Martyrs, Murderers, Heroes and Psychopaths

Another mass shooting, this time in San Bernardino by two Islamic extremists.  Before that, a mass shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic by a Christian extremist. And of course there are others before those too numerable to mention, from heinous elementary school slaughters to movie theater massacres. Are these people psychopaths, murderers, heroes or martyrs?  The sad truth is that they are all of the above.

I read a book several years ago about the Columbine shootings.  The author provided evidence that the two boys were psychopaths, not just troubled teenagers who had somehow been traumatized into a murderous rampage by adolescent grievances.  These types of killings (Sandy Hook, Colorado Movie Theater, Virginia Tech, etc. etc.) are clearly the result of twisted minds.

How does someone shoot down people in cold blood without being somewhat of a psychopath?  Even in moments of burning rage, I cannot imagine doing what these people have done.

The perpetrators of these ghastly crimes come from very different backgrounds and appear to have a wide variety of motives.  For some, the act must simply be an expression of a deep sickness and tortured soul.  For others, the act is inspired by some sort of political or religious zeal – white supremacy, radical Islam, radical Christian or others.  In decades past, revolutionary and ideological fervor was often the cause of such attacks.

We cannot ignore the fact that human beings are violent creatures.  When we line up on opposite sides based on tribe, or country or ideology or religion, we do not hesitate to commit the most hideous torture and murder imaginable.

The assailants in Paris a few weeks ago were generally miscreants with criminal backgrounds.  But somehow they were converted to deep religious belief that inspired them to kill innocent people and sacrifice their own lives in the process.  The murderous San Bernardino couple is a bit more troubling.  They did not appear to have the traits of psychopaths or criminals, but were somehow convinced that the community around them was their enemy and that the murder of their colleagues was justified.  They probably believed they were doing a noble deed in the cause of their faith.  And they will be hailed as heroes and martyrs by more than a few people.

At first this seems irrational.  How can the murder of innocents ever be justified?  But of course every government rationalizes the murder of innocents in its efforts to implement its military and political goals.  Oh no, you say, we never purposely target innocent civilians.  Sadly, though, that is not true.  We try to ‘minimize’ collateral damage, but the cold calculus of war often ‘requires’ the sacrifice of innocents.  In World War II, the allies purposely targeted civilian populations and killed millions of ‘innocent’ civilians in order to break the will of the enemy.  War has no conscience.

We are always at war; at war against Islamic extremists, at war against Christian extremists, at war against Hindu extremists, at war against white supremacists, at war against drug gangs and cartels.  One group’s madman is another’s hero.  Many of the horrible deeds are done by psychopaths, but some are done by thoughtful, introspective intellectuals.  The human psyche is still a mystery.

We make heroes out of killers, because they further our cause.  Is a Navy seal who kills whomever he is ordered to kill under any circumstances a hero or a villain?  He is both.  We are all capable of becoming killers.  I would kill to protect my family, or perhaps even to avenge it.  And so it goes on.

How many potential Islamic extremist killers are out there, waiting for the opportunity to wreak their mayhem on our society?  How many Christian extremists, or anti-government nutjobs are sitting in their gun-filled basements, preparing for mayhem and destruction?  We just don’t know.

But one thing we do know:  only a tiny, tiny fraction of the Muslims in the U.S. will ever commit a violent act, and only a tiny, tiny fraction of the Christians in the U.S. will do the same.  Will we allow ourselves to abandon our principles of fair treatment, multi-culturalism and a free society in a desperate and futile attempt to feel safe?  I hope not.  The world will never be totally safe.  We are infinitely more likely to die young from an auto accident or an illness than from a terrorist act.

In the end, we must choose love over hate, while doing our best to stay safe and prevent these tragedies from occurring.  We are awash in weapons, in hateful speech and uncontrolled emotions.  We must learn from the best models available how to preserve our democracy while being vigilant. Compromise is in order - let's allow the NSA to listen more closely so that we can identify potential terrorists of any stripe (and put safeguards in to avoid misuse of that data), but let's also get rid of every military style weapon in the country.  Australia and Scotland did it and they have reaped the rewards.  Let's learn from others!

John Lennon is Dead

As the 35th anniversary of John Lennon's death approaches, I thought I would post something I wrote in the days after his shooting:

John Lennon is Dead

That the death of John Lennon would first reach my ears through the rasping medium of a Howard Cosell monologue is a droll footnote to a sad tale. I don't know why I was watching Monday Night Football. It was one of those evenings that shatter one's pretensions of self-discipline and purpose.  I had probably contemplated reading a good book but ended up giving in to the addiction of my youth.

It was the week before final exams, and Boston had grown very cold and subdued.  The initial gaiety of the post-Thanksgiving preparations for Christmas had already subsided and the city was caught in that funny period between the two holidays.  No matter how hard the merchants and admen try, they cannot obliterate that dead zone in early December.

But Monday Night Football was impervious to the subtleties of the season, and Howard and Dandy Don Meredith were still in their heyday.  When the announcement was made, it reached millions of people and its stunning effect swept across the country.

My first reaction was shock.  Assassination was not an end I could imagine for John Lennon.   Rock stars had not fared well in the 70's, but they generally died from drug overdoses and motorcycle accidents, which were more like a professional hazard.  Being stalked and gunned down by an assassin cast Lennon's death in a very different light.

The initial shock began to transform itself into focused emotions, the most striking of which was a deep aching melancholy. I began to phone friends, passing the grim news and sharing memories of a youth that seemed suddenly to have ended.

My earliest associations with music centered around the Beatles.  In 1964 I was ten years old.  My sister was an authentic screaming-teen-beatlemaniac. Every day after school she would drag me down into our basement and we would play Beatle 45s until Mom yelled down that it was time for dinner.

Sometimes we would dance and she would show me the latest moves - the monkey, the jerk, the watusi. And always we would memorize, song after song, verse upon verse.  I can still sing along with scores of Beatle songs, rarely missing a word.

