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).

700 posts in 7 years

The title's merely an expression of fact. I've been at this for that long, and this is as far as I've got. Hmmm. Does that meaning anything or not? OK, that's a loaded question, for we know that meaning is, in many ways, personal, and whether the number 700 means anything at all is an open question. There are a lot of folks who won't hesitate to tell me that a number is just a number is just a number. But, I happen to think that people who think that way just aren't thinking at all.

Seven. It plays a big role in our Western religious traditions: 7 days of the week, 7 arms on a menorah, 7 deadly sins, 7 virtues, 7 works of corporeal mercy, and 7 works of spiritual mercy; 7 miracles in the Gospel of John, 7 sacraments of the Catholic Church; 7 times 7 that you should forgive your brother for offense against you; the Sabbath Year, the Jubilee Year; 7 heavens of Islam, or the number of required circumambulations around the Kabba; 7 openings in the human head, 7 colors of the rainbow, 7 seas, 7 chakras, and 7 rings given to the Dwarf Lords in the Lord of the Rings; 7 points on a sheriff's badge; the 7 flies the little tailor killed with just one swat ... 7 upon 7 times 7 ... but who cares? Our atheist brethren shun the stories; our fundamentalist brethern shun the meaning. And in the end, it's just a number, so what? It could be that numbers may mean more than we think, just like myths (true myths) may be more real than we would like to admit.

Seven, when seen this way, appears to open the field ot every possibility. And is it not possibilites that give us hope? Anything is possible is a statement of hope. And that was the case: I had hoped to reach others, both like-minded and not, and I've spent the last 7 years trying.

Any number times 10 in numerology is the raising of "whatever" to the next level, hence 70 would be a kind of hope for hope. There's no 70 in the current equation except for the fact that my own name, reduced theosophically (those who want to know will have to ask), equals 70. I've used that as a moniker in other, more relevant contexts. In keeping the with the interpretations just offered, 70 would be something like "actualized hope", which would be me; that is, the guy who's been trying to hope for the best.

But this, as the title tells us, in my 700th post. Now, 700 is taking the previous level to the next level. I like the metaphor because it makes Life seem somehow like an adventure game ... which it, in many regards is ... and taking our logic of 7 to the next level, we're left with a kind of general priniciple, namely the Principle of Indetermination: everything's open, anything can happen, anything's possible ... the great hope that something good might come of all this in spite of everything else.

Yes, yes, I know: this is a mere intellectual, if perhaps slightly creative, exercise. But that's the point. Thinking numbers are stupid and just numbers is pretty unimaginative. What the world needs now (besides Love, as the song told us), is a good, healthy dose of imagination and creativity. I'm not narcisstic enough to think that I'm going to provide this impetus. I would like to think that I'm doing my part, no matter how small it might be. What remains is the fact that I'm confronted with a situation which I can imbue with meaning or merely ignore. Being the meaning-seeking person I am, I have chosen against ignornance. But, creativity means change; it's inherent in the concept.

In a sense, then, I'm opting for a Sabbath year, a year of rest (of sorts). Yes, for the bean-counters amongst you, it should have been last year, but that is really not the point. This post, as I have tried to explain, is the point of change. The current rhythm of posting is every three days (a matter I could address at another time), but it seems fitting, for a lot of reasons, to change the rhythm to 7 days, which is what I'm going to do. (Whereby I certainly reserve the right to violate this rhythm whenever external events or internal stimuli dictate the necessity to do so. And, who knows, I may be tweeting more, even if I'm enjoying it less.)

As of now, I'm going to post but once a week. I want a bit more time to think about what I'm going to say, and I want to think more about what I'm saying. I want to get a bit away from the mundanity of everyday life and politics and get a bit closer to the things that matter: the not-so-mundane and the what-are-we-going-to-do-about-it. I want to delve a bit deeper into self-reflexivity; that is, thinking about what we think and why, rather than making comments on the nonsense of too-much-everyday. I would also like the option of not just blogging, but also actually writing, but to do so takes a bit more time than I have had so far to devote to the words I post online.

Put another way: a regular blog cannot be much different from an editorial in a daily newspaper: a few words of "opinion" are thrown at events and circumstances on a rapidly regular basis. The Sunday paper, however, is a lot thicker, for the simple reason that it includes a lot of things that are worth (or should be worth) thinking about. We don't take enough time to think these days. Admit it: you run through your daily life, trying to make ends meet, striving to do the best you can, hoping that it's all working out, but you never really take the time to reflect. What I would like to do for the next year, at any rate, is provide you, perhaps, with reasons to reflect.

It's time to slow down. Not stop. Not reverse gears. Not turn around, just slow down. Take some time for yourself. Take some time to think about things. Take some time to act, not just react. Take some time to figure out what matters and what doesn't, what makes sense and what doesn't, what is important and what can be ignored.

I know that I need this time and want this time. My hope is, of course, that you need this time and want this time as well. The world's not getting any better. The nonsense and insanity that we call everyday life is getting harder to take. The decisions we make and the things we choose to believe now are going to impact our world, our children and our grandchildren for years to come. I don't think it's wise to merely make decisions. It is important, at least in my mind, that we decide: what kind of a world, which values should be in that world, how many others can we include in that world, and how rich that world may be. Please join me. I would love to have you along for the ride.

