Perceptions

He looked and looked and looked again;
he rubbed his eyes and looked and then
he saw so clear, but knew not what
it meant to him, or so the thought,
until he tried to sort things out,
but then his mind was full of doubt
and still unsure his mind did stray:
the vision would not go away,
nor would the tastes, the smells, the sound,
all signals full load, all in-bound,
until his head would sheer explode
or maybe, it would just implode:
it didn't matter either way,
his self he tried so hard to save
to no avail, he'd lost his hold
upon his dreams – no, those he'd sold –
and so he tried to take firm hold
of what he saw; he thought he'd told
what was right, good, of course, the truth;
he thought he'd done so since his youth,
yet that was just a twist of fate
and breathing in, he tried to wait
but stumbling, grasping, thinking back
he couldn't say, he'd lost the track
or scent or trail or what it's called
and losing more, he was appalled
that he, so proud, of all he knew
could find himself in such a stew,
for this was stuff for simpler men
who rubbed their eyes and looked again.
But all we've got are senses, five:
without them, we could not survive.

Religion's not the problem, zealotry is

As I said the last time, human beings are neither inherently good nor evil, and the world is in the shape it is because we have allowed it to be as it is. We have a say in how the world is. We don't take our own voice seriously, and more often than not, we believe things to be a certain way, when maybe they're not that way at all.

Our debate on terrorism, to take but one example, has turned into one of religious bigotry, and as is so often the case, those screaming the loudest know least about why they're screaming. We humans like to think we know a lot of things, but in the end, we know very little. We believe much more than we know and when we believe long and hard enough, we make religions out of things when and where we least expect it.

Sometimes it's more than worth the effort to stop believing for a moment, to take a step back and think, but even more importantly, reflect on why you think the world is a particular way. Serious reflection never hurt anybody.

Religion, believe it or not, is a good example, because it is the one subject the world over that you're never supposed to talk about in polite company. Why? Because it is very fundamental to how we understand the world to be, whether we are aware of what we believe or not. There's an old saying, "Feelings tell us what to think." And what we believe most often drives what we feel.

Since I'm going to be using the world "religion" a lot in this post, I think it only fair that you know what I mean when I use the term. Now, you can think what you want about Wikipedia, but given that I'm looking for a fitting description, not an authoritative statement, I think it's perfectly legitimate to draw on it in this case. The first paragraph on the relevant page reads:

Religion is a cultural system of behaviors and practices, world views, sacred texts, holy places, ethics, and societal organization that relate humanity to what an anthropologist has called "an order of existence".[1] Different religions may or may not contain various elements, ranging from the "divine",[2] "sacred things",[3] "faith",[4] a "supernatural being or supernatural beings"[5] or "... some sort of ultimacy and transcendence that will provide norms and power for the rest of life."[6]

The key is that religion is "designed", if you will, to help us understand why things are the way they are and why life is the way it is. The "system" side of it includes behaviors, practices, special texts, and societal organizations, among others, though we can agree that these are probably the most important aspects overall.

The nice thing about having such a comprehensive description is that you can apply it to any number of observed phenomena and ask yourself whether what you're dealing with could be considered, in this case, a religion or not. The results can be quite surprising.

Let's take something that's on a lot of people's minds these days: capitalism. Is it just a economic theory, or has it become more than that? Let's see:

It is certainly a "cultural system" (we love to distinguish us from them in terms of it). There are definite behaviors associated with it, such as reducing discussions to economic terms, making money the basis of all valuation, consumerism; and practices, e.g., speculation, stock-market activity, and marketing/advertising; and world views, for example, there is no such thing as society (cf. Thatcher on this one), or simply, there is no alternative. It has sacred texts: Smith's Wealth of Nations is comparable to the Old Testament; Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom, perhaps the New, if we compare it to Christianity. It has special, particularly revered places like Wall Street, the City (in London), and Frankfurt. It has a notion of divinity (the Almighty Dollar), sacred things (stocks, speculative instruments of all kinds not meant for the masses), and while it is silent on the topic of supernatural beings, it does like to think its principles describe the natural order of things. It most certainly, as attested to by its most ardent devotees, a "sort of ultimacy and transcendence that will provide norms and power for the rest of life". Capitalism has become, for all intents and purposes, a driving basis for all our lives.

Oh sure, there are branches and denominations here as elsewhere: different central banks can be seen analogously to the Papal See or prime archdioceses. Stock exchanges and bank headquarters take on the role of temples and churches, and stock-holder meetings rival the spectacle of old-time big-tent evangelists. I don't think it's all that far-fetched to maintain that capitalism has become a religion for many people, and probably more people than are willing to admit to it. That doesn't change the reality of the situation.

The things believed in are not any more substantial or "real", to use the everyday word to describe them, than anything any of the major religions have to offer. Buddhism has no supreme being and neither does capitalism.

The similarities go on: all major religions have "founders"; that is personages, mostly historically verified, to whom believers trace their roots, even though those individuals themselves are not adherents to the faith (i.e., Moses wasn't a Jew; Christ wasn't a Christian; Mohammed wasn't a Muslim, Buddha wasn't a Buddhist). And they have a variety of special figures (often termed "holy", though the Hebrew root of this word, QDSh, means, more or less, "set apart") who may be considered minor prophets, saints, or mere holy persons, like Smith (whom we mentioned), Ricardo, Malthus, Say, Marx (comparable to Lucifer elsewhere), Hayek, von Mises, and others. These are "authorities" in the ecclesiastical sense, not just in the literal sense, of the word. Depending on the flavor of your own belief they carry more or less authority of course.

I think I've made my point: We can think of capitalism as a religion. It is possible to frame the discussion such that we can expand our religiously based discussion of "terrorism" in a very unexpected direction, and one that would not be all that absurd. But, that's not where I want to go with this, nor is that where I need to go.

Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Capitalism ... in and of themselves, they just are. They are a set of beliefs, worldviews and practices, etc. that attempt to help us make sense of our lives and the world around us. They are -- and here I'll put it in very mundane, secular terms -- explanatory models of reality.

What is so fascinating about thought experiments like this one is that the deeper you delve, the more fascinating it all becomes. As long as I don't come up with the crazy idea that my way of believing and seeing the world is the only valid way of believing and seeing the world, we don't have a problem. All of these ways are seen for what they are: ways of believing and seeing the world, and in that moment, I can not only recognize and acknowledge that other way of believing and seeing, I have the wonderful opportunity to learn from that different perspective.

Unfortunately, that's not how we seem to function as human beings. Once we find a way that makes sense to us, we start thinking that this is the only valid way of seeing things, of understanding things. That step to exclusivity, to "only my way" is what utterly dumbfounds me. The borderline between a believer and a zealot is a very thin one, to be sure, and what I see is an increasing number of zealots. I think we need to be a bit more careful with our beliefs. Granted, someone who benefits -- or who believes they benefit -- from a particular way of seeing will be inclined to favor that view, but the fear that they have that perhaps taking another view would disadvantage them in some way can only be accepted if one plays through the possible scenarios in order to find out if the fear is justified. That, of course, takes time, energy, and effort, and who is really willing to sacrifice much of any of those these days.

It's not that ignoring them and falling back into one's own belief of correctness can't be accomplished without expending lots of time, energy, and effort. It's hard work defending one's views against others. Unless, that is, you happen to align yourself with a large group of other folks who have bought into the same exclusivity that you have. And that's where we are today. And, when push comes to shove -- and that's unfortunately what happens all to often: we start literally pushing and shoving ... then injuring ... then killing -- we pull out the miserable old might-makes-right stand-by, and things simply go downhill.

