In October 2008 a movie was sent to 28 million people in the United States, Obsession: Radical Islam’s War on the West. Filming, producing, and distributing a movie on such a wide scale must have been very costly. It was done for a reason.
The video was not sent to publicly known free thinkers like me. I obtained it from a mentally ill client whose symptoms include delusions of being the archangel Michael or even Jesus Christ. The movie disturbed him and it took quite a bit of talking to get him balanced out again. While my client is mentally ill with religious delusions, I wonder what effect such a film has on people in general.
Up front it is stated that the video was produced by The Clarion Fund, an “independent, non-profit, non-partisan organization devoted to educating the public about national security matters.” Over the last eight years we have learned that wording can mask intentions. For example, how many people read this description yet fail to consider that non-partisan isn’t the same thing as unbiased? And how many jump down a level and consider when security is named as an issue that insecurity is the problem, and if this is true then why aren’t we working to increase America’s self-concept? As to the claim of independence, I haven’t researched where the money came from to produce and distribute this video. If we had investigative journalism it would be an interesting assignment.
At the beginning and the end of the video the point is made that many Muslims are decent, peaceful people, and the video is not about them. However, slyly stuck in the middle is the fear-producing comment that radical Muslims are sprinkled over the entire world population and you can’t tell the difference. Therefore, every Muslim must be suspect. And when they criticize Hitler for wanting to kill Jews I wonder what their rationale is for advocating the killing of radical Muslims, who can’t be distinguished from the mainstream?
The movie continually shows images of the desecration of the national symbols of the United States, Britain, Israel, and a few other countries. While the language being spoken over the images was purposefully ‘moderated’, a good many people will have emotional reactions to the desecration of what they consider national or sacred to them and they are unlikely to hear words.
The video follows the national trend to confuse opinion with fact. The historians in the video present accurate facts from history but then draw conclusions that are opinion; other historians considering the same historical facts come up with different conclusions.
It became obvious that those decrying radical Islam are oblivious to radical Christianity. Halfway through the movie I kept thinking of the old saw ‘the pot calling the kettle black.’ For the rest of the video I was able to insert ‘Christian extremists’ in place of ‘Muslim extremists’ and it fit just as well. When they go on and on about Muslim radicals following the Nazi ideal of world domination I keep thinking about the Project for a New American Century that has the same goal.
I agreed with the recommendation at the end that education of the people about religious extremism was necessary to keep jihad from playing out. Yet the logic was shattered when the early segments that showed Muslim radicals shouting “Death to America!” was replaced with Americans shouting “Death to terrorists!” as part of the solution. You cannot douse a fire with gasoline.
It didn’t surprise me when the term ‘Islamofascism’ was introduced about three-quarters of the way through. That’s what everything was leading up to. And it confirmed my suspicion: this whole issue isn’t about Muslims. Or religion at all. It’s about the King of the Mountain.
It’s a bunch of well researched phenomena. Those who continually allege hatred and malice toward those whom they refuse to meet are projecting their own unacceptable traits. The two most socially acceptable areas to mask one’s dark side yet play out its dictates are government and religion. When religious practice becomes extreme – and violates the strictures toward peace and love – one is only using religion as the storefront and deals sin from the back. In reality we are not dealing with Christianity or Islam; we are dealing with unacknowledged and unaccepted hatred. In King of the Mountain, as is well illustrated by history, when one player sets himself up as the unassailable master it provokes others to prove he’s wrong; in more practical matters when one player oppresses others the others will speak out, and if not heard at the editorial level will find ways to make themselves heard up to and including violence. Finally, though it never made it to the psychologist’s diagnostic manual, a disorder that was well researched after Hitler fell is termed authoritarian personality disorder, and includes an orientation toward fascism. Personality disorders know nothing of national boundaries. It can happen in America.
A quick search of the Internet reveals fourteen traits of a developing fascistic state. Without going over them here, in the last eight years the United States has been incorporating several of them, including militarism, secrecy, stealing elections, industry profit over the public good, and government control of the banks. Our reluctance to believe that this could happen to our nation gives the power brokers time and material to turn things this way. In 1925 no German would have said that they could end up in a dictatorship like Hitler’s within fifteen years.
Obsession is a good word for the video. It was distributed to sway those who are still ambivalent about who to vote for on Nov. 4. Yet we must be fair and recognize that it applies not only to Islamic fanatics but also to the Christofascists who have control of our nation at the moment. It is urgent that we recognize this so that we may remove them from power, partner with the other nations and religions in the world to remove them from elsewhere, and pursue the real tasks of cultivating peace and elevating humanity.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Doing Time
Religion is like an hourglass.
At the outset it’s difficult because the sand is trying to go up. Each grain of sand is an aspect of the person, and the person sees the narrow constriction in the middle as The Way Gods Wants Things. It’s nearly overwhelming seeing all your grains of sand and thinking of getting them through the constriction, especially knowing that some of them aren’t supposed to go through. And the fear is that if you leave enough of the grains behind you’ll not be the same person, you won’t have the interesting colors they bring. This is balanced against urgings by the church and the importance of your image to others; you must appear as if you want to leave behind the sinful grains.
Some people make the transition. For a few the constriction is relatively short. For most it is longer and more arduous. There is a struggle to leave behind things which are supposed to remain there but they are so darned attractive. Or compulsive. Or part of your arsenal of habit or defense. Some extend the constriction into the rest of their lives, settling for the struggle, never really believing that they will be free of sinfulness. They may go to church faithfully and give it all their effort but they never lay aside the sinful sand.
It is a shame that one’s view of the top half of the hourglass is restricted to that which can be seen through the constriction. It is a narrow aperture. If one does finally resolve to leave behind unneeded sand and comes through the constriction it turns out that one’s life begins expanding. One’s experiences, joys, and visions become far greater than could have been imagined. There is more space to spread out in, more time and energy and relaxation. It is far less of a struggle for three reasons: one has left behind the grains of sand that, it turns out, were hindrances in living well; the longer one toils the fewer grains there are to pull from the bottom of the glass; and one doesn’t need to struggle to get through a claustrophobic tunnel anymore. One has climbed out of the earth and into the air.
It is understandable if people don’t recognize – or have trouble really believing – that life eventually gets more free and expansive when their religion is at present constrictive. Perhaps we need a different type of religion to accommodate those who have made it to the top half of the glass, for although they have overcome strong difficulties through the constriction they are still imperfect and could use guidance to keep going up and up and up. No human has ever reached the top, at least alive. And we would do well to instruct those in the lower half of the glass or in the midst of the constriction that things get freer and more expansive. That way people in the constriction don’t get the idea that they’re at the top of the game, or that narrower and narrower constriction is the goal. One cannot chart a path if the destination is unknown.
I understand that the message is often given that there is joy in overcoming, yet it is confused when congregants are encouraged to remain spiritual infants (especially under the tutelage of a charismatic, self-styled master who preaches constriction), told that they are bad by nature, and are filled with fears of freedom because nobody teaches them what to do with it. I also understand that the ‘different type of religion’ could be ancient Eastern practices that assume you’ve already got things right with God and now go about improving habits of living and being for the rest of your life.
We recognize some humans who have lived in the top half of the glass: Gandhi, MLK, Jr, Schweitzer, Mother Teresa. There are those around us who seem to have an ease of living we don’t understand; they don’t have to berate themselves constantly to follow a strict path yet they seem to be good people. Although it hasn’t happened yet it is possible that a majority of people can attain this state, and when the hundredth monkey Gets It humankind will blow into a method of easier and principled living that would drop our jaws today.
At the outset it’s difficult because the sand is trying to go up. Each grain of sand is an aspect of the person, and the person sees the narrow constriction in the middle as The Way Gods Wants Things. It’s nearly overwhelming seeing all your grains of sand and thinking of getting them through the constriction, especially knowing that some of them aren’t supposed to go through. And the fear is that if you leave enough of the grains behind you’ll not be the same person, you won’t have the interesting colors they bring. This is balanced against urgings by the church and the importance of your image to others; you must appear as if you want to leave behind the sinful grains.
Some people make the transition. For a few the constriction is relatively short. For most it is longer and more arduous. There is a struggle to leave behind things which are supposed to remain there but they are so darned attractive. Or compulsive. Or part of your arsenal of habit or defense. Some extend the constriction into the rest of their lives, settling for the struggle, never really believing that they will be free of sinfulness. They may go to church faithfully and give it all their effort but they never lay aside the sinful sand.
It is a shame that one’s view of the top half of the hourglass is restricted to that which can be seen through the constriction. It is a narrow aperture. If one does finally resolve to leave behind unneeded sand and comes through the constriction it turns out that one’s life begins expanding. One’s experiences, joys, and visions become far greater than could have been imagined. There is more space to spread out in, more time and energy and relaxation. It is far less of a struggle for three reasons: one has left behind the grains of sand that, it turns out, were hindrances in living well; the longer one toils the fewer grains there are to pull from the bottom of the glass; and one doesn’t need to struggle to get through a claustrophobic tunnel anymore. One has climbed out of the earth and into the air.
It is understandable if people don’t recognize – or have trouble really believing – that life eventually gets more free and expansive when their religion is at present constrictive. Perhaps we need a different type of religion to accommodate those who have made it to the top half of the glass, for although they have overcome strong difficulties through the constriction they are still imperfect and could use guidance to keep going up and up and up. No human has ever reached the top, at least alive. And we would do well to instruct those in the lower half of the glass or in the midst of the constriction that things get freer and more expansive. That way people in the constriction don’t get the idea that they’re at the top of the game, or that narrower and narrower constriction is the goal. One cannot chart a path if the destination is unknown.
I understand that the message is often given that there is joy in overcoming, yet it is confused when congregants are encouraged to remain spiritual infants (especially under the tutelage of a charismatic, self-styled master who preaches constriction), told that they are bad by nature, and are filled with fears of freedom because nobody teaches them what to do with it. I also understand that the ‘different type of religion’ could be ancient Eastern practices that assume you’ve already got things right with God and now go about improving habits of living and being for the rest of your life.
We recognize some humans who have lived in the top half of the glass: Gandhi, MLK, Jr, Schweitzer, Mother Teresa. There are those around us who seem to have an ease of living we don’t understand; they don’t have to berate themselves constantly to follow a strict path yet they seem to be good people. Although it hasn’t happened yet it is possible that a majority of people can attain this state, and when the hundredth monkey Gets It humankind will blow into a method of easier and principled living that would drop our jaws today.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Classic rock
The local classical station introduced a new Saturday evening lineup tonight. It consisted of two hours of 1960’s era rock and then an hour of hypnotic rock with screaming guitar. It grated on me.
Why is a classical station playing screaming rock? To cater to weekend partiers? To increase its listener base? To garner more subscriber support? Well, when they go outside the limits of ‘fine’ music they lose the support of people like me.
It got me to thinking. It’s sad that schools emphasize sports over music. Both involve teamwork, of course, but by denigrating concert bands we are losing something finer in life. We are losing the ability to learn and appreciate a language that connects us to other cultures and times.
Why don’t schools have rock bands? Because, despite what many rockers want to think, it’s easy to learn guitar, bass, and drums. Granted, the superstars develop it to a level that most people can’t imitate, but it’s nowhere near the ability that has to be developed over years learning to play a concert instrument.
What’s it worth to realize that the last phrase of a Bach invention, even in its strong structure coming out devastatingly maddening and flowingly beautiful, is nothing short of cool? What’s it worth to realize that a Chopin piece is a description of the last moments of life, much more descriptive than words could ever approach? What’s it worth that research supports the fact that harried music doesn’t really relax us – it merely reflects and adds to our insane pace -- and instead classical and easier jazz can? What’s it worth to understand an ancient language and tradition, adding depth and context to existence? What message do we give our youth when we show that an aspect of human excellence isn’t really that important? What do we accomplish by making brute force equivalent to fine achievement?
The denigration of fine music is pretty much the same as believing that liberalism is a bad thing. It reflects that one hasn’t taken the time to learn something higher and pretends that where they’re at is high enough, in extreme cases deceiving themselves into believing they’re at the highest level. It is, in plain terms, ignorance on parade. The further a culture descends into this condition the sillier it becomes. It settles for immaturity that can’t see beyond itself.
No, I expect a classical station to play fine music. Even if it means a smaller donor base.
Why is a classical station playing screaming rock? To cater to weekend partiers? To increase its listener base? To garner more subscriber support? Well, when they go outside the limits of ‘fine’ music they lose the support of people like me.
It got me to thinking. It’s sad that schools emphasize sports over music. Both involve teamwork, of course, but by denigrating concert bands we are losing something finer in life. We are losing the ability to learn and appreciate a language that connects us to other cultures and times.
Why don’t schools have rock bands? Because, despite what many rockers want to think, it’s easy to learn guitar, bass, and drums. Granted, the superstars develop it to a level that most people can’t imitate, but it’s nowhere near the ability that has to be developed over years learning to play a concert instrument.
What’s it worth to realize that the last phrase of a Bach invention, even in its strong structure coming out devastatingly maddening and flowingly beautiful, is nothing short of cool? What’s it worth to realize that a Chopin piece is a description of the last moments of life, much more descriptive than words could ever approach? What’s it worth that research supports the fact that harried music doesn’t really relax us – it merely reflects and adds to our insane pace -- and instead classical and easier jazz can? What’s it worth to understand an ancient language and tradition, adding depth and context to existence? What message do we give our youth when we show that an aspect of human excellence isn’t really that important? What do we accomplish by making brute force equivalent to fine achievement?
The denigration of fine music is pretty much the same as believing that liberalism is a bad thing. It reflects that one hasn’t taken the time to learn something higher and pretends that where they’re at is high enough, in extreme cases deceiving themselves into believing they’re at the highest level. It is, in plain terms, ignorance on parade. The further a culture descends into this condition the sillier it becomes. It settles for immaturity that can’t see beyond itself.
No, I expect a classical station to play fine music. Even if it means a smaller donor base.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Closer to Believing
It was a good pop lyric, “can’t live without you”. And so immature.
You see, when we get wrapped up in the hormonal myopia that makes us think life is over if we don’t have the love of the person we’ve zoomed in on, we’re missing a big point: we had a life before focusing on that person and were able to live just fine, thank you. And if our lives weren’t okay before that person, having them around won’t fix what needs fixing inside. Besides, what motivation is there for a healthy person hook up with someone who doesn’t have things worked out? ‘Can’t live without you’ also says that our own lives aren’t complete if it takes another person to fill it.
In a more mature person the big chunks of inner problems are dealt with. The person is a mind, heart, and spirit already formed and complete. They are attractive to the type of person they want to be with. A partner is no longer a necessity, and the jump is made from ‘need’ to ‘desire’. A partner isn’t needed to complete you; a partner is sought to complement you. They don’t fill what you are lacking; they add to what you already have. They don’t distract from personal failings or participate in them, and instead are by your side as you grow past them. And if the loved person is taken away for whatever reason, it will hurt and leave an emptiness but the mature person will go on with life.
When you give someone your heart you don’t give them your soul. You don’t give them your identity, your resources, your purpose. These all become shared, but your part is still owned by you.
We are told that God wants our love and adoration. If we refuse does God go into paroxysms of grief and want to commit suicide? Nope. God continues to offer love and all its benefits and goes on with matters of the universe. Although humans are far less perfect than God, are we not able to attain this level of maturity? Of course we can. Many people have.
It would be an interesting world if most people developed this maturity. Then we would sing that ‘I need me, you need you, we want us’ (Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, Closer to Believing).
You see, when we get wrapped up in the hormonal myopia that makes us think life is over if we don’t have the love of the person we’ve zoomed in on, we’re missing a big point: we had a life before focusing on that person and were able to live just fine, thank you. And if our lives weren’t okay before that person, having them around won’t fix what needs fixing inside. Besides, what motivation is there for a healthy person hook up with someone who doesn’t have things worked out? ‘Can’t live without you’ also says that our own lives aren’t complete if it takes another person to fill it.
In a more mature person the big chunks of inner problems are dealt with. The person is a mind, heart, and spirit already formed and complete. They are attractive to the type of person they want to be with. A partner is no longer a necessity, and the jump is made from ‘need’ to ‘desire’. A partner isn’t needed to complete you; a partner is sought to complement you. They don’t fill what you are lacking; they add to what you already have. They don’t distract from personal failings or participate in them, and instead are by your side as you grow past them. And if the loved person is taken away for whatever reason, it will hurt and leave an emptiness but the mature person will go on with life.