Meaningless or meaningful: the choice is yours

The astute observer may have noticed, and the wary reader may have suspected, that the last of couple of blog threads were rather oddly intertwined. I say oddly merely because these themes are not often brought into close proximity with each other. Science, religion, a Christian holiday, paradox, politics and business are not often thought about together. We moderns -- especially the more rationally inclined among us -- love to separate, classify, keep apart and compartmentalize. (And if you can believe Bob Altemeyer, which I do, it would seem the authoritarian-minded amongst us are better at this than everyone else. Go figure. But that's another post for another day.) I'm convinced that's one of the reasons I have so much trouble getting anyone to pay attention or listen to what I'm saying: I'm often confusing the issue with the facts, or I'm talking about the other side of a given coin, or ... well, whatever.

Personally, I don't care if you're a hard-over materialist, militant atheist, fundamentalist or evangelical Christian, or simply a go-with-the-crowd-because-if-I-don't-show-up-for-church-on-Sunday-I-won't-have-any-friends believer. Really, it doesn't matter (or, as they used to phrase it where I grew up: it don't make me no nevermind). What you say you believe means very little to me. I'm an action-speaks-louder-than-words type, and what you do (including what you post on Facebook or other social media, whether you participate in demonstrations or boycotts, how you vote or the number of actual notches in your six-gun tell me most of what I need to know.

Yes, the world is full of theories, but we have developed good, sound, reliable, processes and rules for deciding which ones are the ones worth considering. Some call it the scientific method, some call it good-old common sense ... it doesn't matter. In the end, at bottom, when all is said and done, most things simply make sense, or they don't. Lord knows there are lots of people who can live without it, apparently, but I don't happen to be one of them.

There is a difference between whether something makes sense (generally) or whether something makes sense (to me .. and those who think like me). Take Easter, for example: there are those who believe that the Resurrection makes sense. To others, it is a mere myth. As I have never tired of saying, though, myth is more real than most of us like to think and whether a tortured and murdered Jewish rabbi rose from the dead 2,000 years ago is really not the issue. It's what we think it means that makes all the difference in the world. Or, take evolution: there are those who believe it is a fact, others who believe it is a theory, and still others who believe it is a bunch of crap. Theories are not truth, but they can be, and most often are -- good ones, at least -- helpful ways of thinking about things. But, here too, it's what we think it means that makes all the difference. There is, however, just a slight problem here, but it's an important one.

One of those unavoidable paradoxes of life is this one: does our (both personal and collective) existence have any meaning, or is it meaningless? You can't have it both ways. There are consequences -- far-reaching and existential -- to our decision on this matter. If life has meaning, then we have to say why and find a way to explain how things can be as screwed up as they are in this world. If life has no meaning, we can easily explain why the world is as screwed up as it is, but we're going to have a bit of trouble trying to justify why we just don't do whatever we want whenever we want, because in the end, it doesn't matter anyway.

That's the problem. The issue, however, is that if you choose "sense", then you must make clear to me what there is so much nonsense in our world. Are you putting it in, or are you cleaning it up? I have my suspicions, but ...

The root of paradox

To be sure, I'm the last person to claim we live in an either-or world. That's a mistake a lot of people make, though. For too many people these days, if you are not for A, you are automatically -- at least in their minds -- for B. That's ignorance in one of its simplest forms.

In general, between any two extremes, there is an infinite number of shades of gray, so to speak, just as there are an infinite number of numbers beween 0 and 1. Our computer geek wizard friends never tire of their digitality, but it is so limited and artificial, but too many ignorant souls like to think they also have something to say about life in general, but they don't. Not all opposites are digital. For example:

The opposite of "love" is "hate". We have two distinct words for these two notions and I think we all agree that they can be considered complementary; that is, there is some kind of scale along which you can go from one to the other. We characterisze the one as positive and the other as negative, which is a methaphorical way of describing them. Then we have single words that describe differences, like "temperature". To make clear what we mean, we use adjectives, like "hot" or or "warm" or "cool" or "cold" to describe just what we mean. There is a difference between, say, hot and cold, but it is not as extreme as are "love" and "hate". It's nice having a cold drink on a hot day, for instance. And then, we have what the Swiss-German cultural philosopher Jean Gebser characterizes as Ur-Wörter (that is, literally, "primal words"); that is a single word to identify a notion and its opposite all in one. For example, the Latin word altus (from which comes our English word "altitude) means both "high" and "low" or sacer (from which we get our English word "sacred") meands both "blessed" and "cursed"; or the Hebrew word GAL, a verb which can mean "to redeem" and "to defile". (In English, we only have one such word left: "cleave" which can mean "to cut apart" and "to meld together".) In the case of such primal words, of course, it is the context that gives the meaning away.

What this all tells us is that human beings haven't always had today's oh, so beloved if-you-not-with-us-your're-against-us mentality. There was certainly a time when the experiential situation brought forth the distinction; and there are times even now when we have to describe to which degree we want to express something, and we all know that the distance from love to hate can be no more than an exceedingly fine line. For the Ancients, all Life played out between 0 and 1 (cf. the Egyptians, the Pythagoreans, etc.), but around the time of the Renaissance, we finally made the split (we -- literally -- divided our thinking and became "rational", which we have imbued with positive connotations, even though the root of the word is division: ratio, as in a/b. Yes, we turned this notion on its head as well.

The point is that if you pursue a notion or a thought deeply enough, you come to a point at which is becomes paradoxical. This is, in fact, one of the primary methods for determining if you are getting to the root or wellspring of a concept, an idea, a notion. In other words, either-or, 0 or 1, is completely meaningless at the level of superficiality of everyday, modern life, regardless of what our geeky friends would have us believe. To delve into the depths, however, takes time, energy, willpower, fortitude, and a good dose of courage, which explains why most people never ever make the effort. It is so much easier to accuse another of not being for you, so obviously they're against you. But it is so only in your own mind.