The myth of Memorial Day

There is the erroneous belief, often portrayed as (incorrect) knowledge that a myth is simply a made-up story. Not every fictional story is a myth. Kurt Vonnegut's Slapstick, or Lonesome No More is not a myth, it is a novel. Joseph Heller's Catch-22 is not a myth, it is also a novel. Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is not a myth, it's a novella. And Earnest Hemmingway's The Old Man and the Sea, is a long short-story, but it is not a myth. I have chosen to use American examples because for any number of reasons, Americans are more prone to myth-making and myth-believing that other folks. What is more, the size of the tale has nothing to do with whether a story is a myth, or even mythical, hence my inclusion of varying sized works.

For my purposes here, let me tell you what I mean when I use the word "myth". It is this: a myth is most often, but not necessarily always) a story whose design and intent is to point to something bigger than itself. The elements of the story may, or may not, be true; that is, they may, or may not, correspond and conform to the reality of actual events that once took place. They may simply be stories based on certain events that occurred or alleged to have occurred. But it doesn't matter. Most importantly, however, all myths start out well-intentioned to impress, inspire, or perhaps explain; most myths are harmless (because they have become ineffective ... they are no longer "believed"); but, in the end, all myths become destructive, especially when they are believed after having been exposed as untrue stories that point to no reality greater than themselves.

One of the worst, if not the worst, myths ever perpetrated is the Myth of Progress. This is the story that tells us that things, and by that the teller always means "the world in which we live" is getting better. It implies that there is a utopian, paradisiacal end to human (primarily, technological) development, but it's never had it's own story, rather it has always been presented as an obvious truth enclothed in a different set of "facts" each time it is told. A lot depends on who is telling the story and which point the teller is trying to make. It's such a shoddy myth, though, because it was never really true. Oh, don't get me wrong, we have things today that we never had before and some of them can be used for the betterment of all: things like soap and water-pumps and flush toilets, but most people in the world don't have these things and the people that have them aren't ready to share them with those who don't, so while they have made the world a better place for some, they haven't made the world a better place, so I have trouble seeing where the "progress" part comes in. But that's a whole other story.

No, my focus here are myths as we generally understand them: those stories that point to things greater than themselves and which we then believe to be true, even though they aren't. In fact, we tend to believe these stories all the more, the more we find out they're really "just myths"; that is, well-intentioned, made-up stories that simply shouldn't be believed anymore, because they have become, as all myths eventually do, destructive. They end up making things worse instead of better.

The reason this whole idea of myths and untruth and destructiveness are on my mind is because this is Memorial-Day weekend in the United States, and having originally hailed from there, I still have a connection to the place even though I left there so long ago. What is more, over this weekend, I will be, literally, bombarded by social-media memes all expressing the same mythical sappiness that every American who ever donned a uniform is a hero (or heroine) who did his (or her) part to ensure that all those meme-spreaders have the freedom to annoy the rest of the world with their own rather limited and, too often, self-serving worldview that they are somehow role models for the rest of us. Yes, what I hear so often from my fellow countrypeople, either directly or indirectly, implicitly or explicitly, is that if the rest of the world would just be like America and acknowledge that America is the greatest country in the world, well, the world would be a much better place. I know my fellow countrypeople are for the most part lovingly well-intentioned, but with loving well-intentionedness, cluelessness often goes hand in hand. Yeah, ya gotta love 'em, even if they are so annoying. Yet there's a dark side to this apparent harmlessness that needs to be acknowledged as well.

Don't get me wrong, I would be the last person to maintain that what Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan started in the middle of the last century was a good thing. There was, as they say, a mass of evil afoot. Even as much against war that I am, it's hard for me to think that "issue" could have been resolved peacefully. Still, it was a prime opportunity for myth-building, and that we did.

We Americans like to think we won that war, and some nasty tongues maintain that we haven't won a war since. Truth be told, like it's predecessor, World War I (the war to make the world safe for democracy, which also didn't work apparently), the Americans were extremely reluctant to even join in. There was a lot of mental calisthenics being performed and a lot of whining about "Europe" and "their problems" and all, but in the end, there were severe economic downturns that just weren't turning around, so it seemed like a good idea at the time to find a reason to get involved. If it weren't for the Japanese attacking its Pacific fleet -- which was stationed somewhere the Americans claimed belonged to them (though they really couldn't prove that they did) – we may not have gotten involved at all. But we got in right as things started going bad for the bad guys, and by 1945 we were on the winning side, so even thought primarily the Soviets (which we called the Russians and their ilk in those days) kicked Hitler's butt, with some help from the Brits (who had been kicked off the continent) and the French (who though already defeated organized some significant resistance). Of course, the Soviets, whom we generally didn't like then, liked even less later, and continue to dislike in the guise of Russians today, really took a beating in beating the Germans, so we, who suffered the least, who contributed more supplies and money than actual troops, and who had far fewer dead than anybody else, proudly stepped forward to accept the awards and accolades for victory. Americans have never been shy about accepting awards, even if they don't really deserve them.