My point is that what we appear to be doing is driving the Devil out with Beelzebub. I purposely chose this particular approach via religion because it is religion that appears to be doing most of the driving of our thinking, and I think we're leaving a major player out of the game. In the end, we believe. We don't know, we can't prove, but we've been given the ability to think. I'd like to think we'll start using that ability more not less. And that starts when we become more reasonable, not zealous. My example with capitalism was to show that the frameworks and categories that we simply take for granted can be used to find meaningful avenues of discussion and exchange with others.

For the most part I can't help but think that we're all looking for the same things but have chosen very different words to describe them. Maybe the words aren't what really matters. Think about it.

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.

What you believe isn't the problem, but how you believe it is

Recently, I had a bit of a discussion with a couple of folks on Facebook. They were slamming religion in general and, as they thought (erroneously, it turned out) Christianity in particular. I was trying to point out that they were simply ranting about things they knew nothing about, which didn't stop them, but it did get me thinking.

These guys were claiming, in their own way, that "religion" is responsible for the world's ills. This is obviously ludicrous on any number of levels, but ludicrousness never stopped anybody from making fools of themselves. That we have large, multinational corporations and businesses raping the environment, heating up the planet, exploiting and oppressing those too weak and poor to defend themselves seems to have escaped them, as has the blind belief in rapacious capitalism that "justifies" those corporations' actions. The fact that we have national governments (some of which claim to be democratic) which are autocratic, dictatorial and oppressive, which will use any means at their disposal to suppress dissent, curtail freedom and, for all intents and purposes, brainwash and enslave their populations seems to have escaped their attention, too. But, to them, religion's the problem. And I got to thinking that for all the delusion in their arguments, maybe they have something of a point.

The first question we have to ask, of course, is "What is (a) religion?" and our first task here is to come to some kind of consensus as to what we mean when we use the term. In simplest terms, a religion is some kind of cultural system, or set of beliefs, that includes behaviors and practices (many formalized as liturgy and ritual), which are based on mythologies (or highly revered stories) that may or may not be contained in what they consider to be sacred texts, which provide some kind of societal, organizational guidance. I know that's a mouthful, but if you go through there carefully, it becomes a bit clearer why, say, Christianity is generally accepted to be a religion, but why the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster or a periodic Star Wars or Star Trek conference aren't. Some religions try to make clear to us how we got here, almost all try to explain how we should be, and all of them are based on faith; that is, a blind, if not unquestioned belief in certain tenets of the given religion. It is estimated that around 85% of the world's population ascribe to one of the five major, and perhaps 10,000 folk religions; the rest are free agents, if you will, though I would maintain that many of them, particularly those in the West, belong to what I would call quasi-religions, a topic I'll come back to in a moment.

Religions (and I include the quasi-religions here as well) serve two basic functions: they give people hope and in their own ways, they provide their adherents with a sense of belonging. Let's face it, life's tough, and when everybody around you sort of sees the world the way you do, you get the feeling you're not necessarily alone and that somehow, given enough communal effort, things just might get better. What is more, religions, some more clearly than others, provide us some kind of meaning in our lives, whether it is stories about how others overcame adversity, or that there is simply some reason why we're all here in the first place. Also important is the fact that all the major and most of the better-known minor religions have what I like to call a "", some variation of the Golden Rule that admonishes you to, well, just not be an asshole. This particular tenet, of course, is the one that is forgotten and ignored most often. If most people are lucky, they'll apply it to those who belong to their immediate sub-group, but beyond that, well, it starts getting lost.

If we just recognized and understood that much, we'd be a long ways toward reducing the amount of ill in the world, but there are two tendencies that religions have that thwart this: the first is the notion of "exclusivity" and the second is "fundamentalism". Exclusivity -- the idea that my way is the only way -- ruins everything. I don't know how people come up with this, but it's particularly, but not exclusively, prevalent among the so-called Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). In a way it's related to the second tendency, fundamentalism. By this I mean that there is some tenet, law, rule, belief, article of faith, or whatever that an adherent believes is literally and universally true. It could be that any given fundamentalist has more than one, but there's at least one. It might be the literalism of the Bible (though very few people can read it in its original language), it might be the belief in the Trinity or the divinity of Jesus, it might be the inviolability of the person of the religion's founder, it might be anything really, but it is this one thing, this one belief, this one statement that the "true believer" hangs all his or her faith on. If this one little part turns out to be not "true", everything literally falls apart. Believers will die for this and are too often more than willing to kill others (thereby violating the don't-be-an-asshole clause) if it is challenged seriously in any way. And though I've not done a valid study to find out, I would strongly suspect that the more fundamentalist a believer or group of believers is, the more rabid their defense of their belief's exclusivity. What's so unnerving about these tendencies, however, is that they are accepted on pure, blind faith; they cannot be proven, there is no real evidence to support them ... they are basically assumptions upon which everything else is based.

What I've just said about religions applies, mutatis mutandis, for quasi-religions as well. A quasi-religion is a system of cultural beliefs, just like a religion, but one that is not generally recognized as one. Examples include capitalism and scientific materialism. Both of these belief systems include all the elements we identified in our general definition of "religion" above. They include beliefs, behaviors and practices that provide insight into why we exist and how we should live our lives. And the tendencies just described apply as well. Thatcher, one of the "patron saints" of a particularly aggressive form of fundamentalist capitalism, most often known as neoliberalism, stated flatly that "there is no alternative" (to this economic system of belief). Its fundamentalist tenets include low taxes for the rich and austerity for the poor, both of which are the golden path to economic salvation ... even if there is not a shred of evidence for them; and if you don't want to believe me, as the Chileans, the Argentinians, or the Greeks. Or take the particularly rabid form of scientistic belief that this making itself known: Richard Dawkins, a "holy figure" in this last camp will tell you in no uncertain terms that spirit and consciousness don't even exist, though it is life, an unidentifiable and unquantifiable force, that animates him and his own consciousness that allows him to make his silly claims, even though he'll be one of the first to tell you that this consciousness doesn't exist, it is a mere illusion. These quasi-religions, just like the "real" ones we considered above, are based as well on some fundamental , literal "fact" that turns out upon closer examination to be just an assumption, and their exclusivity is tied very closely to that assumption. The reason they only qualify as quasi-religions is that neither of these two examples includes a don't-be-an-asshole clause. All the worse for us all.

We are all on their earth and are in the same boat. It lies in our nature as human beings to want to know where we come from, why we are here, and where we are going. Most of the world's religions, large or small, try to provide answers to these questions. Their answers cannot be proven nor disproven, but the additional interpretations and claims made by specific adherents and groups of adherents may complicate the matter as they go above and beyond those generally acknowledged as being part of the religion in general. (For example, there are an estimated 2.2 billion Christians in the world; almost 60% of those are Roman Catholics and around 40,000 different "Christian churches" share the remainder among themselves.) What I am advocating is that perhaps we need to be a bit more open for and tolerant of religions. Good and bad has been done in religion's name, but if you are going to condemn something you should at least know what you're talking about and tailor your criticism appropriately. Prejudice is prejudice regardless of whether it is regard to race, religion, creed or whatever. Religion per sé is not the problem, fundamentalism and false notions of exclusivity are. It's not what you believe that matters as much as how you believe and what you do with that belief.

