Haves and have-nots III

First of all, the disclaimer: though I find property rights questionable in general, I am not naive enough to think that we're going to eliminate them in one fell swoop. I'm not sure this would be either good nor productive in the long run. What we need to do, however, is wean ourselves off of them. But, we've got to start soon and we've got to get serious about it.

There was a time -- in my lifetime, in fact -- when you could register a copyright for your artistic and scientific productions. It lasted less than 20 years and it could be renewed, for a slightly shorter term, just once. After that, the work entered the public domain, it became the common property of all. Patents, which apparently have greater economic potential were also protected for a brief period of time (currently 20 years) so that the owner has the opportunity to reap the benefits of his or her thoughts, or so the theory goes. Now, copyrights, depending on country can last for up to 100 years after then death of the copyright holder. This makes no sense anymore.

Even under the less restrictive version of copyright, legal contention is about to cause severe damage. There are miles and miles of celluloid film in the "archives" in Hollywood, none of which can be digitized because there is no way to clarify who holds the copyrights on parts of those productions. Yes, they were produced with less regard for those property rights we all hold so sacred, and now they lie in legal limbo awaiting their own demise. The film itself is degrading and will soon turn to dust. Some classic, excellent cinema will be lost forever soon, because the alleged rights to property of some individuals prohibit their preservation. It would take a mere stroke of the pen to save it, but we've escalated property rights to such a height even doing a good deed, such as preserving a piece of artistic history, would have ramifications that would shake the foundations of our economy.

The greatest good for the greatest number was the utilitarian mantra, and as weak an ethical argument as it is, it is still more productive and more beneficial than the sacredness of property. We have made property rights much more valuable than any other rights that we have (or thought we had). Those unalienable rights that the Declaration of Independence so proudly declared -- life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness -- are apparently only inalienable if no property is involved.

This is the consequence of the Citizens United decision, it is what allows banking criminals to go unpunished while those in need are scorned and further oppressed, it is what lies at the root of the utterly ridiculous discussion about tax rates, it's what encourages the offshoring of profits, it what justifies environmental destruction in the name of dirty energy, it permits the persecution of children for naive ignorance, it is what ultimately destroys our entire society so that certain select individuals can have more.

It leads to the utter absurdity that what we have is much more important than who we are.

It is shameful, to be sure, and I'm ashamed that we are not more ashamed.

Haves and have-nots II

Freedom, rights, and property ... how easy it is to get them all mixed up.

Yes, you guessed correctly: I'm not exactly in agreement with the good Mr. Locke, and I'll tell you why.

First, let's get clear on what Locke was up to, and I will admit that I have singled him out because he had such a strong influence on America's so-called Founding Fathers, and their legacy is haunting not only Americans, but the rest of the world today. Locke decided that if you made something in nature productive (or useful) you then had a right to call it yours. For example, say I find a long, sturdy stick in the woods. I take it home, work on it, shape, sand and shellack it, and I then have an impressive staff that could be used as a walking aid on long treks or as a weapon of defense. According to Locke, it is mine and I can use it or sell it as I wish. Intuitively this seems very reasonable (which it should, as it's coming out of the Age of Reason). By a similar token, there's a patch of land, only lightly wooded, so I clear it, plow it, plant it and then harvest the crops I have sown. Is the field mine? Am I entitled to the products (in this case, the crops) it yields? This is more difficult scenario than the one with the stick, isn't it? Whose patch of land was it to begin with. That depends. If it were today, it could certainly belong to someone else, and you would be required to determine who that is then come to an agreement with that person about using it. Let's assume, just for the sake of argument, that we're on the North American continent, say, somewhere around Pittsburgh, 250 years ago. What about now?

There are those who would argue that, yes, first come, first served and the one who makes the most productive use of that land is entitled to it. Well, what about the Native Americans who used that land as part of their hunting grounds and where they gathered other things to use and eat? According to Locke, since the use of the land for agriculture produces a greater value, it's the farmer's. He arrives at this conclusion by simple economic reasoning: the wheat produced can be used to bake more bread to feed more people than the "mere" use of that land for hunting and gathering. And it is here that any thinking individual will see there's something of a problem. He uses a utilitarian argument (the greatest good for the greatest number of people) but that is rather culturally determined. The loss of that land, of course depending on the size, reduces the quality of life for the hunter-gather culture. Utilitarianism is used to culturally define what is "more" or "better". It's not a convincing argument. The pragmatists among you will say, well it didn't belong to anyone, so what's the problem?