But, be that all as it may, it was good that evil was stopped. Of course, given the fact that other than Hawaii, which not everybody thinks counts, nobody was invading America or fighting in its streets, or razing its cities to the ground with artillery and bombs, or setting fire to it with incendiaries, or starving its citizens to death in obscene and insane sieges. It was really not suffering all that much at all compared to everybody else, so when it was finally all over, the only country which had much infrastructure and production facilities in tact was, well, the United States. They also had an intact military and one that really wasn't weary of fighting yet. After all, they only got involved at the tail end of the whole affair. They were still fresh and idealistic and, if needed be, raring to go. The last man standing, so to speak, the one who had just showed up, declared himself the world's first superpower and all anybody else had to say was a tired and mumbled "whatever". And that's when America really did what it has always done best: it stepped in and showed everyone else just how easy it is to make money out of misery. We were now going to show the world how things really get done.

No, this isn't the version we read about in our history books, and it's not the version our parents or grandparents told us. It's a jaundiced recounting, however, of the real story. All the other stories we were told were, well you guessed it myths. The stories we were told about this were designed and intended to (a) make Americans feel good about themselves, even if they had not made the biggest contribution, (b) let everyone else know that it was America's duty – if not right – to take charge on the world stage, and (c) keep the door open for other, future, most likely unexpected opportunities to stay in charge.

No, I'm not saying that any of this was evil, or nefarious, or even bad. Americans tend to be a naïve breed, and I really think that more than anything else the United States simply wanted a relatively peaceful world in which to hawk their wares and make oodles of money. They stepped right in and organized the world monetary system, set up institutions to ensure these would endure (like the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund – and notice two of three deal with money), and made a sound effort to make the rules of the game such that everybody would get something in the deal, all properly allocated, of course, in terms conducive to the rule-makers.

But, things didn't stay that way. The next thing you know, America found itself embroiled in one armed conflict after the other. First there was Korea, which was such a mess that to this day everyone wants to forget about it. Then there was Southeast Asia, which the Brits had mucked up, then the French had mucked up (but what can you expect, really, look at how they ended up in WW2 before we "saved their bacon", as we like to say), so now it was our turn ... and we mucked up. History, unkind or not, makes the use of the words "lost" and "war" in the same sentence unavoidable. And, I have to admit, my fellow countrypeople, on the whole, have been having a bit of crisis of confidence since.

But, they push on in spite of themselves: the bloody suppression of so-called "revolutions" in South and Central America, the overthrow of democratically elected governments that were somehow deemed "unworthy", as it Iran, Chile, and even Greece, the over-the-top interventions in the Middle East – Gulf I, II, and Iraq – and now the so-called global war on terror (GWOT) which, as we all know, creates far more terrorists than it ever has or ever will ever eliminate. And each and every time we perpetuated an outdated myth or recast an old one in new garb or turned up the marketing of those elaborate and pompous stories we created about our good will, our humanitarian goals, our fervent desire to bring liberty and freedom to oppressed peoples, our moral obligation to a higher purpose. And each and every time we sent – no, we sacrificed, on the altar of power and profit – our best and brightest and bravest and – truth be told, poorest – so that the few could have even more than they already do and the rest of us could be left holding the bag (of death and misery and destruction and war crimes).

We all know, in the meantime, that some few people were getting filthy rich of all these schemes, that more often than not natural resources were the real motivators for our involvement (since we were willing to put into place and maintain in power some of the most oppressive and ruthless dictators known to the 20th century in order to ensure our "interests" were well represented), that yellow and then brown people were simply not fit for all that liberty, freedom and self-governance that we held in such high esteem and so more guns and more bullets and more bombs and more death and more destruction and more overt, physical intervention would be necessary to make the world safe for ... and here is where most of the non-American world simply draws a blank: just what is it that they were (and apparently are) so bent on doing. I wish I knew. When I look at it all, it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. What am I missing?

But, the myth machine is still running full blast, cranking out stories to make all those sacrifices look like heroic deeds done for heroic purposes to achieve heroic ends. No one wants to think that all those young American men (and more recently, women) died in vain. I don't want to think it, I can assure you, but they can only not die in vain if the myth is true. We know in the meantime that the myth is not true, and the frenetic rushing about and patting of vets on the back and thanking them for their service is, I know, well-intended, but it's nothing more than the doomed-to-failure attempt to appease one's own deceived conscience.