When you give someone your heart you don’t give them your soul. You don’t give them your identity, your resources, your purpose. These all become shared, but your part is still owned by you.
We are told that God wants our love and adoration. If we refuse does God go into paroxysms of grief and want to commit suicide? Nope. God continues to offer love and all its benefits and goes on with matters of the universe. Although humans are far less perfect than God, are we not able to attain this level of maturity? Of course we can. Many people have.
It would be an interesting world if most people developed this maturity. Then we would sing that ‘I need me, you need you, we want us’ (Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, Closer to Believing).
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Disaster Memorial
"You may be right," my office mate said last Wednesday, "but it would be in poor taste to say it today."
It was the seventh anniversary of the 9-11 attacks. My observation was that as much as I've researched and learned since that time I can't help but to think that the buildings came down in a controlled demolition.
The easiest reference to start your own research would be to Google 'David Ray Griffin'. Be sure to read the government's counter-research for balance.
My own points:
It was the seventh anniversary of the 9-11 attacks. My observation was that as much as I've researched and learned since that time I can't help but to think that the buildings came down in a controlled demolition.
The easiest reference to start your own research would be to Google 'David Ray Griffin'. Be sure to read the government's counter-research for balance.
My own points:
- When the WTC was built I remember a comment made that they were built to withstand the impact of a commercial jetliner. My father was an engineer for a major airline, and that comment caught my attention.
- After the attacks Larry Silverstein, landlord of the WTC, said on a nationally-broadcast interview that a decision was made to 'pull' Building 7 after the attacks (even though it hadn't been damaged by airplanes or falling debris). 'Pull' is industry jargon for the controlled demolition of a building. But it takes weeks or months to plan, prepare, plant explosives, and execute a demolition. No word was given that any previous planning had gone into the demolition (and Silverstein also said that he authorized the NYFD to pull it; the fire department isn't in the demolition business). The demolition of Building 7 was planned and it is admitted that a controlled demolition happened at WTC that day. Silverstein made it sound like a decision made four or five hours before the building came down.
- Government explanations defy physics and common sense. The 9-11 Commission report ignores Building 7. It pretends that airplane fuel can melt steel enough to cause such a catastrophe (if it could melt metal so easily, engines would melt on a plane before it even got to the runway). The report also ignores the interior structure of WTC 1 and 2 that made them strong enough to withstand the airplanes' force.
I understand that it's a horrific thought, that it may have been an inside job. It would put our government on the level with the Nazis. It's like trying to think nuclear weapons all the way through, from the immediate to the long-lasting effects of a blast. Such things aren't supposed to be true of the United States. We're supposed to be superior, good people who lead the world. Our leaders, who would have devised and executed the plan if it was an inside job, were very open about their Christianity, and religious people aren't supposed to be capable of such hypocritical attrocities.
'Conspiracy theory' is what they call my thinking about 9-11. It will remain a theory until researched and proven or disproven. But it has been researched, and all independent research supports the 'conspiracy' so far. Perhaps it's time to apply 'conspiracy' to the official story instead.
Why can't our national leaders be horrific beasts? They've been exposed time after time after time for deceiving the public and secrecy. If they actually planned and carried out the 9-11 attacks what is the harm in holding them accountable? Are we too embarrassed to admit that we supported them, that we believed them? Do we feel guilty about it, like our promoting them to highest office made us in a way responsible for the deaths of our fellow citizens?
God knows the truth. And God knows we've all had the opportunity to search out the truth.
If it is the truth, why is it in poor taste to say it? I would think, for the sake of everyone who suffered loss on that day, that in the interest of justice and closure the truth should be spoken.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Sarah Palin Being Researched
In a brief moment watching TV before heading out for volunteer work this evening, I heard an evangelist proclaim the United States as "a Christian nation." While the major religion in our country is Christian, by constitution our nation does not sponsor Christianity or any religion. I don't know the evangelist's motivation to promote an untruth. Speaking an untruth in the name of God is disquieting.
Then a news headline came out this evening: Sarah Palin, Governer of Alaska and the nominated vice presidential candidate for the Republican Party, had been taped giving a speech where she proclaimed that the war in Iraq as "a task that is from God." She also asked audience members to pray for a $30 billion gas pipeline across Alaska because it was "God's will."
It's disquieting to confuse religion with politics. One begins to suspect that those who are after the Moslem extremists are themselves Christian extremists. Perhaps we could buy out a poverty-stricken third-world nation, move all its residents to better economic spots, and let all the religious extremists of the world go to the nation to fight it out between themselves and let the rest of us get on with the issues of growing forward.
A report on NPR today revealed that Ms. Palin, along with Senator McCain, opposes earmarks in federal legislation. It was also reported that while mayor of a town of 9,700 people just a few years ago she secured approximately $20 million in earmarks for the town. So which is it, Ms. Palin?
President Bush learned early on to cool references to 'another Father' because it disturbed too many citizens. Ms. Palin has yet to learn the lesson. But that's not as important as the underlying system of belief that prompts such statements, and that system got us into an illegal imperial holy war. Should she become vice president we could probably expect more of the current administration, no matter how much they are saying that it won't happen. If you can rationalize political will as being God's will, I suppose you can rationalize anything.
Then a news headline came out this evening: Sarah Palin, Governer of Alaska and the nominated vice presidential candidate for the Republican Party, had been taped giving a speech where she proclaimed that the war in Iraq as "a task that is from God." She also asked audience members to pray for a $30 billion gas pipeline across Alaska because it was "God's will."
It's disquieting to confuse religion with politics. One begins to suspect that those who are after the Moslem extremists are themselves Christian extremists. Perhaps we could buy out a poverty-stricken third-world nation, move all its residents to better economic spots, and let all the religious extremists of the world go to the nation to fight it out between themselves and let the rest of us get on with the issues of growing forward.
A report on NPR today revealed that Ms. Palin, along with Senator McCain, opposes earmarks in federal legislation. It was also reported that while mayor of a town of 9,700 people just a few years ago she secured approximately $20 million in earmarks for the town. So which is it, Ms. Palin?
President Bush learned early on to cool references to 'another Father' because it disturbed too many citizens. Ms. Palin has yet to learn the lesson. But that's not as important as the underlying system of belief that prompts such statements, and that system got us into an illegal imperial holy war. Should she become vice president we could probably expect more of the current administration, no matter how much they are saying that it won't happen. If you can rationalize political will as being God's will, I suppose you can rationalize anything.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
College is a Poor Investment
Reading an editorial today by Walter Williams, a university professor of economics, he was reviewing an idea by another author that college is a waste of money and effort. If he disagreed with the idea, Dr. Williams didn't make it clear. As I read it I was filled with a Quixotic murkiness. The article was mad-making.
Dr. Williams decried that colleges no longer teach critical thinking, and that students can't work abstract concepts. I am amazed he is decrying it because he has followed the conservative agenda in America for years and, simply stated, the lack of critical thinking is the result of years of dirtying the idea of liberalism.
Let me explain. Before Bush the Elder's presidency -- where 'liberal' was demoted to the dirtiness of 'the L-word' (and wife Barbara said once that she was liberal; she never said it in public again and the incident was forgotten) -- colleges were called liberal arts institutions. This was because they taught a form of thinking called 'liberal', which means the same thing as critical thinking. In those days higher education taught a higher-order thinking process.
Enter an authoritarian era. History is rife with authoritarian types gaining control of government, spending on defense and neglecting education, and even arresting academics and intellectuals. It's easy to deduce that authoritarians are threatened by critical thinking. In this neoconservative era we have seen many challenges to education, including lack of funding and lawsuits against teachers who promote a liberal agenda.
Which clues us in to another feature of the authoritarian mindset. Such people believe that teaching means telling students what to believe. It reduces the threat that anybody thinks for themselves, sees into the machinations of the authoritarian agenda, and makes a stink. Critical thinking is a lot harder; it requires that you take a variety of information from a variety of sources, compare ideas with each other, compare them to previous experience and history, compare them to rules of logic and morality, and come to an informed decision on the topic. Rather than being taught what to think, liberalism teaches you how to think. Why would anybody object to someone learning how to think? I imagine it's a fear for those who are trying to rule by deceit.
Before Bush the Elder colleges taught critical thinking through a series of general education classes at a time when young people have begun thinking abstractly and have tamed it somewhat, but are still open to new ideas. They also had students focus on one or two areas as a major so that they would be prepared to enter the workforce as professionals. Trade schools only taught specific job skills in one area and those jobs were called, well, trades. We now have garbage haulers calling their jobs professions and careers, meaning we have lost the distinction.
This would explain the lament that college students can't think critically anymore, and that they can't use abstract ideas well. When liberalism is quashed and the students are only taught information about the job they will have afterward we have reduced college to expensive trade schools. We have lost the distinction, dumbed down the students, and lost the value of higher-order thinking.
So it is maddening that Dr. Williams decries this state of higher education when the mindset he champions created it. I don't know if he realizes it consciously -- he is certainly bright enough.
It is time for us to no longer allow authoritarians and their pundit mouthpieces to bash liberalism. It is time for us to remember what it really is, to expect colleges to teach it, to remand specific job training once again to trade schools, and to not let authoritarians grab control and wreck this portion of society again and not take responsibility for it.
Dr. Williams decried that colleges no longer teach critical thinking, and that students can't work abstract concepts. I am amazed he is decrying it because he has followed the conservative agenda in America for years and, simply stated, the lack of critical thinking is the result of years of dirtying the idea of liberalism.
Let me explain. Before Bush the Elder's presidency -- where 'liberal' was demoted to the dirtiness of 'the L-word' (and wife Barbara said once that she was liberal; she never said it in public again and the incident was forgotten) -- colleges were called liberal arts institutions. This was because they taught a form of thinking called 'liberal', which means the same thing as critical thinking. In those days higher education taught a higher-order thinking process.
Enter an authoritarian era. History is rife with authoritarian types gaining control of government, spending on defense and neglecting education, and even arresting academics and intellectuals. It's easy to deduce that authoritarians are threatened by critical thinking. In this neoconservative era we have seen many challenges to education, including lack of funding and lawsuits against teachers who promote a liberal agenda.
Which clues us in to another feature of the authoritarian mindset. Such people believe that teaching means telling students what to believe. It reduces the threat that anybody thinks for themselves, sees into the machinations of the authoritarian agenda, and makes a stink. Critical thinking is a lot harder; it requires that you take a variety of information from a variety of sources, compare ideas with each other, compare them to previous experience and history, compare them to rules of logic and morality, and come to an informed decision on the topic. Rather than being taught what to think, liberalism teaches you how to think. Why would anybody object to someone learning how to think? I imagine it's a fear for those who are trying to rule by deceit.
Before Bush the Elder colleges taught critical thinking through a series of general education classes at a time when young people have begun thinking abstractly and have tamed it somewhat, but are still open to new ideas. They also had students focus on one or two areas as a major so that they would be prepared to enter the workforce as professionals. Trade schools only taught specific job skills in one area and those jobs were called, well, trades. We now have garbage haulers calling their jobs professions and careers, meaning we have lost the distinction.
This would explain the lament that college students can't think critically anymore, and that they can't use abstract ideas well. When liberalism is quashed and the students are only taught information about the job they will have afterward we have reduced college to expensive trade schools. We have lost the distinction, dumbed down the students, and lost the value of higher-order thinking.
So it is maddening that Dr. Williams decries this state of higher education when the mindset he champions created it. I don't know if he realizes it consciously -- he is certainly bright enough.
It is time for us to no longer allow authoritarians and their pundit mouthpieces to bash liberalism. It is time for us to remember what it really is, to expect colleges to teach it, to remand specific job training once again to trade schools, and to not let authoritarians grab control and wreck this portion of society again and not take responsibility for it.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Weighty Thoughts
Did a little research this morning purely out of curiosity about the rising percentage of overweight Americans. In six or seven websites I discovered a lot of recurrent information:
- The percentage of overweight and obese Americans is rising at an astronomical rate. In one two-year period ('02 to '04) the percentage nearly tripled.
- Being overweight contributes to a variety of health problems including Type 2 diabetes and hypertension.
- For every pound of fat you put on the body has to develop a mile of capilaries for the blood to service that area. It puts more strain on your heart.
- Weight gain is directly associated with poverty (fatty foods are cheaper than healthy foods), race (blacks are at a higher percentage being overweight, and latinos are pursuing them), and lack of education. I was sidetracked by poverty statistics for a while and found some disturbing -- but true -- information.
I am a counselor for people with persistant mental illness and substance abuse problems. Weight gain is a constant issue. Some psychotropic medications have weight gain as a possible side effect. Most of the clients are poor and rely on the food bank or whatever they can minimally afford. With depression it's hard to care about one's health. Despite these things, though, there is something they can do: exercise. Yet it's like pulling teeth to get them active. I've had a couple of clients over four hundred pounds.
Lack of education about nutrition is often cited on the websites as a cause of obesity. This has to be taken with a grain of salt. It's usually nutritionists making this judgment and they're reflecting their area of expertise and concern. And if you think about it, we know far more about nutrition now than we did a hundred fifty years ago, and they had far fewer weight problems then. The also had no power tools, microwaves, TV's, radios, automatic washing machines, cars, or tractors. When I tell people I don't watch TV they look at me as though I were un-American, but I find that I have time to do more active things. And even though I bought a weed whacker a few years ago I've maybe used it five times. It seems more responsible, and a whole lot quieter with no pollution, to cut the weeds manually. The best illustration is in the fall when I'm raking my lawn and a neighbor a couple of houses away is using a leaf blower: he must weigh three times what I do. And will probably die a lot younger. Between now and death he will probably never climb to the top of a mountain like I do, not experience the charge of elation walking in the woods and enjoying my body's ability, and though I hate to envision it he may not be able to perform sexually as well as people more fit.
Just as an aside, don't you think we'd have gotten somewhere with the multibillion-dollar weight loss industry and pharmeceutical aids? At what point do we say they don't got it?
Not that I'm a fitness junkie or weight nazi, but I just enjoy a lot of things because I'm thin. I'm able to. And it's sad that a lot of people slow down and put on weight. I'd love to take long walks with them.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
I keep thinking about the idea that we are either (primarily) controlled by forces inside us or by forces outside us. I am an internally controlled person, so it takes a bit of thought to understand the other.
Accepting that externally controlled people feel little or no control of forces or events, it makes sense that a form of community, of tribalism, is important. It is crucial to feel a sense of security for an increased faith in survival; if it is not within yourself it must be in forces outside. This would take the form of laws, enforcement, weapons, experts, and authority. There is strength in numbers. You would value loyalty to the community upon pain of harm or even death. This operates on the individual, community, and national levels.
It would make sense, then, that anything foreign or not understood could be a threat; how can you defend against something you don't understand or have the resource to fight? Thus other religions and cultures are automatically suspect. Or homosexual marriage would threaten your heterosexual marriage. Without a deep belief in internal ability, anything seen as a threat must be eliminated by means determined by those in authority.
It would also explain why so many people listen to, and believe, media personalities who repeat lies time after time and the people believe them. To think outside the box would be tantamount to giving up your membership to the club, and without the community it’s you against the universe. The thought is too frightening to even entertain. It allows marketers to determine fashions and then switch them every season, guaranteeing themselves an industry and livelihood. It would explain how large corporations perpetuate mistruths about their product acquisition, financial state, profit margin, dedication to the well being of people, etc. and are believed. It would explain how weapons manufacturers convince us they provide peace and security.
But like finally understanding why self-mutilators cut or burn themselves, it doesn’t mean that external forces are bad, wrong, or a threat. In pure logic, if you don’t understand something it could be either good or bad. You just don’t know. In the same sense, externally controlled people tend to idolize authority figures, yet without knowing strength within (and its sources and development) you couldn’t know how to discriminate which authority figures are legitimate and which are hucksters.
The research says that a predominantly internally controlled person with a realistic idea of what external forces are beyond his or her control is the most mature and healthy. And even more, while many external events are beyond control you can still develop the ability to deal with most situations with the least amount of harm occurring. It is also understood that the most advanced of these people would be the most capable of leading, and it only makes sense that the most advanced should lead others to control themselves individually and collectively, yet having conquered themselves they feel little to no compulsion to take control of others.
