Madness in America

Every day, I grow more aware of the limits of human reason, of just how impossible it is for our little, finite minds to grasp absolute truths (if, indeed, such absolutes exist at all).  Still, since unlike other animals we have relatively few hard-wired instincts, our reason seems to be the best tool we possess for coping with reality.

The faithful of many "true" religions will here object that divine revelation either entirely supersedes or substantially supplements the inevitably tentative and mutable conclusions obtained by the exercise of reason alone.

The revelation of which divinity, though?  As announced by which divinely-inspired prophet? As written down in which divinely-dictated holy book?  Surely, the very proliferation of gods and religions argues against the actual existence of any super-natural, super-rational authority.

And besides, wouldn't such a wonderful supplement to human reason be available--as one of those few hard-wired instincts--to ALL human beings?

Well, who knows?  I'm using rational thought to discuss something that (if it exists) transcends rational thought and cannot therefore be discussed using rational thought.  Dead end.

So I return to the only tool I can be sure of, as tentative and as circumscribed as it is:  my personal REASON.  I understand that no one can understand all of reality--and that, moreover, I myself cannot understand a great deal of what many others can understand.  Still, provided I do the best I can to inform myself and provided further that I accept the objective evidence afforded me by my senses and by scientifically provable truths, I must rely upon the revelations of my subjective thought processes, and upon these revelations only:  because how in the world could I ever decide which of the "divine" revelations is more reliable than my personal thinking?

OK.  That is the premise underlying (and, I hope, justifying) this blog entry:  according to my personal thinking, much of what is going on in the world--and particularly in my own country--is absolutely contrary to reason, absolutely irrational, absolutely MAD.

As I recall, when Alice told the Cheshire Cat that she didn't want to "go among mad people," the Cat just purred sardonically, "Oh, you can't help that.  We're all mad here."

Well, perhaps we ARE all mad.  But I wonder if some people aren't just a wee bit MORE mad than I am.  For instance, I can make no sense whatsoever of the following notions/ ideas/ theories/ practices that I read about or witness on a nearly daily basis in the America of 2012 CE:

• Cutting government jobs will save the government money and will thus help create jobs;
• We can shrink our way to growth; 
• The more guns everyone has, the safer everyone will be;
• Not talking about homosexuality in schools will make homosexuality go away;
• Evolution should not be taught because some people "oppose" it;
• The poor don't pay their fair share of taxes;
• Cutting taxes for the rich will create more jobs, because the rich will automatically want to spend their additional wealth on hiring poor people;
• America has to support Israel because Israel is "democratic."
• Democracy is always the best system of government for everybody;
• Banning same-sex marriage will save opposite-sex marriage;
• Banning same-sex marriage will save the Caucasian race;
• Overall health care costs will decline if we insure fewer people;
• Corporations are people and have the same rights as an individual citizen;
• Fertilized eggs are people and have the same rights as an individual citizen;
• American wars in the Middle East are defending American "freedom"
• The Constitution was divinely inspired;
• If we make their lives miserable, illegal immigrants will "self-deport";
• Socialism is evil and anti-American;
• Socialized medicine, indeed anything "socialized" is inferior, inefficient and dangerous;
• The left is conducting a "war" against Christianity;

• The world is going to end on December 21, 2012 because that's when the Mayan calendar ends;
• Religious freedom (especially that of the Catholic Church) is being threatened by Obama's health care policies;
• Too many people have the right to vote:  limits need to be imposed;
• Social Security and Medicare and other social programs are misguided because in "helping" people, they encourage dependency instead of self-reliance;
• The War on Drugs is working;
• The war in Afghanistan is winnable (and necessary);
• Government spending on wars and defense should be increased; government spending on infrastructure, health, education, etc., should be decreased or eliminated;
• Government austerity is the solution to financial crises created by big banks;
• Homosexuality can (and should) be cured by prayer and aversion therapy;
• Christian fundamentalism is true; Islamic fundamentalism is false;
• Social Darwinism is a legitimate political, economic and ethical stance;
• Obama was born in Kenya;
• Illegal immigrants are stealing jobs from "real" Americans;
• Marriage has always (and everywhere) been between one man and one woman;
• The Civil War had nothing to do with slavery or racism;
• The only legitimate and efficacious form of birth control is abstinence.

You will notice that most of the foregoing ravings are favored especially by Republicans.  That's because it appears (to me, anyway) that the majority of regular Republicans have been bitten by rabid demogogues within their ranks and have begun, almost literally, to foam at the mouth.