This weekend, we should take time and make every effort to embrace all of those, living and dead, who were misused and abused by the myths. We should tell them all just how sorry we are that we allowed them to suffer for false honor and false glory. We should locate every single living vet who has been made homeless and see that s/he gets a home. We should find every vet who is suffering from whatever service-induced or even remotely-related physical or mental ailments and see that s/he gets proper treatment. We should stand up and let them, and every current service member know that we're no longer putting up with this crap: of allowing young people to be utterly destroyed for no other reason than silly stories that aren't even true. That means, of course, that we all have to take a stand for truth and actually do something. My bet is the silly stories will be retold as the barbeques get fired up and the beer chills on ice.

Happy Memorial Day.

Hunks of meat suspended in time

Recently, I had a bit of a discussion on social media (and yes, I know I'm too old for that, but I've got an extremely young grandchild and need to keep up-to-date, or some reasonable facsimile) ... well, it wasn't as much a discussion as it was an exchange. Let's face it: social media doesn't lend itself to discussions, nor was it ever intended to.

Discussions need to be done tête-à-tête, I agree, but I've been involved in the electronic medium long enough to know that it is possible to have long, deep, meaningful, debates and discussions online, but you need people who can, and are willing to, think and who are willing to persevere till Hitler (or some other Nazi reference) butts in. Exchanges are nice enough, but they are pretty meaningless in both the petty and grand scheme of things. Social media is there for people to spit out opinions, to try to impress others with one's own wit and brilliance, or to just vent. That's not really what I consider to be engaging an idea, notion, or possibility in any superficial or meaningful way, but we shouldn't expect more than a media channel can deliver.

Nevertheless, even such pithy exchanges, you can get a feeling for where the other commenters are coming from. Every time we open our mouths (or let our fingers do the talking) we tell the world where the shoe is pinching (as the Germans like to say) or what our particular problem is this week. People ain't refrigerators: they can't keep nothing. You want to know what's important to someone, what's floating their boat, tickling their fancy, or pissing them off to no end: just listen. They'll tell you. If you don't know what's bothering your partner, well, then you're not listening.

Oh, it's easy not to listen. In fact, it takes a good amount of effort. Most of us are so wrapped up in ourselves that we can't get past the monkey-chatter in our own heads to pick up on whatever it is that "they" are going on about. The old Zen saying may be that those who say, don't know and those who know won't say, but I can assure you that the vast majority of denizens of this planet don't know what they know nor are they willing to try to figure out what you might know. It's so loud in most of their heads that they would rather just turn it off than have to try and filter the worth-hearing from the noise. And let's face it, most of it's noise. There's a lot of noise, both inside and outside our heads.

But that's not the point. What struck me in my recent exchange was how few options we had. Center point of the back-and-forth was "human beings". You can love 'em, you can hate 'em, but you can't avoid 'em ... they're everywhere. For obvious reasons there are 7 billion of us on the planet these days and truth be told, most of us don't have a clue ... about anything. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining nor am I accusing: most of those 7 billion can't have a clue: they're struggling to survive today, let alone tomorrow; they're so poor they don't have dirt to rub together; they're hungry, sick, forlorn, forsaken and forgotten. But ... and it's a bit but(t): we in the West do, and we, in the West, should know better. But, we don't. And that's what hit me first. The vast majority of human beings in existence, that is, alive today, didn't even get factored into the discussion/exchange equation. What does that say about us?

The second thing, though, that hit me ... OK, it was more like a bitch-slap ... was the assertion/contention/assumption that if humans were involved, whatever the topic was, it was doomed to failure, because, well, human beings are beyond hope anyway. There was/is the implicit, though if necessary, explicit assertion that humans are incapable of anything other than stupidity, bullshit and nonsense. Now, don't get me wrong: I'm not accusing my interlocutors of anything other than short-sightedness: they appealed to history, and history -- regardless of who has written it -- documents the failure of human beings. We haven't gotten a damn thing right in the half-a-million or million years that we've been here (and I'm only referring to homo sapiens right now, for simplicity's sake, not because it's the only way to see things): violence, rape, pillage, plunder, war, death, destruction, thievery ... regardless of whomever we love to pick out and praise as being laudable, enviable, praiseworthy. They only managed to stop the destruction long enough for someone to write down how great they were. I get that. Really, I understand that, but the conclusions they draw from this is simply ... well, wrong. Let me explain.