My question is why is something not obviously owned by a specific individual not owned by anyone? Why don't we consider it owned by everyone? That is more or less how the Native Americans were viewing it: whoever was passing through could use it for their purposes. The notion of "ownership" doesn't make a lot of sense, yet it is the notion of "ownership" that drives almost all of our thinking about everything these days. Property rights are a very big deal. They were (and are) at the heart of the financial and economic crisis from which we have not yet recovered. Property rights are something we need to think about seriously and deeply.

Mr. Locke was, among other things, an administrator of one of the American colonies. It is not hard to surmise that he may have had a person, vested interest in viewing property as he did. It was certainly to his advantage, and he used his arguments to morally justify what was happening with the Native Americans. We have every right ... in fact, I believe we have the obligation, to re-look at this position today, not because we're smarter now than we were then, but because it was questionable then, and it is still questionable now.

The next time I'll go into why this is so.

Haves and have-nots I

Recently, I've been listening to a lecture course on Justice by Harvard professor Michael Sandel. For a Harvard professor, he's not all that bad. At least he doesn't come across as a know-it-all, and there is none of the smug eliteness that we often find in people in his position. No, he appears level-headed and patient, and he gives you the sincere impression that he's more interested in what you are thinking and why than in what it is you think you know. That's why he gets points in my book.

He's also an interesting enough lecturer and I admire how he makes it possible at all for a discussion of any kind to arise in a lecture that is being attended by over a 1,000 students (face-to-face). He takes you through a recent history of ethical and moral thinking, and invites you to explore just why some thinkers have thought the way they have and what that could or might mean for us today. Let's face it: we're faced with many of the same problems that faced Socrates, Aristotle, Meister Eckhart, Thomas Aquinas, Locke, Kant, Nietzsche, Rawls, and many others. The more things change, the more some things remain the same.

In one of the lectures, he spends a bit of time with Locke. Now, I'm not the world's biggest Enlightenment fan, though I see a lot of positive things that can be derived from this break with tradition. What caught my attention, however, was his attitude toward property. What does property have to do with ethics? Well, actually, a lot, and not the least since the line between what's just and what's legal has become increasing blurred (cf. my last post). You see, it was about the time of Locke that we moderns picked up again on a really fairly ancient idea, namely that property rights are important. In ancient Rome, by about 50 BC, the master of a household, the dominus (related obviously to our word "dominate") had complete power over his property, which included not just his lands and money, but his wife, children, and, of course, slaves. In fact, his power was absolute in the sense that he could do what he wanted with the things and he could even execute the people, if he so desired, without fear of legal repercussions. This was a form of "having" that probably makes some people drool, even today. It is difficult, however, in our modern minds to justify this, especially where the people are involved, but the artificial relationship it creates towards the things has hung around for quite a while.

In the second century AD, then, the Romans actually redefined what the word "freedom" (Lat. libertas) meant, making it in essence indistinguishable from the rights of dominium (that is, the rights of the master over his property) (cf. Graeber, 2011, pp 198ff). And I mention this because it was fellows like Locke who dug deep into our past to find ways to break the authority of the Church which had been dominating the ethics business for centuries. It became a matter of reason, not faith, that things should be one way and not another. Even that other great Enlightenment thinker, Kant, based his entire philosophy of morals on the notion of "freedom" (though he defined it as the ability, no the duty, to obey only those maxims which one gave to oneself; he assumed every human being was in the end, by virtue of his being in existence, free). It doesn't take a genius to recognize that there is a very thin line in our modern minds between the notion of "rights" and what is in fact "right" (or ethical).

But what does all this mean for Locke and for us today? More next time.

References
Graeber, D. (2011) Debt: the first 5,000 years, Melville House Publishing.

What are we thinking?

