North Star

 Missing Guardrails and Signposts

There has been a lot of talk about the guardrails that keep government in check and democracy intact. However, there is less discussion about the disorientation of the people after familiar guideposts and milestones disappeared overnight. Professionals are no exception. Their projects are guided through design and construction by rules, codes, and regulations based on science and societal values.

Firm in the center of turmoil: The North Star (Image: NASA)

Developers rely on these frameworks to direct their investments and ultimately see them come to fruition. Uncertainty, confusion, and ambiguity are the enemies of investment, and the current blitzkrieg on the status quo is no exception.

Whether we are architects, developers, engineers, or anyone involved in designing and shaping the built environment, we are accustomed to navigating a maze of laws and regulations, often with the optimistic assumption that, albeit cumbersome, most of these serve noble purposes. It turns out that much of what guides and funds our projects originates at the federal level.

The tectonic shifts in Washington have removed many markers that we professionals use to ensure we are on the right path. If objectives such as sustainability, carbon footprint, diversity, equity, and inclusion—just to name a few—are suddenly declared obsolete, it is as disorienting as disappearing highway signs, malfunctioning GPS, or gas stations along our route being suddenly shuttered.

Values Beyond Regulations

Missing signs: When sustainability becomes
a bad word

Of course, we are not only guided by rules and regulations but also by professional values and our creativity. Our professional organizations cultivate these values. How will they react to the upheaval?

I am a member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), the Urban Land Institute (ULI), and Lambda Alpha International (LAI). These and other organizations represent hundreds of thousands of architects, engineers, developers, and land-use professionals who attend local, national, and international events, not only to obtain their continued education credits but also to sharpen their ability to place their projects in a larger societal context. Guidance from these organizations isn't as precise as "exit for downtown DC in 1/2 mile"; instead, it functions as a travel guide that provides information for selecting one’s destination in the first place.

Universities, with their academic reach and freedom, are even more important in shaping the values in which future professionals are trained. Will they remain independent enough to act as lighthouses for professionals?

It took our professional organizations half a century or so to mature from places of networking, marketing, and assisting with the nuts and bolts of cost, materials, and feasibility, to becoming broader resources that help us place our work in the context of social responsibility and performance standards that go beyond a classic pro forma.

As part of this slow-moving transformation, design professionals increasingly realized the hidden undercurrents of our society, from which professionals aren't inoculated either. Intentionally or not, our professions have, at times, assisted or enabled exclusion, contributing to and shaping an environment that is often inhumane, unhealthy, unsustainable, and not resilient. This realization has opened our eyes to the need for and utility of diversity, equity, and inclusion in our staffing, our actions, and the manner in which our projects relate to their societal and natural settings.

While teaching architecture and planning, I have observed how syllabi have expanded to address these many externalities of planning, engineering, and architecture.

Sustainability, Diversity, and Inclusion

Since buildings and transportation are the biggest emitters of carbon, how we design our buildings, towns, and cities is critical for the climate in which our children and grandchildren will live. Responsible action requires not only reducing emissions but also developing structures that can withstand increased weather and climate adversities, thus forming a viable environment for decades to come. Sustainability, therefore, cannot be a metric we toss aside. Without considering sustainability, our buildings, HVAC systems, elevators, glazing systems, vehicles, and trains would become internationally less competitive than they already are in many cases.

Floods like the one in Ashville become more frequent requiring
different design approaches (Webpage)

All professional organizations recognize the role of the built environment in global warming, human well-being, and the appropriate relationship between the man-made and nature. Cities have recognized that their most economically vital neighborhoods are those that accept and support artists, minorities, refugees, and the LGBTQ community, and only those diverse communities can attract the talent needed to maintain a well-trained workforce. Entrepreneurs and investors have found that only sustainable products can be sold abroad.

Starting in the 1970s, I practiced for ten years in Germany and England before coming to the U.S. Right away, I noticed how many more women were participating in leading roles in meetings and decision-making, how many colleagues and clients came from different cultures and races, and how this less homogeneous makeup enriched our projects. This culture fostered an environment where differing opinions were welcomed, contrasting with the "I am right, therefore you are wrong" approach I often encountered in German discussions surrounding historic preservation, urban renewal, or transportation. After a century in which homogeneous nation-states battled each other, the U.S. model of diversity has emerged as superior, just as nature has taught us that diversity increases resilience.

Ayn Rand's Howard Roark in the movies: Lone hero

Along with the shift to collaboration, diversity, and participation, architects have come a long way from channeling Ayn Rand's "Fountainhead" lone hero imposing personal convictions against societal objections, to recognizing that architecture is more than just aesthetically pleasing buildings designed by a solitary artist. Architects have come to realize that bringing projects to fruition is a team sport, requiring consideration of a much larger context than just a building and its lot. AIA and many other professional organizations have recognized that to design projects comprehensively, they should have a membership that reflects their clientele and the demographics of the country itself.

Similarly, developers have shifted from a project-based short-term focus to a longer-term view that considers operational costs, potential barriers for users, and their environmental footprint. Arriving in Baltimore, I had the good fortune of working for an up-and-coming developer who didn't just "do" a project because he could, but who also had a vision for the larger transformation of this post-industrial legacy city. He was not alone. Enlightened developers and planners can be found across America, from reviving the once desolate downtown of LA to repositioning Portland, Oregon, to revitalizing Detroit. ULI's events and materials reflect this shift, from the roving Advisory Service Panels to the "Urban Land" print publication and the online "Knowledge Finder," where materials regarding "green finance," "fair housing," "resilience," and "transit-oriented development" offer guidance for designers and investors alike.

AIA forum 2023: "Designing for a World in Flux" (Photo: Philipsen)

Transportation engineers have likewise realized that a car-centric monoculture has many unintended consequences and have begun paying attention to modal diversity and the reality that not everyone is a driver, nor is global urbanization feasible without diverse mobility options. Today, the National Transportation Research Board publishes many documents on carbon emissions, public participation, mobility inclusion, and equity.

At universities, architecture, planning, and engineering departments have attracted more women and minorities, utilizing new drafting, modeling, and GIS technologies extensively to analyze the societal contexts of their fictional (or sometimes real) projects, testing designs for climate performance or for equity and access in their communities.

While progress in all these areas has been slow, growing segments of the professional community have become unhappy—not only older white males who lost influence over boards and leadership roles. Environmentalists complain that laws from the 1960s have evolved into a thicket of rules that require extensive professional teams to navigate, resulting in environmental impact statements thicker than old-style big city phone books, without significantly improving projects. Developers lament how local zoning has become so byzantine that they need special zoning lawyers and expediters to navigate the labyrinth, often seeing projects mired in lengthy litigation. Companies hiring recent graduates have expressed concern that their new hires are insufficiently versed in the basics of design. Creatives wonder if DEI initiatives would stifle creativity or replace it with consensus. The so-called “wokeness” began to grate on those weary of being reminded of their real or perceived privilege. In short, three-quarters of a century in relative peace have produced a society perceived as too complex, too bureaucratic, and too slow to respond to shifting needs and circumstances.