Why lives matter and whether some may matter more than others

Recently, I was pointed to a fascinating article in the New Yorker and, believe it or not, it got me thinking. And even now, I'm still exploring those thoughts which I thought I'd share, at least in part, because I keep seeing things that I'm thinking about popping up as issues in other contexts that keep firing that thinking even more.

One of the key themes in the article, approached aesthetically and from the art side of life (a blog on its own, so let me leave it at that for now), was race, which is, in fact, the very first word in the title. And it was here that I had to stop and ask myself, what can this be about, since we know, biologically, scientifically, with all the power and authority of the scientific community, that race simply doesn't exist. The only proper use of the term is in the phrase "human race", everything else is simply a distortion of reality. But here was this insightful and thought-provoking article nevertheless. It was also about art, and among all the other questions it raised (which is, in my not-so-humble-opinion is what good articles should do much more than shower one with mere information), was is there such a thing as "Black Art", which obviously there is, but what is it if it isn't racial? In other words, how was I to understand what the author was trying to say? And here are my first thoughts:

As I noted who knows how many times in my posts so far, whether we like it or not and whether we know it or not, the way people think (and I'm using the term very loosely here) hasn't always been the way people think. My friends Jean Gebser, in his Ever-present Origin, and William Irwin Thompson, in his The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light or Coming into Being, have made this case much more convincingly and poignantly than I have, but it boils down to this:

Each of us gets thrown (to use a Heideggerian term) into this world at some place at some time through no fault (or influence of our own). Thereafter, everything that happens to us, everything we do, how and what we learn, what we like or dislike, is experience. It turns out the Germans have two different words that we, in English, describe with just this one. namely Erlebnis and Erfahrung. The Gebser translators Barstad/Mikunas dealt with this issue by translating the former as "vital experience" and the latter as "lived (or undergone) experience". For example, "That roller coaster ride was quite the experience" (Erlebnis) in contrast with "Spending two years abroad was quite the experience" (Erfahrung). The differences in meaning are subtle, to be sure, but relevant. We intuit that the former is somehow "deeper" or not as readily accessible to our waking consciousness, which becomes clear the moment someone asks us to explain each of these in more detail. With the roller coaster we often end up saying something like "Ahh, you had to have been there, what a ride!" Yet in the latter case, we find ourselves telling anecdote, or stories, about things that happened while abroad. Someone who's never ridden a roller coaster may have trouble with the first kind of experience; those who have will relate it to their own, and in the latter case, depending upon the skill of the teller, the stories may make more lasting or fleeting impressions upon us.

Now, for as mundane as this may sound, I do think, in light of what Gebser, and Thompson, and others, are saying, we can start to understand how different realities may arise within the one overall framework we have called everyday life. In the course of human history, these modes of perception and mentation have been practiced, ingrained and passed on to succeeding generations. This might be the love or fear of roller coasters, or it might be the openness or closedness to other ways of slicing the reality pie. Once, these were shared among all humans, but over time, the group grew, split, wandered off, and became isolated from the others, but the underlying process remained the same. Over the millennia, the primary vital experiences were (most likely unconsciously) collected and collated into what came to be regarded as ethnic and later cultural constructs. Hence, we can see that while at the deepest levels of our psyches there are things (Jung would call them archetypes) that we share, but at less deep levels, shared experiences are more particular to a given group of indivduals who are in this way still very much connected to one another.

Anyone familiar with even the general run of history knows that particular groups of human beings, at any given time, have held any number of ideas, many of which seem odd, or even ignorant, to us today: a flat earth, a geocentric universe, the superiority of one's own group compared to all others, and for a whole slough of crazy reasons, "race". It was easy enough, especially at the superficial level at which most humans most often operate to simply split off "others" based on physical characteristics, such as skin color and hair texture, or more abstract, sometimes arbitrary, notions such as technological progress, "advancement", or culture (whatever it might have been defined as). These "seemed" to work, but as is so often the case when humans are involved, there were lots of negative side effects: oppression, exploitation, colonization, genocide, and more, all based on notions that in the meantime have turned out to be false. In other words, experience comes from within and is definitely imposed from without. Knowing this, we should simply flip over a mental switch or two and we move forward with our new knowledge. But we all know it's not as simple as that.

As a result of all our own individual and collective experiences that we have made using these false notions, we find it difficult to get out of the corner into which we painted ourselves. Once silly statements by not-so-bright demogogues (like Trump) now appear downright ludicrous and maliciously ignorant. Prejudices of all types reveal themselves clearly for what they are: unfounded judgements based on false knowledge. And this brings us back to our starting point:

As I said earlier, each of us suddenly shows up in this world at some place at some time through no fault (or influence of our own). Thereafter, everything that happens to us, everything we do, how and what we learn, what we like or dislike, is experience. But, this experience is both individual and collective as we have seen, and it is highly determined by the surroundings in which it takes place, whole history of experience that has been passed down through the group over the years and every experience that has been imposed upon any group that sees itself cohering for whatever reason. What is more, the "group" may change as well. Our forebears knew no countries (that is, nation-states), but for some reason we place a lot of value on them today. We have DNA strains in our bodies that come from the widest of sources and these combinations are -- how could it be otherwise -- different from our next-door neighbors' and most of us have no idea what they do or might mean. In other words, within a given general cultural grouping there are myriad subgroupings that mix, match, overlap, reciprocally influence, and differentiate themselves from one another. Each of these is legitimate in and of itself and how viable it is for how long is determined by the coherency and consistency of the experiences in which it is rooted.

It is easy to consider the world at a very superficial level ... for example, a country, like the United States ... and think that everyone there shares every national and cultural value in common, but this would be an obvious mistake, for it ignores everything that makes any one of us who he or she is. Within the United States (and we could take any country or region anywhere in the world and show the same processes at work), there are subgroups, ethnicities, subcultures that are very determining and stable entities which we can understand even without such faulty notions such as race. But for the longest time, race was a big card and it wss played hard there: Blacks in the USA were practically the last historically to be freed from slavery; the Emancipation Proclamation was fought politically and socially; Jim Crow ruled the roost for over a century; in my own childhood, separate facilities for "Colored" were commonplace; Brown v. the Board of Education caused more problems than it solved; the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was even recently gutted; so it is apparent that for whatever reasons, at least those considered black had anything but equal rights, equal treatment in the eyes of the law and certainly not in neighborhoods with which I was familiar. Unfortunately, we all know that the those mental switches haven't been flipped and some may even be rusted in place. So even if we now know there's no such thing as race, it doesn't undo the lived and undergone experience of a significant portion of a familiar population. Saying there's not a problem doesn't mean there isn't a problem, it only means you are not willing to admit there may still be a problem after all.

Getting passed race, for example -- if what I'm thinking is on track -- means taking the vital and lived experience of others into consideration when dealing with them. We all share some things in common (deepest-level human experience), what we don't share in common (so-called "black" experience as compared to, let us say "red" or "yellow" or "white" experience) is common by nature: They're experiences and we can know that experience is what forms and determines who we are, hence we have a personally accessible way of understanding that a person has both vital and lived experiences and a whole history of experiences related to whichever groupings s/he may belong to. The process is the same even if the end-results are different. In other words, if you haven't already, there are ways and legitimately sustainable ways to better understand what others might be going through.

