Friends, Christians, and Communists

I received a note from John, once my boss, with an amazing video showcasing the abilities of a high-speed camera. I liked the video, but he, like Gravebinder and a few others, reminded me that I'm falling down on the job with respect to my blog. I hate it when friends are right, truly. In my own defense… ok, there's no real defense, but my excuse is actually trying to decide what to write about among the myriad choices is <whine> difficult! So then, I've chosen an old pet peeve…

I've heard that nasty word "social justice" once again, and I'm always interested enough to ask my erstwhile conversation partner what he means by this interesting compound idea. Erstwhile? Former conversation partners because I'm generally opposed to the common or popular notion of what "social justice" constitutes, and my opposition seems to color me as Satan himself to some of the liberal nutroots I've engaged in conversation (despite their intense opposition to religion, it is ok to label opponents as the minions of Beelzebub). Taking the adjective social away from the concept at least leaves the actual noun being modified in some fashion. Make no mistake, English works precisely this way.

"No, no, no, you don't understand. It wasn't simply a man; it was a little green man!"

Granted, that's poking a little fun, but whether used rationally or irrationally, that's the way we use our language. Clearly, progressives are trying to make it plain that they are NOT talking about the classical meaning of justice, and hence, the adjective "social." I had always thought justice by nature and definition must be social. Something else is meant in this case – so, for comparison, let's take a look at the origin of the word "justice." I'll use the Online Etymology Dictionary:

1140, "the exercise of authority in vindication of right by assigning reward or punishment," from O.Fr. justise, from L. justitia "righteousness, equity," from justus "upright, just." The O.Fr. word had widespread senses, including "uprightness, equity, vindication of right, court of justice, judge." The word began to be used in Eng. c.1200 as a title for a judicial officer. Meaning "the administration of law" is from 1303. Justice of the peace first attested 1320. In the Mercian hymns, L. justitia is glossed by O.E. rehtwisnisse.

Generally, "the administration of law" was once a common understanding of the term "justice." On the other hand, the term "social justice" uses the adjective "social" to incorporate the notions often associated with socialism/communism. The always popular "take from those who are more prosperous and give to those who are less prosperous" – whether on a national or global scale depends largely on who is promoting the idea. For example, Anthony Brunt at the University of Iowa puts it this way:

The first component of social justice is a minimum standard of living in the realms of employment, health, housing, and education. This is the portion of social justice that is best dispensed through government agencies. According to the 1999 U.N. Human Development Report, for forty billion dollars the most disadvantaged portions of the world can achieve basic healthcare, education, sanitation facilities, potable water, and an adequate food supply for all. To contrast this amount in relative terms, last year Microsoft chairperson Bill Gates had an estimated net worth of fifty-two billion dollars. I do not believe that allocating an additional forty billion dollars will strain those living in a state of luxury.

Only somewhat tongue in cheek, Kfir Alfia and Alan Lipton in A Field Guide to Left-Wing Wackos, says that communists are "Anyone who likes the things you have, wants them for his own, and doesn't mind if a totalitarian state is what it takes to make that happen." This idea of using a government to accomplish their ends is highlighted by Brunt in the next paragraph of his paper, albeit for logistical concerns.

Why even mention this topic? Because I find it at least a little ironic and humorous that this unusual group of liberals shares so much in common with the very people they are so opposed to having any influence on our society. Truly, the only real difference between the liberal nutroots and the Christians in this case is the means by which they ameliorate poverty. I really cannot say it better than C.S. Lewis on this topic, and he makes the point so forcefully, I'll close with a small portion from The Problem of Pain:

Those who would most scornfully repudiate Christianity as a mere "opiate of the people" have a contempt for the rich, that is , for all mankind except the poor. They regard the poor as the only people worth preserving from "liquidation," and place in them the only hope of the human race. But this is not compatible with a belief that the effects of poverty on those who suffer it are wholly evil; it even implies that they are good. The Marxist thus finds himself in agreement with the Christians in those two beliefs which Christianity paradoxically demands – that poverty is blessed and yet ought to be removed. (C.S. Lewis, 1940, pp. 108-109)

P.S. "And that's Entertainment"

Cheers!

A Tree Falls in the Woods…

There is an old saw in philosophy that cuts this way, "If a tree falls in the woods, and there is no one there to perceive it, then does it make a sound?" Philosophical skeptics such as David Hume and Bishop Berkeley are largely responsible for the notion. They were so consumed with the mechanics of human perception they doubted the existence of a world that existed outside the human mind.

Gravebinder and I were knocking around an idea for a story and this notion of perception came up in regards to freedom. If there is a secret cabal (you know, like the vast neocon conspiracy to wrest control of our government) influencing/manipulating society without their knowledge, is that society free? Is their freedom contingent on their own perception? Is ignorance really bliss?