But some of my fellow Democrats are also spouting (and posting and tweeting) stuff that my common sense must repudiate.  Here are a just a few examples of Democratic twaddle:

• All cultures and all civilizations are of equal merit and are equally "good";
• All people have a god-given right to get married, to whomever they choose;
• Public service unions, teachers' unions, etc., are primarily interested in serving the public;
• Capitalism is a corrupt system and cannot be made to work;
• It is not necessary for all Americans to be fluent in English; let people use whatever language they want;
• All is relative.

No, I'm quite sure that all is NOT relative, though my unaided (because there IS no aid) reason cannot equally illuminate and appraise the moral landscape of all portions of reality.  Many gray areas persist, much ambiguity remains.  Still, the insanity (and inanity) of the reasoning cited in the foregoing lists seems so egregious that I will, Cheshire-Cat-like, maintain that "we're all mad here"--at least until I'm proven (with genuine evidence) to be wrong.

Meanwhile, what do you make of this sign on a hotel wall in New York?

Pretty Is What Pretty Looks Like

My great niece (grand niece?--I'm never sure which term is correct) has a favorite word--in fact, it's nearly the only word she utters comprehensibly with a discernibly consistent meaning (c'mon, she's only 15 months old):  "pretty."

Red Easter eggs are "pretty."  Cookies of any kind are "pretty."  Ribbons, scarves and stuffed monkeys are "pretty."   Likewise, the edifices that she constructs with colored blocks, the squiggly lines she draws with crayons, the patterns she assembles with scraps of torn paper toweling. Whatever she approves of, wants to play with, or wishes to eat is pronounced,  equally and adamantly, "pretty."

She is thus well on her way to becoming a real human being, equating anything attractive or desirable with beauty--and anything "beautiful" with  goodness.  But is she also, thereby, falling victim to what Tolstoy denounced as a serious "delusion":  the notion that the terms beauty and goodness are somehow synonymous and denotatively congruent?

It is easy to see that the satisfaction of our appetites is the source of this conflation, since that which gives us pleasure appears, at least on the face of it, both attractive (beautiful) and valuable (good).  Only upon reflection (something we often resist) do we realize that our brain could be playing tricks on us, establishing an exact equivalency where only a partial coincidence can be legitimately deduced.

Take, for example, this syllogism--which, if we accept the validity of the initial premise, is sound:   All pleasurable things are good; Beautiful things are pleasurable.  Therefore, beautiful things are good.  

But tinker a bit with the distribution of terms, and we render the syllogism invalid--and silly:  All good things are pleasurable; Beautiful things are pleasurable; Therefore beautiful things are good.  

Or this syllogism, equally invalid because of the "somes" and "alls":    All beautiful things are good.  Some good things are not pleasurable. Therefore some beautiful things are not pleasurable.

We could go on and on, rearranging the premises, distributing, not distributing, or restricting the terms "pleasure," "goodness," "beauty." Ultimately, though, we must conclude that yes, beautiful things are pleasurable and yes, beautiful things are good.  But not ALL good things are pleasurable and, perhaps, not ALL beautiful things are good.  Partial coincidence, not exact equivalency.

Interestingly, despite her obsession with prettiness, my little niece herself must possess a vague awareness of this truth.  Though I have never heard her declare her mashed carrots to be "pretty," she seems nonetheless quite willing to consume them, thereby tacitly acknowledging that they possess some measure of "goodness."

Isn't it fascinating, then, how desperately we cling to our delusion of absolute equivalency and congruence?  I know that people sometimes say, "Pretty is as pretty does" (a dictum which rather too elliptically suggests an awareness that goodness transcends mere beauty).  But in our daily lives, we seldom behave in accordance with that soggy platitude.  Rather the opposite is true.  In fact, we just don't care whether there exists a moral dimension beyond beauty.  As Keats said, for us, "beauty is truth, truth beauty."

I suppose that this is the delusion that Tolstoy was speaking of: yes, we dimly sense that there might be something else, just as Lyla (my niece) dimly senses that her mashed carrots, though not pretty, might still be somehow good.  But how are we to know that good--if it gives us no pleasure--and satisfies no appetite either physical or intellectual? The quest is frustrating and, well, exhausting.  Ergo, most of us (I'm "pretty" sure) will simply read our People Magazines or collect our Grecian Urns, not worrying about what pretty does, but contenting ourselves with what pretty looks like.

So perhaps Keats was right again:  "That is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know."

Starbucks Reality

In a coffeehouse

I cyber

(mostly)

peer

excitement near

almost here

on(off)screen

seen

then not

(triple shot)

nearly real

feeling so

anticipated

hinted

whiffed

(decaffeinated)

A New Commandment

It's Maundy Thursday, 2012.  Odd that, until today, I had never really wondered about the origin of that strange name.