After the Beatles' conquest of the U.S., I left the tutelage of my sister and forged my own relationship with the Fab Four. In school I was a recognized Beatle expert. I led the Beatles songs in the bus on field trips. Three friends and I joined together as a pretend Beatles group, and the girls in our class were willing to pretend right along with us, so powerful was the elixir of Beatlemania.

By the end of 1965 the album Rubber Soul had come, and with it a transition out of the cuteness and innocence of their early image.  I was horrified by their longer and disheveled hair and the unabashed display of smoking on the album cover.  But the new sound in their music enchanted me and soon I was growing and changing too, just a few paces behind the lads from Liverpool.

Junior high, with its painful initiation into the rites of social intercourse, was the time when music first became a solace to my oft-injured soul.  And though I did not understand the details of their own quest - their age and sophistication were well beyond my tender years - somehow the combination of rebellion and truth-seeking in the Beatles music was comprehensible and comforting to me. I was searching too.

By the time I reached high school and began grappling with the issues of war, civil rights and social justice, the Beatles were in the final stages of collapse as a group. I have never regretted their breakup.  The Beatles had been able to stay one step ahead of the "rock impressarios" up to that time, but it was inevitable that they would have become yet another big business band and a monument to self-parody had they continued.

I continued to listen to Beatle music through college and beyond.  Though my interest in rock music offered up other heroes it was never the same. Other groups might capture my feelings for a few months or even a few years, but the Beatles were like lifelong good friends.  We had learned about the world together and nothing would ever change that.

Those four British boys were uniquely gifted as a group, creating songs and a sound that were far greater than the sum of the parts.  Their solo efforts never came close.  There was plenty of individual talent, and a generous portion of charm and wit, but their incredible impact on this world was circumstantial - a perfect union of those mystical forces that create an historical moment.

The day after the shooting, I walked over to MIT and found that Lennon's death was the topic of every conversation.  All of my friends and co-workers were grieving in some fashion. Radio stations played nothing but Beatle music and stores were quickly sold out of every Beatle album. In a review session that I attended, an Iranian graduate student announced, with eyes glistening, that he was dedicating the session to the memory of John Lennon.

Throughout that day and the next few, I wrestled with my memories of the Beatles and tried to reconcile sentiment with reason. John Lennon, whatever his faults or vanities, had stubbornly spoken for the idealist in all of us.  Why can't we just give peace a chance?  Why can't we imagine a world without war or hatred?

On the Sunday following his death, a rally and candle vigil was held in downtown Boston at Copley Square - timed to coincide with a worldwide ten minutes of silence for the fallen legend. The day was brutally cold, but still thousands came.

The embers of the 60s had smoldered and glowed throughout the 70s. Many had hoped that the gentle integrity of Jimmy Carter might fan them into life again, but it was not to be. Then, suddenly, a reaction of cynical pragmatism gripped the nation. Dreams of social equality and international peace were abandoned in a frenzy of greed and nationalism.

The year 1980 rang the death knell for the innocent questing spirit of the 60s.  The Soviets were in Afghanistan, the hostages were in Iran, and a disgruntled public voted in Ronald Reagan as president a month before the death of John Lennon.

The Beatles had served as an alter-ego for our generation. And now, a part of them was dead, shot down as if to exclaim once and for all the absurdity of believing that love could change the world.

The cold and the wind forced the crowd to huddle together for the ten minutes of silence.  The closeness had an electric effect, and I could see many around me weeping, yet smiling through their tears. I felt those twin currents of hope and despair surging through the crowd, but somehow the mood was triumphant. It was the end of an era, but love would carry the day.

Vanity, Envy and Competition, Part 4

We have explored how our vanity and insecurity are the yin and yang of our praise addiction.  But how do envy and competition fit into this psychological constellation?

We are all familiar with envy – it is a reflex feeling almost as natural as breathing.  We envy the rich; we envy the famous; we envy the guy next door with the Tesla.  We envy our friends who take exotic vacations, or whose kids are going to better colleges.  We envy people who are taller, or thinner or smarter or more athletic.  We envy our classmates who have risen higher on the corporate ladder.  We envy the guy who gets the pretty girls, or the girl who gets the pretty guys!

Sometimes we are able to talk ourselves out of feeling envious.  Intellectually, we know that the rich are often not very happy, and that money and possessions are not the source of well-being.  But our culture celebrates wealth – the more the better – so our gut reaction is to be envious of those who have it.  And envying physical attributes is another lovely side effect of our cultural baggage.  Perfect bodies and faces stare out at us from every corner of the media and chip away at our self-image.

Is envy a character defect?  Are some people able to overcome the insidious urge to envy by strength of will and confidence in their own accomplishments and life situation?  I suspect that everyone falls prey to envy on a fairly routine basis.  In moments of weakness or uncertainty, at times of depression, at times when we feel that ache of regret for opportunities squandered or lacking, or even just in the routine of daily thought, the temptation to wish for something that others seem to have is poised to creep into our consciousness unsolicited, unwanted and even dreaded.  No one wants to be envious, but we are powerless in the face of so many stimuli that awaken the feeling.

Why is it so difficult for us to be satisfied with our lives? Most of us live like kings compared to much of the world.  We should feel triumphant in the amazing good fortune that has been thrust upon us.  Yet envy is always lurking, ready to poison our hearts in a weak moment.

But perhaps a certain amount of envy is a good thing?  Is envy a precursor to ambition?  Is it envy that seeds our competitive drive and enables us to strive for ever higher goals?  Is it indeed envy that is the engine for human progress?  Or is envy a weakness that corrupts our character and paralyzes us?

To investigate these questions we must go back once again to look at human activity and analyze its motivations.  Human beings are so incredibly diverse in their energy levels and drive.  Some people are in constant motion, with a seemingly inexhaustible ambition to accomplish things.  Others seem permanently lethargic with almost no discernible goal or interest.  Are these innate attributes, or are they the result of our interaction with the world and the way that our ego responds to it?

We observed previously that some part of our lives is focused on the banalities of daily existence – sleeping, eating, basic chores and so on - and some part on pleasurable activities.  A third part is comprised of the endeavors that set us in competition with our fellow human beings – work, sports, education, the arts and many others.