It is easy to say that marketing, profit, manipulation, and corruption in business, religion, and government are run amok. What’s more difficult is to design how to stop digging and crawl out of the hole we’ve dug.
That’s why I keep mentioning the Golden Rule. It’s pretty simple, even for simple people, and its widespread use would make a difference like we can’t even imagine. I would also suggest making cooperation more important than competition. These alone would make our nation the strongest and most advanced in world history, and the interesting thing is that we would probably bring all the other nations along with us.
Accepting that externally controlled people feel little or no control of forces or events, it makes sense that a form of community, of tribalism, is important. It is crucial to feel a sense of security for an increased faith in survival; if it is not within yourself it must be in forces outside. This would take the form of laws, enforcement, weapons, experts, and authority. There is strength in numbers. You would value loyalty to the community upon pain of harm or even death. This operates on the individual, community, and national levels.
It would make sense, then, that anything foreign or not understood could be a threat; how can you defend against something you don't understand or have the resource to fight? Thus other religions and cultures are automatically suspect. Or homosexual marriage would threaten your heterosexual marriage. Without a deep belief in internal ability, anything seen as a threat must be eliminated by means determined by those in authority.
It would also explain why so many people listen to, and believe, media personalities who repeat lies time after time and the people believe them. To think outside the box would be tantamount to giving up your membership to the club, and without the community it’s you against the universe. The thought is too frightening to even entertain. It allows marketers to determine fashions and then switch them every season, guaranteeing themselves an industry and livelihood. It would explain how large corporations perpetuate mistruths about their product acquisition, financial state, profit margin, dedication to the well being of people, etc. and are believed. It would explain how weapons manufacturers convince us they provide peace and security.
But like finally understanding why self-mutilators cut or burn themselves, it doesn’t mean that external forces are bad, wrong, or a threat. In pure logic, if you don’t understand something it could be either good or bad. You just don’t know. In the same sense, externally controlled people tend to idolize authority figures, yet without knowing strength within (and its sources and development) you couldn’t know how to discriminate which authority figures are legitimate and which are hucksters.
The research says that a predominantly internally controlled person with a realistic idea of what external forces are beyond his or her control is the most mature and healthy. And even more, while many external events are beyond control you can still develop the ability to deal with most situations with the least amount of harm occurring. It is also understood that the most advanced of these people would be the most capable of leading, and it only makes sense that the most advanced should lead others to control themselves individually and collectively, yet having conquered themselves they feel little to no compulsion to take control of others.
It is easy to say that marketing, profit, manipulation, and corruption in business, religion, and government are run amok. What’s more difficult is to design how to stop digging and crawl out of the hole we’ve dug.
That’s why I keep mentioning the Golden Rule. It’s pretty simple, even for simple people, and its widespread use would make a difference like we can’t even imagine. I would also suggest making cooperation more important than competition. These alone would make our nation the strongest and most advanced in world history, and the interesting thing is that we would probably bring all the other nations along with us.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Mind War Games
I've been on vacation and haven't blogged since returning. But here we go again.
On several news broadcasts today the U.S. military announced that, in association with Carnagie Melon University, they're developing some sort of 'mind-reading gadget' that will help with soldiers who experience PTSD. This is based on ongoing neurological research, which with wave patterns, neurochemical reactions, and so forth looks like a field that will finally get there. Until now it's just been the stuff of sci fi and farfetched movie scripts.
Critics have been quick to point out that such an invention could be used for interrogation and torture.
While the research continues and debate rages, I wonder if we should even be 'inventing' it at all. For all our knowledge there is precious little we know about how the brain functions, and when you combine it with emotion and spirit, each of which we understand even less, the potential for honest misuse and calculated abuse are frightening. We need to understand galaxies more about how we operate before probing where we don't know the parameters and permutations.
It's like the invention of the nuclear bomb. Sure, we figured out how to do it, but once we did we couldn't unlearn it and the existence of them in the world is one of the most frightening things humankind has accomplished. Many would argue that the bomb keeps us from destroying each other, yet I would assert that it introduces a tension unknown before in history, the possibility at any moment that all life on the planet could be wiped out in a half hour, and it hasn't stopped people from fighting and killing each other. It has done nothing toward peace, and in fact has taken us irrevocably in the other direction.
The potential for abuse by a mind-reading device is too horrible. What constructive use would there be? To cure soldiers of PTSD? Why don't we try ending war first and see what that does? To keep husbands and wives honest? Now that would destroy civilization. To screen potential employees? Hm. Ever see Liar, Liar? The entire population, made up of fallible humans who are so conditioned to live in illusion by the system that's inventing a mind-reading machine, will go unemployed. And can you imagine how the business industry would use it for marketing, spying, destroying the competition, and so forth? And what about religion? Ooh. Yuck. You think religious fundamentalism is a problem now?
For that matter, if military brass and politicos are so fond of the creation of this monster why don't we subject them to it first?
A mind reading device isn't needed. We first need to figure out how to live the Golden Rule consistently. Then the device won't be needed.
On several news broadcasts today the U.S. military announced that, in association with Carnagie Melon University, they're developing some sort of 'mind-reading gadget' that will help with soldiers who experience PTSD. This is based on ongoing neurological research, which with wave patterns, neurochemical reactions, and so forth looks like a field that will finally get there. Until now it's just been the stuff of sci fi and farfetched movie scripts.
Critics have been quick to point out that such an invention could be used for interrogation and torture.
While the research continues and debate rages, I wonder if we should even be 'inventing' it at all. For all our knowledge there is precious little we know about how the brain functions, and when you combine it with emotion and spirit, each of which we understand even less, the potential for honest misuse and calculated abuse are frightening. We need to understand galaxies more about how we operate before probing where we don't know the parameters and permutations.
It's like the invention of the nuclear bomb. Sure, we figured out how to do it, but once we did we couldn't unlearn it and the existence of them in the world is one of the most frightening things humankind has accomplished. Many would argue that the bomb keeps us from destroying each other, yet I would assert that it introduces a tension unknown before in history, the possibility at any moment that all life on the planet could be wiped out in a half hour, and it hasn't stopped people from fighting and killing each other. It has done nothing toward peace, and in fact has taken us irrevocably in the other direction.
The potential for abuse by a mind-reading device is too horrible. What constructive use would there be? To cure soldiers of PTSD? Why don't we try ending war first and see what that does? To keep husbands and wives honest? Now that would destroy civilization. To screen potential employees? Hm. Ever see Liar, Liar? The entire population, made up of fallible humans who are so conditioned to live in illusion by the system that's inventing a mind-reading machine, will go unemployed. And can you imagine how the business industry would use it for marketing, spying, destroying the competition, and so forth? And what about religion? Ooh. Yuck. You think religious fundamentalism is a problem now?
For that matter, if military brass and politicos are so fond of the creation of this monster why don't we subject them to it first?
A mind reading device isn't needed. We first need to figure out how to live the Golden Rule consistently. Then the device won't be needed.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Bush's Last War
If what I heard on the radio today is true we have our ships, troops, and air support ready to attack Iran. They have run through their practice exercises. The top brass is telling Bush that we shouldn't attack, but everything's set. Bush only has a few months left to do what he thinks he needs to do, so the time is right for him to attack Iran if he is ever going to. We have been getting the Iran-bashing from our executive branch for some time, and although it is a weak attempt compared to the anti-Iraq cheerleading it reflects the same agenda. The scary part is, Bush and Co. will probably go through with it even without public support.
As a citizen of the United States, as one of the many employers of the president and his cabinet, I am here to say NO. Don't do it. It was wrong in Iraq, it is wrong in Iran. We are stretched too thin with our military, with our budget, with our reputation and effectiveness on the world scene, with our nerves.
Mr. Bush, you see enemies too easily. You are too scared to talk to those you fear, and in this way you can imagine them into anything you want. Your view of the world is too black and white to include so much reality, and the resulting reliance on fantasy leads to situational ethics, trying to bully the schisms between fantasy and reality, and untoward secrecy so that reality is blocked out. You are too oriented toward profit, so much so that you are selling my government to profiteers whose god is money. There's never enough god.
Your legacy is already set in stone. You don't need to add to it. How many more have to die for you to be satisfied? Are your convictions so strong that YOU would be willing to die for them?
Yes, you only have a few more months with an army to back you up. Do you believe so much in the righteousness of your convictions that you would confront your enemies without a military? Without an army what are you?
I say NO. Don't attack Iran. It would be another preeminent, illegal action that would make another mess that will take decades to clean up. Stop it, Mr. Bush. You've done enough damage.
As a citizen of the United States, as one of the many employers of the president and his cabinet, I am here to say NO. Don't do it. It was wrong in Iraq, it is wrong in Iran. We are stretched too thin with our military, with our budget, with our reputation and effectiveness on the world scene, with our nerves.
Mr. Bush, you see enemies too easily. You are too scared to talk to those you fear, and in this way you can imagine them into anything you want. Your view of the world is too black and white to include so much reality, and the resulting reliance on fantasy leads to situational ethics, trying to bully the schisms between fantasy and reality, and untoward secrecy so that reality is blocked out. You are too oriented toward profit, so much so that you are selling my government to profiteers whose god is money. There's never enough god.
Your legacy is already set in stone. You don't need to add to it. How many more have to die for you to be satisfied? Are your convictions so strong that YOU would be willing to die for them?
Yes, you only have a few more months with an army to back you up. Do you believe so much in the righteousness of your convictions that you would confront your enemies without a military? Without an army what are you?
I say NO. Don't attack Iran. It would be another preeminent, illegal action that would make another mess that will take decades to clean up. Stop it, Mr. Bush. You've done enough damage.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
The Next Revolution, Part IV
"Evidence is strong that direct, forceful, aggressive approaches are perhaps the least effective way to help people consider new information and change their perceptions. Such confrontation increases the very phenomenon it is supposed to overcome -- defensiveness -- and decreases the client's likelihood of change."
William R. Miller, quoted in TIP 35, p.10
This quote was given in the context of counseling people with substance abuse issues. But if we change the word client to organization, culture, or nation it would still remain a research-based truism of human dynamics.
In this light, wouldn't it be prudent to expect business, religious, and political leaders to comply with researched-based evidence to decrease the amount of resistance, frustration, rebelliousness, and defensiveness that humankind has struggled with throughout its history? Why would we not want this to happen?
For example, terrorism could fairly be understood as oppressed people lashing back at the oppressors. The current prescription is to beat them back into submission or, failing that, to kill them. But according to the research, this is precisely the wrong action to take as the forceful nature of the cure breeds further resentment and resistance, and escalates the problem. If, instead, we were to take a more effective approach -- empathy, careful direction of motivation and decision-making, every person or entity taking responsibility for its actions and resulting consequences, consideration of a wide range of options, and engendering a sense of self-efficacy in every person and entity -- we could cultivate conditions that work toward positive change and decrease negative schisms.
To be clear, every person or entity taking responsibility means the aggressors as well. In current America the use of preemptive war is seen as a rightous action that does not cause a negative reaction in those it is directed against. At what point do we finally admit that this belief is struck down by the research and strive to replace it with something that is proven effective?
It's understood that making a change like this would take decades to put in place. We are in an age of power politics, and the use of confrontation and aggression is worshipped by the people. But there have been ages that have been less aggressive, and there is no requirement that aggressive people be allowed into positions of power. It's also understood that those who see aggression as a solution, if we parallel this with spiritual development, are at a lower stage of development with an unfortunate inability to see that there are people and methods more mature than their own. They believe that people must be made to comply with the vision that they hold as right. If we are to get past people in this stage holding power we must recognize as a culture that it's not the highest step on the ladder, and that if the culture is to progress and stand as a shining example then people more highly developed must be entrusted with power.
And just imagine: aggression decreases, cooperation increases, there is less tension in the world, money and industry are less concerned with hurting and killing people and instead are concerned with promoting the well-being of all, and with the ensuing calm we are able to focus on moving the human race to heights that we never had the time or energy to pursue when we were so caught up in squabbling and fighting and killing. Fears would decrease and fascinations would increase. It's true that the ruling class would get watered down and become more like common folk, but the loss of the abuse of power would be a welcome compensation for this. There would be far less reason for anger individually and collectively. And above all, we as a race could experience an increase in our understanding and practice of loving like we've never accomplished before. Wouldn't that be something?
William R. Miller, quoted in TIP 35, p.10
This quote was given in the context of counseling people with substance abuse issues. But if we change the word client to organization, culture, or nation it would still remain a research-based truism of human dynamics.
In this light, wouldn't it be prudent to expect business, religious, and political leaders to comply with researched-based evidence to decrease the amount of resistance, frustration, rebelliousness, and defensiveness that humankind has struggled with throughout its history? Why would we not want this to happen?
For example, terrorism could fairly be understood as oppressed people lashing back at the oppressors. The current prescription is to beat them back into submission or, failing that, to kill them. But according to the research, this is precisely the wrong action to take as the forceful nature of the cure breeds further resentment and resistance, and escalates the problem. If, instead, we were to take a more effective approach -- empathy, careful direction of motivation and decision-making, every person or entity taking responsibility for its actions and resulting consequences, consideration of a wide range of options, and engendering a sense of self-efficacy in every person and entity -- we could cultivate conditions that work toward positive change and decrease negative schisms.
To be clear, every person or entity taking responsibility means the aggressors as well. In current America the use of preemptive war is seen as a rightous action that does not cause a negative reaction in those it is directed against. At what point do we finally admit that this belief is struck down by the research and strive to replace it with something that is proven effective?
It's understood that making a change like this would take decades to put in place. We are in an age of power politics, and the use of confrontation and aggression is worshipped by the people. But there have been ages that have been less aggressive, and there is no requirement that aggressive people be allowed into positions of power. It's also understood that those who see aggression as a solution, if we parallel this with spiritual development, are at a lower stage of development with an unfortunate inability to see that there are people and methods more mature than their own. They believe that people must be made to comply with the vision that they hold as right. If we are to get past people in this stage holding power we must recognize as a culture that it's not the highest step on the ladder, and that if the culture is to progress and stand as a shining example then people more highly developed must be entrusted with power.
And just imagine: aggression decreases, cooperation increases, there is less tension in the world, money and industry are less concerned with hurting and killing people and instead are concerned with promoting the well-being of all, and with the ensuing calm we are able to focus on moving the human race to heights that we never had the time or energy to pursue when we were so caught up in squabbling and fighting and killing. Fears would decrease and fascinations would increase. It's true that the ruling class would get watered down and become more like common folk, but the loss of the abuse of power would be a welcome compensation for this. There would be far less reason for anger individually and collectively. And above all, we as a race could experience an increase in our understanding and practice of loving like we've never accomplished before. Wouldn't that be something?
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
A Gay Day
While gay couples have the opportunity today to marry in California and the topic is hot, let me weigh in with a couple of thoughts.
To say that gay marriages threaten heterosexual marriages is akin to saying that a man who loses a leg threatens my ability to walk. Expressing such a concern points to an underlying dynamic: those who are weak or insecure on the inside are more easily threatened by things on the outside. Those who are the most threatened by homosexuality are those who suspect their own homosexual urges and are hell bent on denying them. They are unable to accept and integrate that we are not strictly male and female beings, and that there are qualities to greater and lesser degrees of each in every person.
It is within my lifetime that there were laws against interracial marriage.
To say that something one doesn't understand and therefore fears should be illegal is poor reasoning for legislation. To say that civil law in the United States should be drawn from religious law would bring up the question of why Christians have such problems with Sharia rule, and why they have such a hard time with 'do unto others...'.
To say that gay marriages threaten heterosexual marriages is akin to saying that a man who loses a leg threatens my ability to walk. Expressing such a concern points to an underlying dynamic: those who are weak or insecure on the inside are more easily threatened by things on the outside. Those who are the most threatened by homosexuality are those who suspect their own homosexual urges and are hell bent on denying them. They are unable to accept and integrate that we are not strictly male and female beings, and that there are qualities to greater and lesser degrees of each in every person.
It is within my lifetime that there were laws against interracial marriage.