Even if we don't want to really think about the other three-quarters of humanity, our own little worlds are not completely up to snuff. Sure, most of you have more than enough, and believe me, I'm the last person who wants to take anything from you. I'm not a big fan of taking for taking's sake. That's simply wrong in my book. But, I question how right it is that some have more than they'll ever need and others don't have enough at all. Not only do we have this in our societies, we're getting ever more of it. Things aren't getting better, they're getting more disparate.

It's not a big step from disparity to desperation.

The way things are set up at the moment, it is perfectly legal for some people to have everything and other people to have absolutely nothing. But, just because something is legal doesn't make it right ... right in the sense of moral. We can sit back and say it is our corrupt politicians who skewed the game or the playing field or whatever, but in the end, whether we like it or not, we put them in office, we keep them there and they allow themselves to be bought and sold to the highest bidder, and we put our hands in our laps and tell each other, "Well, you can't fight city hall." Oh, how proud our parents must be of us now.

I would maintain that fairness is not the issue. "Life isn't fair" is perhaps one way to put it, for as we've seen, luck has a lot to do with a lot of things, and some folks have more luck than others. But, regardless of what unfairness there may be in the world, there is no reason that world in which we live should not be just. Justice and fairness are two different things. And, when I speak of "justice", I don't mean anything near "legal". Things may be legal, but that doesn't make them just.

The Romans made the distinction in having different words for laws. The word lex was used to describe human law (and it is from this word that our own "legal" derives); the word ius was used to describe divine law, a higher law (and it is from this word that our own "justice" derives). We materialistic moderns, of course, have banned anything divine from our lives, but even in our rather basic mundanity, we know that there is something "more" than the mere legal. We've got more than enough lawyers to tell us all about that, but what we are missing, I believe, are a few good people to tell us about what is just.

I would like to think that we're all capable of figuring that out, if not individually perhaps together, but I'm finding it increasingly difficult to find anyone who is willing to take the time to even think about it. Oh, I run into more than enough opinions, that's for sure, but unfortunately too many of those are simply an excuse for thinking instead of a result of it.

But thinking makes it so

For those of you who aren't convinced, I'm not necessarily trying to persuade you to believe anything in particular, rather, I'm only asking that you stop for a moment and think about what it is you believe, and even more than that, to think about why you believe whatever it is you believe. That's really not too much to ask, is it?

What we think we deserve, what we think people are responsible for (whatever "responsible" means in that context), who we are accountable to, or if we're accountable at all, what it means to have "earned" something, what role luck plays in our (and everybody else's) lives ... these are all topics (or issues, if you will) that we all need to think about. Why? Because they form the basis of the kind of world we end up living in. The world in which you find yourself is just there ... it happens to be where you woke up, if you will recall, but does it have to be the way it is? Is there anything we can do to make it different?

Most of you know full well that things do change and can change and that individuals, or at least groups of them, can effect that change as well. That's what the Civil Rights Movement, for example, was all about. It's also what Nazism and fascism in general was about. It's what feudalism and capitalism are all about as well. All of these things "just are", on the one hand, but they are also things that were not there once, were there, and are not, or may not be there at some later time. We all know things change, some in and of themselves, and others because the changes are consciously made. Change just is, as well. It can be a good change, it could be a bad change; it could be to our advantage, or it could be to our detriment.

Shakespeare, of course, has something to say about this, just like he has something to say about most things that matter. To him (as he puts it in Hamlet, Act 2, sc. ii:

... for there is nothing either good or bad,
but thinking makes it so.

Yes, "but thinking makes it so". Yes, we decide. It is our duty to decide. But, as I look around these days, I don't see a lot of deciding going on. I see a lot of accepting. I see a lot of averted glances. I see a lot of folks looking down at and shuffling their feet. Yet, not only don't I see a lot of deciding happening, I don't even see much of discussion going on either.

What does that say about our own thinking? What does that say about us? What does that say about what we might "deserve"? The extent of injustice, inequality, unfairness, and illegality that we see in abundance around us says a lot about who we are and who we have become. I don't like what I'm seeing. Do you? If not, what are we going to do about it?

What we deserve

Don't you find it strange that so many of us love to take credit for things that we shouldn't really attribute to ourselves. I mean, after all, if it is a matter of luck that I have certain talents or predispositions, and, if it is only a matter of luck as to where I happen to be at a particular point in time, then isn't all this talk about what people deserve and how much they deserve a bit stretched?