Some of the effort we expend for these activities is certainly motivated by the pure joy of doing them.  But we soon encounter the competitive aspect and our motivations become mixed.  And the more successful we are in these activities, the more the competitive urge dominates.

Are we competitive because we envy the success of others or is there a basic drive independent of envy?  We speak of the competitive urge as though it were an innate quality.  An athlete is a ‘real competitor’.  A successful businessman has ‘a strong competitive instinct’. 

We laud these qualities in our culture.  The more competitive the better.  We develop our children’s competitive nature from their earliest days in sports, games and school, then later in business.  Competition is so integrally bound with praise, vanity and envy that it is almost impossible to isolate the pure quality of competitiveness.

I was recently watching a PBS special on how the chemical elements were discovered.  In interviews or writings of each of the famous scientists it was edifying to note that their initial fascination and activity was prompted by intellectual curiosity, but that their later almost obsessive hard work and tenacity was characterized by a desire to become renowned, to make their mark on the world of chemistry and have their contribution acknowledged by one and all.

It is clear that competition is interwoven with vanity, envy and praise in the complex web of human endeavor.   But it may also be that we are driven to compete by some basic biological imperative for survival and propagation of the species.  Competition has been the engine of human progress, hasn’t it?

But competition also leaves much human misery and heartache in its wake.  Is that inevitable?  Is the world always to be populated by winners and losers?  Is competition necessary to prevent human beings from descending into sloth and indolence?  Or is there an evolutionary process toward cooperation and community that may one day replace competition as the primary motivation for humankind?

That is the question we shall explore in the final segment of Vanity, Envy and Competition.  Stay tuned!

On Refugees and Migrants

One of the profoundly unsettling consequences of global communication and social media is the way it shatters our illusions about how compassionate we are and shines a spotlight on our own selfishness and impotence.  The entire world was heartbroken at the sight of two drowned boys and a despairing father from Syria, but our despair seems to have no outlet, no path to right these horrible wrongs or to prevent them from happening over and over again.

We donate money to various aid organizations, but this tiny gesture seems sadly anemic in the face of the horrific political and military forces that shatter the lives of so many human beings.  Is it our fate to become inured to the misery that this world so often causes, to close off our hearts in an effort to shield ourselves from pangs of conscience?  Can we assuage our guilt with modest sympathetic declarations and monetary contributions?

It is particularly frustrating that years of economic development and steady improvement of living conditions can be wiped out in a few months by a despot or a rogue militia group.  The world looks on in helpless outrage, but short of sending in ground troops and undertaking major military operations – an operation that few are willing or able to undertake after the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan – there is almost nothing to be done other than to try to be compassionate to the desperate souls who flee.

We try to distinguish between refugees and migrants, but I would argue that when we look deeply at the causes, these descriptions become a distinction without a difference.  In theory, a refugee is someone fleeing because it is no longer safe for them to remain in their country.  A migrant is someone who is ‘merely’ seeking a better life – migrating to a more prosperous country than the one they inhabited.

But both refugees and migrants are risking their lives and what little fortune they have managed to accumulate in the same desperate and dangerous voyage.  And they are both almost always the victims of corrupt political systems that have squandered the country’s economic resources, or of anarchic, civil war conditions that make normal commerce impossible to sustain.  Almost all of the significant migrations are in the end the result of politics and/or war – Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Mali, Sudan, even Mexico and Central America.

Is a migrant with no opportunity to improve his life so different from a refugee fleeing for his?  If you cannot put food on the table in your native land and have no hope for improvement because of years of political corruption or civil war, is your quest for a new life any less worthy than that of a person whose life is similarly devastated but perhaps in more immediate danger?

The statue of liberty and Ellis Island stand as symbols of America’s long history of accepting immigrants and transforming them into the engine of the U.S. economy.  But these immigrants were never really ‘welcomed’, were they?  Every immigrant group that came to these shores suffered tremendous hardship and prejudice – the Irish, the Germans, the Jews, the Italians, the Chinese and so on.  There were always concerns that the ‘pure’ nature of American society would somehow be diminished by these ‘hordes’ of new citizens. Yet we prospered by the infusion, and still do.

As long as the gulf in this world between rich and poor nations is so large and the incidence of mayhem and war so great, there will be large movements of people willing or forced to risk all to find a better life.  And it is only human that those who are already enjoying the peace and prosperity of a favored land will jealously guard their treasure and good fortune from new aspirants.

But sadly, this refugee and migrant crisis is now even more complex because of an increasing skepticism by many that assimilation is not really occurring for many ethnic and religious groups, and that countries willing to host them are taking a risk for future conflict and possible terrorism within their borders.

Germany has been the rare example of a courageous voice for setting aside suspicions and reservations to do the right thing.  It is an historical irony, but an inspiring one, that the country whose past was the very essence of ethnic purity and intolerance is now the leading advocate for humane and charitable treatment of the many different groups looking toward it as a beacon of hope.

In the end we must all overcome our fears and doubts and welcome the stranger if we aspire to our better natures and a better world.  For we are the fortunate ones who won the random lottery of birth and circumstance.  In no situation it is more accurately stated: there but for the grace of God go I.  But it will require all of the humanity that we can muster to embrace the spirit of the poem that adorns our Statue of Liberty: 

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Vanity, Envy and Competition Part 3

We have talked about how vanity and insecurity are the poles of our daily wrestling with our ego, and about how our unquenchable thirst for praise drives it all.  We are creatures that need to be loved, and we can only imagine being loved if we are praiseworthy.

But what about unconditional love?  Doesn’t almost every religion and every self-help philosophy stress the concept of unconditional love or self-worth?  Aren’t we told that we are beautiful creatures who deserve to be loved regardless of our faults and weaknesses, independent of our achievements, wealth and fame?  Of course we are, but do we believe it?