To say that something one doesn't understand and therefore fears should be illegal is poor reasoning for legislation. To say that civil law in the United States should be drawn from religious law would bring up the question of why Christians have such problems with Sharia rule, and why they have such a hard time with 'do unto others...'.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
"No Fear"
"No fear." -- Polly, Diggory, and Eustace in Lewis' Narnia Chronicles.
"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." -- FDR
"I look forward to the American people understanding the threats that are out there." -- George W. Bush, just prior to the invasion of Iraq.
"Well, as long as it's for security, I don't mind it." -- A friend, talking about a loss of civil liberties.
"Fear not..." -- The angels who appeared to humans early in the New Testament.
The characters in Narnia were using the word 'fear' in an idiomatic way, and as far as I can figure it meant 'of course!' President Roosevelt was trying to calm down the American people so that they could band together in a common cause. President Bush used the concept to get the people to band together behind his agenda. The angels were aware that their awesome appearance frightened humans, and they began their messages so that the people could hear that even in the midst of fear wondrous things can happen.
Fear is a natural part of the human package. It's there to warn us of potential harm; it sharpens our awareness and gives us energy to fight or flee. It bypasses rational thought, which is fine since in emergency situations we may not have time to evaluate. However, it can be overdone, as in 'phobia'. We can be more afraid than we have to.
We live in a world here in America where weather is predicted and broadcast to the neighborhood level, so that we can prepare for and make ourselves safe from severe weather. We have food manufacturing laws so strict that harmful foods have a hard time getting to the market (I know this point can be argued; there are regular outbreaks of salmonella, and it is arguable that many of the processed foods we buy, especially for convenience, are chock full of sodium and sugar and other things in amounts that the human body wasn't designed for. But overall, you understand my point). We have product liability to the point that safety is one of the premiere features of most products we buy. Buildings are built to withstand earthquakes and hurricanes. Really, we probably live in the safest conditions that humans ever have.
Yet we still have phobias. We have a range of anxiety disorders that are experienced and treated every day. We have a government that has played off citizen fears to wage and sustain an illegal war.
We need not fear as much as we do. If we didn't fear irrationally Mr. Bush & Co. would never have gotten their war, and more than four thousand of our troops and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis would still be alive. If we didn't fear irrationally the pharmaceutical companies would make far less in profit and have a much less powerful lobby. If we didn't fear irrationally a citizen would be able to prevail at an airport asking, "What's your probable cause for searching me?" and wait lines would go much more quickly. If I learn what types of spiders and snakes are poisonous I wouldn't have to fear the ones that aren't.
For you see, when security is the issue then the problem is insecurity. We can be insecure individually, and if enough people are individually insecure then we become collectively insecure (which goes into a book-length series of thoughts including economic forces, marketing, parenting, and social conventions that lead to insecurity). Then it is a simple matter for unprincipled leaders to take advantage of the irrational fears to accomplish their agenda. Though we do not like to admit anything good came of the Nazis, Hermann Goerring said it well that all the leaders have to do is increase fears in the public and question their patriotism and then they will follow the leaders into war.
The solution is obvious: to identify those who know how to manage fears in a healthy way and promote them to leadership positions. Ask our potential leaders: if we went to war would you be the first to lead into battle and the last to leave? Anything less is cowardice, and they would be careful to pick the right battles.
No fear!
"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." -- FDR
"I look forward to the American people understanding the threats that are out there." -- George W. Bush, just prior to the invasion of Iraq.
"Well, as long as it's for security, I don't mind it." -- A friend, talking about a loss of civil liberties.
"Fear not..." -- The angels who appeared to humans early in the New Testament.
The characters in Narnia were using the word 'fear' in an idiomatic way, and as far as I can figure it meant 'of course!' President Roosevelt was trying to calm down the American people so that they could band together in a common cause. President Bush used the concept to get the people to band together behind his agenda. The angels were aware that their awesome appearance frightened humans, and they began their messages so that the people could hear that even in the midst of fear wondrous things can happen.
Fear is a natural part of the human package. It's there to warn us of potential harm; it sharpens our awareness and gives us energy to fight or flee. It bypasses rational thought, which is fine since in emergency situations we may not have time to evaluate. However, it can be overdone, as in 'phobia'. We can be more afraid than we have to.
We live in a world here in America where weather is predicted and broadcast to the neighborhood level, so that we can prepare for and make ourselves safe from severe weather. We have food manufacturing laws so strict that harmful foods have a hard time getting to the market (I know this point can be argued; there are regular outbreaks of salmonella, and it is arguable that many of the processed foods we buy, especially for convenience, are chock full of sodium and sugar and other things in amounts that the human body wasn't designed for. But overall, you understand my point). We have product liability to the point that safety is one of the premiere features of most products we buy. Buildings are built to withstand earthquakes and hurricanes. Really, we probably live in the safest conditions that humans ever have.
Yet we still have phobias. We have a range of anxiety disorders that are experienced and treated every day. We have a government that has played off citizen fears to wage and sustain an illegal war.
We need not fear as much as we do. If we didn't fear irrationally Mr. Bush & Co. would never have gotten their war, and more than four thousand of our troops and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis would still be alive. If we didn't fear irrationally the pharmaceutical companies would make far less in profit and have a much less powerful lobby. If we didn't fear irrationally a citizen would be able to prevail at an airport asking, "What's your probable cause for searching me?" and wait lines would go much more quickly. If I learn what types of spiders and snakes are poisonous I wouldn't have to fear the ones that aren't.
For you see, when security is the issue then the problem is insecurity. We can be insecure individually, and if enough people are individually insecure then we become collectively insecure (which goes into a book-length series of thoughts including economic forces, marketing, parenting, and social conventions that lead to insecurity). Then it is a simple matter for unprincipled leaders to take advantage of the irrational fears to accomplish their agenda. Though we do not like to admit anything good came of the Nazis, Hermann Goerring said it well that all the leaders have to do is increase fears in the public and question their patriotism and then they will follow the leaders into war.
The solution is obvious: to identify those who know how to manage fears in a healthy way and promote them to leadership positions. Ask our potential leaders: if we went to war would you be the first to lead into battle and the last to leave? Anything less is cowardice, and they would be careful to pick the right battles.
No fear!
Friday, June 6, 2008
Fundamental Question
‘Fundamental’ means the basics at the beginning. Everybody who goes down the road of religion goes through a fundamental stage. Yet some people choose to stay in fundamentalism the rest of their lives. We all go through school; why would some want to stay in first grade for the rest of their lives? I suppose that the further you go down the road of religion the more you approach mystery, just as the further you go with education the more you realize the less you know. For those who aren’t prepared to approach mystery – whether through ignorance, lack of ego strength, fear of the unknown, or cultivated infantile loyalty and dependence on authority to provide answers – growth of the spirit is stopped. What could these people have been? What would the world be like should more people continue to grow spiritually?
Teaching, on the family, social. and spiritual levels, is a big responsibility. To be able to recognize those more advanced than yourself is merely responsible, and humble.
Teaching, on the family, social. and spiritual levels, is a big responsibility. To be able to recognize those more advanced than yourself is merely responsible, and humble.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
The Next Revolution, Part III
Leaders are at the forefront of how a culture functions. The direction the leaders take is what the culture will follow them into. A healthy leader will guide the populace into a healthy culture. An unhealthy leader will guide into an unhealthy culture. Leaders are trusted with the good of the culture. They are trusted with policy, surveillance, intelligence, growth, direction, and the implements of war. A healthy leader will be cautious with these tools. An unhealthy leader will abuse them.
We have the sophistication to test for aberrations in people. We can test for paranoia, for antisocial traits, for hidden personality flaws, for conflicted sexuality, for inordinate power seeking and fascistic traits, for stage of spiritual development. These tests are used every day to select and eliminate candidates in the corporate world, seminary, and the military. They are used on the entrants, however, and not on those who have attained positions of power. Yet we have the potential to eliminate unhealthy people from positions of power.
Why are these tools not used? Easily, it would immediately remove a good number of the current holders of power from their positions, and since they’re in power they won’t allow the use of testing. There are several other possible arguments against the use of such testing:
1. The removal of so many people all of a sudden from positions of control and direction would throw the worlds of government, industry, and religion into chaos.
2.Such chaos would place our nation at risk of takeover by other nations that are powerful and don’t implement the same changes.
3. The world is a ruthless place, and to put principled people in positions of power would place our nation at risk from ruthless leaders of other nations.
4. The power to be the gatekeeper of who is allowed into positions of power would be transferred to those who are doing the testing. What would guard us from unhealthy people doing the testing? Who would watch over them?
5. What would we do with all the former power brokers? What kind of jobs would we allow them to work?
There are counterarguments or answers for each:
1. It doesn’t have to be immediate, and instead a steady progression over a period of several years.
2. This assumes that principled people can’t cope with a chaotic situation, which is a pardonable error in logic if we haven’t had the experience for a while.
3. Ditto. There are principled people who can cope with ruthless people. And ‘the world is a ruthless place’ is a mindset that eclipses one’s ability to look for the good in people.
4. I haven’t figured this one out yet. It is an important problem. The best guess to date is that the entire population would have to police them.
5. Humility is a wonderful thing. People with aberrations can learn to change. There is no law that people with potential have to work jobs at the top of their ability, and if the potential hands them the opportunity to abuse then they shouldn’t be allowed such jobs.
Why should we undertake such a venture? Ask yourself how much you would like to see the elimination of crooked politicians, greedy businessmen, and sexually abusive ministers. What effect would that have on the entire culture if we no longer allowed such people into positions of trust and power that gets abused?
It is a major change of thinking to imagine an entire culture that doesn’t allow the abuse of power. We have the potential; what we need is the collective will.
We have the sophistication to test for aberrations in people. We can test for paranoia, for antisocial traits, for hidden personality flaws, for conflicted sexuality, for inordinate power seeking and fascistic traits, for stage of spiritual development. These tests are used every day to select and eliminate candidates in the corporate world, seminary, and the military. They are used on the entrants, however, and not on those who have attained positions of power. Yet we have the potential to eliminate unhealthy people from positions of power.
Why are these tools not used? Easily, it would immediately remove a good number of the current holders of power from their positions, and since they’re in power they won’t allow the use of testing. There are several other possible arguments against the use of such testing:
1. The removal of so many people all of a sudden from positions of control and direction would throw the worlds of government, industry, and religion into chaos.
2.Such chaos would place our nation at risk of takeover by other nations that are powerful and don’t implement the same changes.
3. The world is a ruthless place, and to put principled people in positions of power would place our nation at risk from ruthless leaders of other nations.
4. The power to be the gatekeeper of who is allowed into positions of power would be transferred to those who are doing the testing. What would guard us from unhealthy people doing the testing? Who would watch over them?
5. What would we do with all the former power brokers? What kind of jobs would we allow them to work?
There are counterarguments or answers for each:
1. It doesn’t have to be immediate, and instead a steady progression over a period of several years.
2. This assumes that principled people can’t cope with a chaotic situation, which is a pardonable error in logic if we haven’t had the experience for a while.
3. Ditto. There are principled people who can cope with ruthless people. And ‘the world is a ruthless place’ is a mindset that eclipses one’s ability to look for the good in people.
4. I haven’t figured this one out yet. It is an important problem. The best guess to date is that the entire population would have to police them.
5. Humility is a wonderful thing. People with aberrations can learn to change. There is no law that people with potential have to work jobs at the top of their ability, and if the potential hands them the opportunity to abuse then they shouldn’t be allowed such jobs.
Why should we undertake such a venture? Ask yourself how much you would like to see the elimination of crooked politicians, greedy businessmen, and sexually abusive ministers. What effect would that have on the entire culture if we no longer allowed such people into positions of trust and power that gets abused?
It is a major change of thinking to imagine an entire culture that doesn’t allow the abuse of power. We have the potential; what we need is the collective will.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
God's Conditional Love
"God is a god of love," the radio preacher said this evening, "but be warned that He is also a god of judgment!" The preacher's delivery fell on the angry side.
So God's love is conditional. The greatest power in the universe, infinitely exceeding human understanding and even imagination, is unable to love His children more than quite a few parents I've known.
It's so unfortunate. I imagine that people who preach like this were subjected to an authoritarian male role model growing up. We all project what we learned from our main authority models as children onto the mystic concept of God. Research backs me up on both points.
Jesus, from what I learned, never dwelled on harsh judgment by the Father and instead focused on treating ourselves and others well after the example of a loving God. You have to go back to the Old Testament to find God acting punitively. But wasn't Jesus sent here to tell us that we weren't Getting It as far as God was concerned? That it's not the judgment but rather the love we need to practice? Of course, I suppose one needs a good example of loving in order to understand it. Loyalty and the fear of punishment aren't the same thing.
From listening to this preacher and others today I learned that humans are miserable creatures who can't do anything right and that we can't have original good thoughs and actions, so we need a parent figure to dump all our failings on and who will then tell us what to do, no questions asked and no individuality accepted. Again, the authoritarian father image.
My imagination over the years has also said that if God created us with differing ways of perceiving, understanding, thinking, and therefore acting, then one strict rut won't fit all. Surely God understands if I perceive Him in a different way than strict fundamentalism. If God is incapable of that small feat -- and again, I've known many parents who are able to do it -- then I have to confess that it isn't a very advanced god.
Oh, by the way, tonight's preacher spent the rest of the sermon talking about judgment. Didn't mention love anymore.
Some people approach mystery with fear and build temple walls to keep the misunderstood out; others welcome mystery as an ever-challenging journey. I would enjoy some company on the journey.
So God's love is conditional. The greatest power in the universe, infinitely exceeding human understanding and even imagination, is unable to love His children more than quite a few parents I've known.
It's so unfortunate. I imagine that people who preach like this were subjected to an authoritarian male role model growing up. We all project what we learned from our main authority models as children onto the mystic concept of God. Research backs me up on both points.
Jesus, from what I learned, never dwelled on harsh judgment by the Father and instead focused on treating ourselves and others well after the example of a loving God. You have to go back to the Old Testament to find God acting punitively. But wasn't Jesus sent here to tell us that we weren't Getting It as far as God was concerned? That it's not the judgment but rather the love we need to practice? Of course, I suppose one needs a good example of loving in order to understand it. Loyalty and the fear of punishment aren't the same thing.
From listening to this preacher and others today I learned that humans are miserable creatures who can't do anything right and that we can't have original good thoughs and actions, so we need a parent figure to dump all our failings on and who will then tell us what to do, no questions asked and no individuality accepted. Again, the authoritarian father image.
My imagination over the years has also said that if God created us with differing ways of perceiving, understanding, thinking, and therefore acting, then one strict rut won't fit all. Surely God understands if I perceive Him in a different way than strict fundamentalism. If God is incapable of that small feat -- and again, I've known many parents who are able to do it -- then I have to confess that it isn't a very advanced god.
Oh, by the way, tonight's preacher spent the rest of the sermon talking about judgment. Didn't mention love anymore.
Some people approach mystery with fear and build temple walls to keep the misunderstood out; others welcome mystery as an ever-challenging journey. I would enjoy some company on the journey.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Following the last blog...
More research today, more writing discovered that gives voice to my difficulties with the Bush administration, as well as the Christian/conservative movement in vogue:
There are stages to spiritual/religious development, just as there are stages to physical, mental, and emotional development. If we go by M. Scott Peck's model, the four stages are: I. chaotic (pre-religious), II. fundamental, III. athiest/agnostic/skeptic, and IV. mystical. Google 'spiritual development' for a full description; Dr. Peck is right up there at the top.
What is important to my thinking is that the fundamental stage is based in a need to feel some kind of control in the cosmos (unspoken, but this can be fear at the bottom of everything) and is typified by rigidity, legalism, literalism, authority, and conformity. People at this stage tend to perceive that they have found the truth and feel a need to convert the other 99% of the population that doesn't seem to be where they're at. The issue of concern is that such people don't recognize that there are further stages of development, and rather than looking for something more developed than their own understanding they see those beyond them as threatening and wrong.
My own observation is that people at this stage haven't integrated all parts of their personalities, beliefs, and behaviors into a consistent whole. This stage is marked by a great deal of inner conflict that is avoided by projecting fears of evil outside the self, which prevents the integration. They live in a state of unacknowledged fear, forever puzzled that they don't really have the promised joy deep down when they see it in others (those in Stage IV), and occasionally the unacknowleged darker side of themselves, which they haven't developed the skill to act against, seeks expression. That is why we have fundamentalist, charismatic leaders who are caught, literally, with their pants down doing the very things they preach against.