I, for one, think it is. I'm not against anyone having talent. I think that's a good thing, but I don't see why one talent is "better" or "more desirable" or "worth more" than some other talent. It's not like we have any kind of objective criteria to determine this difference. What is more, because certain talents and attributes are arbitrarily determined to be better, doesn't this necessarily make them unjust? I use the word "arbitrarily" quite consciously. Whatever doesn't conform to some principle or law or maxim or rule or what-have-you is, by definition, arbitrary, just like luck is arbitrary. We never know who's going to have it where or when. So, doesn't it strike you as odd that we should base our society -- or our economy, for that matter -- on something so arbitrary as luck? I do.

Oh, sure, there are lots of you out there who are thinking, "Hey, life's simply unfair, get over it," and while I don't fault you for thinking it, I do fault you for thinking the sentiment makes sense. I would be willing to bet that anyone of you who is thinking right now isn't so bad off as three-quarters of the world's population. You are obviously doing well enough to have internet access and a computer or smartphone. Since you do, I'm going to stick my neck out and figure that you also have a place to live and clothes on your back and enough to eat. That's what makes you different from those other three-quarters of humanity, because they don't have any of those things that you simply take for granted. Why is that? Just because life's unfair? Seems a bit cold-hearted and arbitrary, if you ask me.

All I'm saying is that perhaps we should be a bit more reserved in proclaiming what it is we think we deserve. What have you really done to deserve what you have. You worked hard, I agree, but all those without work hard too, to simply survive. You played by the rules, I agree, but the rules were made easier for you than for them. Part of your advantages is simply due to dumb luck: you were born into a richer society in a particular place at a particular time and used whatever talents you had within the system you happened to be born into as best you could to do the best you could. So did those others, but you still have more and you have it easier. Why? You were lucky, I guess.

Before we start thinking that everybody only gets what he or she deserves, maybe we should ask ourselves just what it means to "deserve" anything at all. It would seem to me that all of us who have enough, or even a bit more, are sitting on a pretty high moral horse.

It's still your lucky day

The question implicit in the last post was: what does your luck in being born in a particular place at a particular time entitle you to? It was a rather arbitrary happening, don't you think? I think the answer has to be, not anything in general, but maybe there is some particular advantage to be derived from it.

Everybody is good at something, whether we want to admit it or not. My wife has one of the greenest thumbs I've ever seen, while I am any living plant's Grim Reaper. I have a fairly well developed ability to read quickly and a talent to remember a lot of what I read as well. I have a friend who's a math whiz (even higher mathematics) and I know a couple of well-above-average sports folks (golf, soccer, tennis), and some outstanding musicians, too, some of whom could have gone professional but decided against it for whatever reasons.

The question that has been plaguing me since thinking about the accident of birth and what it might entitle us to has now infiltrated this next layer of life. Maybe being born in a particular place at a particular time doesn't entitle me to much, but don't I have to play the game by whatever rules are in place there? Shouldn't I be rewarded in some way for my talents?

Green thumbs give you an edge in the realm of horticulture, being able to remember a lot of stuff helps you win at "Trivial Pursuit" (but after a while nobody wants to play with you anymore). When my math friend came of age, nobody really cared (recently he could have made big bucks in the banking industry, but he was too old by then), and perhaps not the sports fanatics I know, but some of the musicians certainly deserved (in my estimation) to turn pro, but most of them never got "discovered". In other words, and I think my math whiz friend exemplifies it best, even if you've got the right stuff, if it's the wrong time, it just doesn't matter.

Don't you think that this is all a terrible waste of talent? I do. We certainly can't fault any of these folks for having talent no one wanted. That was again, more or less the luck of the draw. We don't have any more influence over when we were born than where. There are right times and not-so-right times for different talents.

What bothers me about all of this is that our current society heaps more-than-generous rewards on certain individuals who, by the very nature of how nature works, didn't get to where they were solely on the basis of their own hard work or inherent talents or anything of the sort. They had, for whatever reasons, luck, and a lot of it at that. On the one extreme, the person who wins the lottery ends up being rich, but does s/he deserve to be so? Most of us think "no" because they didn't "earn" it. But, if it is the case that a good number of those who have reaped such great benefits have done so on the basis of luck, why do we think that they deserve what they have?