How can we possibly believe it when we are assaulted on every front by the merciless score keeping of the culture around us?  Intellectually and rationally we may convince ourselves in a quiet moment that the world’s values are wrong, that we should be content with our lives and ourselves, that God loves us equally.  But the reassuring tranquility of that moment vanishes in a heartbeat when the long-cultivated habits of our striving are awakened by a simple pretentious comment from an acquaintance or a quick perusal of one’s class notes in a college alumni magazine.

Expressing one’s vanity is sometimes viewed very positively.  We call it self-confidence.  But there is a fine line between self-confidence and arrogance.  An athlete can be a little bit ‘cocky’, but too much is considered bad form.  The line has been drawn ever farther on the side of cockiness since Muhammad Ali declared to anyone who would listen (and isn’t it amazing how we all did!) that he was the greatest.  I remember the old bromide ‘no brag just fact’, which supposedly justified bragging when one was truly capable.  But why brag even then?  Who really cares and what is one accomplishing?

Expressions of cockiness and other less attractive forms of braggadocio seem mostly to reek of insecurity and a desperate need for praise.  In our society bragging has been elevated to an art form, often best described as pretentiousness.  Its subtleties are mastered over a lifetime, though it is a skill that in the end gives only the most tenuous of pleasures and often leaves one feeling disgusted with oneself.

But we also prize humility, which is in itself a very elusive quality.  The minute we seek humility, it often eludes us.  For in seeking humility we may succumb to the temptation of feeling superior to others who are not so humble!  One of my favorite joke-illustrations is the story of the two priests praying at the altar in the church.  The senior priest prays out loud ‘Have mercy upon me, Lord, I am nothing . . .’.  The younger priest, much affected by the older priest’s humility cries out ‘And have mercy upon me, Lord, for I too am nothing’.  In the back of the church, a janitor who has witnessed the prayers of these great men of God falls to his knees and joins in ‘And upon me, Lord, for I am also nothing.’   The younger Priest looks at the older Priest, rolling his eyes and says ‘Look who thinks he’s nothing!’

The quality of true humility must be almost an unconscious attribute, or at least one must be exceedingly careful in adorning oneself with it.  Vanity often cloaks itself with humility.  If the quest for humility is to avoid the endless sparring of social bragging and to pull away from all the nonsense of comparisons, then it is indeed a ‘consolation devoutly to be wished’.  But beware, soon your friends will be describing you as humble.  Then you may find that you are inwardly thrilled to be praised in such a manner and make the sad discovery that your humility has fled!

Demagoguery, Anger and Politics

I have often wondered what it was like to live in Germany during the late 1920’s and early 1930’s, to see the tentacles of Nazism wrap themselves around daily life and begin to control all social and political discourse.  We see Hitler and his henchmen as such evil and detestable characters today that it is difficult for us to imagine how they could have seized power in one of the most educated and sophisticated countries in the world.

Was Hitler a ridiculous figure at first to most people?  Did everyone find his ravings amusing and good fodder for parody?  At what point did people become aware that his following was growing rapidly and that his brown shirts were a real and terrifying force?  Did ordinary people shrug their shoulders and acknowledge that Hitler had tapped into a deep anger and frustration, never thinking that he might actually force his way into the halls of power?  At what point did they begin to realize that this was not just humorous political theater?

Donald Trump leads the polls for the Republican nomination.  When he announced his candidacy, politicians on the left and right smiled patronizingly and predicted that he would provide good entertainment, but certainly no serious threat.  Recently, Jeb Bush acknowledged that Trump was ‘tapping into anti-establishment anger’, but his campaign staff is apparently delighted by Trump’s strong showing, believing that the more successful and poisonous Trump is, the more Jeb will be cast as the ‘serious’ antidote candidate.

What is all this anger about anyway?  Political issues have always sparked emotional responses, but the anger and the paranoia these days seem to be at fever pitch.  Are people angry about the economy, about slow job growth?  Well, certainly the economy could be better and there are not enough middle class jobs, but the economy doesn’t seem to be in the kind of horrible shape that would cause deep anger.  Is the anger all about our foreign affairs?  Does anyone think there are easy answers to the morass of international issues any administration faces?  Perhaps the anger is about social issues - gay rights, promiscuity, religion or abortion?  Or perhaps about the changing face of America – the immigration of Hispanic, Asian and African people, legal or illegal.  But all of this seems manageable, not justifying the very visceral anger that seems to lurk under the surface across America.

It is almost as though people enjoy being angry, even about issues that are abstractions and far removed from their daily lives and pleasures; that there is an insidious temptation to look for the dark side and revel in rumors of plots, conspiracies and apocalyptic events.  I have seen blogs and comments that indicate an unfeigned joy at the thought of armed struggle in the United States.  Over what?!!

I suspect that identifying with a demagogue and his or her associated causes is a way to find meaning in an otherwise banal and uneventful life.  It is a means to deflect self-hatred or regret and to aim this energy and fury at perceived enemies.   It is also a way to escape the relentless change that our society is undergoing and the huge effort required, both intellectual and emotional, for people to adjust – the change in our cultural identity, the change in technology, the change in sexual mores, the change in employment models, etc. etc.

It seems alarmist to worry about a Nazi type of demagoguery and anger taking hold in the U.S. today.  We have a long history of peaceful political dialogue that resists violence even when tempers and passions are at meter pegging levels.  But is it really that far-fetched?  It is difficult to discern whether Donald Trump is a harmless buffoon or a dangerous megalomaniac.  People who are so certain of themselves and so unwilling to accept ambiguity and nuance in the world are unpredictable.

I take comfort in the fact that most likely Donald Trump will self-destruct in the coming months and be recognized by the good American people for the blowhard that he is.  But there is just enough charisma in the man and just enough wingnuts in the land to make one wonder whether this could be the beginning of a very strange and very frightening odyssey.

Vanity, Envy and Competition Part 2

Freud introduced a model of the psyche that was based on concepts of the id, ego and super-ego.  The id is defined as the primal, instinctual desires and impulses that every human being has.  The ego acts to mediate between the id and reality.  Freud said the ego is like a man on horseback, controlling the superior power of the id based on real circumstances and needs.  The super-ego is similar to conscience, an internalization of cultural rules and standards that is developed over time. The ego must balance the id and super-ego, thus careening from passion to guilt to joy to sorrow.