Increasing diversity in the profession: Students at
Morgan State University in Baltimore (Photo: Philipsen)

The sluggish pace of development has had real consequences: a nationwide housing crisis, with less and less housing available, and even green projects like wind turbines, power lines, solar farms, and transit getting tangled in environmental restrictions. The most innovative developments in the built environment have occurred abroad, including high-speed rail.

Our economic competitiveness has not been aided by a rapidly aging population, a lack of well-trained and low-skilled workers, a pandemic, and wars that until recently seemed unthinkable. Across party lines, many agree that structural reform in numerous areas is inevitable.

The November elections reflected some of this discontent, but only a few believed that entire sections of the government should be dismantled or that massive disorientation and further division would remedy the accumulated problems. In a time of rapid technological innovation, a profession that, by definition, designs the future is, for the most part, unwilling to seek answers in the past.

Division

As divided as the country is, there are certainly design professionals and developers who rejoice at strong hands slashing everything that burdened, threatened, or frightened them. They have long opposed professional organizations influencing the built environment far beyond their original mission, sometimes with activist leanings related to the environment or social inclusion. Critiquing "social engineering" has long been a conservative strategy. Many creatives view the current upheaval as an opportunity for innovation, believing that breaking things is part of the creative process.

Conversely, a substantial group includes DEI provisions in their policies when fashionable and discards them just as quickly when the trend fades. In some cases, one might argue, good riddance. DEI as a mere sticker is unproductive; however, fighting for actual diversity and inclusion is essential for maximizing the potential of our population, whether for competitiveness or for human and civil rights. In this matter, the fog is especially thick.

AIA CEO Lakisha Ann Wood: ongoing hostilities

Take AIA: After the 2016 election, the longstanding white male executive director wrote a conciliatory note to the new President, signaling the Institute's collaboration. He faced heavy backlash from members but survived. In 2022, he was succeeded by a much younger Black female, who raised eyebrows for her management style and was even accused of mismanagement and corruption. Although cleared of wrongdoing by an independent investigation, she was so damaged by the efforts to discredit her that she resigned even before the re-elected President was sworn in. The ensuing discussion on the online forum of the "College of Fellows," a group representing less than 3% of the approximately 100,000 AIA architects, illuminates the discomfort with the expansion of traditional architectural responsibilities. Those elevated to this illustrious status are almost entirely older white males.

Building something may take a long time, but breaking it can occur in seconds. As hard as it has been to recognize or change centuries of white supremacy culture, sliding backward can happen in the blink of an eye.

Or can it? Once it is known that the earth is round, there is no going back—at least not for long. Some things are simply not a matter of opinion. This is especially true in our professions. In the fields of buildings, transportation, and land planning, the distinction between fact and fiction is not trivial. It is certainly bigger than gender-neutral bathrooms, paper versus plastic, or filament bulbs versus LED. The built environment we create today will affect generations to come, far beyond the four-year election cycle. It should be possible to find agreement on what is needed to create an environment that will provide value for many years. It should also be possible to eliminate costly distractions or misguided dead ends without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Unfortunately, that is exactly what is happening in Washington right now.

Chart of global temps 1940-2024

Many values are ingrained in federal, state, and local regulations. They do not change quickly. The last time climate change denial and "woke" policies appeared in the crosshairs of the federal administration, local and state governments doubled down on implementing these policies. This time, however, the administration is using a sledgehammer that reaches down to the local level—particularly effective in cutting off funds for everything that doesn't fit within the new paradigm. The missives, edicts, and cuts affect states, local jurisdictions, and even private projects dependent on grants, subsidies, or any federal support. This approach seems unlikely to yield creative new solutions.

Regardless of our positions, a wide range of our projects will be deeply affected, from transportation to school construction, healthcare, and housing. From "reconnecting communities grants" to "green infrastructure" projects, "alternative transportation" to resilience programs aimed at fortifying buildings against storms, floods, or fire. Even projects with no public funding at all will be influenced by tariffs and trade policies. Much of what we do relies on international trade. Universities often depend on federal grants and research, which could be subject to forced curriculum changes. Much of this is outside our control, adding to the sense of powerlessness amid disorientation. But must we adopt the new paradigm in the areas we can influence? After all, we will still design the future as long as there are projects to execute. We remain part of one of the driving forces of the economy: building and construction. We still possess our creative power.

Will our professional organizations follow social media moguls and strike their DEI policies? Will they resort to a "pure" technocratic response, attempting to isolate the design and production of buildings, transport systems, and land use plans from their "messy" political and societal implications? Will we change our understanding of what constitutes good design?

Atom bombs and eugenics have taught us that there is no "pure" science, let alone purity in building the environment. The realm of science and, even less, design and construction are inseparable from politics, values, and ethics. Practicing design, engineering, construction, development, or even transportation cannot occur in an "ivory tower" free of prejudice, opinion, emotion, or ideology. This insight has taken decades to mature. Hopefully, it cannot be easily unlearned. This insight strikes both ways: politics can enhance or destroy values.

The North Star

When the wayfinders are removed, it helps to have a compass or North Star for guidance. For sea-farers, guidance came from the sky; for professionals tossed into political turmoil, the North Star must come from within: guidance from information, knowledge, and ethics.

Ethics, Natural Law and a North Star

In troubled times, it helps to take the long view. Western thinkers often look to antiquity for answers. Architects tend to quote Vitruvius and his "Ten Books on Architecture," typically summarized in just one sentence: A building must be useful, solid, and beautiful. A slightly different version also attributed to Vitruvius lists a series of nouns: 

Architecture depends on order, arrangement, eurythmy, symmetry, propriety, and economy (Vitruvius, *de architectura*).

In Vitruvius' explanations of these terms, one can immediately see that architecture has never been a strictly technical affair, nor has it ever been pure art. It isn't simply a data-driven derivative that can just as easily be produced by AI, nor is it the product of isolated and "absolute" creativity of an individual.

Aristotle is often referenced for guidance on values, stating that all action is futile without moral virtue. Aquinas further developed this ethic, proposing that humans possess an innate understanding of basic, invariable moral principles independent of the current powers in charge. Before and during WWII, Hannah Arendt developed many insightful ideas about the origins of totalitarianism, emphasizing the vital link between an authoritarian figure and the actions of the people. The two cannot be considered separately—an insight that Plato elaborated on in his dialogue The Republic. In other words, real autocracy requires people to enable it.

