mere faith in
a faith like stock market speculation. It had no firmer
basis than naive statistical extrapolation, the uncritical supposition that past
technological advances could be taken as representative samples of an
(53:37):
inherently unending series of comparable achievements. And I think that
that nicely sums it up. He he ends up breaking
it down even in an even greater detail, talking about
our our belief that they'll be unlimited food, unlimited alternatives,
unlimited energy that will be able to you know fully
harness the Sun's power, um that there'll be other technological escapes,
(53:58):
and even ideological escape will prevent themselves. So get from
the idea that we think the technology will come and
we think that we can change and that in our
ascension we can change the rules of the game that
we are losing. You know what that sounds like to me?
Uh the like inherent optimism of Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek
vision that like, eventually we're going to get to a
(54:20):
point where like we can just uh print food, you know,
and we don't need to worry about food, and we
don't need to worry about energy. Uh, and we won't
need to worry about war on Earth. Uh. It'll be
the you know, exploring the rest of the universe that
that brings about those problems again. Yeah, we just have
faith that the cargo will come and we don't think
(54:41):
about all the steps necessary mechanisms responsible for that happening. Yeah, exactly.
All right, So there you have it. I think we're
gonna leave it there. Um, you know, we hope this
one will be a great topic to just stir up
conversation about, you know, about where we are now, about
where we've been in the past, and where we're going
to go in the future, both in reality and in
(55:02):
our various science science fiction models out there. Yeah. So,
if you have insights to add to this, or maybe
you had some kind of epiphany while you're listening to this,
or maybe you're furious at me or Robert right now,
you can write into us, first of all, on Facebook,
Twitter tumbler. I suppose you could also write into us
on Instagram. I don't quite know how that works yet,
but I guess we'll maybe post an image of the
(55:22):
episode to go along with us. Uh, so you could
write in there too, uh let us know what you think.
Or you can just get in touch with us the
old fashioned way and send love or hate mail to
blow the mind at how stuff works dot com. Well
(55:46):
more on this than thousands of other topics. Is it
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