When we speak of egotism, we recognize that in our most primitive state we are focused on our own needs and desires.  Even with the modifying influences of the super-ego and the social contract that our environment imposes, we cannot help but be egotistical to some degree.  But why does this egotism so often express itself in competition or comparison to others, and why do our self-image and contentment become so entangled in those comparisons?

As infants we are trained to seek approval and affirmation.  We squeal in delight as our parents lavish praise upon us – ‘What a good baby!’, ‘What a smart baby!’, ‘Look at you crawling!’, ‘Look at you talking!’ and on and on.  We learn to equate praise with love.  To be loved is to be happy, therefore to be praised is to be happy. And so it begins.

At first, this praise is focused on individual achievement that is unrelated to other human beings.  But soon enough our parents, teachers, coaches and others begin to praise us for being better than someone else – the best grade in the class, the best time in the 100m freestyle, the one who scored the goal, the one who solved the puzzle, the pretty one, the sexy one (well, that comes a little later one would hope!)

Eventually, the pleasure of praise becomes an addiction.  When this praise is not as fluidly forthcoming as it was in early childhood, our ego seeks out implicit praise by establishing our own internal evaluations that we must constantly validate.  Even if we are not explicitly praised by others, we assume that they are praising us if we are smarter, faster, better looking, have better clothes, have a nicer car, have a higher paying job, go to a better school.

Our culture heaps praise on the winners.  Even once we are beyond the tender, innocent praise of our parents, the monster of our addiction grows unfettered as every facet of our lives is weighed in the scale of cultural significance and we are assigned our rank.

Where our parents’ guileless indoctrination leaves off, the media and the culture take over.  Every magazine, movie and television image tempts us with comparisons – do we have the right clothes, the right car, the right house?  Do we eat at the best restaurants, do we vacation at the best locations, are our careers noteworthy? 

Most of consumer advertising is based on producing a feeling of inadequacy that must be transformed into contentment by the acquisition of various material items.  But even non-advertising media tend to reinforce society’s valuation of people based on comparisons.

As infants, we strive to grow and learn from instinct and a native curiosity.  But as we grow older, our efforts become more goal driven, and often that goal is to garner accolades from some quarter or to attain some measure of status.  We may play a sport because we love the game, but once success comes, the relentless practice and ambition is certainly motivated in part by a desire for renown and praise. 

In many of our endeavors, it is difficult to separate our own joy in an activity from the desire to be acclaimed for our efforts.  And the more acclaim we receive the more we need it.  It is truly an addiction.  We see it again and again with the most successful and famous.  Does Donald Trump want to become President because of an altruistic desire to help the nation?  Don’t make me laugh!  His vanity compels him!  He is not content to be one of the richest men on earth because the addiction he has is even larger than his wealth.

Vanity is defined by Webster as excessive pride in one’s appearance, qualities, abilities or achievements.  I would modify this definition by taking out the word excessive.  All pride for oneself is vanity.  Being happy or content with one’s appearance, achievements, etc. is fine. But to me the word pride implies a comparison with others.  And once that act of comparison begins, where does it end?

Our vanity is not just a pleasure-seeking mechanism.  It is also a futile attempt to avoid the discomfort of our insecurity.  Vanity and insecurity are the ying and yang of our daily social interactions and internal struggles.  We are locked in an unending pendulum swing from one to the other.

The irony of vanity is that from a rational point of view it makes almost no sense.  What we are praising and seeking and feeling is for the most part a purely random act of nature.  Have you ever noticed that one of the highest forms of praise is:  ‘He got an A on that test and he didn’t even have to study!’, or ‘He is an incredible natural athlete!’  How absurd!!  If he didn’t study, then his achievement is solely on the basis of his native intelligence, which was an accident of birth.  The same is true of the natural athlete.  We are celebrating luck!  There is no merit here, only a fact of genetics.

So much of our vanity centers on natural endowment – beauty, intelligence, athleticism. Even such traits as energy, ambition, and drive are probably heavily influenced by our genetic makeup.  Yet we celebrate them and seek acknowledgement of our good fortune in the thousand interactions where we subtly or explicitly proclaim our accomplishments.

Is there human activity that is not sullied by the curse of vanity?  Of course!  Fortunately, there are many moments where we are liberated from this vicious cycle and can revel in the joys of this world.  But sadly the effects are prone to hang over us like a dark cloud and plague us in the quiet moments when we contemplate our life’s value and meaning.

Vanity, Envy and Competition - Part 1

“I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.” 

This verse from Ecclesiastes, ostensibly written by King Solomon, is a pretty complete dismissal of mankind’s striving.  The fact that Solomon, who had achieved so much in his life, was so cynical about human effort, is pretty sobering.

Not long after I started college something focused my attention on the large role that vanity plays in our lives and I have been in equal parts fascinated and horrified by it ever since.

In writing this little piece of analysis, I am somewhat fearful of exposing myself as a terribly vain and insecure person, but I am fairly certain that I am not unusual in this regard, so I will take the risk.  After all, Solomon is pretty good company!

I had grown up in the heart of the 60’s and my high school years were a far cry from today’s cauldron of competition and egomania.  Few of my classmates worried about grades and we certainly didn’t talk about them. Even the dreaded SAT’s were fairly low key.  We were more worried about the Vietnam War than getting into college and we focused much of our energy and thoughts on the social changes around us.

Now of course no adolescence is complete without the ‘thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to’ during this period – the social hierarchy and posturing, the gain and loss of friends, the athletic competition and so on.  But I do believe my generation’s experience, particularly in the realm of competition and pressure, is a cakewalk in comparison with the gauntlet that today’s youth must run.

However, when I went off to Stanford (okay, already a pretentious remark – this is, after all, a piece about vanity!) in 1972 I soon encountered a much more obvious strain of vanity than I had experienced before.  And I say this believing strongly that the Stanford of my day cannot hold a candle to the super citadel of ego that Stanford is today (see my blog entry on Stepford University - http://www.rvgeiger.blogspot.com/2014/11/stepford-university.html - for more on that!).