Any serious readerr will tell you how enriching even vicarious experiences are, and we now have an experience model that can enhance the one they were using all along. It's up to you, in the end. And I'm going to be more than interested in hearing what true racists are going to be saying once they find out there card has been trumped. (And you can decide if that pun was intended or not).

We have to get over the hill before the holiday

Easter's coming (and I'm going to talk more about that next time). Easter's also a big deal -- I don't care if you're Christian (professing or avoiding) or not. In our oh-so modern, secular, ununderstanding, misunderstanding, materialist, person-centered realities, it's difficult to make anyone aware of anything more than themselves.

Now, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but you/your ego/your view of yourself aren't the center of the universe; your city/region/country is not the center of the universe; your social/political/moral views are not the center of the universe. I know you like to think that they are, but they're not.

There was a time (and I'll be the first to admit that I miss it) when "meaning" meant something. We could (and were encouraged to) find "meaning in our lives", "meaning in the things we read", "meaning in our jobs", well, meaning in just about everything. Most of us don't have that anymore. Science, for example, has shown/told/proved to us that "meaning" is mere illusion: the world as we know it and encounter it is the product of a random series of random mutations of genes that has brought us to where we are and we have no idea where anything is going. In reaction to this, some have sought refuge in religion, each of which have thick books written a long time ago that tell exactly where we came from, why we're here, and in most cases, why we're suffering now and will continue to suffer throughout all of eternity. Yeah, I always found comfort in religion too.

It's time for a confession: I love science and have for as long as I can remember. The science I loved, though, the one that was searching for truth, that was willing to adapt based on the evidence, that was putting forth hypothesis to be falsified, and more, no longer exists. I don't recognize science anymore. Another confession: I love religion and have for as long as I can remember. The religion I loved, though, the one that had a view of truth, that was willing to measure itself against others, that was willing to proclaim that its approach to life could make life better for all, and more, no longer exists. I don't recognize religion anymore. The same is true for many of the big-ticket subjects we have to deal with: politics, economics, sociology, psychology, anthropology, ethnology ... the list goes on. At one time, all of them seemed open to what was new, what was to come. Now, they all pride themselves on their exclusivity. How sad, how sad.

And so, I find myself in something of a "meaningless" world. As Buffalo Springfield sang, "Nobody's right, when everybody's wrong." Unfortunately, inspite of everything, I am still looking for meaning because I personally believe that without meaning, life is, well meaningless. But, I hasten to add, I'm willing to talk about it.

A notion close to "meaning" is "sense" and I'm one of those hopeless idealists who would like some "sense" in his life, even if there's on meaning. It may be that we can't have it all, but it would be comforting to think that we could at least have something, anything, no matter how meagre it is. Our modern world doesn't want that.

Oh, I understand when people flee into pre-packaged solutions (or promises of solutions): believe science because they know; accept Jesus as your Lord and Saviour and you'll go to Heaven; get more guns because Obama is curtailing the Second Amendment; the one who dies with the most toys wins; I'm rich because I work hard and you're poor because you're lazy; or many, many more. Yes, I can understand that people do that, but I'm having difficulty understanding how, in a world of universal (so-called) education, we can still fall for the same old snake-oil cons that we fell for before. Maybe, just maybe, we haven't been educated at all.

We're not over the hill yet, but we're getting there. We've a holiday coming and I think we should stop and enjoy it. We hardly ever take the time. But, we should always take the time.

Gotta shift gears, we're heading uphill

Sometimes I think the world is simply going insane. I know a lot of you agree with me. You can't open your Facebook page, read your daily newspaper (on or offline), watch the news, or simply turn on your TV without being overwhelmed with more insanity than the normal person deserves: war, plagues, famine, aggression, crime, immorality, corruption ... it's the order of the day. Yes, these topics have been attracting our attention for as long as we, as humans, have been around, but I know a lot of think that there all getting worse, not better.

We do have major issues confronting us, no doubt about it: global warming (it's a fact, learn to live with it), wealth inequality (it's not getting better), worldwide migration (both due to climate change and unwarranted military aggression), debt, food insecurity, water insecurity, natural-resource depletion ... all of these things are very, very real, and whether we like it or not, they affect all of us. We may not agree on the definitions or delimitations of these issues, and we may have differing views on who is allow and justified in doing what on the world stage, but the least that we can expect at the beginning of the 21st century is that we should be able to talk, discuss, and debate about them. But we can't.

In my (OK, perhaps not-so-humble) opinion, that is the biggest, most threatening problem facing humankind: our unwillingness (in too many) cases and our inability (generally) to interact with one another to resolve it.

In a world in which everyone is entitled to his or her opinion, how can we decide which opinions are worthy of further consideration and debate, and which ones are nothing more than what they are on the surface: opinions (the replacement, not the result of thought)? You can shrug this off as mere playing with words and clever turns of phrase, but the real issues around which these words are dancing is as real and as threatening and as potentially devastaing as any we have faced as a species thus far. What I am seeing -- and what particularly disturbs me -- is a decreasing willingness and abililty to talk (in the most fundamental and essential sense of the word) with others. In a word, this bothers me tremendously.

There was a time, not long ago, when we could discuss and debate. The reasons we can't anymore are legion. I don't care at all who is at fault. For me, I would much rather fix the problem than fix the blame, but that's one of the reasons so many people think I'm odd. That's not how things are normally done.

OK, I'm one of those hopeless, hapless dreamers who thinks that there are such things as right-and-wrong, true-and-false, correct-and-incorrect, but I am also one of those nerds who thinks we can establish rules and standards, criteria, against which we can judge our claims. These might be pragmatic (what works) or ideal (abstractions of some kind) ... I don't care. Some things are more physical than others and the measures that we might agree on to determine the goodness, badness, validity or inapplicability of any standard should be able to be discursively determined (that is, we should be able to talk about and agree on what we mean).

In other words, we could talk, discuss and debate, if we wanted to. This isn't going to happen politically at the moment, though there are certainly politicians who could. It isn't going to happen religiously, though there are people of faith who would be more than welcome in the discussion. It isn't going to happen nationally, for the issues that most need to be resolved apply to everyone, not just one nation or group of nations, and the issues transcend "interests", regardless of how they are nationally or politically defined.

What I'm saying, in simplest terms, is that we are in dire need of a new dialogue: one that doesn't care in the least who you are, but is completely concerned with what you have to say; one that is impervious to where you come from, but is in tune with how you apperceive the world around you; one that doesn't care in the least what your interests are if they are not in tune with everyone's interest.

I am not talking about some utopian ideal, quite the contrary. I'm talking about every serious discussion between any two human beings on this planet. For me, this is the absolute baseline. If you're not willing to engage, if you're not open to otherness, if you're not serious about what might be good, right or wholesome for anyone other than yourself or those close to you, you're never going to be part of the solution, you'll always be part of the problem.

Neither the future nor the past is what it used to be

During Lent, for the most part out of habit (but not one that I would rather not think about), I tend to think (or wonder) about others. Fasting, even its mildest forms, can do that to you. (You really should try it sometime ... you might surprise yourself at what you find.)