Two forces are at work here: First, there's the factual evidence that over time, and according to whatever records we have been able to salvage, the creatures on this planet know as "human beings" tend to act more stupid than smart and are much more violent than peaceful. But ... and, again, it's a big but(t) this says nothing about how human beings actually are. Also, and closely related to this, is the deduction/assumption that human beings are simply not capable of any more/better than that. In other words, if human beings are involved, whatever you have planned is going to go south; that is, there is such a thing as "human nature" and it more or less precludes that any other outcome is possible. These are insufficient, inadequate, inappropriate conclusions to be drawn from the evidence for they are based on an incorrect assumption about human beings in general, namely that they have a "nature" and this nature is somehow defective.

This is a common, widely spread, and simply wrong conclusion. It assumes too much, and it has to. Why? Because those who believe that "this is how things really are" start with two incorrect assumptions: (1) past actions of human beings are accurate predictors of future behavior and, the one I like to call the materialist fallacy, (2) we're just big hunks of meat who are the unfortunate product of chance. If matter is all there is, well, you can't -- no, shouldn't -- expect too much of others. After all, they are, at best, products of chance who have no clue why they're here or what they're up to. But, this is going to far too fast.

Now it's your turn. Think about it: who are we creatures we call 'human beings'? Is there a reason for our presence on this planet or are we mere products of chance? Does life -- no matter what we think it is -- have some meaning or is this all just a big coincidence? Do we have some fundamental, basic "nature", some way of being that when you get right down to it just can't be changed? Do notions such as "good" and "evil" really exist or are they just illusions? Do the ideas of "right" and "wrong" actually exist or are they merely conventions we've accepted so that we can get through whatever the hell this is we are experiencing until tomorrow? Do we have any say (in any sense of the word) in our lives or is everything simply determined, if not predetermined, by the accidental interaction of forces, events, whatever beyond our knowledge?

OK, I know these are what is often referred to as "heavy" questions. When you get down to it, though, each and every one of us has to have some idea, some story, some explanation that we like to tell ourselves that helps us get through the darkness of unknowing as to why we're here. But, hey, maybe there's no reason at all. I'm not claiming there is, I'm only asking you to think about what you think the answer to "the question" is.

So, where does this leave me with my "discussants"? To me, it's relatively clear: they are what we know in this day and age as "materialists" and they don't know, to be kind, any better. And here, too, you shouldn't misunderstand me: I'm not criticizing or condemning these folks in any way, shape or form. They simply believe that all there is to life, the world, the universe, to all that is is, well, matter. I know: it all sounds so simple. At some time, a long time ago, an explosion -- to be precise and scientific, a Big Bang -- occurred and the ball started rolling who knows how and who knows where and here we are. One of the products of this "bang" was matter ... stuff ... the shit we knock our knees against when we're not paying attention. Somewhere along the line, we -- that is, you, me and every other human being on the planet or who ever existed -- showed up, as a, well, coincidental by-product of this "bang". Though we don't know for sure, we still "know" that matter is all there is. And here we are.

Well, this is where my discussants are at any rate. We've got a lot of people now, just as there have been a lot of people before us, but all of them are more or less fortunate or unfortunate accidents of a huge fart that took place billions of years ago. (To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't trust these accidents with much of anything either, but I started from a different assumption, and that makes all the difference in the world.) We're (and by that I mean we human beings, allegedly with consciousness and free will) are freaks of nature, and I use the word "freaks" in the most well-meaning sense of the word: it was just an accident that we are as we are; there's not a damn thing we can do about it, and if we consider the laws of statistics and probability, we shouldn't be here anyway. Unfortunately, we are. Funny how that works.

Well, what disturbed my discussants, I believe, is the fact that the fate of our planet should be placed in the hands of these freaks. Oh, I understand their shock and dismay. After all the failures we have to show for ourselves, I am the last person who would jump up and yell, "Hey, let the failures take charge!", but the truth of the matter is that there is only us. We have it in our hands -- and here I've got a lot of good science on my side -- to destroy the planet or to at least eliminate ourselves (and probably a whole lot else, including thousands, if not millions, of other species) in the process, and these folks -- my discussants -- are the ones that potentially are going to save us from ultimate demise. I agree, the chances are slim, but -- truthfully -- if not us, who? Yeah, we're pretty screwed up as a species, but we're also the only ones who have even the slightest chance of pulling ourselves, and everything else, back from the brink of extinction.

Yes, I exaggerate. My hero of heroes, George Carlin, accurately, and I believe appropriately, declared that human beings are to the planet nothing more than a bad case of fleas: the planet can shake us off and go on as if we never existed. And for as right as he was/is, that's a whole other issue and not relevant here.