Seriously, in terms of perception, if a deal is made between two parties, and both parties are satisfied by the deal, haven't they both come out ahead because of their perceived value of the exchange in question? I pay a buck fifty for the Sunday paper because I believe the value of the contents are worth more than my buck fifty, and the newspaper company is convinced the buck fifty is worth more than the paper (the paper is at least suitable to wrap fish). Too capitalist a perspective? Or is freedom not a commodity that can be valued/traded in a market?

For Gravebinder and me, the notion was relative to the observer. If I am unaware of the manipulation moving me in a specific direction, then I would consider myself free to act. If and when I become aware of the manipulation, then I also become aware of the constraints on my freedom. The question becomes whether or not there is a locus of perception greater than myself that defines an objective reality that everyone shares.

Is there an objective reality? Does it make sense for us to hash things out for the best course of action? For Bishop Berkley it makes sense, and Ronald Knox wrote a limerick that comments on why:

There was a young man who said "God
Must think it exceedingly odd
If he finds that this tree
Continues to be
When there's no one about in the Quad."

"Dear Sir, your astonishment's odd;
I am always about in the Quad
And that's why this tree
Will continue to be
Since observed by Yours faithfully, God."

I like these limericks, Gravebinder likes these limericks, and I figured you might like them. A last question to everyone then: Does the tree continue to be?

Cheers all.

Remembering Occam’s Razor

Economy, parsimony, and simplicity… I guess today is nostalgia day. This is a "not so current events" day, and the events are the Civil Rights Act of 1964, United Steel Workers of America v. Brian F. Weber (1979), and Cheryl J. Hopwood, et al. vs. The State of Texas (1994). The motivation for this post is actually Thomas Sowell's The Vision of the Anointed: Self Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy. "Judicial Activism" was the section I was reading, but more important, it was the subsection concerning definitions and distortions that caught my eye.

I would heartily recommend Thomas Sowell on virtually any topic, but especially on subjects in the area of political philosophy, race and ethnicity/culture, and judicial activism. I know, he's an economist, and not so surprisingly, I purchased his Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy and am enjoying it immensely. My youngest daughter thinks I'm a dweeb, but since she was with me, I provided an incentive for her to read it… I buy her books and let her put the price of both our purchases on her Borders Rewards card instead of mine if she'll agree to read the book. I love incentives! She agreed as long as I read it first because she'll "read it slower and have questions" so I had better learn it first. I also love my daughter ;-)

Now that everyone knows I love my daughters and Thomas Sowell, we'll get back to business. First, the Civil Rights Act is legislation that forbids racial discrimination in "apprenticeship training programs, such as that which excluded a white worker, Brian F. Weber, in order to include black workers with lower qualifications" (Sowell, The Anointed, 1995, p. 233). Where the Civil Rights Act forbids just such discrimination:

Justice Brennan who claimed elsewhere that discerning the original intent of lawmakers was virtually impossible, in this case saw lawmakers' intent so clearly – Congress' "primary concern" for "the plight of the Negro in our economy" – that he disregarded the plain words of the Civil Rights Act (as cited in Sowell, 1995, p. 233).

Instead of focusing on Sowell's primary point in this conversation, I'm going to highlight a secondary point that brings a murky distortion into sharp relief. It was once a goal in this country to make certain things as "color blind" as possible – such as admissions to colleges, apprenticeship training programs, etc. In order to bring this distortion into relief I need another quotation from yet another judge, in this case, a federal judge in Texas:

The plaintiffs have contended that any preferential treatment to a group based on race violates the Fourteenth Amendment and, therefore, is unconstitutional. However, such a simplistic application of the Fourteenth Amendment would ignore the long history of pervasive racial discrimination in our society that the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted to remedy and the complexities of achieving the societal goal of overcoming the past effects of that discrimination (as cited in Sowell, 1995, p. 233-234). Emphasis added.

Thomas Sowell provides a number of excellent responses to such errant nonsense. He pays only passing attention to the word "simplistic" because he already addressed the problem earlier in the book. It's a lesson worth learning. Verbal gymnastics are not the same as an argument or a proof, and judges should know that. It pays to watch for words that prove nothing about the premises of an argument, and more important, contribute nothing to the truth or falsehood of the conclusion. Although the significance of the word simplistic is easy to miss in this context, Sowell makes the point firmly:

As in so many other contexts, the word "simplistic" was not part of an argument but a substitute for an argument. To interpret the Fourteenth Amendment as meaning what it says – equal treatment for all – does not ignore the history which led to the passage of that Amendment (Sowell, 1995, p. 234). Emphasis added.