My classmates were subtly (and occasionally, quite brazenly) probing one another for details on SAT scores, family wealth, travel experiences and a host of other scoring factors to determine the relative pecking order.  Even drug experiences and joint-rolling prowess could potentially establish one’s superiority or uniqueness in a group that was filled with super achievers.

This is not to say that we spent all of our time engaging in such nonsense.  But it happened often enough that it made an impression on me.  I found myself envying some of my fellow students their wealth or social position.  Some could speak foreign languages and I soon felt inadequate in this arena.  I was repulsed by the posturing whenever I encountered it, but I found that I was not above subtly bragging when the opportunity came my way. 

Yet the irony was that bragging and pretension did not produce a positive feeling in either the bragger or the reluctant recipient.  Why then, were we so apt to engage in it? What possible benefit were we deriving?  What horrible psychological problem was at the root of it all?

And thus began my investigation into the complex web of vanity, envy and competition that is both the curse and the driving force for much of human endeavor.  I am not quite vain enough to believe that I have anything unique or definitive to say on the subject, but I have done enough thinking in this area to pose some interesting questions for my readers to ponder.  More to come.

The Insolence of Time

When I was a young boy I was playing football with a group of friends on a lush lawn covered with leaves one autumn afternoon.  I was experiencing such immense joy.  As the light began to fade, I wanted so badly to keep playing and to somehow have time suspended so that this incredibly fun game would not have to end.  But of course it did end . . .

Time is the merciless master of our lives.  Omar Khayam, the Persian poet, expresses the painful fact in a beautiful way:

“The moving finger writes, and having writ,

moves on, nor all thy piety nor wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a line

Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it”

Sometimes I want to cry out in frustration at the relentless nature of time.  Each moment experienced, then gone, never to be re-captured.  We are told to live life in the present or the moment, but the moment goes so quickly, often before we can even understand its import.  We are left with a memory, which then also proceeds to slowly fade away.

Of course sometimes the passage of time is of comfort – a trauma or a sadness that becomes less acute, less painful as the memory of it ebbs.  If time did not pass and memories fade, then the heartache and tragedies of this world would be unbearable.

When I am trying to rein in my eating and become more disciplined, I play a game and remind myself that the act of eating will only last a few moments and then the taste and the pleasure will only be a memory - hardly worth all the calories!  I am often successful in this little trick, but it has the nasty side effect of making me rather depressed.

Most human beings don’t focus on this transitory aspect of our lives other than to vaguely acknowledge it.  To dissect time too fervently is a philosopher’s habit and it can only lead to an unsettling malaise.

We speak in abstract terms about time as a fourth dimension, and of the space-time continuum.  Movies and books depict time travel and we are allowed to envision time as a kind of real-life video, with rewind, fast-forward and pause functions at our fingertips.  Would it be pleasurable to re-experience our lives whenever we wished to do so; to go back to wonderful moments and savor the emotions and the feelings exactly as they first occurred?  Not to change them, but simply to enjoy the experience again?  I don’t know.  The repeated re-living of an event might backfire, make it mundane.

Memories are interesting.  At first they are so vivid – almost as if one is experiencing the moment rather than simply observing it in one’s mind.  But as time goes on it becomes more difficult to summon that same feeling.  In the end, a memory becomes a story, and we are not entirely certain whether something actually happened or we have just been telling ourselves the story for so long that it seems real!  We can no longer ‘envision’ the event itself or see it in our mind’s eye.

The reason people identify with the ‘live in the moment’ adage is the sad fact that we spend so much of our lives either reminiscing or looking forward to something that will happen in the future.  But living in the moment is not easy!  The mind is a restless nomad.  If one’s mind is idle for even a few seconds, it will wander to the past or the future.  It takes great discipline to focus on the ‘moment’ unless one is busily invested in some activity that prevents one’s mind from wandering.  And if the mind is busy in that pursuit, is it really consciously living in the ‘moment’ – aware of its pleasurable state?  Tis a paradox!

The unyielding, forward-moving nature of time is particularly distressing for those of us whose lives are more than half spent and hurtling inexorably toward the great abyss!  And to make matters worse, time accelerates in a most unpleasant matter with age.  We want to scream out “SLOW DOWN!”, but we know it is futile.  So we try to derive what pleasure we can from fading memories and limited anticipations, as our bodies decay in a most undignified manner.  Well, I guess that is a bit melodramatic.

I will confess that overall my life has been quite joyful.  I am grateful beyond words for the majority of what I have experienced and hopeful for the years I have remaining.  But I will say that TIME is confusing and a bit frustrating, and, when I think deeply upon it, downright unsettling.

Sex

Is it just me becoming more conservative with age, or does it seem somewhat absurd to describe a film or play or TV show that probes ever deeper into our sexual lives as ‘courageous’ or ‘groundbreaking’?  Hasn't the ground been pretty much broken, pulverized even?  Is there really any risk in the entertainment industry these days in creating a sexually provocative work?

I am no advocate for censorship or a return to the repressive times of yesteryear.  And I recognize that much good has come from the sexual revolution of the past fifty years.  Open discussion and awareness of sexual issues, techniques and feelings have contributed to a much healthier approach to sexuality.  The pendulum has indeed swung dramatically from the conservative mores of the post-WW2 era and even more from those of the Victorian age.

But perhaps the pendulum swing has now lingered at the extreme of sexual obsession.  From Freud to Madison Avenue, sex has been elevated to a dominant place in our lives. There is almost nothing in our cultural landscape that does not rely heavily on bold references to sex.    What are the implications of that saturation, and how do we regard sex in the 21^st century?

For most cultures through the ages, sex was viewed as closely related to procreation and marriage.  Both religious and cultural mores regarded sexual promiscuity as dangerous and immoral, and strongly prohibited adultery, often applying capital punishment to violations.  Sexual desire was acknowledged, but seen as a weakness of the flesh.  Of course there was always a contradictory and often hypocritical approach to sexuality by religious leaders and other authority figures.  Even today we find that many who strongly lament the degradation of societal morality end up in the news because of a lurid affair.