So, here's the point: what happens to the earth and all of its inhabitants is nothing we can worry or not worry about. It doesn't matter. What happens to us, human beings, as a species, is, nevertheless, in our hands. We can participate in the further development of planet earth or we can decide to opt out. And this is where things start getting both serious and interesting: it's up to us. We can change our behavior and play along in the Big Game of Chance, but we can also opt to just spite ourselves ensure that not a one of us survives. This is what my fellow discussants didn't get, or didn't want to acknowledge: we have a choice in the matter, and the mere fact that we have a choice makes us different than any other species of living thing on this planet ... for better or for worse. We may -- and probably will -- choose the path of death and destruction. We seem to like that. But ... whether we like it or not ... we, and only we human beings, have the option to choose Life over Death.

You can't fix stupid, but stupidity can be fixed

We've got a problem. By "we", I mean those of us who find ourselves in what we like to think of as the 1st World -- and I'm not the first to ask somewhat naively, where's the 2nd one? Yeah, you, almost all of your reading this, and your friends, and your friends' friends, if they have any, and the people around you, like family and neighbors, and all of us who have too much time on our hands, too much money in our pockets, and too little sense to know what to do with either.

Now, before you go off all insulted because you're struggling to make ends meet or you're starting to sweat all the debt you're carrying around or whether there is going to be anything left for your kids or grandkids ... if you're concerned about any of that, you are precisely whom I'm talking to. Your problem isn't insufficient funds, it's insufficient gratitude. The vast majority of human beings on this planet would swap places with you in a heartbeat: and you'd die having to deal with theirs, and they'd think they'd died and gone to heaven. It's a matter of perspective, true, but also relativity. According to popular, widespread, and most oft proclaimed ideology: you chose your problems; the vast majority of humanity had theirs dumped on them by people who care more about themselves than even you do. If you've got a conscience, you'll never make it into the top 10%, let alone 1%. You're not cut out for it. Or sell your conscience. At the moment, however, you're just in the way ... of progress to make a better world or your just another wannabe for those at the top who want, and will eventually, get what you have.

You might get the impression that I'm a bit miffed at the moment, a bit irked, a bit bothered, a bit off-center. And you're right. I am. But, I firmly believe that I have every reason to be. Oh sure, I've cobbled together a fixed-income existence; I don't own anything other than a car of good middle age; I've got family around me, a couple of friends (who at least people who tolerate having me around); I've got a roof over my head, enough to eat and access to the world's largest cesspool of information, the internet. I haven't got a single reason to complain about anything in my life. But I'm also not only not the only person on the planet and I'm not the only person in my immediate environment. I'm part of a larger whole that varies in size depending on time of day, phase of the moon, and societal configuration.

In other words, I lead a relatively normal Western life. And I'm thankful for that, believe me. I'm thankful that I have the wherewithal, the inclination, the talent, the time, the opportunity to share my thoughts with all of you. But, I must admit, I'm rather bothered by the echoes that are finding their way back to me. Like most of you, I've got a real life and an online life, and the online life has to do with social media to a large extent, and regardless of what you think about either in general, I can assure you that, in particular, the online part is causing me more and more concern with each passing day. That's why I'm bringing this up here, with you, with all of you who obviously have an online life as well. The number of people with online lives is growing daily. The "society" that these online denizens are forming, however, is not exactly what I had hoped it would be way back when 95% of the people on the internet lived within 10 miles of my home. Yeah, I've had a chance to watch all this develop, and I'm not all that excited about what I see.

I'm going to out myself right up front: I don't believe the least in "human nature", but I believe unboundedly in "human potential". I believe -- deep, in the very heart of my own being -- that human beings are the living expression of the possibility of all possible possibilities. (That's the optimist heart that beats in my breast.) And I also believe, unreservedly, that the low end of those possibilities is the world we have thought out for ourselves, the world in which we're all -- at the moment -- forced to live. Stated succinctly, we're the biggest of all of G-d's failures. (And thus beats my cynic's heart in that same breast.)

We are, and have shown, that we're capable of the most exhilarating flights of brilliance: fire, the wheel, more-than-sufficient food production, disease eradication, alternative energies and explorations to the stars. At the same time, we have demonstrated that we're capable of the most terrifying horrors imaginable: war, genocide, unimaginable physical and psychological violence, greed, selfishness, self-absorption, and lack of empathy that there are moments when I find myself almost yearning for that last affront to occur so that we all go down the tubes the blinding fire of nuclear annihilation. And therein lies the rub, as the bard so eloquently put it.