Personally, I like the rule of law. Moreover, I like the notion that I can count on the rules to remain the same until such time as a legislator changes it – because he represents me by virtue of having won an election. I find the notion that an unelected judge can pass law by fiat from the bench reprehensible. Clearly, the Constitution put the responsibility for law-making outside the bounds of the bench, and unfortunately we, as a free people, have allowed our system of law to become frenchified by blatherskites on the bench. Is there something we can do now? Something like Michigan?

Ok, I'll admit the two linked-words frenchified and blatherskite were a little over the top, but I just learned 'em an' I had to use 'em! They SOUND like insults

J

Happy Sunday!

Men Like Orchids Too

It seems I'm fated to writing assorted essays rather than the nifty posts I find in myriad other places – posts that occasionally make me laugh out loud! Of course, it's difficult not to chuckle at Coffee's rendition of Princess Diana's musings on the subject of boys and girls:

If women could just shed their inhibitions and be completely open, man and woman alike could finally settle onto the same verticle plane — giggity giggity giggity!

The, ummm, "giggity, giggity, giggity!" refers of course to dancing! – Something my Baptist friends assure me is simply a vertical expression of a horizontal desire. I've also heard that "only a man would say something like that." Horse hooey. Actually, what my Baptists friends told me was that making love standing up was verboten because it leads to dancing… Though Princess Diana has a point, I think our great American Poet sees and understands the, uh, root of the matter more clearly:

PAN WITH US

PAN came out of the woods one day,--
His skin and his hair and his eyes were gray,
The gray of the moss of walls were they,--
And stood in the sun and looked his fill
At wooded valley and wooded hill.

He stood in the zephyr, pipes in hand,
On a height of naked pasture land;
In all the country he did command
He saw no smoke and he saw no roof.
That was well! and he stamped a hoof.

His heart knew peace, for none came here
To this lean feeding save once a year
Someone to salt the half-wild steer,
Or homespun children with clicking pails
Who see no little they tell no tales.

He tossed his pipes, too hard to teach
A new-world song, far out of reach,
For a sylvan sign that the blue jay's screech
And the whimper of hawks beside the sun
Were music enough for him, for one.

Times were changed from what they were:
Such pipes kept less of power to stir
The fruited bough of the juniper
And the fragile bluets clustered there
Than the merest aimless breath of air.

They were pipes of pagan mirth,
And the world had found new terms of worth.
He laid him down on the sun-burned earth
And ravelled a flower and looked away–
Play? Play?--What should he play?

Robert Frost in A Boy's Will (1915)

Do we let the male gods die? Is the green-man no longer? The balance of male and female on Beltane is a must! Leaping the fires of May's Eve through to the Maypole celebration simply isn't that obscure. The god and goddess unite in this mythology – I'm reminded of a conversation from The Rock:

John Mason: Are you sure you're ready for this?
Stanley Goodspeed: I'll do my best.
John Mason: Your "best"! Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen.
Stanley Goodspeed: Carla was the prom queen.
John Mason: Really?
Stanley Goodspeed: [cocks his gun] Yeah.

So let us honestly celebrate diversity, especially between the sexes! I'll bore you with some verse (I know, a nasty habit) that celebrates that very thing! This was from a class assignment to twist someone else's poem to my own liking, and I haven't the first idea who's poem I butchered, but here it is:

Beltane's Aftermath

I lie on the
moss-covered forest floor
dappled in moonlight.

Crystalline drops of ecstasy,
attached to your moss-covered mons,
march
across the bridge
of my nose.

Inhaling the musk,
I think about the earth's
revolutions.

Elsewhere,
people are dying.
And I wait,

not impatiently,
for the turning
of the world.

Both Sides of the Fence

In the book "The Tao of Pooh" by Benjamin Hoff, I read something that was really cool:

An Empty sort of mind is valuable for finding pearls and tails and things because it can see what's in front of it. An Overstuffed mind is unable to. While the Clear mind listens to a bird singing, the Stuffed-Full-of-Knowledge-and-Cleverness mind wonders what kind of bird is singing. The more Stuffed Up it is, the less it can hear through its own ears and see through its own eyes. Knowledge and Cleverness tend to concern themselves with wrong sorts of things, and a mind confused by Knowledge,Cleverness and Abstract Ideas tends to go chasing off after things that don't matter, or that don't even exist, instead of seeing, appreciating, and making use of what is right in front of it.

Let's consider Emptiness in general for a moment. What is it about a Taoist landscape painting that seems so refreshing to so many different kinds of people? The Emptiness, the space that's not filled in. What is it about fresh snow, clean air, pure water? Or good music? As Claude Debussy expressed it, "Music is the space between notes."