Most of the online sources I consulted agree that the term "Maundy" derives from the Latin mandatum via the Old French mandé (commandment) and refers to the "new"commandment ("Love one another, as I have loved you") which Jesus pronounced just after washing his disciples' feet on the evening before his death (interestingly, the only gospel to mention the foot-washing, John, almost completely neglects the iconic Last Supper).

Over my many flip-flopping years, I have attended sundry Maundy Thursday services--in my various religious avatars: Presbyterian, Catholic, Episcopalian.  And I was invariably deeply moved--whatever catechism I had most recently espoused--especially by the ceremonial foot-washing and the solemn stripping of the altar, in preparation for the bleak mourning of Good Friday. This is an intensely beautiful liturgy celebrating friendship, love, and self-sacrifice in the face of inevitable--and impending--death.

Sadly, I no longer participate, since I no longer find it possible to believe in the Christian "big picture"--those fundamentally cruel dogmas about an angry God demanding a blood atonement which he, himself (suddenly "loving") provides, but only for right believers.  On the other hand, humble, self-sacrificing love between humans, as a sustainer and comforter in the face of ineluctable, incomprehensible death--that I DO believe and embrace.

To put it another way, I feel that the Maundy Thursday ritual--taken alone and out of context--accords quite nicely with my current (rather melancholy) agnostic humanism.  Much more nicely than, say, the liturgies of Christmas or Good Friday or Easter--all of which emphasize Jesus' supposed divinity (a notion I cannot reconcile with what I actually know) rather than his humanity (a notion with which I can easily identify and sympathize).

Jesus was a good man.  And he died for no good reason.  People, powerful people, people in authority, were afraid of him, probably because he seemed to be able to influence UNpowerful people with ideas that were often unorthodox, inconsistent with received thinking.  He had the potential, at least, to be a trouble-maker, an agent provocateur.

But I doubt that such was his intent. I suspect, rather, that he simply got carried away--that one idea led to another and that, with the growing success of his preaching, he simply lost the freedom to control his destiny--he began to feel obliged to conform to the "self" that his vision--as interpreted by other people--dictated.  A carpenter from Nazareth brought to trial--for treason--before the Roman procurator?  It seems entirely preposterous.  Yet history is sprinkled, here and there, with similar tales--tales of free-thinkers and luminaries who, ultimately, became victims of the "legend" that they themselves had created:  Alexander, Caesar, Socrates, Joan of Arc, Napoleon, Martin Luther King, Gandhi.

So, on this Maundy Thursday, I mourn the loss of such a good man.  He faced death bravely, but with totally human awe and apprehension--while urging his friends to abjure hate and embrace love.  If his "new" commandment (mandatum) were the sole creed of Christianity, I could undoubtedly still call myself a Christian.  Hold that thought.  And as John Lennon sang, "Imagine..."

John 13:34.  A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.  

Foolish Consistency and Inconsistency

I maintain that both consistency and inconsistency can be equally "foolish."

When Emerson observed that a "foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds," he meant only that the genuinely wise person will not cling obstinately to an opinion which reason and evidence have proven faulty or false--such consistency, such conformity to outworn doctrines, would indeed be "foolish."  But he was NOT advocating INconsistency--for its own sake--or capriciousness--for the sake of social expediency--as an intellectual ideal.  Change your mind when you are convinced, by facts and common sense, that your previous position was wrong--that is moral honesty.  But remain true to yourself, reliant on your SELF and on the truth as you experience it, at a given time and in a given situation.

Thus, we can easily distinguish between a "wise" consistency--faithfulness to an abiding SELF--to one's reason, one's values, one's very identity as a person and a "foolish" consistency--blind allegiance to a superficial self--"what one has always said, what one has always done".

In the current political arena, such a foolish consistency is best personified by Rick Santorum--who, in his reflexive conformity to hoary, inherited dogma (both political and religious)--almost exactly fits Emerson's profile of a "little mind."

But what about Mitt Romney, you ask?  Surely, no one can accuse him of consistency, foolish or otherwise!  True. Neither, however, can we conclude that Mr. Romney's inconsistency is of the type that Emerson would have admired.

Because I am quite sure that, in Emerson's view, inconsistency, too, is frequently foolish and small-minded.  After all, if one cannot maintain a "wise" consistency in trusting one's own nature, one's own reason, one's own deepest values, then the resulting inconsistency can only be seen as vicious rather than virtuous:  as a very "foolish INconsistency."  Accordingly, Mr. Romney, who seems to adjust his views on a daily basis--in order to conform--not with any profound sense of SELF--but only with prevailing or politically-useful opinion--amounts to little more than chaff in the wind, foolishly inconsistent and, therefore, without significant weight or worth.