It's your lucky day

There is something very comforting, I believe, in knowing that just about everyone else everywhere else in the world is in the same boat you are: you wake up one day and you're here and have to see your way through to the end. It can instill a sense of shared responsibility, or common fate, or a host of other feelings and ideals that could be of great value to all of us, if we were but to recognize them.

There is, however, a darker side to this as well.

When I woke up, it was in the middle of the 20th century in a small town in Western Pennsylvania. My wife woke up a little ahead of me, but six time zones to the east, in a small village near the geographical center of Germany, which was trying to dig itself out and rehabilite itself after a long and ugly war. I know a guy who woke up in a country to the southeast of my wife, a country that doesn't even exist anymore. I have a friend who woke up in time to experience Mao's Cultural Revolution.

What we have in common is of great value, to be sure, but what all us have recognized in the meantime is that we had very different starting points for trying to figure out our way through to the end. They were very, very different from one another, and I think it is safe to say they were -- and are -- very unequal. Does it matter?

There are many of you, I'm certain, who simply blurted out, "Well, no, not at all.", but I would caution you to restrain your enthusiasm for a moment and reflect on this a moment.

Here's the question: to what can (or should) we attribute the fact that we all have different starting points, unequal starting points? The answer to this question is, I believe, much more important than you may realize at first blush. How did I end up in the US, my wife in Germany, an acquaintance in Yugoslavia, and a friend in China? Yes, how? The answer is, however, rather simple, it just happened to turn out that way, it was some kind of accident, it was simply a matter of the luck of the draw.

Unless you have a convincing theory about how children are made and end up with their particular parents (or not) in a particular place at particular time, and if you are not willing to take the mythological step toward fate (which you would also have to convincingly justify), then I'm afraid you have little more left to fall back on than plain dumb luck.

What interests me most about this is how luck (of any kind) plays as good as no role in explaining anything about people. Oh, sure, you can say that you have to deal with the cards you're dealt, but to value one person higher (who really had an easier go of it) than some other (who made his or her way through circumstances that might have killed Mr or Ms Successful) just because they didn't "succeed", appears to me to something of an arbitrary call.

What also interests me is not just this first luck of the draw, but in reality just how many successes do we have in this world whose success is or could be primarily attributed to luck more than any other reason (such as ambition, talent, intelligence, and all the other things we like to attribute ourselves with)? My guess would be that there are many more than we might like to acknowledge.

Being human

My last post got me thinking. I haven't changed my mind: I still think we're more than capable of not only suppressing ourselves, but of holding ourselves back and getting ourselves into situations and circumstances that we'd much rather avoid. What is more, we're species that seems to delight more in fixing the blame than fixing the problem, and that gives me pause for thought as well.

Putting aside whatever beliefs that might comfort us and merely looking at the facts as they present themselves, it would appear that our circumstances are strange enough. One day, without knowing really how or why we find ourselves, well, really just kind of thrown into the think of things, just kind of thrown into life. (For you philosophers, this is what Heidegger calls Geworfenheit, and it's a big part of his whole mode of thinking.) We're just here, and by all appearances for no apparent reason at all. It's just a matter of happenstance. One day we simply wake up and here we are. Yippee!

We're not given any kind of operator's manual or book of instructions. It takes us years to develop even the crudest of theories as to why we might possibly be here. And through a lot of trial and error (whereby I personally think I had more of the latter than the former), we sort of figure out how things work, and try to get through the best we can. At least I'm ready to give everyone, at this point, the benefit of the doubt. How strange is that? What? The benefit of the doubt? No, that we simply try to get through life the best we can. There's not much more than that.

We find out quickly that there are some things we absolutely need (food, clothing, shelter, attention, help), there other things we want (recognition, something meaningful to do, security, friends), and there are some things we would just like to have (oh, shiny or pretty things, extra things, maybe things others don't have). What is more, if we take a moment and look around, no matter where we are in the world, if we think about others in these terms, we just as quickly realize that we all pretty much have this much in common.