… Many people are afraid of Emptiness, however, because it reminds them of Loneliness. Everything has to be filled in, it seems – appointment books, hillsides, vacant lots – but when all the spaces are filled, the Loneliness really begins. Then the Groups are joined, the Classes are signed up for, and the Gift-to-Yourself items are bought. When the Loneliness starts creeping in the door, the Television Set is turned on to make it go away. But it doesn't go away. So some of us do instead, and after discarding the emptiness of the Big Congested Mess, we discover the fullness of Nothing (Hoff, 1982, p. 146-147).

I prefer Classical music over most "Lyrical" music because Classical music allows my mind to wander and take a break, whereas Lyrical music tells me where to wander. Sometimes being told where to go (don't go there Skald) is OK, but I'm too busy as is. My mind needs a break, let it roam with my imagination! Also, in my photographs I tend not to clutter my compositions, I try to express openness, freedom, area to travel, wonder...etc. Here is one of my favorite pictures to help express the meaning of "Both Sides of the Fence" Where some only see a fence, I see What is on both sides of the fence. What side of the fence would you rather be on? The right or the left? The congested side or the side with more room to maneuver? I jumped the fence (caught my pants on the barbs as it happens in life too when you choose a different side) and found a huge, new, vast countryside to roam, explore, and appreciate.

Motorcycle Zen

Not long ago I described a fun flat on my Harley. I managed to damage the rear wheel and rim in addition to shredding the tire – kind of a spendy repair. The shop was able to true the wheel and knock the kinks out of the rim (hallelujah!). I replaced the old rubber, front and rear, with beautifully scribed whitewalls. The ride home was circuitous, allowing time for the Harley mind-meld – that great place where rider and scooter are one… think Caddy Shack, and well, **BE the bike.** My Harley is often helpful in ways other than one might expect. It keeps me from running away from home, from going postal, from just choking the life out of people who disagree with me J

I suppose there are several reasons to mention "just being." Part of it is associated with Winnie-the-Pooh, another part with the Te of Piglet and the Tao of Pooh. In the Tao of Pooh we learn the importance of just being, Pooh just is. In the Te of Piglet we learn about something essential to the Tao – Virtue. This is a virtue that is partly reflected in the Judeo-Christian idea that "as a man thinks in his heart, so is he." The Chinese character can be written two ways according to Benjamin Hoff; one way combines the characters for both "upright" and "heart." "The second way adds the character for 'left-foot,'" Te, or virtue in action.

Why even mention this? Primarily because some new age freaks want to make these ideas mean something other than what they are. These ideas do not deny reality or claim that our thoughts create our reality – that somehow our minds conjure matter. This continual fascination with "best-case scenarios," "positive thinking," and "creative visualization" is becoming a serious obstacle to sensible people. WE NEED OUR EYORES!!! Someone needed to say, "Maybe they won't greet us as liberators." Somebody needed to explore the worst-case.

OK, apart from my gratuitous jab at the administration, the point is that we can't simply "think" our future into existence – we must interact with our REAL environment. We need to DO. We are in Iraq; we need to finish the job. Remember the Goddess Nike? "Just do it." Again, why even mention this? OPRAH WINFREY is why even mentioning this seems prudent. John Gravois of Slate Magazine has a must read article at the previous link. Slate is soliciting anecdotal accounts of when negative thinking, "a healthy dose of pessimism," or envisioning the worst has helped you. Let's send these to Oprah via Slate to illustrate just how dangerous "The Secret" is, and as a result, take steps to prevent the same kind of errant nonsense associated with Christian Scientists refusing medical attention for themselves and their children. Like trying to convince the liberal left, it is extremely difficult to use facts to elicit change in people who deny reality, and "The Secret" advocates essentially that – reality bites, think it away.

Mmmm, maybe I've gone too far… nahhhh.

A Double Murder Relegated to Shades of Grey

Coffeespy tells a story of a horrific double murder that received little to no national media coverage. The story is compelling and it is worth the trip to Coffee's site for his commentary as well as the links to other pundits' positions on the murder and its lack of coverage. Even Wikipedia is keeping a page updated on this unfolding case. The Wiki article links to several examples of black on white murder in which the mainstream media (MSM) fails to report as is typically covered when the crime is white on black. Each of (Ken Tillery murder) these (The Wichita Massacre) articles (James Byrd murder) should be used as a backdrop that makes it clear Mark Alexander from the Patriot Post is absolutely right when he says:

This appalling attack is more than a case study in sociopathic evil. It is also a case study in journalistic malpractice.