Urban wind-power: Antwerp, Belgium (Photo: Philipsen)

Information, reason, and knowledge are the foundations of enlightenment. While quantum physics has introduced the hypothesis of alternative universes, in practical reality, we must account for what we know to be true. Even if we can agree that some regulations need simplification and bureaucracy requires thinning, the North Star will not point backward toward unfettered use of fossil fuels, combustion engine-driven cars, high water usage toilets, or filament light bulbs, just as we won’t see tube radios or horse-drawn public transit again. It will also not point to the ideology that some races are superior to others, or that absolute greed or exclusion are acceptable.

The facts guiding us to this point are not only undeniable but essential for any long-term survival strategy:

• The changes in climate are already severe enough to require new building designs.
• Even the seemingly local built environment is increasingly an international affair.
• Global migration will not cease, and the modern world requires mingling.
• The global population will increase by another 1–2 billion before it shrinks.
• More people will need more energy, more mobility, more homes, and more food.
• Fossil fuels, space, and many other commodities are finite.
• The diversity of flora and fauna has already reached perilous levels.

No ideology or party affiliation can change these truths. The responsibility of professionals for creating an environment designed to last for decades requires acknowledgment of these realities. Professionals active in the built environment—whether we teach about it, finance it, develop it, build it, or regulate it—must continue to gather information, apply the facts, develop perspective, and use our values as a North Star. This way, we can still chart a responsible course for our projects on the right side of history, regardless of the surrounding confusion. It will take information, courage, and persistence.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

Entangled in history: Schneewinkel and I

There is my very own personal history of Schneewinkel Lehen, the estate with a full on view of the Gruenstein and the Watzmann, alpine mountains in the Berchtesgadener Land, the County of Berchtesgaden. There was the dirt road winding through the woods, passing by the house of the Brandner's and Dr. Laue whom we called Ruebezahl after a German fairy tale figure.

Then the steel gate which was always open at that time, the curved approach to the main house and the servants house, lower and in a right angle left to the main house. The wooden bridge over the brook. I dammed up the brook occasionally until the meadow flooded. The meadow which Luckei Tauernsteiner mowed with a scythe. Then I helped him to put the hay into a small wagon that we had to pull ourselves. This was a real meadow with wildflowers, bees and all.

Of course, there was grandmother Christa, who I called Apa. That is why I was here in the first place. She lived on the second floor in the apartment on the right, looking from the outside. To the left lived the Bevers. Below the photographer Steger. The Tauernsteiner's servant's house had a dirt floor in the kitchen, the wash was done on a stone sink outside under the roof overhang in front of the kitchen. Luckei had no teeth. He couldn't read or write. In the summer he was a lot on the alm, guarding cows or goats. 

I was only 4, 5 or maybe 9, those were the years I spent summers with the motherly grandmother who she cooked a lot of macaroni with white sauce and ham for me. It was my favorite meal and one of the few she could manage without stress. She didn't grow up cooking, you see. She was a Prussian Noble, she had a cook and a nanny for the children. But then, in WWII her high ranking military husband was pulled out of his retirement and recruited by the Nazis. At the end of the war he was captured and eventually executed for war crimes by a Russian tribunal, while she was a refugee who, after long ordeal, eventually found shelter and a home here in Berchtesgaden. 

 There was a pond and a swamp where I wasn't supposed to go to, according to the rules. There was a secret steel door in the basement that was locked and led to a tunnel, I was told.

The attic had a few rafters with burn marks, the result of a lightning strike which the residents extinguished with a bucket chain, I was told and was impressed. Mr Bever had two dogs, German shepherds, the younger I recall was Gyp, she lived longer, so I would remember. Mr Bever told me how to train a dog and not be afraid. He called me Nebuchadnezzar, I have no clue, why. But I have been trying to rebuild Babylon ever since, first on my train set, then as a student and now in real life.

I know now, and slowly learned then, that Schneewinkel had been Himmler's residence during the war. That wasn't surprising since his boss had even two summer residences near Berchtesgaden. Later when I learned that these figures constituted Germany's original sin. It became clear that Schneewinkel had been a summer residence of the Berliners who lived in Munich. And because they were Jewish, their home was stolen from them and occupied by a Nazi leader since they all loved the Alps. The Berliners had survived the war,  the Bevers were somehow connected and through that connection moved into the estate after it had been returned to the Berliners after the war. And that Apa somehow had known the Bevers from her time when she lived in Kolberg, a city that is now Polish.

But it was only after I unearthed a radio documentary about Schneewinkel that I learned that the estate  had been quite the place in the "roaring twenties", when the Berliners owned it. Sigmund Freud wrote an entire treatise here and the German composer Max Reger had been a guest there, too. I learned that the Bevers were at least half Jews as well, since a Bever had married a Berliner. And that, in spite of my grandfather's involvement with the Nazis they had helped his wife to find a roof over her head after the war. Her husbands transgressions were not minor: He had become the commandant of Belgrade and before that had helped Hitler prepare an invasion of England while in Brussels. Back when I was visiting in Schneewinkel, the grandfather's positions and his fate were not exactly known to us, not even his wife knew about the execution until she received a document from the Red Cross much later. The term my grandmother used was that her husband had been "lost" or "kidnapped" (Verloren oder verschleppt).

I never thought that my post-war generation was unblemished by what a later German chancellor would call "the grace of the late birth." In fact, the German Nazi history has become part of my DNA, hard to shake and influencing much of what i have done and believe. But only now do I see how directly I was entangled with the German/Austrian history, good and bad. My childhood playground in Berchtesgaden was quite the fulcrum.

Klaus Philipsen

There would have to be also, the story of my other grandfather, whom the English pulled from his farm field to make him mayor of his village, since the villagers had vouched for his character and passive resistance against the Nazi regime.

The course of civilization

This article explores in a more philosophical than scientific way if the quest for knowledge drives civilization and what the connection between knowledge science, technology and productivity is and whether those depend on growth population growth. The exploration culminates in the question if knowledge would flatline without growth or if we need to revisit what we call knowledge. 

“The future is open. It is not predetermined and thus cannot be predicted – except by accident. The possibilities that lie in the future are infinite. When I say 'It is our duty to remain optimists”, this includes not only the openness of the future but also that which all of us contribute to it by everything we do: we are all responsible for what the future holds in store. Thus it is our duty, not to prophesy evil, but, rather, to fight for a better world.”

Karl Popper, The Myth of the Framework

What drives civilization? 