Stripped to its essential core, every single human being on this planet is really confronted with the same requirements (needs, wants, and desires) and the same point of departure (not knowing why we're really here or how we got here in the first place). Yes, every single one of us, without exception. Every single one. This is what we share. This is -- in simplest terms -- what we are as human beings.

But, there is something else that all of share as well, namely the nagging suspicion that there must be more to it all than this.

Regardless of what we think that "more" can or should be, we would do well to simply recall to mind that when you get right down to it, we have more in common with our fellow human beings that traits that make us different. It is really worth keeping in mind.

What's wrong?

I'm not revealing any secrets here, but most of our news reporting isn't all that objective anymore. Let's face it, there are any number of agendas that are alive and well and are being used to, let us say, influence what it is that we "know" in the end.

What does surprise me, at least a little, is that regardless of which agenda is being pushed, some certain "facts" seem to seep through anyway. I use the word "facts" cautiously, because there does seem to be some topics, or themes, that appear to be the agreed subject of discussion at any rate, even if there isn't agreement on the details.

Depending on where you are, these topics will vary. In the US, they seem to focus on security, gun ownership, dirty energy, and banking/finance. In Germany, they tend more toward healthcare, green energy, and banking/finance. In Southern Europe, unemployment, especially youth unemployment is a big deal, along with banking/finance. And since I'm no expert on Latin America, Africa or Asia, I can't really say what's making their tongues wag, but I can't help but think that the topics there can't really be all that different, and I'm sure there is some cross-section that they share with the rest of us.

In other words, regardless of how good or bad the press may be, there is really little, if any, excuse not to be aware of the big-ticket issues of the day, and the one that apparently affects us all has to do with money and those who handle money matters, the banks. We know it. We are aware of it. We all feel it at some point, either at the gas station or the supermarket or when we realize we won't be taking a vacation this year. What's worse, jobs seem to be disappearing faster than people (we do have declining populations in most of the industrialized world at any rate), and things aren't looking all that rosy for our kids and grandkids.

And this is what surprises me about that: nobody seems to want to talk or do anything about it. Why? Is it because most of us believe we have enough that it's not our problem? Is it because we haven't got a clue what I'm talking about? Is it because we don't understand the issues themselves? Or is it, perhaps, simply because we're to fat, dumb, and lazy to care?

I don't mean any of this as an insult. There's more frustration involved than anything. But, it just amazes me how many people I do talk to from so many different places who have become aware of problems, have identified the difficulties, but when asked what they intend to do about it, all seem to agree that there's nothing they can do, so they'll just do nothing at all.

Only conspiracy theorists like to think there is some great, secret cabal out to gain control of the world, but that's perfect nonsense. We are perfectly capable of suppressing ourselves.

The dumps

After re-reading the last sentence of my last post, I realized I'm pretty much down in the dumps again. It's too easy to get depressed. Maybe I just shouldn't sweat the little things.

Depending on who you talk to (and I'm not counting Creationists here, they don't know, they can only believe, and I don't have time for that particular kind of nonsense, though ceteris paribus what I'm thinking right now would include their "arguments" anyhow) there have been humans on earth now for a few hundred thousand years. Yes, if you consider our hominoid forebears we can maybe stretch that back to a million or more years, but that only makes matters worse, not better.

What am I talking about? It's simple really: how dumb are we, actually, as a species?

Really. Yes, I know how lots of folks like to go about all our "progress" and technological advances and that we were on the moon and we've decoded the human genome, and ... well, I'm sure you get the picture, but none of that really answers the question. Yes, we've developed what appear to be some very sophisticated tools, and we can accomplish some clever tricks, but what have we really learned? Are we any "better", whatever that may mean, as a species. Is the world a "better" (same qualifications apply) because of us?

And that's where I'm not getting those good positive vibes. I'm not sure we've accomplished much at all.

We're close to having irreversibly destroyed the climate. We've polluted and have as good as irreparably damaged every environment we've settled in. We can't solve the simplest interpersonal problems without raping, killing, maiming, pillaging, and plundering (or at least thinking of them). We're emotionally unstable. We're pretty handy and making weapons, but are hopeless when it comes making a home or ends meet. We are hands down the most selfish creatures that have ever existed, and when it comes to others -- and I mean that in it's simplest sense: someone not us ... people from other towns, regions, countries, cultures, religions, etc. -- we most often display and arrogance and cruelty that would make baboons blush, if they were capable of doing so.