I realize I've listed a few links, but they are worth the read – if only to fill out a more complete picture - NOT of the heinousness of the murders, but rather of the MSM's malpractice. Considering the hoopla generated by Imus, the Duke Lacrosse players, and several other instances of MSM "vigilance" and reporting "important breaking news," it seems this double murder might have received a passing nod…

Coffee et al already make the important points about "hate crimes," lack of coverage, etc., but there is another element I believe is noteworthy. It is most easily introduced by comments made at Snopes.com in their article covering this double murder. The writers first reproduce the email describing the murders (as is their SOP), and then proceed to debunk/comment. Normally, I truly like the product at Snopes; however, this particular article over reaches the evidence it provides in the email. It seems appropriate to use similar methods

Some commentators (as cited in the [email]…) have made much of the fact that the bulk of the news reportage about the Newsom/Christian murders has been Local (predominantly in Tennessee, where the crimes took place, and in neighboring Kentucky), while the case has received Little or no national coverage by major news outlets — a phenomenon attributed to supposedly biased news media loath to report black-on-white crime. (Both Christian and Newsom were white: all five of the suspects arrested in connection with their killings are black.)

However, the notion that every major news outlet in the U.S. (all of them competitive, profit-making businesses) has conspired to ignore what would otherwise be a compelling national story is rather implausible. A more rational explanation might be found in the sober observation that murders — even decidedly horrific murders — are unfortunately too frequent an occurrence in the U.S. for all of them to garner national attention. The cases that do tend to attract prolonged, nationwide coverage are ones exhibiting a combination of factors (e.g., scandal, mystery, sexual elements, celebrity involvement, shockingly large numbers of deaths, victims who especially elicit sympathy) that make them particularly fascinating and compelling to the public at large, such as the still-unsolved murder of 6-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey, the mysterious disappearance (and death) of pregnant Laci Peterson, the massacre of 32 students and faculty at Virginia Tech, and the celebrity trial to determine whether actress Lana Clarkson committed suicide or was killed by reclusive record producer Phil Spector.

I don't have a clue who originated the email, but Snopes is utterly disingenuous in their comments. After acknowledging that there was indeed little to no national coverage and and after reporting that the email writer and other pundits (none cited in the email) blame the lack of coverage on media bias, Snopes then states that a national conspiracy of media outlets is "rather implausible." The email nowhere suggests that "every major news outlet in the U.S. has conspired" to do anything. In fact, conspiracy of any sort is not suggested. Then of course, by implication Snopes suggests that anyone believing the conspiracy their writers create must be irrational, because a more rational explanation is… It is so much fun to pound the stuffing out of straw men!

The Laci Peterson murder, though horrible, simply wasn't as horrific. Since it seems we must compare the shock value, let's compare it to something that is actually "comparable." For example, it seems that if three rich white college men get accused of gang raping a black woman it IS all about race, and of course, there is an attendant media blitzkrieg. On the other hand, if four black men and one black woman get accused of gang rape, torture, mutilate, and ultimately murder two white kids it IS NOT about race, and of course, it doesn't merit the media blitz. That particular Snopes article was extraordinarily disappointing.

The question remains. Was it media bias? Excluding all "conspiracy theories," was it bias? Let me repeat a comment I heard made on CNN's Paula Zahn. Asked directly about black prejudice/bigotry, the guest made it plain that it is simply impossible for blacks to be bigots because they lack power. What errant nonsense. I think Thomas Sowell is right, there is a media bias and it is a result of a serious Conflict of Visions. We are in a serious situation, one that is not easily resolved.

Thomas Sowell has been reviled as a race traitor, but his books indicate otherwise. His commentaries on race, race relations, political struggle, and political philosophy are remarkable. In his book The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation As a Basis for Social Policy, he provides a much needed bit of clear headedness. He makes it clear we're making mistakes that are not unique to us:

In earlier eras as well, many individuals foresaw the self-destruction of their own civilizations, from the days of the Roman Empire to the eras of the Spanish, Ottoman, and other empires. Yet that alone was not enough to change the course that was leading to ruin. Today, despite free speech and the mass media, the prevailing social vision is dangerously close to sealing itself off from any discordant feedback from reality (Sowell, 1995).

If you don't think our problems with race and race relations aren't every bit as serious as the war or global warming… think again friend, this is another problem that needs addressing in a meaningful and realistic fashion.

Knowing, Nike, Perfection, and Just Doing It

So I'm motoring down Hwy 99W on my Harley, enjoying a perfect day for riding – (though yesterday was more perfect J, yes, there is an inside joke there) – when suddenly the rear end of the scooter goes into a skid toward oncoming traffic. Well, the old sphincter puckers, I muscle a turn into the skid and apply the front brakes and accelerate to right slide, and it works way too well and I'm now skidding toward the right shoulder. I pretty much do the same thing again, i.e., turn into the skid, and since there is no oncoming traffic, there is no need to apply front brake and accelerate to enhance the correction. I fishtail out of danger, slow, come to stop on the shoulder. I HATE controlling skids on a motorcycle, especially when the rear end just does not behave like it should!