To summarize:

Santorum is conformist and small-minded in his foolish consistency.  Romney is conformist and small-minded in his foolish inconsistency.

Obviously, then, despite their loudly-proclaimed differences, the two candidates find themselves united not only in their Republicanism, but in a common bond of foolishness--a trait which, as Socrates noted (and Emerson would agree) is--alas--the sister of wickedness.

Married Friends

Some of my best friends are married.

They must have their reasons.  Or perhaps, for some people, marriage isn't a matter of "choice."  Perhaps their marriage-orientation was simply inborn, a genetically-inherited trait which no amount of expensive rehab or deprogramming could cure.

So I try to be open-minded, tolerant, liberal, non-judgmental.

Still, in the privacy of my celibate state, I at times cannot help feeling, well, superior--more advanced, more evolved.  Because somehow--and actually without any great struggle--I have managed to keep myself free from the oppressive (and primitive, it seems to me) legal and ethical bonds that so enthrall my matrimonially inclined friends.

Consequently, I am under absolutely no obligation to love, honor, cherish, or remain sexually faithful to anyone.  I have neither sired a child nor committed myself to nurture, support or motivate any wee mini-me's.  My life is blissfully mine to plan and organize--free from any responsibility toward others and independent of any whiny or needy "dependents."

Surely this solitary, autonomous, self-sufficient state is the ideal toward which civilization has been striving for millennia:  complete freedom for the individual to pursue his/her own happiness along any path of his/her choosing.

Here's how I see it:  in our long struggle for freedom, human beings have fought against and eventually overcome many forms of psychological, emotional, and physical enslavement.  We have fought against slavery itself--and in most places, we have triumphed.  We have fought against poverty, hunger, disease--and in much of the world, we have prevailed.  We have fought against religious intolerance--and we have made at least "some" progress--in places like Denmark and Vermont, anyway.  Finally, in 21st Century America, we are fighting against the most insidiously oppressive of ancient institutions--marriage and family--the final frontier in our quest to evolve into a freer, happier species.

Surely I need not remind my readers of the immeasurable pain and suffering caused by marriage and family throughout the ages.  The evidence is there--on the pages of all the Great Books, especially the Bible. Gratefully, then, I mutter every night, as I climb into my unshared bed, "God, I'm lucky to be alone!" (Honest, that is what I mutter.)

Of course, I understand that, even today, our society remains committed (albeit reluctantly) to producing and rearing children.  I suppose, therefore, that a breeding program of some kind will continue to be a cultural necessity, at least until medical advances can guarantee eternal life to all individuals already in existence.

But why not replace the archaic and dysfunctional marriage/family with a more efficient  and more rational breeding/rearing system?  I'm not advocating Brave New World decanting, mind you, but it does seem to me that a truly "evolved" society should immediately remove all newborn children from parents (who from time immemorial have proven themselves utterly incompetent at raising children) and placed in the care of trained experts--to be brought up in schools or asylums, where they can be properly socialized and taught both good hygiene and proper spelling.

Indeed, as my own example as a trained "rearer" suggests, our society seems to be moving in this positive and progressive direction.


Nonetheless, loyalty to old ways dies hard.  Many people--indeed, almost half the adults of the United States--according to recent statistics--cling, at least intermittently and sometimes even hysterically, to some form of traditionally dysfunctional marriage (with or without children)

Well, that is regrettable.  But, as I said before, we must nonetheless endeavor to be tolerant of these seemingly backward individuals--for in fact, the marriage orientation may be innate, something my married friends could simply not exorcise, hard as they might strain.

In short, it behooves those of us who are more evolved and liberated to, as the saying goes, "hate the sin, but love the sinner."

I, for instance, play cards with married people; I go to restaurants with married people; I even send Christmas cards to married people.

And, when I was still working at Diamond Bar High School, I uncomplainingly taught the children of married people--treating them exactly as I treated the children of more enlightened people who were shacking up without shackles.  Furthermore, if some disgruntled student hazarded a derogatory remark about married people or family life, I was quick to silence the offending child.  I would point out that marriage and family, though rejected by an increasing majority of forward-looking Americans, were nonetheless cherished by a significant minority--including many gays and lesbians who were seeking new experiences in BDSM.  I accordingly demanded respect for differing viewpoints and lifestyles.

Then, just to make the lesson stick, I generally confessed that "some of my best friends" were married.