It's possible to remain in this stage the rest of one's life.
What happens when such people attain positions of power in business, religion, and government? The secret, behind-the-scene abuses of people, their money, their trust, their bodies, the perception of evil and enemies that have to be obliterated from the face of the planet...all of the abuses we have seen during this period of neoconservatism. That it is secretive reveals something: somewhere deep inside they know that what they're doing is wrong.
All of this is why so many people object to the policies of the present government and speak out (since such people are at a later stage of spiritual development), and also why the government doesn't understand -- and thus respond to -- the will of the people.
If anything must be done to correct this situation, it seems that the most enduring would be the most difficult: to bring the people of an entire nation to accept that there are stages of development higher than that of those in power, and to no longer allow people into positions of authority when they are at lower stages.
History is shot through with those of lower development taking the reigns. Is it impossible to change such a solid habit of humankind? While we breathe I can't discount the possibility that we could.
There are stages to spiritual/religious development, just as there are stages to physical, mental, and emotional development. If we go by M. Scott Peck's model, the four stages are: I. chaotic (pre-religious), II. fundamental, III. athiest/agnostic/skeptic, and IV. mystical. Google 'spiritual development' for a full description; Dr. Peck is right up there at the top.
What is important to my thinking is that the fundamental stage is based in a need to feel some kind of control in the cosmos (unspoken, but this can be fear at the bottom of everything) and is typified by rigidity, legalism, literalism, authority, and conformity. People at this stage tend to perceive that they have found the truth and feel a need to convert the other 99% of the population that doesn't seem to be where they're at. The issue of concern is that such people don't recognize that there are further stages of development, and rather than looking for something more developed than their own understanding they see those beyond them as threatening and wrong.
My own observation is that people at this stage haven't integrated all parts of their personalities, beliefs, and behaviors into a consistent whole. This stage is marked by a great deal of inner conflict that is avoided by projecting fears of evil outside the self, which prevents the integration. They live in a state of unacknowledged fear, forever puzzled that they don't really have the promised joy deep down when they see it in others (those in Stage IV), and occasionally the unacknowleged darker side of themselves, which they haven't developed the skill to act against, seeks expression. That is why we have fundamentalist, charismatic leaders who are caught, literally, with their pants down doing the very things they preach against.
It's possible to remain in this stage the rest of one's life.
What happens when such people attain positions of power in business, religion, and government? The secret, behind-the-scene abuses of people, their money, their trust, their bodies, the perception of evil and enemies that have to be obliterated from the face of the planet...all of the abuses we have seen during this period of neoconservatism. That it is secretive reveals something: somewhere deep inside they know that what they're doing is wrong.
All of this is why so many people object to the policies of the present government and speak out (since such people are at a later stage of spiritual development), and also why the government doesn't understand -- and thus respond to -- the will of the people.
If anything must be done to correct this situation, it seems that the most enduring would be the most difficult: to bring the people of an entire nation to accept that there are stages of development higher than that of those in power, and to no longer allow people into positions of authority when they are at lower stages.
History is shot through with those of lower development taking the reigns. Is it impossible to change such a solid habit of humankind? While we breathe I can't discount the possibility that we could.
Monday, May 19, 2008
An Authoritarian Dilemna
Have you ever run across a bit of writing that encapsulates something you've believed for a long time? Last week, while doing some research on parenting styles, I ran across the 'authoritarian personality'. It was from research done by Theodor Adorno and proposed as a personality disorder to go along with the other eight existing disorders. The summary I read included this:
"A major determing factor in the formation of the authoritarian personality was found to be a pattern of strict and rigid parenting, in which obedience is instilled through physical punishment and harsh verbal discipline.
...People with this personality structure discharge the hostility accumulated by their harsh upbringing against those whom they perceive to be of lower status by forming negative stereotypes of them and discriminating against or overtly persecuting them. It is also thought that they may be projecting their own weaknesses and fears onto the groups they denigrate as inferior. Other traits associated with this personality type include dependence on authority and rigid rules, conformity to group values, admiration of powerful figures, compulsiveness, concreteness, and intolerance of ambiguity."
A personality disorder results in misery for the one with the disorder, for those around him or her, and even potential harm to others, making it worthy of use to bar such people from positions where they could misuse or abuse power based on the pathology.
Other research (see Baumrind, 'parenting styles') determined that such people produce children who have lower levels of esteem, lower social skills, lower academic achievement, and less individuality. One bit of research stated that people with authoritarian personality tend to perceive enemies around them.
I've been trying to say this stuff for years. It's woven into all my critiques of the Bush administration.
The punch line: Adorno's research is nothing new. It was published in 1950. It has been replicated numerous times and found to be accurate. It has been refined. Yet the personality disorder was never included with the others and this information isn't used to screen unhealthy types in business (where personality tests are used for screening every day), the military (where apparently screening is only done on those at the bottom ranks), government (where the public trust gives one authority and tools that are easily abused), or religion (ditto).
If you will read Baumrind, by the way, there is a difference between authoritarian and authoritative. See her works.
The perception of enemies (Bush last week in Israel: "We are engaged in an ancient battle between good and evil"), having the world's largest and most sophisticated military under one's command, the continual exposure of top-level CEO's and front-line religious leaders abusing people, and so forth make for a good argument to revisit whether we should include this personality disorder as a legitimate diagnosis. It would put a lot of people out of a job -- including psychologists who are like this, since this field attracts those with unhealthy dynamics looking for a defense against the world -- but isn't that what we want?
"A major determing factor in the formation of the authoritarian personality was found to be a pattern of strict and rigid parenting, in which obedience is instilled through physical punishment and harsh verbal discipline.
...People with this personality structure discharge the hostility accumulated by their harsh upbringing against those whom they perceive to be of lower status by forming negative stereotypes of them and discriminating against or overtly persecuting them. It is also thought that they may be projecting their own weaknesses and fears onto the groups they denigrate as inferior. Other traits associated with this personality type include dependence on authority and rigid rules, conformity to group values, admiration of powerful figures, compulsiveness, concreteness, and intolerance of ambiguity."
A personality disorder results in misery for the one with the disorder, for those around him or her, and even potential harm to others, making it worthy of use to bar such people from positions where they could misuse or abuse power based on the pathology.
Other research (see Baumrind, 'parenting styles') determined that such people produce children who have lower levels of esteem, lower social skills, lower academic achievement, and less individuality. One bit of research stated that people with authoritarian personality tend to perceive enemies around them.
I've been trying to say this stuff for years. It's woven into all my critiques of the Bush administration.
The punch line: Adorno's research is nothing new. It was published in 1950. It has been replicated numerous times and found to be accurate. It has been refined. Yet the personality disorder was never included with the others and this information isn't used to screen unhealthy types in business (where personality tests are used for screening every day), the military (where apparently screening is only done on those at the bottom ranks), government (where the public trust gives one authority and tools that are easily abused), or religion (ditto).
If you will read Baumrind, by the way, there is a difference between authoritarian and authoritative. See her works.
The perception of enemies (Bush last week in Israel: "We are engaged in an ancient battle between good and evil"), having the world's largest and most sophisticated military under one's command, the continual exposure of top-level CEO's and front-line religious leaders abusing people, and so forth make for a good argument to revisit whether we should include this personality disorder as a legitimate diagnosis. It would put a lot of people out of a job -- including psychologists who are like this, since this field attracts those with unhealthy dynamics looking for a defense against the world -- but isn't that what we want?
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Flotsam and Jetsam
In my spam box there are at least ten messages a day promising to enhance my male appendage. Two things strike me: 1. the absolute volume of these messages day after day means that lots of men are buying, and most of it is bunk based on the manufactured lie that size equates with manhood; and 2. the titles on many of the messages refer to a love weapon, a love sword, a battering ram, a pocket snake and so forth. Since when is lovemaking a matter of battle, of force, of assault? Conquer thyself first, warrior.
Gore Vidal, in an interview with Amy Goodman, said that 9-11 was a very successful coup d'etat. A conspiracy theorist, they call people with that opinion. Only, what if he is right and people dismiss him just because they don't want to believe it? What would we have to go through to knock people off their pride and denial, how much destruction and death would have to happen before enough people say, "You were right"?
Last week I heard a client say that she stabbed her husband in a fight while he was drunk. It never got reported to police. Three weeks ago I sat on a kitchen tile floor for an hour and a half talking a woman down from suicide. Today I repeatedly told a client that she didn't have to rely on other people to give advice and make decisions for her, that she could make decisions for herself; how did she get to age 53 with nobody telling her that before? Two clients today nodded off in the office because they took pain meds or too many mood meds before coming in. My jobs never lacks for variety. And these are just the people whose problems have gone on long enough that they've gotten diagnosed. There are so many people out there with the same problems who never get help. And we make it a national priority to fight someone half the world away, spending five thousand dollars a second on the effort while cutting Medicaid benefits for citizens stateside who need help?
My roses are blooming. The simple, artistic complexity of the bloom just blows me away. Such effortless beauty. And I didn't even ask for it.
During Grandma Tressa's funeral on Monday, the family was standing outside the sanctuary just prior to the private family viewing when a double row of preschoolers, hand in hand, walked through our crowd. The symbolism wasn't wasted on an aunt and me: we had such smiles, seeing that new life exists side by side with death and the cycle goes on.
Gore Vidal, in an interview with Amy Goodman, said that 9-11 was a very successful coup d'etat. A conspiracy theorist, they call people with that opinion. Only, what if he is right and people dismiss him just because they don't want to believe it? What would we have to go through to knock people off their pride and denial, how much destruction and death would have to happen before enough people say, "You were right"?
Last week I heard a client say that she stabbed her husband in a fight while he was drunk. It never got reported to police. Three weeks ago I sat on a kitchen tile floor for an hour and a half talking a woman down from suicide. Today I repeatedly told a client that she didn't have to rely on other people to give advice and make decisions for her, that she could make decisions for herself; how did she get to age 53 with nobody telling her that before? Two clients today nodded off in the office because they took pain meds or too many mood meds before coming in. My jobs never lacks for variety. And these are just the people whose problems have gone on long enough that they've gotten diagnosed. There are so many people out there with the same problems who never get help. And we make it a national priority to fight someone half the world away, spending five thousand dollars a second on the effort while cutting Medicaid benefits for citizens stateside who need help?
My roses are blooming. The simple, artistic complexity of the bloom just blows me away. Such effortless beauty. And I didn't even ask for it.
During Grandma Tressa's funeral on Monday, the family was standing outside the sanctuary just prior to the private family viewing when a double row of preschoolers, hand in hand, walked through our crowd. The symbolism wasn't wasted on an aunt and me: we had such smiles, seeing that new life exists side by side with death and the cycle goes on.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Grandma Tressa
Yesterday was cold and rainy, and Grandma Tressa passed away. It's no tragedy for an old woman to die; two years ago at my dad's funeral she kept saying that it should have been her first. But after 94 years she was tired and her body shut down. She saw a lot in those years.
Today I looked at my home and the things in it. Although there is a good deal of antique furniture, although several things in my home cross the line into fine possessions, it struck me that all these things are somewhat comfortable but ultimately don't matter. Seeing my guitar propped up by the couch it seemed more important that I learned how to play music, that I learned to take pictures and cut gemstones, that I became an Eagle Scout and put myself through college and graduate school. It is more important that I spend time with my daughter and do the volunteer work that I've done for several years. There's no way of knowing how far my ideas and influence spread through my counseling work and writings, but it's more important that I do these things than buy nicer furniture.
It's important that I understand one day I will die, and being satisfied with my life at that point depends on what I do today and today and today. Since I don't know when I will die it is important that I be satisfied with what I've done today and every day hence.
Yesterday, buying pipe tobacco, the gal at the register asked if I wanted a bag. I told her I had enough at home already. She asked if I was married, with a sly grin. I replied that I will never refer to a woman like that, and that life is too short to build myself up by tearing others down. She said I was a good man. Today and today and today.
Be at peace, Grandma Tressa. I'll be along soon enough.
Today I looked at my home and the things in it. Although there is a good deal of antique furniture, although several things in my home cross the line into fine possessions, it struck me that all these things are somewhat comfortable but ultimately don't matter. Seeing my guitar propped up by the couch it seemed more important that I learned how to play music, that I learned to take pictures and cut gemstones, that I became an Eagle Scout and put myself through college and graduate school. It is more important that I spend time with my daughter and do the volunteer work that I've done for several years. There's no way of knowing how far my ideas and influence spread through my counseling work and writings, but it's more important that I do these things than buy nicer furniture.
It's important that I understand one day I will die, and being satisfied with my life at that point depends on what I do today and today and today. Since I don't know when I will die it is important that I be satisfied with what I've done today and every day hence.
Yesterday, buying pipe tobacco, the gal at the register asked if I wanted a bag. I told her I had enough at home already. She asked if I was married, with a sly grin. I replied that I will never refer to a woman like that, and that life is too short to build myself up by tearing others down. She said I was a good man. Today and today and today.
Be at peace, Grandma Tressa. I'll be along soon enough.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Food Insecurity
The term ‘food insecurity’ has been around a few years. It is a sanitized version of ‘starvation’. Lately, with worldwide starvation increasing and food riots from country to country, the term ‘food insecurity’ is increasingly used in reporting, even on more balanced NPR.
What is the need to sanitize the concept? Why can’t we face starvation for what it is? Because we, citizens of the United States, have more food and resources than the majority of people in the rest of the world. And because we, the United States, have enacted policies that have deprived people in other countries of food. Can we not face our responsibility for amassing food and resources at the expense of others, consigning them to poverty and starvation? Guilt is a strong motivator, but to use the energy given by guilt to cover up the problem does nothing but assuage our own spiritual insecurity. At least on the conscious level.
President Bush has asked for $700 million to address the problem. On the surface I am glad he doesn’t take the hard-hearted position of a capitalist who believes people are poor because they choose to be, and actually does something toward the problem. However, to keep things in perspective, he is asking for one-tenth the amount of money for starvation that he asks for war funding, making his priorities clear. Politically, how can he not address such widespread starvation? It’s got to be difficult to address the negative effects of policies without changing said policies. And one wonders whether it isn’t just ‘throwing money at the problem’, giving a man a fish rather than teaching him to fish. Dubbya and his supporters might not have been listening in Sunday school. Who would Jesus take advantage of to increase profits?
Sanitized words and buying our way out of guilt. Food insecurity? Spiritual vacuity.
What is the need to sanitize the concept? Why can’t we face starvation for what it is? Because we, citizens of the United States, have more food and resources than the majority of people in the rest of the world. And because we, the United States, have enacted policies that have deprived people in other countries of food. Can we not face our responsibility for amassing food and resources at the expense of others, consigning them to poverty and starvation? Guilt is a strong motivator, but to use the energy given by guilt to cover up the problem does nothing but assuage our own spiritual insecurity. At least on the conscious level.
President Bush has asked for $700 million to address the problem. On the surface I am glad he doesn’t take the hard-hearted position of a capitalist who believes people are poor because they choose to be, and actually does something toward the problem. However, to keep things in perspective, he is asking for one-tenth the amount of money for starvation that he asks for war funding, making his priorities clear. Politically, how can he not address such widespread starvation? It’s got to be difficult to address the negative effects of policies without changing said policies. And one wonders whether it isn’t just ‘throwing money at the problem’, giving a man a fish rather than teaching him to fish. Dubbya and his supporters might not have been listening in Sunday school. Who would Jesus take advantage of to increase profits?
Sanitized words and buying our way out of guilt. Food insecurity? Spiritual vacuity.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
To Transcend Bias
As a green counselor a couple of decades ago I attended a training seminar on counseling women survivors of sexual abuse. I'd already done this work for a couple of years. The trainers asked for our experiences with this type of counseling. When I related mine, and said that I'd had a good bit of success, one of the trainers flatly said that I couldn't have done it. When asked why, she said it was because I was a man.