Yes, I have friends who think that technology, the internet, social networks, digitalization (, whatever) are going to "save us" (whatever that means). They're deluded. By the same token, I have friends who deeply -- and I mean deeply -- long for the way it was, some (merely perceived) Golden Age of the Past when everything was as it should be. In between these extremes, I have friends who think that an adjustment here, some fine-tuning there, and a bit of elbow grease will get things back on track. And, I have friends who believe that no matter what we do where to what or how, we're heading down the tubes: the end may not be here, but it's fast approaching (and there's not a damn thing we can do about it). And, yes, in between those two interim extremes, I have friends who think we're just exaggerating everything: things have always been suboptimal and they always will be.

If Life were a multiple-choice test (as in America, where there is only one "right" answer), I'd have to write in (as I have done in the past) "e) none of the above". Sometimes all the "given" answers are just, well, wrong, or inappropriate, or irrelevant, or whatever. That's what I love about almost all my friends: they think there is a fixed set of possible answers and somehow, if we knew enough or were smart enough or, even, lucky enough, we could pick the right one. I hate to be the one to break it to them (and maybe to you): there is no one right answer to Life.

Oh, that's not to say that there aren't things we want to hold on to, irrespective of the cost: guns, freedom, individuality, rights, commonsense, discipline ... the list literally goes on forever. But, in all seriousness, how can you reduce the world you experience, the world you have to face day in and day out to one, and only one, issue or concept or rule or guideline or religious precept or ... whatever. But, I have to say, that's how most of my friends are: if everyone would only think like they do, the world would be damn near paradise that they so deeply long for. Turns out: reality is rather messy.

Most of you are thinking, I'm sure, I'm not talking to or about you, but I am. Just look at the latest primaries crap that the Americans are wading through, look at the crap about refugees and trade agreements that the Europeans are wading through, look at the crap the anything-but-the-dollar tactics that certain currently frisky nation-states are wading through, look at the crap the poverty and starvation that a third of the world is wading through. We're all in it, and we're all doing a poor job of dealing with it.

We have a terrible past behind us and we have little, if any, idea of how to deal with the future because, in a word, we just don't know what we're doing. We're so blinded by our petty, individual and national interests that we can't see the forest for all the trees. Oh ... yes ... I'm sorry ... we're (literally) cutting those (and real) trees down faster than any forest can grow. But, what the hell ... there's money to be made.

Yeah, the reason I sleep so well at night is because I know there are so many people out there who have it all figured out.

So how was the first month for you?

Well, here we are, the first month of the new year has passed. Technically, it's not the new year anymore, it's been demoted to just "this year" now. And I'm sure that all your resolutions, hopes and yearnings are shaping up just fine. Or not.

So, what have we got to show for ourselves thus far: increased tensions between the factions of the Syrian conflict and no signs of easing (still a lot of grunting going on around the oil hole, but this or that innocent bystander its being offed just so the other guys know we're serious); the stream of migrants and asylum seekers hasn't slowed, but we've got a new scapegoat, Greece, so we're good for distraction for some time to come (give a country an forced, impossible and unalterable economic program to fulfill then compain that they're not spending money on the right things apparently doesn't count); the circus called the primary election run-up in Fantasyland is getting downer an dirtier (and less amusing for those of us who will only feel the effects of the insanity); financial markets are reeling the world over (but that capitalism thing is still being touted as a sure bet); the climate's getting worse (even if most folks still don't know the difference between climate and weather, and yes, they'll vote in the same yokels next time around to take care of the problem); the snackless, clueless American rebels in Oregon have managed to get someone killed (but as always, he was too little a pawn to become a martyr); and we've got a new epidemic spreading against which we have absolutely no defense; and, if I had to pick the most-heard phrase for the month, it would either be "I'm afraid ..." or "You know what scares me ...". Looks to me like we're probably a bit worse off than when we all took a break for the end-of-the-year holidays.

As the observant reader of the last few posts will have noted, we've got a lot going on in our minds, but hardly any of it has anything to do with thinking, in the generally accepted understanding of the term. We've got our bones and rattles out, we're doing our haka thing, and we're churning out propaganda at an all-time high, but notne of it appears to be helping. Of course, none of it can help because none of it has anything to do with what actually needs to be done, which is to get a clear idea of what needs to be done, then do it. No, that would mean getting off the couch or taking your offspring along on some activist endeavor instead of showcasing them for your friends at the next little-league event or taking a stand in public and not only in the livingroom, and it would mean that you'd actually have to think about what you are doing and why, and have an understanding of time that goes beyond next weekend.

Yes, as painful as it is for me to say it and as painful as it is for you to have to read it: maybe, just maybe, it's time for all of us to use more of our brains and less of our brawn to address some of the things that have to be done.

Reflections of an optimistic cynic

This isn't the first time I've been torn between what I experience and what I want to be true. We all go through phases like this I'm sure. But, it's getting increasingly difficult to keep my spirits up these days. There's simply too much inanity and too much insanity to have to contend with. And while I want to believe that somewhere, perhaps behind the scenes, certainly unbeknownst to me, there are people succeeding in making their world a better place, it also feels like they're getting harder and harder to find.

What's even worse, and as a life-long student of language most distressing, is how we've allowed our language to be commandeered by newspeakers, marketeers, and propagandists. We are subjected, day in and day out, to an unending harrangue of false truths (we're-the-good-guys-they're-the-bad-guys), conscious bias and prejudice (if-you've-seen-one-Muslim-you've-seen-a-terrorist), over-the-top hyperbole (I-could-shoot-people-and-not-lose-votes), unmitigated aggression (#black-lives-matter), calls to violence (carpet-bomb-the-Middle-East), and bald-faced "justifications" of corruption, greed and oppression (Citizens United). Along with those 5,000 ads we're subjected to every day, we have this ceaseless stream of reality distortions against which can hardly defend ourselves.

One the one hand, I can understand why nothing happens. People are cowards by choice or through resignation, people are afraid for we're repeatedly shown what will happen if you step out of line, too many people have just enough that they can be made to fear those who have less. We can always find scapegoats and if we can't find them ourselves, there are more than enough interest groups to give you comprehensive list to chose from.

And we fall for it every time.

One of my favorite cultural philosophers Jean Geber wrote, "Every reform is a mere attempt at resuscitation." He was right. You can only resuscitate someone (or something) that's dead. And most of what we hold dear is dead: our money system, our banking system, our economic systems, our political systems, our education systems, our social systems ... dead or dying before our eyes. They're being hijacked, kidnapped and murdered before our very eyes. A stacked deck, a rigged game, a grand illusion, a con; deception, deviance, distortion, dishonesty, all in the name of the good, the better, the just, the humane, the compassionate, the fair, and what's right.

Sure, I would like to think that things will improve, but they can't under the current conditions. I would like to think that humanity will come together and realize that they have much more in common than what separates us, but they won't as long as we can be so easily set against one another as we are. I would like to think that change could come without all the pain and suffering that most great changes in history have brought with them, but it's getting more and more difficult to hope otherwise.

Maybe it's time to just let it all collapse. Maybe we are headed into a new dark age. Maybe we simply haven't got the smarts or the will or the desire or the wherewithal to save ourselves from all the suffering. If we don't, then we don't deserve to not suffer. If we do, then maybe we should start doing something to embrace the change that will come.

A touch of magic

We love to think that we live in a rational world, one governed by reason, rules and good old common sense. Sometimes we do. Most of the time we don't. Over the millennia of human existence, there are some things that have changed very little.