I've been riding motorcycles for a large portion of my fifty years, and I've never had an explosive flat on the rear tire before today. So that's why the rear end behaved so poorly <blink, blink>. After five or ten minutes my sphincter un-puckered enough to let go of the seat, I started breathing, and either my heart finally started beating again or it simply slowed down. My perfect day was no longer, but I did spend the night in…

That wasn't a sea story, and unfortunately, I have a rear tire to repair this weekend. It is however a story that exemplifies the kinds of experience I not only tend to enjoy (in hindsight), but also helps to explain my fascination with philosophy, religion, and just generally being contrary. Danger that brushes up against my mortality spurs me on to re-examinations of my beliefs. Today, it brought to mind a conversation Gravebinder and I had earlier in the day on the nature of perfection. Though we disagreed on the nature of perfection, the conversation raised certain flags for me concerning epistemology – elements of that branch of philosophy I thought I had quite settled…

I realize that to most people understanding the nature of knowledge, i.e., what it is, how it is acquired, and what people actually know is beyond boring. In fact, most people probably disdain the study of any of the five major branches of philosophy, but it does provide foundational material for conversations on the nature of perfection… I mean really, can some perfect thing become "more" perfect? Is the answer to the question obvious? It's a conversation that occurs in philosophy, religion, and BUSINESS, GOVERNMENT, ETC! Nifty, hey?

Maybe I'll just stick with poetry and politics and not be concerned with how I know about these subjects <grin> of course, process is important and perhaps Nike is right:

The Goddess Nike On Performance Anxiety

Her lover said:

Tell me how, tell me where
Tell me when, talk me through
And tell me you came too

Tell me that I know how
To put that look upon your face
That in any other time or place
People would confuse with pain

She said:

Don’t talk unless you talk hard
Don’t ask unless you wanna know
The answers that I have, but oh!

God, don’t tell me what or how and when
But God! Just whisper. Then moan!
Sweet Jesus! Then groan!
Don’t talk, don’t stop, but oh God, Just Do It!

Men Without Chests, Cowardice, and Virtues

Christopher Hitchens, in the first article of a series of three, rages against and castigates the very likes of God and religion. These articles are excerpts from his new book, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. I can't help it, I like the guy. He's an obnoxious iconoclast – but he THINKS. Can't say that I agree with him on any of a number of things, but there are several elements of this first installment that I do agree with. However, like one of the respondents, not only is there plenty to disagree with, there is much about religion that has produced some of the best in humanity. "When atheism becomes as intolerant as fanatical religion," perhaps it's time to take a step back and watch what spews out of one's mouth. I believe the respondent had the right of it:

…just because religion is conducive to intolerance and bloodlust, Hitchens the belligerent warmonger proves that atheism is no guarantee of benevolence. Certainly Stalin and Mao found other ideologies to justify their appetite for destruction.

Trotskyite that he is, I'm certain Hitchens will excuse atheism and blame the evil Stalin and his perversion of an ideology… mmm, what's that? Hitchens Is Not Great: How People Poison Ideologies.

Blech.

Why the commentary on Mr. Hitchens? Because he attempts to marginalize another, much more humble person I admire. C.S. Lewis wrote The Abolition of Man to address a subject that my friend over at The Coffeespy and a friend at work have knocked around. To use Lewis's phrase, we in the West are raising "Men Without Chests." This discussion might seem a little convoluted, but please, bear with me here – it will come right in the end.

Lewis performs a critical analysis of a school text book as launching off point for a defense of objective values, what he in shorthand, calls the Tao. Throughout the book he uses principles from the Tao, but as he makes clear, this is a word he is using to represent more than the Chinese concept:

The Chinese also speak of a great thing (the greatest thing) called the Tao. It is the reality beyond all predicates, the abyss that was before the Creator Himself. It is Nature, it is the Way, the Road. It is the Way in which the universe goes on, the Way in which things everlastingly emerge, stilly and tranquilly, into space and time. It is also the Way which every man should tread in imitation of that cosmic and super cosmic progression, conforming all activities to that great exemplar.¹⁷ 'In ritual', say the Analects, 'it is harmony with Nature that is prized.'¹⁸ The ancient Jews likewise praise the Law as being 'true'.¹⁹

This conception in all its forms, Platonic, Aristotelian, Stoic, Christian, and Oriental alike, I shall henceforth refer to for brevity simply as 'the Tao' (Columbia's put the book online).