You should be aware that all of G-d's children don't have the same intellectual capabilities and capacities. And that's OK as far as I'm concerned. Some of the nicest people I ever had the honor of dealing with weren't the sharpest pencils in the box, as they say, but they were Menschen, in both the true and Yiddish senses of the word. They cared about others, were kind, generous, helpful, supportive, and chock full of empathy and sympathy for the plight of others. I don't consider these people stupid, however. No, to me, stupid is when you think you know something, when you think you are smarter than you really are, or when you let external, non-personal "attributes" drive your actions.

Three of these are particularly dangerous: money, guns, and power. You can be bright, but once money (or in its most fundamental and nefarious form, the love of money) takes over it's good-bye smarts. Money is a prime cause of stupidity. You think your money makes you better, and smarter than everyone else, but it doesn't. It makes you think you're an authority on things you have no idea about (e.g., Bill Gates and world health or education). Guns are also a classic, and they (or the violence they represent) is a key feature of the gangster/Mafioso boss Hollywood has infected us with for decades. The propensity toward violence or violent behavior, the willingness to use it so "resolve arguments" is prototypical of stupidity in general. And finally, power ... often some vague combination of the previous two attributes, or "actual" power, like a political office (here, Bush the Lesser jumps out as poster child for what can happen when the intellectually challenged get it in their heads that they're better than and worth more than others) ... is the worst of all. And it's the one that has the most disastrous effects on the most people.

Even the most superficial gloss over the history of humankind reveals that it has been those awash in stupidity who have been in charge. We don't know who it was who figured out "fire", but we know practically everybody's name who used fire -- in one form or another -- to ensure that hundreds, thousands, if not millions of people had to suffer to satisfy their own egos. And we praise them, look up to them, remember them, and as school-children are forced to memorize their names, but in the end, they were stupid, self-absorbed, self-serving egoists who forced their personal mentation on others. Alexander the Great, the Roman Caesars, the British and other European royal houses, from Stockholm to Madrid, and, most recently, a whole bevy of American presidents (not starting with but particularly egregious since Reagan), have tortured the life out of countless human beings for the greater glory of , and we laugh and gloat and cheer and pat ourselves on the back for being so "great". But why? What's so smart about being able to kill untold human beings at will? Why do we think -- at this point in history, here, at the beginning of the 21st century (since we've agreed on counting years) -- that this is a good thing? Sure, it enables you to sit there in your room; fat, dumb and happy that you can look down upon the vast majority of humankind; but you need to explain to me what about this is good.

Recent history has shown us what's going on. Whether is was Thatcher in Britain or Reagan in the US, or Clinton (who could cover it over better than most), or Blair or Bush the Lesser (if that wasn't the tip-off, I don't know who was) or Merkel, or Cameron or Juncker or Schäuble or Gabriel or Obama or that it's not the bright ones who are leading the way and seeing to it that the proper shots are called. No, among this limited selection of individuals there are those who -- on their own, in a normal conversation -- would come across as half-way intelligent and reasonable, there seems to be the overwhelming propensity, if not compulsion, to blow any and all alleged inherent intelligence to the wind and strut forth as a contender for the crown of Village Idiot.

This -- not the results of neoliberal economic policies -- is what trickles down. We then find the same behavior patterns in the general population, be it in alternative political parties (like the AfD in Germany) or alternative political candidates (like Trump in the US (though Hilary isn't much better) and his followers) or just plain misinformed-and-proud-of-it welfare-bashers, gun-nuts, evangelicals, flag-wavers, sports-fanatics, and small-minded bleaters would rather complain about others than actually do something for or with others to make a difference. And I'm amazed each day at the number of people for whom this description applies.

No, I don't have a very high opinion of the general quality of information available on the internet, but there is a lot of good, sound, reliable information to be found there. But you have to go looking for it, and you have to wade through cybermiles of sludge and jungle to find it. There are good, sound, and inspiring insights to be found there, but you have to be able to weigh and evaluate, compare and contrast, and, well, think, to figure out which they are.

Of course, you have to be willing to explore thoughts, ideas, opinions, and views with which you don't necessarily or immediately agree and you have to be willing to assess their validity, their impacts and maybe even their worth. But that takes both time and effort and, well, with all the important stuff so many of us have in our lives that needs to get done, who is going to ensure they do this as well? But, most importantly, you have to be willing to communicate what you find and discuss it with others, not just with people whom you agree with. You need actively engage other ideas and notions if you are ever to come up with thoughts and ideas of your own. And who, pray tell, is going to be willing to do that? There are some thank goodness, though they are few and far between. There are some who haven't yet given up, even though they are reviled and ridiculed by those who have chosen stupidity and their particular way of life.