I was reminded of this recently by a very banal, and, for me, uninteresting event which got more attention than I thought it deserved on my Facebook page. Apparently, a good number of people were very upset by the fact that a Cincinnati Bengals linebacker took a cheap and dangerous shot at a Steelers receiver. I watched the video, of course, the hit was unnecessary and excessive, and many fans were calling for punishment for the alleged offender. [Disclaimer: The reactions showed up on my timeline because I'm originally from Steeler country, so many of friends are still there or still root for the old home team. I'll admit: I don't, I don't care, and at this point in my life, even though I played it myself in my youth (practically a necessity for acceptance), I think American football is way past its prime and should be retired, but that's another story.] And, what I have to say has little to do with this particular sport -- it is truly just the catalyst -- but rather with who we are as human beings.

For all our crying out for freedom and individuality, we're still social creatures: we want to belong, somewhere, to some kind of group, either well-constituted, like a family, or even more amorphous like sports-clubs' fans. It's easiest to see in the US where sports have become an actual fetish. Sporting events are always clothed in drama, in excitement, from marching bands (everybody in lockstep) with lots of brass (battle horns) and drums (oh yeah, lots of drums), the teams' colors, painted faces (warpaint?), slogans, hymns, and symbols (the Steelers' "Terrible Towel" springs immediately to mind). There's lot of yelling, screaming, cheering, booing, singing, and wailing. It's for good reason that the word "fan" is merely a shortened form of the word "fanatic".

The marketing of these events, gladitorial in nature, in which winning is not nearly enough ... you have to defeat, stomp, crush, slaughter, obliterate, or annihilate your opponent. "Prepare for war" was one of the viral memes for the very game that became the focus of attention. And if all's fair in (love and) war, why would there be any concern for someone pushing the rules? Politically, it's acceptable, for example, as politics are often run very much like sporting events: we rally to the colors, sing the songs and hymns, blow the horns, beat the drums and set off to do the same to our enemies; it's funny how sports are considered harmless, even though they aren't, and the wars are known to be harmful, but they're treated as if they aren't.

In either case, there's a touch of magic about being in the stadium and going with the flow and the crowd, but when something bad happens, are we then individually no longer responsible. We fired our team on, we distort and disfigure ourselves to belong to the group, but then? From ancient cultures through the great empires and down to the present day, some things just haven't changed very much. We get caught up in the feeling of the moment, the rush of excitement, and we lose sight of the fact that what was once a haven for us isolated souls has become a hell for those who are not us.

Yes, it can happen anywhere.

Making stories true whether they are or not

Conspiracy theorists of a certain kind like to deny that we were ever on the moon. They denigrate that narrative by saying it's a myth. The most common use of the word "myth" is probably this one. When we want to stress the fictionality or untruth of a story, a tale, a narrative of any kind, we call it "just a myth".

There are stories that are documentably false, stories that have such a slight and small grain of truth in them that to even hint that they are real or true or accurate should be reason enough to doubt the intellectual integrity of the person making the claim. But, there are any number of such stories circulating and they are believed and cherished and held in high esteem nevertheless. The prime examples of which are those which somehow describe (some would go so far as to say define) our culture or nation or any similar larger-than-just-me group. It doesn't matter which particular culture or nation you take, they're all pretty much the same in this regard.

These stories are full of heroes and heroines, larger than life persons and deeds, catastrophic and cataclysmic events that threaten annihilation, superhuman feats of daring, unfathomable cleverness and wit ... the good guys always win, order is established (or restored), and if we would only keep these stories before us, we could live happily ever after. So, how is that in some cases we can slam others for propagating myths, but in certain other cases, we're willing to lay our lives down for a story we can verify is simply not true. That's one of the things that so fascinates me about human beings.

Some countries, like the Nordic ones for example, have actual old myths and sagas to call upon. Other, newer nations, like England, France, the USA have more recent histories, but their tales don't pale in comparison to the older ones. After all, they're just stories, they're just myths, so why do we get so flustered and hot under the collar when others, particularly someone from a different culture, calls them into question?

To many moderns -- or postmoderns, or whatever it is we think we are these days -- think that classical myths are simply childlike attempts to explain things the people couldn't understand. In a sense this is true, even today. Given our rather deficient understanding of history and the path humankind has traversed, given our overzealous belief in technology and our alleged advancements, we can't begin to appreciate them. If we can recognize, however, that what myths that we believe in do is give us some kind of common understanding of ourselves and who we are, then we can dig in a bit deeper and realize that perhaps the ideals they are trying to portray may be worth further consideration.

We obviously need new stories that bring us together, and we should be aware that it is easy to be blinded by one's own sense of greatness, or wanting to feel like more, or wanting some sense in one's life. What we need is to become aware of what these stories would mean if we could make them true. We need to be more conscious of their significance and the threats they bear. There are definitely two sides to the myth coin.

It's all about perspective, or is it?

One of the most insightful, sometimes biting, and, unfortunately, too short-lived TV series ever produced was Father Ted. Those of you on the left shore of the Atlantic may not have ever heard of it, but it was, one of the few TV shows I have been willing to sit down and watch. I don't mention this because I want to plug the show, but because there was a scene in one of them that smacked me upside the head the first time I saw it and which has left a ringing in my ears ever since. Yes, sometimes, in the least likely of places, you can find just the key you need to open the door to a new world. And, thanks to the wonders of the internet, of course, I can share it with you (... and the important part comes after the tea kettle).

It's all about perspective, isn't it? But the real question that comes to my mind is, "How many of us are Dougals (that would be the young priest in the scene)?

You can scoff. Go right ahead. You can think I couldn't possibly be talking to you, but just how sure are you? After all, we love perspectives as postmodern denizens of Spaceship Earth. We live from perspectives. We thrive on perspectives. We live and move and find our being in perspective. Am I exaggerating? I don't think so.

Just what is "perspective"? Well, it's a way of looking at things, it's a particular way of looking at something, it's looking at something from a particular point of view; that is, it's a way of looking at something that depends rather essentially on the person doing the looking and the particular point from which the looking is taking place. If I'm looking at an elephant, let us say, from the front, then one of the most striking features I see is its trunk. If you are looking at the same elephant from the rear, well, then you have to decide whether it is the tail, what it hides, or whatever that is most prominent in your view of things. Having a particular take on a particular view that is particular to you has very much in common with what we call "opinions". And therein lies the rub, as Billy Quiverlance would say. When you get right down to it, perspectives are pretty much just opinions.

Now, for all of you who think I'm equating your way of looking at the world with looking at an elephant's butt, let me add that there is nothing wrong with opinions in and of themselves; not any more that there's anything wrong with looking at an elephant from the back or any other point of view. Opinions should be the result of thought, not a substitute for thought, but I do think you'll agree that there are far too many opinions that we are exposed to these days that have more in common with Dougal's comprehension of the world than Father Ted's. Yes, Bill, you are quite correct, the rub is beginning to chafe.

What most of us don't know, however, is that having a particular view of (any)thing(s) and knowing that it's our particular view is a rather new phenomenon in the evolution of the world. Oh sure, we all take it for granted, but it's really only something that we humans have been wrestling with for about the last 500 years. In geological or evolutional or even historical terms, that's not long ago at all.

It doesn't surprise me that Dougal hasn't fully come to terms with what perspective means. By the same token, it doesn't surprise me at all that most people don't deal with perspectives, and certainly not with opinions, very well. My problem is that in contrast to the show, where Dougal is rather quiet and reserved, today's Dougals are the ones making the most noise.