I wasn't sure enough of myself as a counselor to stand up to someone who was supposed to be an authority and giving a training seminar. Later I regretted not walking out at that moment. But now, with many more years' experience and reflection, I wished I could have calmly dealt with her on logic alone.
By her logic I couldn't be a substance abuse counselor if I hadn't had a substance abuse problem myself. I couldn't have counseled anyone with schizophrenia if I hadn't had schizophrenia myself. In the full extension, by her logic I wouldn't be able to counselor anybody but men my age who had brown hair, grey eyes, was short and skinny, was an Eagle Scout, had been to Europe twice, played the piano, and was intellectual. It would be hard to make a living like that. And a lot of people in need of counseling wouldn't be able to find a counselor.
Of course this trainer was working out of what she understood. We all do. Yet what she ended up doing was unprofessional. Her biases weren't sufficiently understood inside herself to prevent her from misusing her position of authority. But imagine if she had: the training would have gone much differently. She would have engaged me rather than exclude me. She would have been able to accept that not all men were either abusers or so different from women that they couldn't possibly understand. She would probably have had a much fuller understanding of the subject since she understood herself, and the quality of her presentation would have been much higher. Poor woman: she would have avoided showing herself the fool.
We all have biases. But the task, whether given by the Delphic Oracle, the Bible, psychological ideas of self-actualization, the Tao, or whatever traditionally wise source, is to transcend them. It has been a lot of work on my part to do this and I won't be finished before perishing. It's not easy work for anybody. But the longer I go, the more I know, the more and more I believe that people are capable of transcending the things that limit us inside, and once we do we liberate ourselves and those we come into contact with. Life gets much simpler and more authentic when the mistaken is laid aside. Unnecessary fears diminish. Artificial separations dissolve. Being thus less guarded, I have more time and energy so that I can act more out of charity. If the majority of people around me did likewise there would be far less anxiety and depression because we'd all be helping each other rather than suspecting each other.
Until life is through with me I can't help but believe that we can do it.
I wasn't sure enough of myself as a counselor to stand up to someone who was supposed to be an authority and giving a training seminar. Later I regretted not walking out at that moment. But now, with many more years' experience and reflection, I wished I could have calmly dealt with her on logic alone.
By her logic I couldn't be a substance abuse counselor if I hadn't had a substance abuse problem myself. I couldn't have counseled anyone with schizophrenia if I hadn't had schizophrenia myself. In the full extension, by her logic I wouldn't be able to counselor anybody but men my age who had brown hair, grey eyes, was short and skinny, was an Eagle Scout, had been to Europe twice, played the piano, and was intellectual. It would be hard to make a living like that. And a lot of people in need of counseling wouldn't be able to find a counselor.
Of course this trainer was working out of what she understood. We all do. Yet what she ended up doing was unprofessional. Her biases weren't sufficiently understood inside herself to prevent her from misusing her position of authority. But imagine if she had: the training would have gone much differently. She would have engaged me rather than exclude me. She would have been able to accept that not all men were either abusers or so different from women that they couldn't possibly understand. She would probably have had a much fuller understanding of the subject since she understood herself, and the quality of her presentation would have been much higher. Poor woman: she would have avoided showing herself the fool.
We all have biases. But the task, whether given by the Delphic Oracle, the Bible, psychological ideas of self-actualization, the Tao, or whatever traditionally wise source, is to transcend them. It has been a lot of work on my part to do this and I won't be finished before perishing. It's not easy work for anybody. But the longer I go, the more I know, the more and more I believe that people are capable of transcending the things that limit us inside, and once we do we liberate ourselves and those we come into contact with. Life gets much simpler and more authentic when the mistaken is laid aside. Unnecessary fears diminish. Artificial separations dissolve. Being thus less guarded, I have more time and energy so that I can act more out of charity. If the majority of people around me did likewise there would be far less anxiety and depression because we'd all be helping each other rather than suspecting each other.
Until life is through with me I can't help but believe that we can do it.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Meeting the Enemy
So Jimmy Carter is meeting with Hamas leaders. It goes directly against the policies of the Bush administration -- indeed, the policies of many recent presidents -- to meet with an 'enemy'. The expressed reason is that it gives legitimacy to the enemy, something that can't be admitted.
Oppressed peoples strive against their oppressors. If the oppressors refuse to talk with them, negotiate with them, even acknowledge their presence, the oppressed find ways to speak more loudly, and if they are subjected to harm then they don't mind harming the oppressors. Thus terrorism.
I wonder about powerful people who won't spend time with lessers, who won't listen to a point of view unlike their own. Are they afraid of someone less powerful? That's crazy. The only way this is possible is if they hold power but somewhere deep inside fear that they aren't as powerful as they appear, even to the point of impotence. Do they want to avoid being confronted with their own actions that result in others being harmed? Ooh. Ouch.
I also wonder what these men -- and it always seems to be men, doesn't it? -- are like in their marriages. When problems arise in marriage, as they inevitably shall, do these men sit down with their wives, listen to the other point of view, and negotiate a fair solution? If they're capable of doing this at the personal level why do they avoid doing it at the political level? Or do they just get their way in their marriages all the time, just like they do in office?
I suspect that what's happening is that when a politician refuses to meet and deal with an enemy, he does not know how to meet and deal with his own dark side. He hasn't developed the skill. If this is so then it means he lives with an amount of fear, even terror, that something inside him is wrong or evil but he doesn't know how to confront it, how to approach it, how to work past it without giving in to it (why was Star Wars so popular? Because each of us knows the struggle between the Dark Side and the Force). And if this is so then I am uncomfortable with the most 'powerful' men in the world not having conquered themselves, refusing to look inside, and instead projecting an enemy outside themselves to keep the focus away from the feared reality. These aren't the most advanced people to lead us.
Conservative pundits frame Jimmy Carter as a failed president. They badmouth the humanitarian things he does, and meeting with enemy leaders is just unthinkable. Perhaps they are being faced with a person more advanced than they are prepared to understand, and rather than try to understand and learn from a superior example they make him into another enemy. This would guarantee that we do not grow as a culture toward something better. We remain a culture of people who can't confront our own dark side and have to fight off any hint of it. The dark side thus remains and others are harmed by our making them into enemies. How sad.
Oppressed peoples strive against their oppressors. If the oppressors refuse to talk with them, negotiate with them, even acknowledge their presence, the oppressed find ways to speak more loudly, and if they are subjected to harm then they don't mind harming the oppressors. Thus terrorism.
I wonder about powerful people who won't spend time with lessers, who won't listen to a point of view unlike their own. Are they afraid of someone less powerful? That's crazy. The only way this is possible is if they hold power but somewhere deep inside fear that they aren't as powerful as they appear, even to the point of impotence. Do they want to avoid being confronted with their own actions that result in others being harmed? Ooh. Ouch.
I also wonder what these men -- and it always seems to be men, doesn't it? -- are like in their marriages. When problems arise in marriage, as they inevitably shall, do these men sit down with their wives, listen to the other point of view, and negotiate a fair solution? If they're capable of doing this at the personal level why do they avoid doing it at the political level? Or do they just get their way in their marriages all the time, just like they do in office?
I suspect that what's happening is that when a politician refuses to meet and deal with an enemy, he does not know how to meet and deal with his own dark side. He hasn't developed the skill. If this is so then it means he lives with an amount of fear, even terror, that something inside him is wrong or evil but he doesn't know how to confront it, how to approach it, how to work past it without giving in to it (why was Star Wars so popular? Because each of us knows the struggle between the Dark Side and the Force). And if this is so then I am uncomfortable with the most 'powerful' men in the world not having conquered themselves, refusing to look inside, and instead projecting an enemy outside themselves to keep the focus away from the feared reality. These aren't the most advanced people to lead us.
Conservative pundits frame Jimmy Carter as a failed president. They badmouth the humanitarian things he does, and meeting with enemy leaders is just unthinkable. Perhaps they are being faced with a person more advanced than they are prepared to understand, and rather than try to understand and learn from a superior example they make him into another enemy. This would guarantee that we do not grow as a culture toward something better. We remain a culture of people who can't confront our own dark side and have to fight off any hint of it. The dark side thus remains and others are harmed by our making them into enemies. How sad.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
The Next Revolution, Part II
To say that love is merely a feeling is to seriously underestimate its character and use. If we are to conquer ourselves we must understand love at its deepest levels.
To describe love and its course in five to seven paragraphs is impossible. Let us accept that it is the most powerful force in the universe, and that it is indeed the force that keeps the universe moving in a forward direction. Gandhi talked about satyagraha, or soul force; this is a deep understanding, yet what provides the energy to animate the soul? What is the name of the energy? It is love.
Love is the energy that encompasses all that is positive and forward-moving. It desires the well-being of everything in existence. It is not particular to one type of people or nation; it applies to all and everything.
It seems that humans are born with the capacity to love. Some are raised being guided to cultivate and trust the loving force. Others are subjected to selfishness mislabeled as love, and even abused in the name of love. The culture one is raised in also provides either accurate or inaccurate ideas of loving. Yet though one learns to turn from love, or is never taught to see it, it exists nonetheless. If one desires to find it, it can be found.
How does one cultivate love, especially if it has been insufficiently taught? It must grow within the individual before it can be turned toward others; how can I give what I don’t have? Ask yourself this: am I able to love? Very few people would be able to answer no. Then ask: am I willing to love? There are many impediments to practicing love, but none are as strong or reasonable as love.
Perhaps this would be a good start: do no harm, to the self, to others, to all in existence. It is a simple idea, as simple as the Golden Rule, that if it were implemented would result in vast changes. Any person or society can do it. An innate part of us recognizes what harm is. We can learn to not feed it. Ask yourself whether decisions and actions move you toward loving, toward what we want collectively, or whether they move you away from it. If a decision moves you away from loving but you act on it anyway you are cultivating conflict within yourself, and stepping away from your own well-being and that of all you affect with your action.
Acting from love is hard until it becomes habit. There are many backward steps to make up for, and fears borne of inexperience will advise you against love. People and society around you may not be loving; why should you be when they aren’t? Well, you get to live with your choices. Even if those around me aren’t loving I can live without the conflict and backward steps, and may even pull some around me into loving when they were indecisive.
This, then, is the basis of the next revolution, that which underlies it as the guiding principle.
To describe love and its course in five to seven paragraphs is impossible. Let us accept that it is the most powerful force in the universe, and that it is indeed the force that keeps the universe moving in a forward direction. Gandhi talked about satyagraha, or soul force; this is a deep understanding, yet what provides the energy to animate the soul? What is the name of the energy? It is love.
Love is the energy that encompasses all that is positive and forward-moving. It desires the well-being of everything in existence. It is not particular to one type of people or nation; it applies to all and everything.
It seems that humans are born with the capacity to love. Some are raised being guided to cultivate and trust the loving force. Others are subjected to selfishness mislabeled as love, and even abused in the name of love. The culture one is raised in also provides either accurate or inaccurate ideas of loving. Yet though one learns to turn from love, or is never taught to see it, it exists nonetheless. If one desires to find it, it can be found.
How does one cultivate love, especially if it has been insufficiently taught? It must grow within the individual before it can be turned toward others; how can I give what I don’t have? Ask yourself this: am I able to love? Very few people would be able to answer no. Then ask: am I willing to love? There are many impediments to practicing love, but none are as strong or reasonable as love.
Perhaps this would be a good start: do no harm, to the self, to others, to all in existence. It is a simple idea, as simple as the Golden Rule, that if it were implemented would result in vast changes. Any person or society can do it. An innate part of us recognizes what harm is. We can learn to not feed it. Ask yourself whether decisions and actions move you toward loving, toward what we want collectively, or whether they move you away from it. If a decision moves you away from loving but you act on it anyway you are cultivating conflict within yourself, and stepping away from your own well-being and that of all you affect with your action.
Acting from love is hard until it becomes habit. There are many backward steps to make up for, and fears borne of inexperience will advise you against love. People and society around you may not be loving; why should you be when they aren’t? Well, you get to live with your choices. Even if those around me aren’t loving I can live without the conflict and backward steps, and may even pull some around me into loving when they were indecisive.
This, then, is the basis of the next revolution, that which underlies it as the guiding principle.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Geographical Illiteracy
A coworker grew up in Zimbabwe, and around age 11 emigrated to the States with her family. She is now a U.S. citizen. This morning I asked her if there was any news from the homeland, if Robert Mugabe had gone into hiding before somebody wiped him off the face of the planet. She was pleased that I was interested. She was even more impressed that I knew Zimbabwe was named Rhodesia before Mugabe took over in 1980.
Her name is Praise. I like that about several people I've met from Zimbabwe: they give their children hopeful, spiritual names.
Praise and I were talking about the politics and wars in the area of her homeland. She lamented that American children don't learn much about world geography and don't take much interest in the difficulties of other nations. Another coworker, a woman around 40, joined the conversation.
"How big is Africa?" she asked.
"It's a continent. There are lots of countries there," I answered.
She hadn't realized it. To test her knowledge I said, "Egypt is in Africa."
She was flabbergasted. She didn't know. She didn't know what continent Egypt was on.
"You mean," she said, "like the U.S. is..."
"In North America."
"Oh," she said, "yeah. I get it."
Not to put this coworker down -- she really does well in her job -- but she proved Praise's point.
Her name is Praise. I like that about several people I've met from Zimbabwe: they give their children hopeful, spiritual names.
Praise and I were talking about the politics and wars in the area of her homeland. She lamented that American children don't learn much about world geography and don't take much interest in the difficulties of other nations. Another coworker, a woman around 40, joined the conversation.
"How big is Africa?" she asked.
"It's a continent. There are lots of countries there," I answered.
She hadn't realized it. To test her knowledge I said, "Egypt is in Africa."
She was flabbergasted. She didn't know. She didn't know what continent Egypt was on.
"You mean," she said, "like the U.S. is..."
"In North America."
"Oh," she said, "yeah. I get it."
Not to put this coworker down -- she really does well in her job -- but she proved Praise's point.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Hillary, and other stuff
Hillary Clinton in the last couple of weeks has lost my vote. I was leaning away from her already, but her recent gaffes have swayed me. She has fudged or even re-invented experiences which were easily exposed. I have spent the last seven years steaming over the blatant dishonesty of the Bush administration; I can't support Hillary when she's showing dishonesty. In fact, her attacks and stories are all looking like whatever is politically expedient to get elected...not what I'm looking for. I hope enough people see this so that her tactics don't work.
So in the last couple of days poverty-stricken people in nation after nation around the world have been protesting the rising prices of food. What happened so that so many people in so many places all did the same thing at the same time? Clearly they weren't organized by a central committee. And we didn't hear about it in America until it was happening...the media didn't consider it important in earlier stages. The punch line: tonight, while poverty, starvation, and the protests over food prices still go on, the top headline on my homepage is that Mary-Louise Parker has broken off her engagement. Ah, America. You gotta love it.
But we have heard that the Olympic torch has been having a tortuous journey. Part of me remembers the U.S. boycotting the Olympics under President Carter (one of the few things I disagreed with him on) because I don't think sports should be held hostage to politics. But another part of me is satisfied that activists have a legitimate point this time and are capitalizing on the world's focus on China to make their voices heard. It's really something, isn't it, when legitimate dissent can't be suppressed?
From the Shooting Sunset dictionary:
Change (n): a rut leveled
So in the last couple of days poverty-stricken people in nation after nation around the world have been protesting the rising prices of food. What happened so that so many people in so many places all did the same thing at the same time? Clearly they weren't organized by a central committee. And we didn't hear about it in America until it was happening...the media didn't consider it important in earlier stages. The punch line: tonight, while poverty, starvation, and the protests over food prices still go on, the top headline on my homepage is that Mary-Louise Parker has broken off her engagement. Ah, America. You gotta love it.
But we have heard that the Olympic torch has been having a tortuous journey. Part of me remembers the U.S. boycotting the Olympics under President Carter (one of the few things I disagreed with him on) because I don't think sports should be held hostage to politics. But another part of me is satisfied that activists have a legitimate point this time and are capitalizing on the world's focus on China to make their voices heard. It's really something, isn't it, when legitimate dissent can't be suppressed?