But then came the sexual revolution, launched in part by the availability of much better birth control methods and the woman’s liberation movement.  It shattered some of the more repressive taboos and allowed a healthier and more open dialogue on sexuality.  With men and women putting off marriage until their twenties or later, the notion of pre-marital celibacy seems antiquated and a recipe for mass frustration.  It also makes sense for a couple to test their sexual compatibility before committing to a long term relationship.

Recent polls have indicated that abstinence before marriage is a rare thing, with most men and women averaging 8 or more sexual partners before settling on a single partner. 

But like many things, once an absolute is abandoned, the question of where to draw the line is a tricky one.  If one believes that some sort of a relationship is a pre-requisite for physical intimacy, then what criteria make sense?  Is ten dates a relationship, or will one really good date suffice!  There is no easy formula, and it seems that for most people the level of relationship required diminishes rapidly as they notch more conquests on their belts!

After all, sex is pleasurable, even when there is no love or commitment or trust or slow buildup of a relationship. And it is an amazingly strong impulse. So in the last 50 years since the sexual revolution started one might claim that it has become acceptable to view sex as a recreational activity, like any other pleasurable activity.

It is an interesting question to ask oneself: Can sex be viewed as a purely physical activity and enjoyed without worrying about feelings or relationships or commitment?  Is the association of sex and love a relic of the repressive past?  Or can sex be both things – an amusing act of whimsy for purely physical stimulation in one instance, and a passionate, deeply felt act of intimacy in another?

If we accept the idea that sex can be purely a recreational activity, then is it not a logical next step to continue to have sexual encounters with other people even when one is in a relationship?  It is interesting that despite what appears to be a relentless move toward more indiscriminate pre-marital intimacies, there is still a prevailing rejection of the open relationship or marriage. Couples seem to be willing to ignore the past peccadilloes of their partners, even while often having to socialize with some of their mate’s prior bedfellows, but they draw the line at new improprieties once they are married or in a serious relationship.

Is this last restriction a legacy of the repressive sexual mores of the past, likely to be swept aside by a final wave of erotic emancipation?  Or is there some deeply embedded awareness in us that our sexual freedom has limitations, and that sex is not quite the same as playing a spirited game of tennis?  I have done no research, but I have seen anecdotal reports on communes and other attempts at open marriage, and they seem to have generally self-destructed.

Thus, like so many of the issues that we wrestle with in our human condition, sex is probably best handled (so to speak) with a fine degree of balance.  The Apollonian and Dionysian impulses are antithetical, but a certain harmony or synthesis can be constructed.

A number of years ago there was a pop song ‘Kiss Me’ with the chorus:

Oh, kiss me beneath the milky twilight
Lead me out on the moonlit floor, lift your open hand
Strike up the band and make the fireflies dance
Silver moon's sparkling
So kiss me

At a time when lyrics are portraying love in increasingly raw sexual terms and images, I find the romance and simplicity of this song about a kiss enchanting.  I guess I have become a bit sentimental!

Guns

The question of how to reduce gun violence in the U.S. and to eliminate or at least drastically curtail the number of public massacres is always a hot topic for debate.  In a nation where the gun genie was long ago let out of the bottle, there are no easy answers.

First of all, there can be no debate about the fact that the U.S. has a lot of guns of all types.  There are more guns per capita in the U.S. than any other nation in the world.  In fact, the U.S. has 35-50 % of the world’s civilian-owned guns divided among only 5% of the world’s population.  We have almost one gun for every man, woman and child in the country.

Second, the homicide by firearm rate in the U.S. is about 3 per 100,000 people, which is about eight to ten times higher than almost every other developed nation.  Interestingly, the developed country that comes closest to the U.S. in homicide rate, Switzerland (with a 0.7) is also number three in the gun ownership ranks.  Most Swiss men go through military service and keep some sort of weapon afterwards – probably a rifle.  But the U.S. still has more than four times the homicide rate that Switzerland does.

So one question is whether high rates of gun ownership can be correlated to high rates of homicide.  I don’t believe there can be any doubt that this is the case.  However, countries with low rates of gun ownership can also have high homicide rates if the countries have high crime rates and are politically chaotic.  In this case, the actual number of guns in circulation may be much higher than the statistics show.

Some nations with fairly high gun ownership do not have big problems with homicides.  Australia, Austria, Norway, New Zealand and Canada are examples.  My guess is that the gun ownership in these nations is generally focused on rifles and shotguns for hunting purposes as opposed to handguns for self-defense, but I am not certain about that.

Clearly the gun violence problem in the U.S. is not solely due to gun ownership or availability.  The U.S. also has more crime and more people in prison than any other developed nation.  One of the primary reasons that there is major opposition to more stringent gun control or even gun reduction (God forbid!) is the fear that more gun control will only result in less available guns for law-abiding citizens who want to protect themselves against the criminal element, who can always obtain guns. 

The public does not generally believe that gun control will reduce crime and homicides.  Gun control opponents point to Mexico with its very tight gun control laws and very high homicide rate to show the supposed folly of such an experiment.   But given the drug cartel situation in Mexico, which is, of course, a result of our insatiable hunger for drugs, it is not clear that Mexico is a good example of the results of gun control.  One can point to other countries with strong gun control laws in Europe that have had tremendous success – Great Britain being a good example.

But in the end crime and guns must be addressed together to make any real progress on this front.  Why is there so much violent crime in our country?  Why are so many of our citizens behind bars?  Why are we so different in this regard from Great Britain and Germany and France and Australia?  Is there any relationship between our gun culture and the level of violent crime we have?  What is the relationship between violent crime and drugs, or gangs?  It is estimated that about 12% of the homicides in the country are gang-related.  Now we face a triad of related issues – guns, crime and drugs.