 Any attempt of trying to describe the course and drivers of civilization is as audacious as it is treacherous. Too much is depending on cultural heritage and perspective to allow the unbiased view that some extraterrestrial observer might have; it is also an open question if there must be any rhyme or reason at all. 
Historically mankind has created many narratives to explain civilization, purpose and objectives, some teleological (steady progress), some cyclical.  Some focus on fate, some on faith, the divine or on science. No explanation can claim to be the truth since even science is influenced by culture, technology, resources and even threats, whether of competing nations, nature or the universe itself. Each aspect provides a different angle from which to analyze civilization. Any attempt of a 360 degree view becomes terribly unwieldy. It has been tried, though. Will and Ariel Durant completed 11 volumes over 40 years containing thousands of pages before both died in 1981, the oeuvre still incomplete. Probably the last attempt before one day artificial intelligence  may give it another try, possibly with the help of quantum computers

"A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within" (Ariel Durant, volume 3, History of Civilization)

My interest is much simpler. Is there some overarching motif that drives us to get up in the morning to plant vegetables, chop wood or erect some shelter?  Survival seems to be a plausible answer. But humans always excelled beyond that. Are there other reasons why so many are trying so hard to get to work? The extraterrestrial observer would see little purpose in most activities unfolding on our planet and may see us like we see the ants on an ant hill: Chaotic and without a decipherable purpose, but with tangible outcomes, nevertheless. Many of our hectic activities don't even yield money, shelter or food.  Having children, play, reading poetry, romance, singing or playing an instrument? Civilization seems to have bigger drivers than just survival.
 We are so used to the daily cacophony unfolding each morning that we might have given up on trying to make sense of the daily toil. Still, the search for purpose and meaning is as old as mankind. Once in a while, some of us rub our eyes in wonder and puzzlement begging for a bigger explanation, an understanding of the forces that make us all operate as we do? Is it to "find ouselves, God or is it to shape the future? Some took extreme measures, such as Diogenes of Sinope, the ancient philosopher who is said to have lived in a barrel so he could limit his life to contemplation. He defied all the norms and didn't even refrain from insulting Alexander the Great when he asked him coolly to get out of the sun. What would our civilization look like look like from his perspective, or that of the observer in the universe with a view across the millennia, i.e Spinoza's "perspective of the eternal". Is there a force that explains "everything" other than the concept of a timeless god's with a big plan? 

The eternal quest for knowledge?

I will posit the thirst for knowledge and curiosity as one of the engines of civilization. Every small child when it is done eating and sleeping is energetically discovering things. Christian belief gives curiosity and knowledge a high perch for mankind as well. Right there in paradise the serpent is challenging Eve to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. 

It didn't end well. The expulsion from paradise ripped humans from preordained cycle and sealed humans' fate to fight for knowledge about nature making decisions. Unlike those of our fellow animals our decisions could be be good or evil. We acquire knowledge to make better decisions. In the Quran, the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden is referred to as the "tree of immortality", this, possibly the ultimate quest. Religious belief to this day has a very ambivalent attitude towards knowledge. 

It is no wonder, then that knowledge has been quite stagnant over long periods of history when religion ruled life of what we often call the "dark ages". Not much new was known during the course of generations and knowledge was cloistered, literally, in the libraries of monasteries. Today, knowledge is said to be on an exponential growth trajectory, doubling every year, maybe faster. Whether we agree that mankind is making progress or not, we have to agree that there is more knowledge today than there was yesterday, at least in a strictly quantitative way. The prevailing western explanation puts progress at the feet of science, technology and productivity and explains it with freeing the collective mind from the restrictions of  religion and superstition that happened with enlightenment and the age of reason. The result are a flight to the moon, a vast reduction of diseases, hunger and unprecedented insights into the universe, matter and the workings of nature. 

It is noteworthy, that in spite of these achievements large parts of the world don't celebrate this explosion of knowledge any longer. Even in western societies superstition, conspiracy, and irrationality are gaining ground combined with deep suspicion of technology, science and education alongside cultural misgivings. Was enlightenment only a temporary period? Could knowledge begin to stagnate again? The questioning of technology, science and "progress" comes at a time when the benefits of a global liberal economy have reached some limits and the critique of the relentless growth in resource consumption, production and the resulting pollution and degradation of the natural environment is elevated by the threat of devastating climate change.

 

All this begs the question if science, technology and productivity need growth or whether progress and increased knowledge are possible without growth in population and economic output. It is worth noting tyhat neither the belief in growth nor doubting it are necessarily a matter of "left" and "right" politics. Interestingly Marxism and capitalism share the belief in growth and both systems are guilty of ransacking nature. Marxists call it growing "production forces" and market economists call it Gross Domestic Product (GDP). 

Did we experience economic growth because there are ever more people on this planet to conduct science, and develop technology, resulting in productivity to thrive? Or are there more people because growth in productivity allowed to sustain a larger population? It may not be a clear cause and effect question, the two factors could also reinforce each other in a dialectic and initially mutually beneficial way. 

What if this linkage comes to an end either because population stops to grow (Some demographers predict that global population growth will come to an end in a few decades) or because the resources in vital commodities are exhausted and material growth will slow or stop? What if the attempts of managing climate change stifle this quantitative growth that has been the "golden calf" of economists for at least 150 years or so?

Many countries with very high productivity have already reached a point in which population stopped growing or even began to shrink. 

The United Nations Population Division projects that numbers will swell to more than 11 billion by the end of this century, almost 4 billion more than are alive today. Where will they live? How will we feed them? How many more of us can our fragile planet withstand?
But a growing body of opinion believes the UN is wrong. We will not reach 11 billion by 2100. Instead, the human population will top out at somewhere between 8 and 9 billion around the middle of the century, and then begin to decline. The Guardian: What goes up: are predictions of a population crisis wrong?

Is knowledge tied to growth?

 If growth, science, technology and productivity are not only inseparably linked with each other but also to growth, a decline in growth could ultimately mean that knowledge would stagnate or decline. This would be a rather alarming prospect even for those who critique growth, natural degradation and resource depletion.  

To untangle this ball of questions we want to first see if the traditional GDP can grow with a stagnant or sinking population and then investigate if growth could be defined in a more qualitative way than GDP is currently measured. 

Is GDP growth dependent on population growth?

In spite of economists' frequent assertion that a growing GDP) needs a growing population we can see nations with shrinking or stagnating populations  such as Japan and some countries in Europe managed to keep GDP stable or slightly growing and their economy vital.  Historically population growth occasionally resulted in collapsing eco systems that in turn sank entire civilizations, as it is said about the Mayans. If knowledge thrived under the Greek and Roman empires and was followed by counter revolutions, famine repression and stagnation during the "Middle Ages" it has little to do with population size. Today, analyzing GDP, we see that countries experiencing rapidly growing populations can have simultaneously a shrinking GDP, including Pakistan and several nations in sub-Saharan Africa like Nigeria, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, and Angola where high birth rates contribute to population surges and economic instability. The matter remains in dispute though.  Some scholars maintain that inverse correlation between population growth and a thriving economy exist only locally and for relatively short periods of time.  In Spinoza's global view over eternity, though, the positive correlation between population growth and GDP appears to hold. At least that is what Angus Maddison maintained when he compiled data for population and GDP for all countries in the world from year 1 to 2008 CE and graphed the resulting GDP per capita over time.