Isolation and massification

We're such big stuff, we Westerners, we highly-advanced, technologically-savvy, possession-addicted want-it-alls. Yeah, there's nothing that we don't think we deserve, well anything pleasurable, luxurious, flashy and envy-instilling, that is. Nah, there's not a resource so precious, not a landmass so pristine, not an environment so enlivening that we wouldn't sacrifice it to satisfy our greed, our need for more, our own personal satisfaction.

Oh, you can go to church on Sunday and pray all week that you don't get on the wrong side of G-d's wrath. You can believe for a whole monthful of Sundays that the witness you bore is some kind of get-out-of-hell free card. You can have undying faith that science is on your side or you're on science's and don't need any of that superstitious bunk. You can strut and parade and peacock your way all over town and through the mall, but in the end, I mean at the end of the day, when the sun goes down, when the cold dark of night engulfs you, you're still just another spoiled, overfed, frightened and lonely child, regardless whether your team crushed its weakly opponents or not. And when you drag your sad eyes open tomorrow morning, you'll only have the certainty that you're another cog in the wheel, a number in the system. Just when was it that you lost touch with everything that mattered?

Welcome to life in the postmodern world. Our world, t-h-e world, the only world we'll probably ever know, and it's a world of our own making. A world in which lifeless, soulless, imaginary (juridicial) entities, corporations, are people, and real people, people like you and me and our jerk of a neighbor are no longer even human. We're customers, consumers, clients who nobody listens to nor cares about once our wallets are empty. A world in which money, the love of which is the root of all evil, is free speech, and the more of it you have, the louder you can be. A world in which machines are programmed to make cookies all a bit different so that you get the feeling, have the illusion, that when you pull it out of the package, it was made just for you. A world in which we can individually customize any product or service to be delivered by a machine. A world in which machines are smarter, quicker, faster, more capable, and in the majority opinion more valuable than any single one of us.

Oh sure, you're you. You're your own person. You're in charge of your own life, but not in the least. From morning till night you're told what to wear, what to eat, how to dress, how to smell, how to talk, to be cool, to be noticed, to be twittered, if you're lucky, into your 15 seconds of fame. Sorry Andy, but we don't have minutes left for anyone anymore.

Yes, we're all our own selves, but selves disconnect from anyone who doesn't walk, talk, think, act, or like the same things we do. We're just lonely little selves. But you'll wave your home team's colors, or your school's or your company's or your country's, so that everyone can see that you belong, that you're one of whomever, but there your lonely self is merely an anonymous member/fan/alumni/citizen in the crowd.

Such is our postmodern world, and we all know, but few of us want to admit, that, well, things just can't go on like they are. Something has got to give. And it will, I can assure you. But the real question is, are you ready for it?

“You can’t crush ideas by suppressing them. You can only crush them by ignoring them. By refusing to think, refusing to change.”
― Le Guin, The Dispossessed

You become what you hate

This is a special time of year in many regards. We're between holidays that are not so important anymore and perhaps the biggest American holiday and the universally Christian holiday of Christmas which is right around the corner. It is fitting, I think, that these all occur when they do, here at the end of the solar year, after the harvest, and in preparation for the retreat before the winter. This is a time of turning inward -- or it should be -- a time of reflection upon who we are, what we believe, and what we are doing.

There's an old mystic's adage that is particularly appropriate given all that I've been posting about lately: "You become what you hate."

Yes, speaking of hate at this time of year seems a bit incongruous, but only at first glance. The world seems to be full of hate these days. It's directed toward all kinds of "others": immigrants, political opponents, particular lifestyles, adherents of other religions ... you name it, there is a good number of people ready, willing, and able to stand up and decry just how evil all those others are, even if loudly decrying, and hating generally, are values we (and more often our religion) proclaim not to have.

Hate -- and it is actual hate in most cases -- is a dangerous emotion, not only because it is inherently destructive, but because of its insidious power to change us in such a fundamental, essential way. Someone who hates invests a lot of time and energy (and given the short spans of our lives, rare and precious resources) in that hate. The object of one's hate plays an essential and central role in our thought, speech, and actions. We are offended by the slightest of details which we come to see as ever more proof of the rightness of our hate. We end up knowing more about what we hate than we know about ourselves.

In the wake of WW2, it was the Communists who reaped our ire. Those God-hating, atheist oppressors and suppressors of freedom. But who is it these days turning on whistleblowers, passing legislation to rescind basic rights and persecuting dissenters? Oh, we still claim to love God and can't reaffirm enough our religious values, but ignore every precept which that rebellious Nazarene carpenter put so much trust in. We hate Muslims, those bellicose terrorists who want to turn the clocks back to the Middle Ages. But who is it that places religious values above so-called democratic ones and who worship a constitution that is centuries old itself? In place of the KGB which we held high as the prime example of suppression of freedom, we have the NSA and CIA who can't pry broadly and deeply enough into our own lives. In the place of humane values of community and cooperation, we have raised the values of competition and money to religious ideals.

It's not surprising, at least not to me, that we have come this far. And, it is even less surprising that most people I know would argue that I couldn't possibly be speaking to them. But I am. The change from one to the other is slow and subtle, but it's apparent nonetheless. The mystics were right then, and they're still right today: you become what you hate.

A seeker's confession

There is a certain type of individual who simply keeps me in awe: a person who claims to know what they know and believe. I'm not that kind of person. Regardless of how much I think I might know, regardless of how much I might learn or want to learn, regardless of how much insight I think I might have gained over the years, I'm always in doubt. Or, as Bertrand Russell put it, "The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt."

Don't get me wrong: I'm not calling most people stupid, if if they are. It does strike me, however, that there are a lot of cocksure people in the world, and as far as I can tell, they've not got a clue what's going on. But that's a whole different matter, and for another time.

I have to admit as well that I have had few "heroes" in my life: individuals to whom I have looked up or whom I have admired, even from afar, but there is one who sticks out who raised himself above all others: Socrates. Why? Well, there are two reasons. First, because he's the one who first told us, "The only thing I know for sure is that I know nothing." Wise words, to be sure, and humble words, anything-but-arrogant words. Second, the only approach he took toward dealing with anything was by asking questions. When it came to questions, here was, without a doubt, the Master of Masters at work.

I am fully aware that other folks' heroes are doers of great deeds -- or at least perceived-to-be great deeds: generals, conquerors, founders of great religions, diplomats, intellectuals, whatever. The history of humankind is replete with examples of feats of strength, might, power, violence, murder, and blood. For me, though, the hero of heroes was an ugly guy with a shrew of a wife who asked a lot of questions that eventually got him executed. Why? Socrates was a seeker?

Seekers have fallen into disrepute in our day and age. We prefer those who know to those who wonder; we prefer those who speak to those who ask; we prefer those who are strong to those who are smart; we prefer -- let's be honest -- arrogance to humility. That's too bad, really, but seekers have always known that what the world wants/likes/honors/reveres, is very different from what it really needs.

Regardless, and nevertheless, it is becoming ever more clear that we are dying by our own hand; that what we think (want?) to know is false; that things/possessions/money can't bring us either happiness or salvation; that what one has is no match for what one can be; that all that bothers, troubles, and threatens us in the world is of our own making. Pogo was right, "We have met the enemy, and he is us." Whatever.

There is Truth and there are truths out there, and I refuse to stop looking for either.