That always got 'em.

Dispassionate Conservatism

As dispassionately as possible, I would like to discuss conservatism.

Conservatism rules the airwaves.  Fox News, far from being "fair and balanced," feeds its viewers a steady stream of conservative viewpoints and spins; the rival candidates for the Republican presidential nomination exhaust themselves trying to out-conservative one another; right-wing politicians, legislators and bloggers fill both real and cyber space with conservative creeds and screeds.

What does it all mean?  What IS a conservative?  And why do so many Americans seem to believe that conservatives--unlike frequently-denounced liberals and even moderates--are somehow the "good guys"?  ARE they the good guys?

I grew up in a small midwestern town where the term "conservative" was usually applied to someone who dealt honestly with others, paid his bills, went to church and didn't entertain any newfangled ideas about how to run things.  "Liberals," on the other hand, were thought to be dreamers, risk-takers, gamblers and, perhaps, even atheists--bad guys, in short. Naturally, nearly everybody in Lewiston, Minnesota, regarded himself as a conservative--i.e., a solid, respectable, law-abiding citizen.

And a good guy.

John Kenneth Galbraith took note of the conservative's preoccupation with being "good"   He famously wrote that the "modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."  In other words, as Galbraith implies, the typical conservative has a nagging sense of guilt about his interactions with others.  He (the conservative) senses that his actions are not, in any absolute sense, particularly admirable--that they are, in fact, selfish and even blameworthy--intended to benefit himself and his family, quite often at the expense of  others.  Accordingly, in an effort to assuage his guilty conscience, the conservative engages in compensatory do-gooding and moral posturing, which cost him relatively little and which allow him to justify his (objectively unjustifiable) propensity to take advantage of the weakness of others.  This is often called "compassionate conservatism"--probably because "being nice" and "giving to charity" are involved.  However, since true compassion--"co-suffering"--denotes actual fellow -feeling and real self-sacrifice, neither of which conservatives are likely to embrace, the term "compassionate conservatism" strikes me as a good example of Orwellian doublethink.

Then, too, above and beyond his no-real-cost philanthropy, the conservative often seeks to perfume his smelly behavior with the incense of holiness.  As Salmon Rushdie observes, "the idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas -- uncertainty, progress, change -- into crimes."  In other words, a particularly guilt-ridden conservative will, with great self-righteousness, proclaim that God himself (in his holy Bible, Koran, Torah, Oracle of Delphi) has decreed that any deviation from the status quo, any reform in which the conservative can no longer dominate, any attempt to make wealth flow away from rather than toward the conservative worshiper, is quite simply evil.  

And thus arises a great and tragic irony: whole branches of our organized religions--religions founded by genuinely compassionate (and radical) people preaching self-sacrifice, co-suffering and change --have been hijacked and subverted by conservatives. Seeking to clothe their greed in vestments of sanctity and  ignoring Jesus' admonitions to share with the poor and tend to the sick, these "prosperity gospel" Christians find Galbraith's "moral justification for selfishness" in Rushdie's "idea of the sacred." 

Is this an over-generalization?  A too-sweeping explanation of the conservative psychology?  Perhaps.  I know, for instance, that not all conservatives are religious--though, in my personal experience, most are. Certainly there are some who feel, à la Ayn Rand, that selfishness is an objective and rational value, implicit in the very order of the universe and that, as such, it requires no apology and no moral justification.  Others, who may or may not be religious, fear that any change (apart from a personal salary increase) might diminish their rank in the social hierarchy.  Paradoxically, such conservatives generally occupy a very low rung on the socio-economic ladder.  Nonetheless, they resolutely oppose reforms, even those that might improve their own lot, because they fear that others--lower still on the ladder--might thereby leapfrog over them to a higher rung.  According to The Scientific American this "last place aversion" accounts for a lot of the conservatism-cum-racism found in poor, rural, economically-depressed areas.  Everyone wants to have someone to look down on.

So let me try to conclude in some way.  Lincoln, endeavoring to validate the radically transformative Emancipation Proclamation, wrote, "What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried?"  Yes, for a variety of reasons--usually involving untrammeled selfishness and /or the fear of losing something--conservatism is indeed "adherence to the old and tried."  And furthermore, especially in its American avatar, this conservatism frequently avails itself of religion to justify its almost fanatical aversion to the "new and untried." 

How odd that Lincoln, the first Republican president, ''conserved'' the Union by defying the very principles of conservatism, by trying new things, by getting laws changed, by co-suffering.  Accordingly, he may have been the first--and, quite possibly, the last--"compassionate conservative."