A closer look at the Maddison data, however, reveals that over a long period in history neither population nor "GDP" grew very much and essentially flatlined until they shot up in the industrial revolution (the curve known as the hockey-stick). Fluctuations in GDP per capita in the flat period are explained by what economists call the Malthusian trap.  In a zero sum economy in which static metrics such as the amount of fertile soil in a geographic area ("country") or a benign climate control production. When the population drops thanks to calamity, such as the plague, the result is almost automatically a higher per capita income. When and if the riches are not the result of a larger number of people working, a smaller number of people with whom to share the bounty leads to increased wealth. This type of economy pretty much describes the entire flatlining period of history. Only in the Renaissance the GDP took off so that GDP could grow even when the population grew. (Our world in data).

Academicians remain cautious, as Peterson notes in an article that provides an overview of research on productivity and population growth:

The relationship between population growth and economic growth is controversial. [...] The relationship between population growth and growth of economic output has been studied extensively (Heady & Hodge, 2009). Many analysts believe that economic growth in high-income countries is likely to be relatively slow in coming years in part because population growth in these countries is predicted to slow considerably (Baker, Delong, & Krugman, 2005). Others argue that population growth has been and will continue to be problematic as more people inevitably use more of the finite resources available on earth, thereby reducing long-term potential growth (Linden, 2017). Population growth affects many phenomena such as the age structure of a country’s population, international migration, economic inequality, and the size of a country’s work force. These factors both affect and are affected by overall economic growth. [...] 

In spite of extensive literature on these relationships there is little consensus on the actual effects of population on economic growth.  

Some authors offer theoretical arguments and empirical evidence to show that robust population growth enhances economic growth while others find evidence to support the opposite conclusion. Still others find that the effects vary with the level of a country’s development, the source or nature of the population growth, or other factors that lead to nonuniform impacts. "The Role of Population in Economic Growth E. Wesley F. Peterson"

This somewhat inconclusive picture regarding GDP and population begs a closer look at GDP which we used as a proxy for growth in science, productivity and ultimately knowledge. GDP was only introduced in the 1920s, in part because GDP pretends to be "value free" and can't distinguish between "bad" growth from calamity and "good" growth. GDP can't make the critical distinction between good and evil that was so central in the story of the tree of knowledge. The definition of GDP flattens discontinuities, social strife, war, economic collapse and break throughs in productivity. It is a system in which any production accrues as a plus. 

If we replaced GDP with more qualitative metrics, such as green growth or quality of lige growth, couldn't we not only solve the environmental crisis but also guarantee that knowledge would remain on an upward trajectory?

We see, under the hood the population/GDP/knowledge machine it is much more complicated than one would first think. There are long periods when per capita GDP did not increase because population growth and whatever small increases in knowledge, technology and productivity cancelled each each other out, a far different story than the argument that population growth fuels productivity.

Do we need new definitions?

The confusion about the role of population growth in relation to productivity and science and the issue of GDP's growth in relation to knowledge and progress points to the need for better definitions not only for GDP but also for knowledge.

There are plenty of ideas on how the coarse metric of GDP could be refined to better distinguish between good and bad growth. Redefining knowledge is another matter. Between gaining knowledge by sitting in a barrel (Diogenes) or trough thought experiments (Einstein) and the smashing of protons in the large Hadron collider or flying to Venus, gaining knowledge about the essence of matter, the universe, ourselves and the meaning of life take many forms, some using lots of "stuff", some entirely immaterial. The cultural critics would probably say that the prevailing culture has erred too far into building huge gizmos to gain knowledge at the cost of better self awareness and ultimately happiness. 

This would also be a good place to introduce AI. If quantum computers and generative AI could think better and faster than the human brain, the material side of research and science could potentially diminish, even if these devices themselves use huge amounts of energy. Possibly discovery on the very large scale could be linked directly to discovery on the very small, the dream of a unified field theory would become true and gigantic rockets like Space X would become obsolete vehicles of discovery. 

"Better" knowledge vis a vis of just "more" knowledge could potentially resolve the conundrum that technology often has such diminishing benefits especially when it comes to productivity, defined as time spent over output. We usually see less time spent to make something as a benefit in the sense of having more "free" time for other things. However, huge parts of those efficiencies are used up to maintain the complex systems with which we surround ourselves from health care to education, to mobility to name just a few. Yes, in the post Malthusian economy GDP per capita grew exponentially, but benefits may still be elusive if we look at qualitative measures, such as "free time" or fulfilment. For every invention that makes things faster or easier we do just more of it more often until the time advantage disappears, whether it is cooking, washing laundry, traveling, growing food or building stuff. Quicker shopping on Amazon? Let's shop more! Efficiency of e-mail? Multiply the communication events! Easier to keep up with friends: Multiply the number of "relationships". Efficiency from a washing machine? Wash garments daily instead of weekly or monthly. This list could be expanded indefinitely.

“The ‘tempo of life’ has increased, and with it stress, hecticness, and lack of time … In almost every sphere of social life there are enormous gains in time by means of technology, [but] we don’t have any time.” Hartmut Rosa  Social Acceleration: A New Theory of Modernity, 

Is that outcome just the result of bad habits or is it a "natural law" that whatever benefits get neutralized? Is it the fate of civilization that "the ants" keep toiling? Surely does it require incredibly complicated and time consuming processes to keep the 8 billion or so people on earth fed, accommodated and connected. In other words, the current complexity is not easily disposable in exchange for the promise of simpler life. But if human ingenuity combined with AI would finally find a way to consistently need less effort to satisfy the basic needs without eating the benefits immediately up through waste, complexity and foolishness would we then finally be in a position to really focus on gaining knowledge instead of stuff? In this scenario people would need to work ever less to sustain themselves. We would, indeed, look at a society beyond work, one in which people don't derive their sense of self from the value of things they make and buy. Automation, robots and artificial intelligence have already triggered such a scenario. That scenario foresees a wealth of resources with little effort to maintain the system. Current day highly developed shrinking nations are a petri dish in which to explore these options. 

A world in which efficiency gains are used to reduce waste, destruction, depletion and increase quality of life for the entire eco-system is a tall order to achieve but it also a great promise that overcomes the simplistic choice between growth and stagnation. Nature teaches us some processes are glacially slow, some are accelerating, possibly exponentially. In nature most processes are not endless, except maybe the expansion of the universe. Nature knows tipping points, phase transitions and other sudden events in which a linear process reverses, ends or transforms. Even in the universe, instead of steady endlessness, there was the big bang, there was "inflation", there continues to be the collapse of entire galaxies, black holes that swallow everything in their reach and a possible ongoing creation of subsystems (The Multiverse).

If we see current disruptions through this lens the entire course of civilization may look less futile and more hopeful.