From the Shooting Sunset dictionary:
Change (n): a rut leveled
Saturday, April 5, 2008
The Next Revolution, Part I
I've mentioned in several blogs that I envision the next revolution in human development to be mastering the self instead of the environment. There are two overarching reasons:
1. For all of human history we have had wars. There are numerous reasons for war, but they probably all start well before armed conflict with the fears of leaders who believe that there is a force out there strong enough to take over -- economically, militarily, culturally -- and therefore it must be stopped. All wars result in destruction and death, and modern war results in more civilian deaths and destruction than ever before with indiscriminate bombs (even if our leaders tell us they're 'smart' and 'humanitarian') and the inability to tell enemies from civilians. Victory comes at a high price for the common good of all humanity. Every victory has been, in the long run, temporary, and the story is played out again and again with each successive generation. At what point do we say that it is not our highest acheivement? How many times do we play it out before saying, "Gee, that resulted in the same thing that all other wars have"?
2. There are nuclear warheads on the knife's edge at every moment. We have the ability to destroy the planet now for what would be another chapter in temporary victories. A permanent solution to a temporary problem, you might say. Like suicide. Today, like no time in history, it is imperative that we find another direction before we either intentionally or accidentally wipe out all life on the planet.
I have many ideas for the next revolution. Perhaps in a series of blogs I will end up with the structure for a book. Hopefully, expressing my ideas will not propel me into notariety so much as it will infect others with ideas that will have widespread impact.
There are many reasons for moving toward the next revolution, but these two will suffice for the time being. They alone make a strong case.
1. For all of human history we have had wars. There are numerous reasons for war, but they probably all start well before armed conflict with the fears of leaders who believe that there is a force out there strong enough to take over -- economically, militarily, culturally -- and therefore it must be stopped. All wars result in destruction and death, and modern war results in more civilian deaths and destruction than ever before with indiscriminate bombs (even if our leaders tell us they're 'smart' and 'humanitarian') and the inability to tell enemies from civilians. Victory comes at a high price for the common good of all humanity. Every victory has been, in the long run, temporary, and the story is played out again and again with each successive generation. At what point do we say that it is not our highest acheivement? How many times do we play it out before saying, "Gee, that resulted in the same thing that all other wars have"?
2. There are nuclear warheads on the knife's edge at every moment. We have the ability to destroy the planet now for what would be another chapter in temporary victories. A permanent solution to a temporary problem, you might say. Like suicide. Today, like no time in history, it is imperative that we find another direction before we either intentionally or accidentally wipe out all life on the planet.
I have many ideas for the next revolution. Perhaps in a series of blogs I will end up with the structure for a book. Hopefully, expressing my ideas will not propel me into notariety so much as it will infect others with ideas that will have widespread impact.
There are many reasons for moving toward the next revolution, but these two will suffice for the time being. They alone make a strong case.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Redefining The Redefinition
5. tolerant of views differing from one's own; broad-minded; specif. not orthodox or conventional 6. of democratic or republican forms of government, as distinguished from monarchies, aristocracies, etc. 7. favoring reform or progress, as in religion, education, etc.; specif. favoring political freedom for the individual; progressive.
This is the definition of liberal in Webster's New World Dictionary. If this is what liberal is, I am proud to call myself a liberal.
It is quite an accomplishment for Bill O'Reilly to shorten the definition of liberal to people without values. Nothing in these three words fits the original meaning. Logically it is impossible for people to not have values, unless one is brain dead. What is even more fantastic is that so many people believe O'Reilly's definition uncritically.
Why does O'Reilly and his ilk change the definition to something totally different and impossible? Because each of the qualities listed in the definition interfere with the agenda of the people now in power. How sad, that they have to lie to the public in order to get what they want. And it's shades of 1984. Reading the definition with the opposite of the qualities listed is frightening. And a question: if liberal describes a democratic or republican form of government, what is a government that detests liberalism?
Even sadder, taking progress away from the people, nation, and culture leaves us with short-term benefit for those in power and ultimate stagnation, even loss, for everybody else.
Let's restore the original meaning of liberal. Let us no longer allow people into positions of power by lying to us. Let us value what is good and dismiss that which is selfish. Let us restore the good name and legacy of our great nation.
This is the definition of liberal in Webster's New World Dictionary. If this is what liberal is, I am proud to call myself a liberal.
It is quite an accomplishment for Bill O'Reilly to shorten the definition of liberal to people without values. Nothing in these three words fits the original meaning. Logically it is impossible for people to not have values, unless one is brain dead. What is even more fantastic is that so many people believe O'Reilly's definition uncritically.
Why does O'Reilly and his ilk change the definition to something totally different and impossible? Because each of the qualities listed in the definition interfere with the agenda of the people now in power. How sad, that they have to lie to the public in order to get what they want. And it's shades of 1984. Reading the definition with the opposite of the qualities listed is frightening. And a question: if liberal describes a democratic or republican form of government, what is a government that detests liberalism?
Even sadder, taking progress away from the people, nation, and culture leaves us with short-term benefit for those in power and ultimate stagnation, even loss, for everybody else.
Let's restore the original meaning of liberal. Let us no longer allow people into positions of power by lying to us. Let us value what is good and dismiss that which is selfish. Let us restore the good name and legacy of our great nation.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
A Season of Change
Within the last few months the theme of 'change' has come into the speeches of presidential candidates, particularly Barack Obama's. Thinking about it, change is nothing new. It's the only constant thing, one philosopher observed. Yet it has become important at this time in America. Why now?
Superficially, there has been constant debate about the Bush administration's policies and actions, and we're tired of the controversy. We're tired of the infighting. We're tired of trying to talk to somebody who won't listen. We're tired of authoritarianism. We're tired of a war that has no end in sight. We're tired -- and quite upset -- that somebody in the name of freedom and democracy has pardoned himself from the rule of national and international law and turned America into something it should never be. It's time for a change.
Yet something deeper must be going on as well. The Bush administration has outright resisted changing to what the people want. Many people -- members of Congress as well as citizens -- were initially for the war but now oppose it. Many Republicans are distancing themselves from Bush and McCain; on one level this is merely a device in an election year to guarantee more votes in November for themselves, but on another level the 'party line' is slowly dissolving more than just election-year politics.
For more than ten years there has been a movement seeping through the psychotherapy world that has spread worldwide. Initially proposed by Prochaska and DiClemente and incorporated in the research and application by Miller and Rollnick, it is a model of 'change'. The five steps in the cycle are Precontemplation, Contemplation, Preparation, Action, and Maintenance. This model is being ever-more successfully applied in the treatment of substance abuse and mental illness. What people who become familiar with the model are realizing is that change applies to everything.
A feature of this model is that ambivalence is natural. It is largely absent in the Precontemplation stage (where somebody doesn't realize or want to acknowledge that something should be changed), peaks in Contemplation, decreases in Preparation, and decreases even more in Action and Maintenance. It never goes away for good unless the person goes into denial that anything needs changing. Going back to the observation about people initially being for the war and are now opposed to it, this is a good illustration that many people were ambivalent at the time the Administration was gearing up for war, and this ambivalence was capitalized on by limiting factual information and exaggerating fear-provoking material to sway the ambivalent to their side.
An example of Precontemplation is what was mentioned about the Bush adminstration not changing to anything that the people want. They see nothing wrong with their agenda or style and so there is no reason to change. The problem, from their perspective, is that a change is needed in people around the world so that they understand the the threat that terrorism poses. It wasn't a priority issue before the Bush presidency, but is now named as the number one issue.
Another illustration of Precontemplation, also coming from recent campaign dynamics, is that many conservatives are saying about the race issue "there's nothing to discuss". They don't see a problem. They don't want to see a problem. Trying to push them into Action when they aren't even prepared to acknowledge the problem is guaranteed to result in a fight.
I don't have enough insight and room here to go into all the details included in these thoughts, so let's go back to the current Presidential candidates advocating for change. The election cycle itself has pushed the nation into the Preparation stage for change: it's inevitable. The candidates are cultivating their images to Prepare people to vote for them. Action will occur in November when the election is held and in January when we change the guard.
What is important is that we become familiar with the process of change, and that we make sufficient preparations to decide on and enact a good change. Again, Miller and Rollnick give us a rather simple exercise to help. What it amounts to is a pro-con list, this time in four quadrants instead of two columns. What is considered is 'What is Good about how things are now', 'What is Not So Good about how things are now', 'What would be Good about changing it', and 'What would be Not So Good about changing it'. All bases are covered.
While this would be a good exercise for individuals to do prior to voting in November, it would be critical for the media to do this from now until then -- factually -- to help the nation Prepare for the election.
In a democracy if the citizens don't participate or don't prepare themselves sufficiently for voting it is likely that they will be manipulated into electing someone who has an agenda that isn't the common good, someone who will capitalize on the ambivalence and inaction of the people to work the change that they want for themselves or special interests. The process of change requires work. And it can't be handed to a candidate to promise without the citizenry doing some work of its own. Obama may be promising change, but We, The People need to Prepare him to do the job for the common good. We didn't do this for Bush. See where it got us?
Superficially, there has been constant debate about the Bush administration's policies and actions, and we're tired of the controversy. We're tired of the infighting. We're tired of trying to talk to somebody who won't listen. We're tired of authoritarianism. We're tired of a war that has no end in sight. We're tired -- and quite upset -- that somebody in the name of freedom and democracy has pardoned himself from the rule of national and international law and turned America into something it should never be. It's time for a change.
Yet something deeper must be going on as well. The Bush administration has outright resisted changing to what the people want. Many people -- members of Congress as well as citizens -- were initially for the war but now oppose it. Many Republicans are distancing themselves from Bush and McCain; on one level this is merely a device in an election year to guarantee more votes in November for themselves, but on another level the 'party line' is slowly dissolving more than just election-year politics.
For more than ten years there has been a movement seeping through the psychotherapy world that has spread worldwide. Initially proposed by Prochaska and DiClemente and incorporated in the research and application by Miller and Rollnick, it is a model of 'change'. The five steps in the cycle are Precontemplation, Contemplation, Preparation, Action, and Maintenance. This model is being ever-more successfully applied in the treatment of substance abuse and mental illness. What people who become familiar with the model are realizing is that change applies to everything.
A feature of this model is that ambivalence is natural. It is largely absent in the Precontemplation stage (where somebody doesn't realize or want to acknowledge that something should be changed), peaks in Contemplation, decreases in Preparation, and decreases even more in Action and Maintenance. It never goes away for good unless the person goes into denial that anything needs changing. Going back to the observation about people initially being for the war and are now opposed to it, this is a good illustration that many people were ambivalent at the time the Administration was gearing up for war, and this ambivalence was capitalized on by limiting factual information and exaggerating fear-provoking material to sway the ambivalent to their side.
An example of Precontemplation is what was mentioned about the Bush adminstration not changing to anything that the people want. They see nothing wrong with their agenda or style and so there is no reason to change. The problem, from their perspective, is that a change is needed in people around the world so that they understand the the threat that terrorism poses. It wasn't a priority issue before the Bush presidency, but is now named as the number one issue.
Another illustration of Precontemplation, also coming from recent campaign dynamics, is that many conservatives are saying about the race issue "there's nothing to discuss". They don't see a problem. They don't want to see a problem. Trying to push them into Action when they aren't even prepared to acknowledge the problem is guaranteed to result in a fight.
I don't have enough insight and room here to go into all the details included in these thoughts, so let's go back to the current Presidential candidates advocating for change. The election cycle itself has pushed the nation into the Preparation stage for change: it's inevitable. The candidates are cultivating their images to Prepare people to vote for them. Action will occur in November when the election is held and in January when we change the guard.
What is important is that we become familiar with the process of change, and that we make sufficient preparations to decide on and enact a good change. Again, Miller and Rollnick give us a rather simple exercise to help. What it amounts to is a pro-con list, this time in four quadrants instead of two columns. What is considered is 'What is Good about how things are now', 'What is Not So Good about how things are now', 'What would be Good about changing it', and 'What would be Not So Good about changing it'. All bases are covered.
While this would be a good exercise for individuals to do prior to voting in November, it would be critical for the media to do this from now until then -- factually -- to help the nation Prepare for the election.
In a democracy if the citizens don't participate or don't prepare themselves sufficiently for voting it is likely that they will be manipulated into electing someone who has an agenda that isn't the common good, someone who will capitalize on the ambivalence and inaction of the people to work the change that they want for themselves or special interests. The process of change requires work. And it can't be handed to a candidate to promise without the citizenry doing some work of its own. Obama may be promising change, but We, The People need to Prepare him to do the job for the common good. We didn't do this for Bush. See where it got us?
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Expanding Shrinks
While doing online research this last week I ran across a series of websites that are dedicated to ridding the world of psychiatry. This is apparently a quite old effort, dating back at least fifty years. Their claims are that psychiatry causes more harm than it does help, that it creates the problems that it purports to treat, and that it medicalizes or pathologizes what is normal human behavior.
The harm that is caused is side effects of medications, all the way from daily negative effects like dry mouth and dizziness to long-term effects like tardive dyskenisia, an involuntary motor movement condition that is permanent; labeling of people that sticks to them and makes it hard to find decent jobs, housing, education, and is the cause for legal wariness; and ultimately gives control over people's lives to that well-educated band, psychiatrists.
As far as creating problems, it is often cited that in earlier editions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, or DSM, that homosexuality was earlier classified as a mental disorder, and then when times and public perception changed the diagnosis was reduced to sexual identity disorder or sexual disorder not otherwise specified (NOS). This is evidence, they say, that mental illness isn't so much a biological disorder as it is a matter of public acceptance, which medications really can't be designed to treat. There are disorders which hadn't been identified earlier and are now called diseases, like restless leg syndrome or ADHD. Depression is a normal occurance in life, and before psychiatry we dealt with it without medications.
Along this line, pharmaceutical companies are implicated in the 'badness' of psychiatry. It's no secret that they are among the most profitable and powerful industries in the U.S. They continually lobby psychiatrists to use their medications, and in effect write legislation that regulates themselves.
Having been in the field of psychology for a couple of decades I see the things that are being criticized on these websites. I have grave misgivings about the prevalence of ADHD and oppose the medication of such a large percentage of children in what appears to be behavior control. I oppose the rise of overdiagnosing autism as the next poster affliction to follow ADHD. I believe that situational depression is, indeed, a normal occurance in life and think that we would be better served to work through it (which cultivates strength of character) rather than medicating it. I dislike the amount of power that the medical and pharmaceutical industries have garnered over us, and even believe that the unnecessary altering of human pereption and development with medications is a criminal act.
But I disagree with these websites on a fundamental point: their presentation is black and white, that all psychiatry is bad and wrong, maybe even evil. Several sites are unmistakably motivated by a good deal of barely-concealed anger. There are personal axes being ground. But not all psychiatry is bad and wrong. The sites mention schizophrenia but don't say outright that this disorder is, like the others, a myth. I would challenge anybody who believes all mental illness to be a myth to spend a day with somebody who really is schizophrenic. It's not BS, a manipulation, or anything with a conscious motivation and payoff for these people to have fixed delusions. It's not imagination that these people hear voices (that comment on them negatively, tell them bad things about themselves, tell them that their medications are poison, tell them to kill themselves, and so forth) that results in loss of sleep, withdrawal from family and society, misery, and suicide. On the bell curve of how people are put together physically, chemically, and psychologically, there is bound to be a percentage whose minds don't work just right (just as there are those on the other end of the curve who have superabilities). There are also those who , due to parenting or experiences, don't develop healthy methods of coping. Clinical depression differs from situational depression, and it's not a matter of will, morals. or thinking yourself out of it. These are the truly mentally ill, and they should receive treatment.
The harm that is caused is side effects of medications, all the way from daily negative effects like dry mouth and dizziness to long-term effects like tardive dyskenisia, an involuntary motor movement condition that is permanent; labeling of people that sticks to them and makes it hard to find decent jobs, housing, education, and is the cause for legal wariness; and ultimately gives control over people's lives to that well-educated band, psychiatrists.
As far as creating problems, it is often cited that in earlier editions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, or DSM, that homosexuality was earlier classified as a mental disorder, and then when times and public perception changed the diagnosis was reduced to sexual identity disorder or sexual disorder not otherwise specified (NOS). This is evidence, they say, that mental illness isn't so much a biological disorder as it is a matter of public acceptance, which medications really can't be designed to treat. There are disorders which hadn't been identified earlier and are now called diseases, like restless leg syndrome or ADHD. Depression is a normal occurance in life, and before psychiatry we dealt with it without medications.