The case of the unfulfilled dream

When I was coming-of-age, the Civil Rights movement was in full swing. People were in the streets protesting the war in Vietnam. Flower children were spreading a doctrine of peace and love. I, like many of my generation, had great hopes that the world would become a better place and that we'd be able to leave that better world to our children. We couldn't have been more wrong.

A forced stint in the military, rampant inflation, a delusional turning back of the clock, a celebration of greed, a misunderstood collapse of an "enemy", and one crueler war than the previous one have taken their toll. Since that time, it's been a small step forward and a big step back, and it would seem we're picking up the pace as well.

Wages for normal, working people have stagnated, inflation has been brought under nefarious control, many of the social programs instituted back then are being dismantled, there's been a massive increase in the number of refugees on the move, more people are dying of hunger every year, income equality has become obscene, the environment is polluted, the planet it getting hotter faster than we can do anything about it, but it's harder and harder to find anyone who really cares.

Oh sure, I have to answer to my kids -- and rightfully so -- since they're all of age and I taught them to speak their minds and ask uncomfortable questions. I believe I got at least that much right. What troubles me more, however, are their children, and those of my own siblings and their kids just making their dramatic, but welcome entry onto the world stage. What about them? I envisioned them then; I know them now. And there are days I simply hang my head in shame.

While I've never been a top-echelon optimist, I've always (most often, secretly) been a hopeful person. It wasn't solely up to me whether "things" turned out or didn't, but I have to ask myself nevertheless whether there was anything I could have done better, harder, more determinedly, more effectively to have possibly made those coming-of-age dreams come true. I've come to the conclusion that there were lots and lots of things I could have done but didn't. But I've also come to recognize that far too many of my one-time compatriots -- brothers- and sisters-in-arms, as we liked to style ourselves then -- simply gave up.

When I see them and hear from them these days, it becomes clear how helpless they feel, how hopeless they've become, how defeated they are inside, and they do everything to prevent that anyone see that. Oh sure, some of them -- and not an insignificant number, I might add -- went over to what we might call the "dark side". They're still my friends and acquaintances. After all, "there, but for the Grace of G-d go I". And it saddens me all the more.

What I miss most of all about those halcyon days of light and hope is the feeling of sharing, of camaraderie, of shared hope, of shared faith, of being-in-it-together. How did Thoreau put it? "Things don't change, we change." He's got a point, I'll admit, but it's only a partial one.

The dream was real. The implementation left a whole lot to be desired. We were many then, and now we're few. And even though that dream remains unfulfilled, it was the right dream to have -- then, and now.

Why beliefs trump reality

Before anyone gets the wrong impression (whereby I'm fairly sure that this plea comes a bit late), I would like to reiterate something I never tire of saying. I am not just beating up on my home country. I am merely using them as an example, for in many cases, the USA is simply the best example of what I'm talking about. The root causes, the root feelings, the root beliefs and the root reactions are evident across the entire world, both West and, mutatis mutandis, East. We're all human beings and no one is exempt. We all have similar moral potential, and we all have inherent weaknesses. That's what makes us human. But it is always easier to ignore than to acknowledge, let alone accept.

It just so happens that I agree with Einstein that patriotism is an infantile disease. We are born where we are born by virtue of an inexplicable cosmic accident. To use that as a basis for unquestionable allegiance to one's birthplace is, in my mind at least, just silly. We are made into unswerving loyalists, we weren't born that way, so when you place your own country, for example, above all others, it is not a fact, it is simply a belief that you have taken on for any number of reasons, some perhaps OK, others questionable.

The point I really want to make is that we buy into this belief because it makes us feel good, it makes us feel worthwhile and it makes us think we have a purpose. We want to believe we are the good guys, that what we do is good and right and proper and admirable. And, there is nothing essentially wrong with any of this, as far as it goes. The problem is, however, that it goes much farther and deeper.

When confronted with evidence that contradicts this most fundamental view of the world that we have, we become fearful and insecure. We simply don't want to believe that things are different than the way we want to think they are. We will do everything in our power not to look these facts and this possible evidence in the eyes. Why? I don't know for sure, but one reason is certainly because we think we will no longer be the person we once were. That may be true, but it's not bad. Sure, it may be unpleasant, even painful, but closing one's eyes to reality doesn't make it go away. No one ever said the truth would make us happy, but it is truly the case that it is the truth which sets you free.

FDR once noted that we really have nothing to fear but fear itself, and he had a point. Whether you like his politics or not, he still had a point. I believe that now, more than at any other time in my short life, we are being called upon to face our fears. We can't give in ... or can we? Fear is more often that than not the root cause of hate, and when you begin to hate on the basis of your beliefs, for whatever reason, you have removed yourself from the world of reason. Hate is a powerful emotion, one of the most powerful in fact, but it is destructive, not only for others but for oneself. Hate is a poison that destroys one from inside every bit as much as the actions it calls forth wreak destruction on everyone and everything toward which it is directed. And, I must say that it saddens me to see and hear as much hate being spread about as I do these days.

As cynical as I may be, I would still like to think that we're better than that.

How to win a Holy War

Instead of the usual blah-blah-blah you may be used to, I decided to let someone else speak today.

Why?

Because the man has something to say that's worth listening to ... and I think he's on the right track.

So, How to win a Holy War.

If not reading, how about reflection?

While I do have my optimistic moments, I'm not the fool many take me for. I know well that most people I know wouldn't read much that is antithetical to their beliefs. The authors of those texts might have a point ... who knows? they might even be right ... and what do you do then? When our beliefs are challenged, the vast majority of us simply reject what we're being told (or what we're reading). It's a lot easier to simply deny than it is to change our minds. How sad is that.

Having said that, however, I'm not convinced that most people know why they believe what they believe. A lot of our beliefs are simply carry-overs from our childhood. Our parents believed certain things, we accepted them, and we believe them now as well. In our teen and young-adult years, our friends or people we admired or looked up to believed things and we decided to believe what they believed because we thought or felt or believed that we were like them. In our adult lives, we believe things sometimes simply because we would like things to be a certain way; our world would be much less threatening and stressful if things are as we believe. What all of these modes of coming-to-beliefs have in common, it is clear, is that they are passive in nature. We don't have to do anything to come to these beliefs, we merely need to accept them and make them our own.

That's fine in as far as it goes, but it's a rather weak foundation, especially when we think of how many people are out there claiming, arguing, hammering home, and trying to impose their beliefs on others. If someone wants to make a strong case for his or her beliefs, then I would like to think that they had at least thought about them seriously, that they had invested some energy in understanding what it is they believe and that they knew why they believed what they believed. Unfortunately, that's hardly ever the case. Beliefs are funny like that: all you have to do is believe them. Personally, I prefer people with convictions (thought-through and grounded beliefs), even if I don't share them myself.

So, now that summer is upon us, and now that many of us are thinking about time off or vacations or just lying out in the sun or going to the beach, I have little illusion that most of you will be taking a book with you. For those who are, I commend you, and I certainly hope you read it. For those of you who are not choosing that option, may I suggest a less strenuous, but I believe more challenging, and, perhaps, even more rewarding activity: reflecting. Yes, why not take the time in which you're not really doing anything else, and think about what you believe. Ask yourself why you believe it. Do little thought experiments about what it would be like, or what the world would be like, if you, or most people or anyone else, didn't believe what you believe. You really ought to try it. It can be a very enlightening experience, if done intensely and seriously enough.

No one's asking you to do anything but think ... about what you think and why. Who thinks they can handle it?