Most importantly, we are the only creature on earth that knows of evil. And committing it, is apparently what we do best of all.

I'm sorry. I'm missing the "better" part ... still.

A day of reflection

May may be a merry month overall, but today at least is a good day to put the merriment aside and stop to reflect. It never hurts to reflect a bit, and I think today is an especially good day for that.

What too many people don't know any more, but today is marks the 68th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe. On this day in 1945, the Germans officially surrendered ending hostilities here.

I, for one, certainly do not gloat on days like today. Some people like to think it marks the winning of a war. Wars can't be won, they can only end. What's even better is if they never start.

The Second World War was a stupid war. Oh, sure, there are lots of folks who like to maintain that it was a "just" war; lots of others like to proclaim it was the last "just" war that America fought. The phrase "just war" is an oxymoron, like everything else that has to do with war. I'll go so far to agree that it was probably a necessary war. But wars only ever become necessary after the fact. If you do you're job right ahead of time, you can avoid wars ... at least most of the time. But, necessary or not, they're still stupid. You can't fix stupid.

For all of you who think I'm dishonoring all those who supposedly did all they did so that I can sit here and spout off such drivel, think again. I'm not dishonoring them. They did what they thought they had to do. When I was later faced with a war, I did what I thought I had to do. Other guys did other things. That's their business, just like what I did was mine. The war I was face with was even more stupid than the "big one", as my dad used to call it. This is another one of those cases where size doesn't matter.

Just so we're straight on this: all wars are stupid. It is simply impossible to have a smart war. No wars are good wars, for they always cause more problems than they solve. And, for those of you who like to believe that sometimes war is simply the last resort, well, it only is if you fail to solve your problems when you should.

You'd think after a few hundred thousand years of human history the penny would have dropped. Maybe we're not as smart as we like to think we are.

The merry month of May

Well, here we are, almost a whole week into the merry month of May.

What's so merry about it? Is this particular one supposed to be merry, or the month just generally speaking more lighthearted than the others.

I think it's just one of those quirky English turns of phrase we like so much.

We're pretty much out of time. I'm referring to us moderns. It's not the first time I bring it up, and I'm sure it won't be the last. We simply have too loose a relationship with it anymore. Maybe there was a reason for May to be merry, or for people to be merry in May.

When you get right down to it, you don't have to look very far to find a reason (or more): Walpurgis Night leads into the month, and as I mentioned a couple of posts ago, that means -- these days in particular -- most likely a dance to get into the month. Then there is the legendary May Pole. Phallic symbol or not, it raises images of mirth and frolicking, does it not? At least we in Europe have a holiday to kick start the month ... that's worth thinking about instituting every month. And traditionally, May meant it was time to bathe. Oh yeah, once a year whether you needed it or not, and May was the first real opportunity. You wanted fresh June brides, you know.

OK, it's more than a turn of phrase, there appears to be method to our standard madness.

I'm a big May fan, of course. In most years, we've got two Thursday holidays in these parts, and Thursday holidays simply lend themselves to taking Friday (as the Germans call it a Brückentag, or literally, a "bridge day") off as well. More reason to be merry. My German anniversary is in May, another reason to celebrate (and due to modern conveniences, I can take care of that bath thing any time I please).

Chance are good that even though I like the month more than most, you won't find me out frolicking. I'm pretty sure my frolicking days are over. But, there's no reason not to be a bit more upbeat than usual. Even my American friends and family can get a little of spirit of the month, I suppose, even if they have to wait until the very end of the month to get it (Memorial Day) ... unofficially, and for them, summer starts.

I can live with that.

The Guy II

So, why do I think I understand that guy, and what difference does it make?

Most of us like to think we're that guy, but we're not. Most people aren't even close. I'm not accusing anyone of anything. That's just the way it is. We'd like to stand out, but we don't want to feel the heat. We'd like to oppose, but we don't want the pain. We'd like to be the one who's different, but we don't want the rejection. Most people I know would be cheering and saluting. Why? Because they are merely everyday people like everyone else, like most of the people in that picture. We think it's the Germans, but it could be anybody. It could just as easily be Americans.