What decoupling knowledge form growth would mean

Decoupling  growth from knowledge could  be a spectacular reassembly of a the mechanism which has fueled civilization for a long time, if not forever. 

xxx

Two Scenarios:

So we see two options: Population as well as knowledge and productivity would stagnate or decline simultaneously over a long period (longer than the dips mankind has seen before), the trajectory of civilization of the last few thousand years would come to an end. The nexus between population and KTP would be confirmed.  When knowledge, technology and production would shrink proportionally to each other the occidental history and its teleological philosophy would come to an end in a dramatic way. It would be an affirmation of the cyclical concept of the world which is found in eastern philosophy, even though physics and astronomy insist on an "arrow of time"  that knows some type of beginning and many irreversible processes, even though quantum mechanics suggests that it is theoretically possible that the milk could be unmixed from the coffee, even if this is highly unlikely.

The other option is an enduring reversal of population growth in which population decline would not automatically mean a shrinkage of knowledge and technology, even it may mean shrinkage of production. What if good education, a high quality of life and plenty of leisure time would allow knowledge, technology, and productivity to continue to expand?  Aren't there plenty of studies that show that at least creativity and inventiveness require leisure and opportunities of unplanned accidental cross-overs and contacts?

Knowledge growth without growing population

In this scenario, the question would arise what to do with the surplus capacities and with the people who would no longer be needed to cover the basic needs; Where productivity and output clearly exceed what would be needed to sustain the shrinking population and the associated systems the nexus to growth could be smashed. To imagine this scenario, it is helpful to remember that history has many examples in which people did not derive their sense of self from work on sustenance. 

People could ramps up their needs with wants they currently suppress. To imagine this scenario, it is helpful to remember that history has many examples in which people did not derive their sense of self from work on sustenance.  In ancient Greece or Rome the upper class had the luxury of a life of leisure and contemplation thanks to slaves and servants. With robots, automation and AI this model may be less repulsive if the gains of knowledge and productivity benefits  would spread across all segments of the global population so that life for everyone would be defined by pursuit of choice activities rather than activities of necessity..  

One possible outcome could be that more effort goes into areas that do not increase productivity or production, in other words, outcomes would be qualitative in nature. Art and to some extent entertainment, travel, education and other currently seen as "unproductive" activities could belong into such a category.

For all this to be unpacked one has to carefully separate the ethical and moral questions from those that would try to describe the laws under which population growth and shrinkage operate and in which way they could be unlinked from knowledge growth. 

In all, a revolution could be on the horizon, one that shifts quantitative linkages into qualitative ones. A revolution which would finally relieve "man" from the toil of survival and allow the pursuit of happiness and knowledge instead. Even if dystopia from the tipping of natural systems may appear more likely, a Herculean effort of averting collapse and achieve a reconciliation of paradise and knowledge instead is certainly worthwhile. 'It is our duty to remain optimists” as Carl Popper says.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

This is a completely revised version of an earlier article with the same title

Has man a soul?

To avoid all quibbling over the term man in the title, be it clarified right away that this stands here for person or the human per se. No emphasis on gender. 

Soul is a squishy term, it has no correspondence in science, so no experiment is possible to prove its existence or locus, or prove its presence or effects.  

And it’s best definition may come through inference. Such as in: the sum total of a person is more than the sum of its measurable parts. The inference is that the total includes additional “element” that is neither a discrete part nor the glue that holds it all together.  Instead it is the meaning that springs from what it means that a person is alive. When a person dies all the parts are still there, but they lost their meaning, because they no longer serve a function, even if quick transfer to another living body may give one or another part  a new, very different meaning again. For, to whoever’s new mind the old part would be subsumed, it would execute entirely different commands, intents and dreams. 

The part that immediately loses all functionality and cannot be transposed, at least not as of yet, is the brain, the body part in which modern man may most likely locate the soul, for, here we assume awareness, consciousness, knowledge and feeling, those four, which would constitute meaning and humanness. 

We know now that humans are not the only ones to possess those four abilities, individually or in their totality. But we would claim to have more of each of them. Should we, then, also claim a monopoly on the soul?

This is tricky territory. White men disputed that women could have a soul, or slaves, or black men. To dispute that animals could have a soul may fall into the same sense of entitlement leading to the same fallacy. But if we define soul not by who doesn’t have one (a rock, an automobile, a robot?) but what the concept of soul offers, we may be on more fertile ground. 

Because of my severe doubts on the possibility of an afterlife, at least in any biological sense beyond  remembrance by our kin or of our DNA which may live forth beyond our death, let’s also not talk about the soul as a survivor of death or the soul leaving a body to live elsewhere. 

Instead, I prefer to think of the soul as a great proxy to what we are beyond the sum of physical parts. Foremost, soul would be more than consciousness, awareness, knowledge and feeling, even more than the sum of those four. Soul would be not a function of our mind even though it would have a lot to do with it, and with placing ourselves in the universe and amidst humanity. 

Humanity, in all of history, is the unlikely event of humans evolving during the millennia it took to shape us into what we are, against all odds. The soul may well be the vessel in which our DNA bubbles into  some kind of preconsciousness of our collective history. Like the baby chicken supposedly is born with a sense of the danger emanating from a bird of prey. Collective pain, hope and triumph lives in us not only in the mutations that shaped our bodies and minds but possibly also in a subconscious awareness of ourselves as a species. It’s locus could be called soul. 

The universe as the totality of everything is so infinitely much larger than us and so infinitely older than us that it is in us as an imprint, a preexisting “knowledge” that manifests itself as an echo, a reverberation and resonance. It surely has formed us and while it allows us to capture ever more refined glimpses of it, it captures our emotions and senses far beyond whatever knowledge we may be able to gain of it. The universes concrete manifestations such as day and night, the seasons and aging routinely overwhelm us with longings, sadness, desire and inspiration that we can’t explain and that seem to come simply from being within it. 

Every time we take the time to observe the waning of the day, the change in the sounds of nature, we can feel a small bit of death. Conversely the rising sun in the morning the unfolding of another day like birth lifts the spirit and the soul, providing the power and confidence to face and enjoy what it will bring. Every being seems to share this. 

The passing seasons evoke the same emotions in an even bigger way, so powerfully so, that they feel like the reverberations of the stars; something  humans have believed long before they knew much at all about the stars, or what a universe would be. We may still be way off from any real knowledge of the universe and how it unfolded in the 13.7 billions of years of its existence,  or of what, precisely, it is made of and how it got to be to what we can perceive today. Which, of course is not a certain point in time at all, considering how long the images of the far away places travel before they reach us and how many different times we can glimpse all at once. 

In this vexing kaleidoscope of being and existence, in which hardly anything is what it seems to be, ephemeral terms like dark matter,  premonition or soul can be useful. Soul is, at the very least, a very useful placeholder when we speak about life and ourselves as players in its big theater.