The point is that we don't have to be in the messes we're in. We don't have to deal with all the ignorant nonsense which pervades most of our lives. We don't have to allow stupidity to rule our lives ... but we are, we do and we will, because to change any of it, we might just have to change ourselves. So, don't complain about stupid (and all that is wrong with everybody else) if you choose stupidity yourself. And that is the choice too many people are making.

Moms have been getting a raw deal for far too long

This weekend is Mother's Day, in a lot of the world that is. (Not unexpectedly the Brits celebrate theirs on 4th Sunday in Lent. Go figure; always no reason to be different.) Anna Jarvis, an early 20th-century woman's activist pushed to get it recognized, only partly successfully of course, but recognized nevertheless. Some countries picked it up; others refunctioned their own similar holidays honoring women, so there is no universally accepted day of celebration. And yes, it's one of those pseudo-holidays that Hallmark or one of those greeting card manufacturers breathed life into in order to increase sales. But, the fact remains that we still have a day to honor mothers, in spite of everything modern culture tries to do to ignore, if not outrightly suppress, them.

You don't have to be a zealot of political correctness to know that we live in a man's world, that our societies for the greatest part are patriarchal. This is one of those little understood aspects of life that has always fascinated me, for it never ceases to surprise me to what ends some folks will go -- mostly men, of course -- to justify this as some natural order of things. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Male dominance or patriarchy, and I'm referring to human beings now, is a cultural, not a biological or natural state of affairs.

Throughout most of nature, males are larger and stronger than females, but this is also not a given. It seems that among birds of prey, females tend to be larger than males; the female great white shark is larger and stronger than the male, and there is certainly a difference when considering propagating vs. social relations: praying mantises and black widow spiders have the final word on who's in charge; elephants, for the most part, live in female-dominated herds, while males are more of loners and only show up for mating; lion prides are organized by the females; but hyenas, lemurs and the bonobo all live within a strict matriarchal order. Given this wide range of set-ups, only a bean-counting statistician would insist "natural" male dominance, and I'm pretty sure that they do.

Biologically, however, at least as far as human beings are concerned, no case can be made for male superiority at all. Mothers conceive and gestate the young; mothers give birth (well, except for among seahorses, I understand, and you've got to love the irony of at least one species providing an exception). The only thing that men contribute to thee young of the species is 50% of the DNA and the determination of gender, otherwise, males are pretty much observers in the whole affair. Even a cursory reflection upon biology class and the X and Y chromosome lesson shows us that Y-chromosomes are complete, the X-chromosome is noting more than a crippled X (that is, one of its legs is missing) so in essence, boys are merely crippled girls. The fact that more boys then girls are born in the natural population is due to the fact that infant mortality is higher and later reckless behavior lead to more early male deaths. Male-female populations don't balance out till around 20 years-old or so. And, with males being more observers than participants in the whole new-life thing, it was the Anglo-Saxons of yore and the Jews to this day who correctly observed that the bloodline actually runs through the mother, not the father. Nature takes care of itself, it always has, and it could probably well use less of our help in getting along. (Of course, in regard to this gender thing in general, the Americans (unsuprisingly) have lost the plot and now find it one of their highest legislative and juridical priorities to sort out biology apparently gone wrong. Truth be told, nothing's changed in nature, just the way certain obviously ignorant and sexually-inhibited individuals choose to see nature, but there's nothing new about that either.)

The next biggest justification, and certainly one of the pieces of evidence I would take to support my own case for cultural choice as opposed to biological selection, is religion. The religionists all seem to have got together defend male dominance. We have to remember, however, that there is a huge difference between what religions' sacred texts say, what they mean, how they are interpreted and, finally but most importantly, collected into whatever articles of faith that are used to organize their affairs. Christians love to go on and on about how Eve caused the Fall from grace and were made subordinate to their husbands; even more love to use the writings of St. Paul to justify male domination (having converted out of Judaism and as desirous as he was to bring Gentiles into the fold, it is not surprising that he would take over any number of their "beliefs" in order to further his cause). You can open practically any newspaper or read any online new site and find all kinds of evidence of male domination in most Muslim societies and communities. The fact that the Indians and Chinese would resort to infanticide should a female child be born first provides evidence for their own fanaticism of male domination. Of course, what most people don't realize about religion generally is that there is an exoteric side to it, the one that you actually see and most often get to experience, but there's also an esoteric, or hidden side, where the real tenets of the faith can be found. (For example, since the notion of bloodline referred to above, or consider that the majority of Jesus' followers were women, that they were treated as equals if not more (for example, the controversial role played by Mary Magdalene, especially in the Gospel bearing her name) and that it's been well documented that later redactors of the Pauline texts even changed women's names to men to serve their theological needs.) It would seem the things that we need to take at face value, like biology, we don't, but the things where a bit more discernment is needed, say, with the texts, well, why go to all that trouble once you've got them saying what you want them to say anyhow? But what we should be aware of, in every instance, is the fact that when we start to speak of "civilization", we find men wanting to or actually calling the shots.