Along this line, pharmaceutical companies are implicated in the 'badness' of psychiatry. It's no secret that they are among the most profitable and powerful industries in the U.S. They continually lobby psychiatrists to use their medications, and in effect write legislation that regulates themselves.
Having been in the field of psychology for a couple of decades I see the things that are being criticized on these websites. I have grave misgivings about the prevalence of ADHD and oppose the medication of such a large percentage of children in what appears to be behavior control. I oppose the rise of overdiagnosing autism as the next poster affliction to follow ADHD. I believe that situational depression is, indeed, a normal occurance in life and think that we would be better served to work through it (which cultivates strength of character) rather than medicating it. I dislike the amount of power that the medical and pharmaceutical industries have garnered over us, and even believe that the unnecessary altering of human pereption and development with medications is a criminal act.
But I disagree with these websites on a fundamental point: their presentation is black and white, that all psychiatry is bad and wrong, maybe even evil. Several sites are unmistakably motivated by a good deal of barely-concealed anger. There are personal axes being ground. But not all psychiatry is bad and wrong. The sites mention schizophrenia but don't say outright that this disorder is, like the others, a myth. I would challenge anybody who believes all mental illness to be a myth to spend a day with somebody who really is schizophrenic. It's not BS, a manipulation, or anything with a conscious motivation and payoff for these people to have fixed delusions. It's not imagination that these people hear voices (that comment on them negatively, tell them bad things about themselves, tell them that their medications are poison, tell them to kill themselves, and so forth) that results in loss of sleep, withdrawal from family and society, misery, and suicide. On the bell curve of how people are put together physically, chemically, and psychologically, there is bound to be a percentage whose minds don't work just right (just as there are those on the other end of the curve who have superabilities). There are also those who , due to parenting or experiences, don't develop healthy methods of coping. Clinical depression differs from situational depression, and it's not a matter of will, morals. or thinking yourself out of it. These are the truly mentally ill, and they should receive treatment.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Looking for Baggage that Goes With Mine
Last week, as I was outside the sight but not the hearing of my 1:00 therapy appointment, the female client, whom I'd only met with once before, was telling the receptionist that she had an appointment with, well, that really good looking guy. She couldn't remember my name.
This has happened before. The only women who say anything about how they think I look is women who are diagnosed with a mental illness. Question: are such woman just freer to say what they think and 'normal' women are too polite, or does a woman have to be certified crazy to find me attractive?
This leads up to a little event this evening. In a former job duty I often came in contact with a gal who is attractive to me. Not just in looks, but one of those where in her presence I just felt wonderful inside and thought about her for two days afterward, time after time after time. She gave off vibes that the feeling was mutual; a few times she acted goofy around me, and once we connected gazes that were unmistakable and it was infinitely comfortable and warm. In imagination I wondered what I would do if we ran across each other out in public, away from our job roles.
(Why didn't I ask her out? Lots of rationalizations: I've got my sordid history and don't trust my judgment in women; either that or there are so few women who fit my standards that those times I've tried commitment have been disasters. Or the fact that this gal is probably half my age and can't have the amount of baggage I've got. Or she and I are at really different points in life and it couldn't possibly work. Or in twenty years she'll be at her sexual peak and I'll be pushing seventy, and very little else. And so on).
So tonight I ran across her at the mall. She was with a coworker who also kibbitzed with me when our jobs crossed paths, but she's married. I regret that I wasn't goofy enough to hug the young gal in mock joy. We talked for a while. I showed them the newest gem I'd cut, a 6.2 carat synthetic spinel the color of a deep blue zircon cut as an old mine (cushion). They were sitting at the front of a salon at the mall, waiting for haircuts, and the coworker said that they were there to get beautiful. "But you're both already beautiful," I said. Pretty slick, eh, Jasper? But she waved it off and muttered something about how ridiculous that was. Then the conversation died a bit and I smiled and said goodbye. And kicked myself the rest of the evening.
It's too easy to not engage myself, to not take decisive action. It's easy habit by now. I don't miss the expense and drama of being with someone. A cat is an easy roommate. But when regret is as strong as I've felt since then... I spent about an hour on another gemstone this evening then did a session at the piano with Beethoven, Elton John, and Chopin, and the thought of her stayed with me all the way through everything.
In Rent Mimi sang to Roger, "I'm looking for baggage that goes with mine." It's a great line. A great idea. Some friendly hope to frame old dreck in.
As a fellow counselor said this morning, even healthy people have their unhealthy stuff here and there. I hope that one day I can break up this logjam.
This has happened before. The only women who say anything about how they think I look is women who are diagnosed with a mental illness. Question: are such woman just freer to say what they think and 'normal' women are too polite, or does a woman have to be certified crazy to find me attractive?
This leads up to a little event this evening. In a former job duty I often came in contact with a gal who is attractive to me. Not just in looks, but one of those where in her presence I just felt wonderful inside and thought about her for two days afterward, time after time after time. She gave off vibes that the feeling was mutual; a few times she acted goofy around me, and once we connected gazes that were unmistakable and it was infinitely comfortable and warm. In imagination I wondered what I would do if we ran across each other out in public, away from our job roles.
(Why didn't I ask her out? Lots of rationalizations: I've got my sordid history and don't trust my judgment in women; either that or there are so few women who fit my standards that those times I've tried commitment have been disasters. Or the fact that this gal is probably half my age and can't have the amount of baggage I've got. Or she and I are at really different points in life and it couldn't possibly work. Or in twenty years she'll be at her sexual peak and I'll be pushing seventy, and very little else. And so on).
So tonight I ran across her at the mall. She was with a coworker who also kibbitzed with me when our jobs crossed paths, but she's married. I regret that I wasn't goofy enough to hug the young gal in mock joy. We talked for a while. I showed them the newest gem I'd cut, a 6.2 carat synthetic spinel the color of a deep blue zircon cut as an old mine (cushion). They were sitting at the front of a salon at the mall, waiting for haircuts, and the coworker said that they were there to get beautiful. "But you're both already beautiful," I said. Pretty slick, eh, Jasper? But she waved it off and muttered something about how ridiculous that was. Then the conversation died a bit and I smiled and said goodbye. And kicked myself the rest of the evening.
It's too easy to not engage myself, to not take decisive action. It's easy habit by now. I don't miss the expense and drama of being with someone. A cat is an easy roommate. But when regret is as strong as I've felt since then... I spent about an hour on another gemstone this evening then did a session at the piano with Beethoven, Elton John, and Chopin, and the thought of her stayed with me all the way through everything.
In Rent Mimi sang to Roger, "I'm looking for baggage that goes with mine." It's a great line. A great idea. Some friendly hope to frame old dreck in.
As a fellow counselor said this morning, even healthy people have their unhealthy stuff here and there. I hope that one day I can break up this logjam.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
The Peace Coin
After many years of observing people and politics, it seems that there come issues that defy resolution. In our nation we see the abortion debate and the nuclear weapons nondebate. It seems that each side goes further and further into its own reasoning, which means further and further from the other side of the issue, and after time nobody is listening to each other, which means that nobody's understanding. An extreme example of this is the Israeli-Palestinian issue, which after all this time is so much a cultural passion issue that neither side can hear the other.
Recently I've been thinking about the whole issue of peace. The hawks are trying to settle things in the Middle East and bring about peace. The doves object strongly to the tactics, hoping instead for peace.
Huh?
It seems that each side agrees on what peace is: people being civil to each other so that conflict and violence aren't a problem. Realistically, since we're dealing with humans in all their blessed imperfection, we won't find Uptopia on earth, but in the balance things could be much quieter.
The problem comes in the process. Hawks believe in peace through setting rules, enforcement, and compliance. To a degree very few of us have problems with this...most of us do somewhere around the speed limit. What works here is the threat of negative consequences for breaking the rules. The reward is the greatest amount of freedom allowed when so many people share a common living area. Enforcement can be arranged quickly, given that there is a force that is large, strong, and skilled enough.
Enforcement contains a danger: the overuse of it results in oppression, which breeds anger and resentment. Hardly peaceful. (This is where many doves object to the Bush administration: the Bushies are still arguing for the right to torture, against national edict and international law. This extreme attempt at enforcement crosses the line into damaging, for those tortured, for those who find satisfaction in administering it, and for the society that it is done in the name of).
Doves, on the other hand, believe in cultivating individual and social conditions so that people and groups regulate themselves and don't need an external authority telling them to behave. If this could be acheived on a large scale there would be general civility, not to mention little need of a governing authority. This cultivation takes a long time to accomplish. Longer than a single presidency.
Peace is a single coin with two sides. It's physically impossible to have a one-sided coin. It's folly to pretend that there is one right side and one wrong side.
Both sides are honorable, even necessary. It would be folly to assume that everybody in a society would submit to cultivation, and it is likely that there would be somebody slick enough to pretend and then take advantage of others. Something needs to be in place to limit the behaviors and damages these people perpetrate. Thus enforcement. Cultivation, over time and on a large scale, would generally decrease difficulties in a society and make enforcement a more occasional necessity.
Yet we are at poles in our beliefs about peace and it seems that neither side hears nor understands the other. Thus we are not at peace even with ourselves.
The solution is defined in the problem: we need to sit down together, shut our mouths and open our ears and minds, talk with those not like us until each side is convinced that the other hears and understands, then work together to acheive the common goal that both sides share.
I can imagine a danger inherent in this solution. In redefining peace, or at least the path toward it, we would also have to redefine enemies. So many people are invested in the fight, in the passion, that to give up the thrill of combating an enemy and feeling righteous would be a great loss. In fact, should we learn how to no longer see a brother as an enemy it could generalize to the whole human race. Sheesh. Nobody as an enemy. What would we do for entertainment? Now we have to redefine entertainment. And so on.
Yet what would the Prince of Peace recommend? He certainly didn't advocate for war, literally or figuratively. Even if it's unfamiliar in human history, maybe swallowing our pride and working together is the right thing to do.
Recently I've been thinking about the whole issue of peace. The hawks are trying to settle things in the Middle East and bring about peace. The doves object strongly to the tactics, hoping instead for peace.
Huh?
It seems that each side agrees on what peace is: people being civil to each other so that conflict and violence aren't a problem. Realistically, since we're dealing with humans in all their blessed imperfection, we won't find Uptopia on earth, but in the balance things could be much quieter.
The problem comes in the process. Hawks believe in peace through setting rules, enforcement, and compliance. To a degree very few of us have problems with this...most of us do somewhere around the speed limit. What works here is the threat of negative consequences for breaking the rules. The reward is the greatest amount of freedom allowed when so many people share a common living area. Enforcement can be arranged quickly, given that there is a force that is large, strong, and skilled enough.
Enforcement contains a danger: the overuse of it results in oppression, which breeds anger and resentment. Hardly peaceful. (This is where many doves object to the Bush administration: the Bushies are still arguing for the right to torture, against national edict and international law. This extreme attempt at enforcement crosses the line into damaging, for those tortured, for those who find satisfaction in administering it, and for the society that it is done in the name of).
Doves, on the other hand, believe in cultivating individual and social conditions so that people and groups regulate themselves and don't need an external authority telling them to behave. If this could be acheived on a large scale there would be general civility, not to mention little need of a governing authority. This cultivation takes a long time to accomplish. Longer than a single presidency.
Peace is a single coin with two sides. It's physically impossible to have a one-sided coin. It's folly to pretend that there is one right side and one wrong side.
Both sides are honorable, even necessary. It would be folly to assume that everybody in a society would submit to cultivation, and it is likely that there would be somebody slick enough to pretend and then take advantage of others. Something needs to be in place to limit the behaviors and damages these people perpetrate. Thus enforcement. Cultivation, over time and on a large scale, would generally decrease difficulties in a society and make enforcement a more occasional necessity.
Yet we are at poles in our beliefs about peace and it seems that neither side hears nor understands the other. Thus we are not at peace even with ourselves.
The solution is defined in the problem: we need to sit down together, shut our mouths and open our ears and minds, talk with those not like us until each side is convinced that the other hears and understands, then work together to acheive the common goal that both sides share.
I can imagine a danger inherent in this solution. In redefining peace, or at least the path toward it, we would also have to redefine enemies. So many people are invested in the fight, in the passion, that to give up the thrill of combating an enemy and feeling righteous would be a great loss. In fact, should we learn how to no longer see a brother as an enemy it could generalize to the whole human race. Sheesh. Nobody as an enemy. What would we do for entertainment? Now we have to redefine entertainment. And so on.
Yet what would the Prince of Peace recommend? He certainly didn't advocate for war, literally or figuratively. Even if it's unfamiliar in human history, maybe swallowing our pride and working together is the right thing to do.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Making a Killing
I've been trying to reason out for a couple of weeks how one comes to judge another nation or culture as an enemy (makes no difference if they had been an ally in the recent past) and decide that they have to be killed. On the surface it goes against every law, religious and state, that says 'thou shalt not kill'. So how do you get there?
Maybe it's because my degrees are in psychology, I've had a lifelong interest in religion and spirituality, and in the last twenty years have been increasingly drawn to sociology, but the only conclusion I can reach is that one hasn't resolved the unacceptable negative parts of oneself, and by projection object to it when the same is seen in others. If one has attained a level of authority or power -- the motivation of which could be the same denial of personal negatives and subsequent attempt to control the world around rather than the world within -- and has at one's disposal some 'army', whether military, professional, or religious, one goes about trying to rid the world of the 'enemy' that is a reminder of the unaccetable inner traits or impulses.
What would the world look like if anyone who expressed any perception of an enemy were not allowed a position of authority? Capitalism would fall, of course, as would most governments. Yet when are we going to reach the point where we stop repeating history and allowing those who see demons to use society's resources to fight their own inner struggles (and in the company of those like them, who all band together), a struggle that can't be won because the focus is external when the fight is internal? At what point do we finally say that such people are not the highest examples to lead us?
Over many years I have increasingly been developing the idea that the greatest revolution in history will be when we stop trying to conquer nature and instead conquer ourselves. Fire, electricity, the wheel, the internal combustion engine, cyberspace...all these have made substantial and irreversible changes for humanity, but they are all external. When do we finally transcend what is within us and holds us back?
The writings that guide us in this direction go back at least four thousand years. There's a lot of resource. There's a lot of wisdom already in existence. Gandhi got closer to turning humankind in that direction than most, but things fell off after he died. What will it take to make it not the passion and mission of a single man (in truth, there are thousands of people at any one time trying to lead us there) but to make it the standard of humanity?
It's one of the reasons I write this blog. Doin' my part.
Maybe it's because my degrees are in psychology, I've had a lifelong interest in religion and spirituality, and in the last twenty years have been increasingly drawn to sociology, but the only conclusion I can reach is that one hasn't resolved the unacceptable negative parts of oneself, and by projection object to it when the same is seen in others. If one has attained a level of authority or power -- the motivation of which could be the same denial of personal negatives and subsequent attempt to control the world around rather than the world within -- and has at one's disposal some 'army', whether military, professional, or religious, one goes about trying to rid the world of the 'enemy' that is a reminder of the unaccetable inner traits or impulses.
What would the world look like if anyone who expressed any perception of an enemy were not allowed a position of authority? Capitalism would fall, of course, as would most governments. Yet when are we going to reach the point where we stop repeating history and allowing those who see demons to use society's resources to fight their own inner struggles (and in the company of those like them, who all band together), a struggle that can't be won because the focus is external when the fight is internal? At what point do we finally say that such people are not the highest examples to lead us?
Over many years I have increasingly been developing the idea that the greatest revolution in history will be when we stop trying to conquer nature and instead conquer ourselves. Fire, electricity, the wheel, the internal combustion engine, cyberspace...all these have made substantial and irreversible changes for humanity, but they are all external. When do we finally transcend what is within us and holds us back?
The writings that guide us in this direction go back at least four thousand years. There's a lot of resource. There's a lot of wisdom already in existence. Gandhi got closer to turning humankind in that direction than most, but things fell off after he died. What will it take to make it not the passion and mission of a single man (in truth, there are thousands of people at any one time trying to lead us there) but to make it the standard of humanity?
It's one of the reasons I write this blog. Doin' my part.
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