That is my take on soul this 2nd of August in the year 2019 while evening settles over the Jefferson Forest after day in which absence of the usual routine allowed me to “dangle” my soul a bit. 

Andreas Waldraff, 3-28-1944- to 3-3-2019, dead at 74

The old life has a way of intruding like it did today when WhatsApp dinged in my pocket with a message depicting two death announcements from the Berliner Tagesspiegel, the German kind of black framed paid ads with the name in large letters. Prof. Dr. Andreas Karl Waldraff it said there. No hint for a cause of death. Andreas wasn't somebody I would imagine dying young. "I will never retire" he told me a few years ago, and he made an aged but spry and still somewhat juvenile impression.

From the announcement I learned four things I had not really stored in my mind about him: That he was a honorary professor (at Stuttgart University), that he had a PhD ( in dynamic range of supply chains), that he had a MBA from USC, and that his middle name was Karl. Less surprising, maybe was that the second death notice came from a Berlin group supporting classical music. They say they lost a supporter, co-founder, inspiration and true friend.

Andreas was my hero for at least those years when we shared the same house. Probably longer, except that my left leaning political development had to put this fact into the basement of the subconscious since he never went further than moderate stands, as far as I can tell).

We went to the same Hellenstein Gymnasium and that I pushed for being in the Latin track of the only boys highschool in town was thanks to Andreas; be it that he made it known that this was the only way to go, or was it that my parents had consulted with his parents, Liselotte and Hans. Andreas was their gold star, not his elder brother Stephan. If I had any say in this, I would certainly have opted for the same track he went to, because I wanted to be like him. I picked the same Vaterland bike brand with 28" wheels he had, even though I was still short then and the bike too tall. I installed the same bells and began collecting match boxes and pinned them on the same wall he had pinned his one story up.

I never considered this amount of imitation embarrassing or as a sign of flattery. It was just what I did. I hung on his lips when he commented on the Christmas sermon of pastor Graser when we left church on Christmas Eve to take the candlelight home to our tree. Down the Herrenwegle we went and little Bodo trotted behind, stumbling occasionally on snow and ice, extinguishing his light a few times in the process. Sometimes this happened to all three of us, for which case Andreas had a lighter. He didn't think it was a problem to come back without the original light. In fact, he never thought anything was a problem. For which his mother loved him and under which his elder brother suffered.

In spite of his often snide remarks about the sermon, he seemed to see something real in going to church, even as the cool young always uppity lad he was.  I began studying the matter of theology later after he had already made his abitur, but this interest in the deeper sense of things may well have had its foundation in my admiration for Andreas. There were limits: I didn't take up building  model airplanes out of balsa wood, nor did I share his excitement for math. I got a model train and in that began to follow Stephan, also by studying architecture and not aeronautics like Andreas.

Cousin Putzi was not nearly as impressed by Andreas as I was and teased him by calling him "Andi-Bambi" when she visited and he was out around the house to test his airplane engines. For that he endlessly hit the propeller mounted on a sawhorse with his outstretched pointing and middle fingers until the tiny motor caught on and the fingers had to be retracted real fast.

He had long slender fingers with which he played the piano masterfully and any time his mother wanted him to do so, sometimes to entertain us. I also heard him playing when I was downstairs. I remember Album for Elise, but he also played all kinds of modern stuff. He loved Cast your Fate to the Wind. I did too, still do. He seemed always in a good mood and never overwhelmed by anything. He like irony and joking and he had a very winning smile, but most people thought he was arrogant as hell.

I am afraid that was a mirage and that his death may have something to do with the limits of the ability to have everything pearl off. His son had disabilities, his marriage was a mess. His career was impressive in the way of his education and less so in the application of his skills and knowledge. His more recent enthusiasm for India (Deutsch) was curious, a testament that behind all the rationality he presented, there was an ongoing search for something else, which he may have found in India, just like many less rational types have found it before.

Of course, I lost track what he was doing. Once in a while I heard that he had visited my father, I saw him when he attended my mother's memorial service. I heard that various attempts of engaging Wolfram in giving him Berlin connections didn't work out, but I never figured out why not.

In the end, we all remain each other's mystery, especially men. I had long given up my attempts to be like him. The older we both became, the less up-upmanship was desirable. It was a bit like whistling in the dark. His much less ambitious father had become ever more charming and likeable, the older he became. The aging know it all Andreas was surrounded by a whiff of loneliness. Still, that my past idol would disappear so suddenly, and possibly in less than perfect circumstances, is disconcerting and, yes, it eliminates a small piece of me, too.

Donald Wheeler

As suddenly as cousin Donald Wheeler appeared in our life, he disappeared one day. In between lay a good number of Thanksgivings for which the lanky old man would appear in his "purple people eater", his beloved custom GM van on the rare short wheel base to spend the holiday with us, "his cousins". The vehicle, as we got to see it, had always over 200,000 miles on it.  Donald had it  rebuilt at one point, because it was his goal to drive it until he died. Well, it almost worked out that way. Named after the capability of accommodating at least seven passengers, the vehicle proved its usefulness at Nayna's family reunions which she began organizing for her mother sometime around the turn of the century. That is also where Donald resurfaced for Nayna. She remembered him from her great grandmother's home when Nayna was a teen but hadn't seen him since. Donald was known in the family as working for Anchor Motor Freight, presumably a lifelong job in accounting until he retired and began a second career as part-time tax consultant for H&R block. He took annual continued education classes and worked during the main tax season until he was eighty.

For tax preparation in Linden NJ, you can count on Donald C. Wheeler at H&R Block. Donald C. Wheeler assists taxpayers and small businesses with taxes in Linden NJ and the surrounding communities. Whether you are an individual or a local business in or around Linden NJ, Donald C. Wheeler has years of valuable experience as an IRS registered tax preparer. Contact Donald C. Wheeler, tax filing specialist in Linden NJ, for help with your taxes. (Internet entry)

Donald didn't change much during the ten or so years we knew him as a Thanksgiving guest. He'd show up the day before in high spirits in spite of an arduous drive on the New Jersey Turnpike on the busiest of travel days. He liked to say that he was doing "faan-tastic" and that "life was getting better every day". His face had many smile wrinkles around his blue eyes, he could be quite charming. He was tall, slender and big all around, the type who doesn't fit into any airplane seat, which is maybe, why he didn't fly. He went swimming on a regular basis and was hooked to doing morning stretches. He had long thin, grey and somewhat stringy hair which he bunched into a tale in the back like an old hippy or folk singer. He slept long hours at the rate of 12 hrs a day. On cold nights he would go to bed in a white night cap with a pointy end. The only noticeable change from year to year was that his speech got slower and slower. Living originally with a  partner in his house on 1025 West George Avenue in Linden NJ, and then alone, after the partner died of aids, he enjoyed having company and an audience. He regaled us with lengthy stories from the past which we had mostly already heard in previous years, stories which were stretched by long pauses when he searched his memory for names, dates and words in general and during which he pursed his lips to exhale long puffs of breath. Many stories involved his brother David with which he had a somewhat strenuous relationship and "camp", a cabin in Maine located right at the water which he and "brother" now shared. David spent long month "at camp", a definitely even more monastery existence than the one in Linden. In the winter he would load the van on Amtrak's auto-trains with  sleeper cars and go to Florida. From there he would drive to Texas, where he visited brother at times. I think Donald never took a plane.