Where Lewis uses a text book on literature to demonstrate that modern man is losing the understanding that there is a real objective value system, I would quote a single passage from the actual Tao. However, before I do, one of his examples is straightforward; the notion that a particular vista is sublime. The literature textbook tries to inculcate in the student that this simply means one has sublime feelings about the scene in question. Lewis, rightly, identifies that as an absurdity. If a person were describing his feelings, then certainly the sentence might start "That makes me feel…"

"That vista makes me feel sublime." First, sublime means "so awe-inspiringly beautiful as to seem almost heavenly" (Encarta). It's an adjective not a feeling. Lewis rightly points out that the emotions one experiences are virtually opposite of the descriptor itself. If one says an ocean view is sublime, it is not because one feels awe-inspiringly beautiful – the emotional correlative is veneration or humility. The scene inspires AWE. More than that, one is saying that the scene is worthy of veneration. Through a long, but entertaining and educational argument, Lewis connects this codswollop to the death of courage as virtue, in fact, to the death of the civic and cardinal virtues.

Now then, the easy way is the way, in the Tao:

When the Tao is lost, there is goodness.

When goodness is lost, there is morality.

When morality is lost, there is ritual.

Ritual is the husk of true faith,

The beginning of chaos (Tao te Ching, #38).

Our culture progresses into idiocy for lack of that central organ in man, the chest, which is atrophied by the very cowards who cut their own hearts out. Lewis reminds us that "the head rules the belly through the chest." The head representing our reason, the belly our appetites, and the chest – "The Chest-Magnanimity-Sentiment—these are the indispensable liaison officers between cerebral man and visceral man. It may even be said that it is by this middle element that man is man: for by his intellect he is mere spirit and by his appetite mere animal" (Lewis, 1943).

I love poetry, especially poetry that inspires awe, celebrates courage, fidelity, loyalty, and so many other virtues associated with the chivalric code. Most recognize Tennyson's noble 600 in the Charge of the Light Brigade, and sometimes people recognize at least a part of Ulysses. Each celebrates various virtues. Lewis finds the fact that these authors of the literature textbook are called intellectuals intolerable:

The operation of The Green Book [the literature textbook] and its kind is to produce what may be called Men without Chests. It is an outrage that they should be commonly spoken of as Intellectuals. This gives them the chance to say that he who attacks them attacks Intelligence. It is not so. They are not distinguished from other men by any unusual skill in finding truth nor any virginal ardour to pursue her. Indeed it would be strange if they were: a persevering devotion to truth, a nice sense of intellectual honour, cannot be long maintained without the aid of a sentiment which Gaius and Titius [the authors] could debunk as easily as any other. It is not excess of thought but defect of fertile and generous emotion that marks them out. Their heads are no bigger than the ordinary: it is the atrophy of the chest beneath that makes them seem so.

And all the time—such is the tragi-comedy of our situation—we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more 'drive', or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or 'creativity'. In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful (Lewis, 1943).

I've spent too much time harping on a pet peeve. I've been reading books on the CIA, John and Robert Kennedy of late, and I think they were perhaps the last of the liberal Democrats I admired. RFK seemed to recognize the decay CS Lewis identified and set on our dinner tables. RFK's "philosophy, which he urged on others and truly tried to live by himself, was: we may be doomed, but each man must define himself anew each day by his own actions" (Thomas, 2000, p. 22). I think we'd find far fewer traitors in our midst should we define ourselves anew each day by our actions. I'm a retired sailor, so I'll sign off with a final note from Ulysses:

Push off, and sitting well in order smite

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

Of all the western stars, until I die.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Politically Motivated?

A quickie…

I seem to run across quite a few oddities in my classes. I love learning, and I am often astonished at what passes for scholarship, and more often, I am flabbergasted that words are being used more for their connotative values than their denotative values. I wonder sometimes if definitions actually matter to some students.

"Why do people have such a hard time understanding what I am saying?" is a question that quite often strikes me as deliberately obtuse. I am frankly disdainful of the bewildered looks that accompany this question. Is it possible that these bewildered looks, this apparent confusion is a direct result of their own lack of clarity? I wonder at my own impatience… so, an example with the word politics.

The reason the shelter did not get funded was politics and people with power, (i.e., people with money) forcing officials to spend the budget on less worthy projects

It seems politics and rich people are to blame for shutting a shelter down. What follows is more an observation than a simple criticism, and it is an invitation to clarify my perspective. I'm not trying to draw fire here, not to be simply contentious, but I am incredibly curious about the use of the word politics – whether in my class, in everyday conversation, or on the job the word simply doesn't mean what dictionaries indicate it means. It seems it is a word typically used with strongly charged negative connotations, and yet the denotative term, as defined by Wikipedia is:

Politics is the process by which groups make decisions. It is the authoritative allocation of values. Although the term is generally applied to behavior within governments, politics is observed in all human group interactions, including corporate, academic, and religious institutions.

