The Nesting Dolls of Failure

Having often wondered about the utility of the Russian Matryoshka, or nesting, dolls, not that they need a purpose, I did hit upon an educational or referential utility they might serve as they otherwise sit on a desk or a shelf collecting dust.  For example, if I ever have a reason to recall the order of Soviet Premiers, or, in a similar vein, the succession of Rush Limbaugh's ex-wives, I can maintain a record, and satisfy a need for visual pleasure, in the form of nesting dolls.  But nesting dolls can also be useful to ignite the mental faculties by representing concepts in which one is nested conceptually, and physically, inside a larger one.  For example, the biological classification system from species to kingdom with the species the smallest and innermost doll to kingdom as the largest and outermost doll could make a set.  Maybe somebody has already capitalized on this idea and made no money at it, which would be consistent with every other idea I've ever had. 

But the idea sure to capture the imagination of consumers of nesting dolls everywhere, as well as net me a large amount of cash, is the Nesting Dolls of Failure.  I don't have a detailed physical description of the individual dolls yet, but the conceptual frame I think is ready to go.  Imagine, though, that these dolls have hit the market and you have ordered a set from Amazon.  Once you've thanked the UPS delivery human you obey the greedy impulse to promptly tear open the box.  Now that you've dispersed the packaging randomly across the floor, you behold a series of the most beautiful objects you have yet beheld.  Coupled with this rapturously aesthetic moment is a mild, nagging guilt that you paid too little for them.  You determine to get on with life.

After setting them up neatly in a row, from left to right, the smallest doll to the largest you flip the on switch to your groovy lamp, light some sandalwood incense, and summon the ponderous self. 

So, the dolls.  The smallest doll on the left is called "Neoliberalism".  The second in order is called "Capitalism".  The third is "Economic Liberalism".  The fourth is "Industrialization", and the last?  The last and largest doll is called "Earth", which, you note happily, is both a concept and a physical place.  The contemplative blood is already flowing.

Fast on the heels of this insight is another.  There is a two-wayness in the conceptual flow, you realize, encapsulating both time and space.  From left to right the temporal flow goes backwards in history, and each successive concept is dependent on the larger one which preceded it.  "Ah yes," you think, "Neoliberalism is just the current and dominant form of capitalism!  Others can exist and work but they have been squashed by the international banking system."  But what of Capitalism?  It, too, is a system, one which emerged from the philosophical ruminations and scientific observations of Enlightenment thinkers who would often hang together in coffee shops. This formed the bedrock of Economic Liberalism that developed later, once Industrialization was underway. 

"That leaves the Earth," you think", "the place where people live.  It comes before all the others and, heck, without it I wouldn't need to think at all.  It's the biggest concept of all, really, if you think about it."  Turning it around, starting with the Earth as a three dimensional thing housing all the other dolls, comes the spatial insight.  That all the other dolls fit inside of the Earth doll means all the others are dependent on the Earth doll.  "Hmm," you wonder, "how does the Earth fail?"  You think "nah, the Earth can't fail, unless it's struck by an enormous meteor, or attacked by the Death Star.  And I can't do anything about either eventuality, anyway."

You suddenly feel ripped off.  You feel a disruption in the contemplative flow.  A weakness in the mind tool has been discovered and the grooviness of it has been dispelled.  You are incensed and vow to yourself to tell all your friends not to buy a set of  Nesting Dolls of Failure.  Resolving to end this experiment, you go to put out the Sandalwood and google the latest on Bruce Jenner when a further insight hits:  It is the failure of the Earth to support the subsequent physical outcomes represented by the nesting dolls that is the proper way to look at the entire series of dolls.    "What of all the rest?"  you say out loud.  "The other dolls are causing the failure!  Dammit!"

Disappointment in the dolls has morphed into anger at them, but it quickly occurs to you how childish that is.  You sit down and think further.  There is an order to the failure, that the failure which begins with Neoliberalism moves into the future, a century perhaps, through the others.  Some of it will be conceptual failure, and some of it will be physical failure.  Some of it will be concurrent.  Some of it won't be complete failure.  A fractal like motion picture* passes before the mind's eye, which you attribute to the sandalwood, and a moment of clarity is at hand.  You realize that the Neoliberal doll is the most expensive to maintain and the Earth, the largest doll, and in a delicious Zen-like paradox, is the cheapest.  Wow!  Thus blown away you then begin to think about how much that is represented by these dolls is worth keeping and what cannot be kept.

Then you realize how paltry the sum you paid for these dolls was and resolve, in the new economic spirit shown by the rather gloomy band Radiohead, who only charged for their 2007 release "In Rainbows what people thought it was worth to them, to send even more money to the inventor of the Nesting Dolls of Failure.  Just cash.  Nothing traceable.  And by choosing to do this you have glimpsed a realm of possibilities about some radically different way people can live on the planet, even if it is somewhat idealistic.

And to emphasize the point, here is a song from "In Rainbows" that, with the help of some more sandalwood, might even be relevant to what I'm talking about.

*  This isn't crazy talk.  If you think about what is happening in Europe with Greece as a fractal expression of the larger global economy then broader patterns emerge.  Weaker economic agents are being squeezed by larger, richer entities protecting themselves from a broader decline in overall wealth.  Likewise, Europe as a weaker entity to the U.S. is losing out to American relative strength.  Inside America, the poor getting squeezed by the same forces is an internal fractal expression of the global tendency towards the same in virtually every country.  In other words, the process can be seen on large and small scales, which is what a fractal shows.