Our kids who were still living at home or later came visiting for the holiday took Donald as some kind of odd uncle from a bygone era with artefacts such as his old flip phone to find addresses, names or numbers or told us about working on his old Commodore computer with 256 MB RAM or some such thing which he still fired up to do some housekeeping.

The seats in his van were covered with purple frottier towels and when he parked it in front of our house he always carefully flipped the large side mirror in as if he had parked a big rig of the kind his old employer had sent across America.

Cousin Donald, unsurprisingly, had long, slender fingers and liked to sit down and loom over our piano to give it a workout. He played long jazzy improvisations showing great finger dexterity and sense for music but there was hardly ever anything with a melody and I don't know if he could play sheetmusic.

He was very gracious, lauded Nayna's or my cooking inevitably as "fantastic, restaurant grade", brought a box of Merlot, the only wine he would drink and invited us one night out to wherever we wanted to go. He loved inviting us for dinner and he hated to leave after Thanksgiving, sometimes staying so much beyond the holiday that we began wondering how to tell him that he didn't live here. At the restaurants he would use all his charme to not drive the waiters crazy when he modified the menu items with very particular instructions especially pertaining to the obligatory starter salad (No onions, dressing on the side). Donald was good eater but he never cooked a thing and kept downtown Linden's diner scene alive all on his own. He liked to take an extra dessert home in case he would wake up at night hungry.

During the fifties he had lived in the Baltimore area for a while when he served in the army at Abderdeen. He reminisced about those long gone days when Baltimore had still streetcars while we were cruising through today's much shrunken but shinier city. I gave him once or twice my city tours and he was one of the most grateful guests I ever had on board, showing interest in many aspects of the city. He specially like the visit to the streetcar museum.

Last year Thanksgiving Donald was sick and didn't come. This year we never heard back after Nayna called and e-mailed him again. During the holiday we wondered several times what Donald would be doing. Although with Jonas and family visiting we were not lonely but I missed his fussing and turkey praise ("best meal I have ever eaten in my life") anyway.  After the holiday was over, Nayna finally called Donald's brother David to ask what was going on. That is when we learned that Donald had crashed his purple people eater last year sometime around Thanksgiving, that he fell into ill health and died of a stroke last December. Brother never called, sent a death notice, or published an obituary. The phone in Linden still takes messages and e-mails do not come back as undeliverable. But Donald had been reduced to ashes for almost a year without us having any idea. His urn sits at the family's cemetery somewhere in Connecticut. A very lonely death, indeed, and an end that Donald didn't deserve. "Life is getting better and better" was his way of expressing what we all like to believe. We will never know if he truly believed it.

Death of a CPA

No hour was too early for an appointment with Phil. Before rush hour would clog the roads one could slide off the Route 100 ramp onto Furnace Branch Road on the outer edges of what is loosely called Glen Burnie and see the non- descript little concrete structure with the mansard roof surrounded by  storage yards and a school bus yard. The dark M300 Chrysler would already be tucked on the side of the building where Phil had his own little escape hatch, he could almost drive right behind his desk.
I would enter from the front, Monica not yet there, Phil came into view in the back room bouncing around on his rickety chair, piles of files in front of him, at times a take-out breakfast from which he took a bite every now and then. There were brown file boxes all around the room and up an entire wall. Next to the side door hung George Bush, the W President. The back wall next to the window had a picture of the Inner Harbor when it still had sheds and warehouses and a working harbor.

Phil would offer me one of the two chairs on the other side of his desk, one would sink deep down into some broken spring upholstery and watch him  shift papers back and forth and occasionally hammer a few numbers into an old style battery powered calculator printing columns of numbers on a paper roll. His right hand typed the numbers in rapid fire way over there while his blue eyes scanned the spreadsheets in front of him. This blind typing always impressed me, especially when he would rip the results the paper roll, nod and then with a #2 pencil log a new line into the spreadsheet. The spreadsheet would go on top of one of the files, he would shut it, shove to the side, lick an envelope, toss a few errant bits off paper into the bin under the desk until the space immediately in front of him was clear. Then he would look up and say, "show me what you got" and the process would start over.

He would say "this is crazy", or that "it gets worse every year"; that "they don't know what they are doing over there", meaning presumably the IRS or the government altogether, especially when it was Democratic. He would report from another training course in which yet another set of rules were explained and how crazy it all was, especially the feds. For the State he had "this girl". He would call her out of the blue, rattle off the tax number, and even protracted issues would be resolved in seconds. I could see that the more local government had somehow a human side and that Phil worked this angle well.

Phil may have had highfalutin clients, but mostly I picture plumbers, glazing company owners and car repair shop owners sitting on those broken springs, folks who hated to pay taxes and for whom Phil was the God that made them go away, or at least seem smaller. "Monica, give me that file!" he would bark when Monica showed up at 8:30 sharp, or "where is this and that" and Monica would magically find things in the organized chaos, and Phil clearly expected she would. Monica was sufficiently no-nonsense to not expect praise or much warmth. The efficiency was like what happens at dental surgery when the assistant wordlessly hands the tools to the surgeon.

Phil loved efficiency. For a while he used a phone ear-peace and had some automated gizmo that lifted the receiver of his old land line phone so he could speak the hasty and breathless "ya, Phil Fewster" without taking his eyes of the charts or the fingers of the calculator. A caller greeted this way would immediately be on alert not to waste any precious time. For all the efficiency, though, he would find time to ask how business was, complain about the stupidity of government, talk about good real estate deals in Ocean City or some trip he made. Or how well his son did who didn't want to work in his office but did more lucrative things. Usually he would conclude the chat with "its crazy" and resort back to the numbers. We couldn't talk about politics, we were worlds apart and he would get way too excited. I had been worried about him getting a heart attack for almost all the 25 years I knew him. How could he possibly keep up this much pressure? Back in my office I found myself copying his moves when sorting through stuff on my desk, including his habit of running the hands through his hair until he looked as ruffled as his desk.

This went on quarterly after quarterly for 25 years, from the office where one had to climb up to on wooden exterior stairs in downtown Glen Burnie, to the one on Rose Anne Road. Phil was part of my routine and my business and in between enough glimpses of Phil the father, the husband and the human seeped through to make his sudden departure much more than a tax catastrophe. It lifted the curtain on the human condition and represented a loss quite close to home, because, really, a friend has left.