The Wiki article is expansive, including the notion of "office politics" when referring to small group dynamics. By definition, when a minority group exercises its influence in order to gain ascendancy, better treatment, etc., it is politics. When we, as a group of concerned citizens, lobby to gain more funding for our policemen, our teachers, our prison workers, it is politics. Most of the dictionaries and encyclopedias I've perused define politics pretty much the same way. I understand the suspicion associated with "people that have power." However, while money definitely helps, it isn't an absolute necessity to get something accomplished.

If, by extension, we said that politics is the search for, the acquisition, maintenance, and distribution of power, then the million man march was a very obvious political event expressing black men's political will. When Hispanic legal and illegal immigrants took a day off, that was a display of political power.

I guess I'm just saying that politics is a value neutral word – it is a process. It is not of itself some evil thing. Of course, there is the use of "dirty" politics to achieve an end, but that's descriptive of how the process is used rather than whether the process is used. Like I said, I'm not trying to deliberately contentious, but I am trying to ascertain whether most people actually view politics, wealthy people, and powerful people as somehow the enemy of us common folk…

Oh, And Poetry Too

Once upon a time it was a noble thing to be both warrior and poet… not so much anymore. I’m not that noble anyway. I’ve children in harm’s way and it tends to stress me out, and of course my wife is keen to instruct me, “See? You go volunteering for whatever, leave your family behind, and you JERK, it’s hard to be here alone.” Perhaps I do understand a little better how she felt while I was gone.

It is somehow more frightening to me, being here, safe – while my daughters serve now that I’m an old fart. I suppose serving in the military is sort of the family business for us. Although I wanted my daughters to be patriots, I had in mind them saying to a husband, “come back with your shield, or on it.” Instead, I had a daughter instruct me, “Poppy, why would you think that a woman’s life is somehow intrinsically more valuable than a man’s? Should we not be willing to give what any other citizen should be willing to give?” I don’t need to hear that from a little girl. Ok, so maybe I did. She’s a pretty tough kid. This is a poem she kind of liked – it’s dedicated to my two Amazons:

What Some Would Call Murder in Nicaragua,
A Contrarian View

“Guns” and I made insertion
Just off the coast
Where that smell,
That smell leaps full
Blown at the back of your throat —
You can taste it.

People think that coastal
Scent signals life, but it’s
Small things (microbes, seaweed, even
Crustaceans) dying and rotting
On the sand —
That’s what you smell,
That’s what you taste,
Death on the beach.

Seventy-two hours into our jungle
Creep, Billy “Guns", my spotter,
Tapped my leg and signed
“No target.” Mr. Esteban Morales
Wouldn’t die that day. A short-lived
Sigh of relief escaped my lips. Guns
Tapped my leg and signed
That we had a TOOP —

Target of Opportunity:
Acronym to strip the humanity
From a sanctioned target that’s
Not in the operations plan (Op Plan) —

One Frederico Manuel Esposito
Appeared from beneath the jungle canopy,
And the Op Plan changed that fast.

With the musty molder of vegetative carpet
In our noses, we belly crawled to a high
Vantage point. I glassed the clot of people
Being harangued by Mr. Esposito,
My new TOOP, target, or tango.
Guns ranged the target. Whispered,
“Seven-two-zero.”

715 meters away, an old man
Appeared in the lower left quadrant
Of my scope. Standing there,
About five meters from the target,
The old man was quiet,
Sallow skinned,
Sunken cheeked,
A skull above those —
Those coat-hanger arms
Cradling that little boy.
Both their vacant stares
Staring through the cross
Hairs on the wrong end of my scope.

Watching Frederico stride toward me,
He silently screamed and slapped
The old man, who stumbled,
Strained to keep the cradle about the boy
As the imagined snap of flesh on flesh
Made its way to my ears.

I’ve been taught to aim for center body mass,
To put a round through the heart.
Instead, after a final range check,
I gifted Frederico with a new asshole,
A puckered little hole between his eyes
That ripped out the back of his smirking face.

I wondered if the old man
Heard the supersonic pop of the round
As it rifled by his head
To bloom the red
Of death
Behind him.

I did see the old man’s eyebrows arch,
I saw the fire come to his eyes
As he watched Frederico slump to the ground.

A toothy grin broke the old man’s face
At the karmic joke that visited
Our one-time trainee, Frederico.

I smiled with him —
It felt good
To feel right
About a killing.