No? Think about this:

The leaders of America (for the past decade at least) are guilty of war crimes, just like the German leaders back then. America engages in unjustified and unjust military actions to further its own interests (e.g. Iraq), and it will exert great pressure on countries which dare to resist falling into line (e.g. Iran). The government has passed a number of laws that suppress, if not oppress, its weakest and most vulnerable citizens (or why is Social Security on the budget-bargaining table?). The State is anything but adverse to using excessive violence against anyone who takes it upon themselves to call them on their misdeeds (e.g. Occupy and Bradley Manning). It has instituted and enforces draconian laws that target certain ethnic minorities (e.g. highest incarceration rate in the world and a disproportionate number of these are Blacks and Hispanics). It is also willing to manipulate its own legislative and judicial processes to benefit certain, selected, special interests at the expense of the greater population (e.g. the 0.1%). It indoctrinates its young with revisionist history (e.g. was the US' treatment of the Native Americans genocidal or not?), and it declares unabashedly that its own patriotism is of far greater value and of a higher moral quality than anyone else's in the whole world (e.g. the Global War on Terror) ...

Oh, I could go on, but being able to come up with so many parallels so quickly, so easily, truly unsettles me. Americans today are really not all that different from Germans then. The motivations, the causes may be different, but the effects are too disturbingly similar to ignore.

It's hard for me to believe that Germans now are all that different from Germans then. I find it difficult to believe that Americans then are so different from Americans now. But, appearances can be deceiving – both then and now. I can't help but wonder what someone like me sixty years hence is going to be thinking when he looks at a picture of Americans now?

The guy in the picture stands out in his crowd. Are you standing out in yours? It would seem to me that if you're not condemning what is wrong, your condoning it. Now, more than ever, we need to be that guy.

The Guy I

A picture someone posted on Facebook is haunting me. It showed a circle highlighting an unsmiling man standing in the middle of a crowd, his arms folded demonstrably across his chest. He appeared annoyed. Everyone else was standing with their right arms extended, palms down, giving the now notoriously infamous Nazi salute. Many were cheering.

The picture's caption was simple. It said: Be this guy.

I can't get that picture out of my head. I'm assuming the people in the picture were Germans. They don't have to be, but it really doesn't matter. Just about everyone who sees that picture is going to think they are Germans anyway. That's just the association most of us will make. We like to think Germans – Nazis – nasty – cruel, mean, violent, vicious.

It's not a good thought. It's not accurate. It's stereotypical.

Not everyone in that picture was a Nazi. Not everybody who was saluting was a Nazi. Not everyone in that crowd was a bad person either. But, that also doesn't matter. Most of us think: you're saluting, you're cheering, you're a Nazi, you're guilty.

That's not a good thought either. Be the guy. That's a good thought.

We cannot know whether any of those saluting and cheering was doing so out of conviction or only because they didn't want to draw attention to themselves. We know where one guy stands. The rest? It's all speculation. But, even that doesn't really matter.

We think we know, even if we're not sure. We act according to what we think we know. That's what we believe.

For a long time, most people simply thought the Germans were not very nice people. There are a lot of Germans today who still think they not very nice. These folks feel like they, as a people, should have tried harder, and because they didn't, they let a lot of bad things happen. I can tell you that it's going to take a long time for all of them to come to terms with that past – whether deserved or not. Some of them will never get over it completely.

The Germans are, though, at heart, good people, as people go. They are warm, hospitable, friendly, open, curious, interested, and socially minded. Their basic life philosophy these days is "if my neighbor's doing well, then chances are that I'm doing pretty well too". Sure, they can be direct to a fault and they may not laugh at every joke (or even know a joke's been told), but they mean well and they try.

So, what's haunting me?

I identify with the guy. I've been told often enough in my life to get with the program, to get back in line, to get in step, to stop being the oddball, to, well, conform. I don't particularly mind people (parents, pastors, teachers, coaches, commanding officers, bosses, to name a few) telling me that. It doesn't bother me all that much. As far as I'm concerned, if they're telling me that, well, then I must be doing something right. No, I may not be the guy, but I understand him.

Why? I'll tell you next time.