Well, I'm beginning to think civilization is the problem. What this implies is that the opposite of civilization isn't barbarism, as we've been told to believe. Let's think about this for a minute: civilization meant the rise of the city-states, the old Babylonian and Mesopotamian empires ... society was organized well enough that surpluses were possible, resources were accumulated, food became plentiful and could be distributed among a larger number of people. All of these are good things are they not? And, of course, they are, but the fact that some folks are managing their resources and processes well implies that that there are other who are not. It also implies that there are others who perhaps want more than they'd otherwise be entitled to. In other words, the whole idea of not having enough which at some point turns into having more than anyone else enters the picture, and once these feelings take over, well, the next thing you know -- religious texts or no -- stealing, raiding, robbing, pillaging, plundering and other forms of aggression and violence against others suddenly becomes the norm. And here we are -- voila -- a mere 10 millennia later and there still isn't enough to go around for all the rich folk. What we need to remember, however, it was at the time that this civilization got off the ground that the women were kicked out of power (yes, there is strong evidence that pre-civilizational societies were matriarchal) and the men took over. In a perpetual act of what appears to be gross psychological compensation, we are privileged to live in a world so advanced, so powerful, so dominated by male aggression that we literally stand on the brink of annihilation, and most people I know -- men and women -- are standing by cheering these louts on. If you can inject enough testosterone into anything or anybody, if it has a mind, it will lose it. And that's where we are.

Now, I dare any of you who are now thinking I'm exaggerating to prove me wrong. Look at the state of something as irrelevant as sports these days: a male-dominated, rape-condoning, destructive, greed-machine that serves primarily to distract us from real issues that need resolving. What about international diplomacy: Their machos fighting our machos in a loser-loses-everything-winner-takes-nothing chest-beating with deadly consequences. Politically: the rapid rise of violent-imbued, rightist ideology from the entire American political caste to the Front National in France or the Polish and Hungarian proto-fascists, to our coddling of the new Turkish sultan who in turn has become the poster boy for male-dominance and misogyny. I could go on and on, and where is the voice of reason among them? Nowhere because at some point women wanted to become men and partially succeeded (e.g., Thatcher, Merkel, Fiona, etc.) but failed in the end because, well, they might act like men, but in the end, they just aren't.)

Too many people these days think that if you don't believe this then you must believe that, if things aren't one way then they have to be other. Nothing could be further from the truth, but nothing is more telling of how we moderns think. Whether the days of the matriarchy were good or bad is something we'll never know. We do know it was good enough to get us to written history and the documentation of millennia of blood-letting and conquest. We do know that for whatever benefits civilization and male-dominance may have brought us, it's at the end of its rope. We can't take much, if any, more of male aggression, violence and death, of hyper-masculinity. Matriarchy had its chance. Patriarchy had its chance as well. It's time to move to something more inclusive, an Integrum, if you will, in which men and women, male and female, integrate.

The Ancients ... even back in the days of the Matriarchy, when myth was first taking shape and being used to describe who and how we are as human beings ... knew the principles of essential balance, the complementarity of male and female; the need for allowing each his or her due and to make his or her contribution. We've forgotten that, too, of course. Or maybe we consciously, willfully, viciously drove it out of our minds. I wish it were the former, but it feels more like the latter. We've got our problems with gender equality over here in Europe, to be sure, but we've still at least got it written into our constitutions and there's still some hope we're going to "get it" before the next wave of mind-numbing PC washes over us from across the pond. Maybe.

So, I for one, will be celebrating Mother's Day, as I always have and hopefully always will. I still open and hold open doors for women, because that's how I was raised, but then again, I don't let doors I go through slam in anybody's face. And I will continue to recognize women for what they are: equal partners, our (we men's) better half, and more than ever our hope for any kind of tomorrow. If we don't manage to turn the hypermasculine, violent patriarchs around -- or at least put them in their proper place -- they'll manage to finish off the planet before we can do anything about it. And yes, I still say Mother Earth. Go figure.