But this triad does not explain the frequent occurrence of massacres such as Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora and Sandy Hook Elementary.  Is there something else in our culture or society that increases the probability of such attacks?  Is some potent mix of cultural decadence, violent video games and movies, and gun mania to blame for these horrific all-too-frequent national nightmares?

A mass shooting is clearly the act of someone who is mentally deranged.  But why does the U.S. have such a large number of mentally unbalanced or psychotic people who are willing or motivated to commit these horrible acts?  Do we have a larger problem with psychosis, or a problem with identification, or is the availability of weaponry the critical factor?  Some have argued that more rigorous background checks would reduce the incidence of these events, but it is not clear that any of the recent assailants would have been identified as psychotic before they acted.

At a minimum, it would seem reasonable to aggressively outlaw and eliminate the civilian ownership of multi-round semi-automatic rifles, which generally are the main weapons used in these tragedies.  Why is there such resistance to this proposal?  Both Australia and Great Britain took similar steps after massacres and have had great success.

But the opposition to gun laws is very deeply embedded in our society.  Why is it so uniquely vociferous in our country?  Part of it is the libertarian abhorrence of anyone telling people what they can or cannot own or do.  Part of it is a gun fetish that goes far beyond a healthy interest in hunting and sport shooting.  But the most intriguing and disturbing part of it is the anti-government paranoia that makes people want to stockpile guns in preparation for fighting against the government when they feel it has gone too far in controlling their lives.  This is what the 2^nd amendment really means to many Americans.  And it has taken on an almost religious symbolism and significance.  The NRA is the church organization for this religion.

So gun control is opposed for four reasons:  hunting, sport shooting, self-defense and protection against a future over-zealous government.  Hunting and sport shooting don’t really have much to do with the current gun debate.  Strong gun control and elimination of automatic weapons would not impact these hobbies.  The real opposition to gun control runs in a much deeper vein of government distrust and fear of the criminal element.

Recently, the gun lobby has changed its strategy from a defensive posture against more stringent gun control to an offensive strategy of supporting open carry and stand-your-ground laws. The argument is that if more people openly carry firearms there will be less crime and Sandy Hook/Columbine-type massacres will be curtailed. 

The counter-argument is that guns at-the-ready will cause far more accidents and moment-of-passion shootings (road rage, domestic arguments, bar fights, etc.) than the number of crimes or shootings they will prevent.  If handguns are available at a moment’s notice, then a moment’s fury or a youthful indiscretion is all that it takes to create a tragedy.  Are we really ready to sacrifice so many lives in accidents to make us feel a little bit more secure in our cars or homes?  Would we really be any more secure?

In the end, having more people carry weapons can really only be characterized as a cynical and short-sighted response to the problem of crime and mass shootings.  If we do not address the deeper problems of crime, incarceration, gun availability, mental illness and drugs, we will decay into a third-rate nation of fortress communities and frontier justice.  That would not be a place that many of us would choose to live.

Conscience, Morality and an Argument for the Existence of God

 I wrote this piece several months ago while going through yet another wrestling session with questions of faith.  It is just one aspect of this continuous debate.

The Enlightenment sparked a firestorm of intellectual debate about religion.  A Newtonian universe did not seem reconcilable with the miracles and myths of ancient religions and many began to question whether traditional religious dogma could be believed.  A profound confidence in man’s ability to reason caused many to view theology through the prism of rational thought and to acknowledge a belief in some sort of Deity, but not in the institutions of any religion.

American thinkers like Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine, and later Ralph Waldo Emerson and many others, were strong adherents of this ‘Deist’ wave of thought.  Jefferson famously cut out all of the so-called mythical parts of the New Testament to create a ‘Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth’ that was in his view a masterful expression of ethics and morality, but not a story about the son of God.  Jefferson and the others did not appear, though, to reject the notion of God, but merely the dogma of the church.

This skepticism about religion was sent into warp drive by the 19^th century development of the theory of evolution and discoveries about geological aging that seemed to preclude any literal interpretation of creation events.  As the impact of ‘Darwinism’ made its way into the intellectual landscape, many abandoned any belief in God at all and defined themselves as atheists.

This trend of intellectual rejection of God has continued to the present day.  It is probably safe to say that the majority of college professors and scientists are at least agnostic, if not defiantly atheistic.  But once one leaves the lofty domain of the intellectual the religious question is much murkier.  In the western world, church attendance has continuously diminished over time.  Yet the percentage of people that believe in some sort of God and heaven is still fairly high (typically greater than 50% and often as high as 75-90%), even in Europe where church attendance is almost non-existent.  This may be due in some cases to a ‘hedge your bet’ or ‘wishful thinking’ attitude rather than a thoughtful consideration of the arguments pro and con, but it is an interesting statistic nonetheless.

The Question of a Non-Religious Morality

One of the most basic characteristics of religion or theology is a set of moral precepts.  It is often stated that the biggest area of similarity in the world’s religions is their morality.  To be sure, there are plenty of gray areas, and ethicists make a good living exploring the nuances of moral and ethical laws, but the similarities are indeed striking and the basic moral structure is clear.

When one rejects God and religion, then morality and ethics become an interesting puzzle.  How does one derive a moral structure in a completely material world with no higher authority dictating it?  Is there a morality among the plants, or the animals, or the planets or the cosmos?  Is morality whatever we as humans define it to be?

Perhaps we should derive our morality from the laws of nature and the theory of evolution?  If we do this, how would it differ from what is generally accepted as moral behavior today?  We often cite Darwinism as ‘survival of the fittest’, a moniker that is probably not really completely accurate.  But there is certainly an element of truth in it. If the universe’s morality is based upon whatever causes it to become more efficient or more complex or more optimized or more highly developed, then certainly we must be willing to make some fairly hard-hearted decisions.

This logical train of thought is what actually occurred in the latter part of the 19^th century and into the middle of the 20^th century.  It included Nietzsche’s Superman and his belittling of the Christian ‘slave morality’ or morality of the weak.  It included the strong interest in eugenics to allow for a pruning of the human race to eliminate the weak-minded or physically impaired so as not to hinder the rapid progress of humanity.  It included the economic and quasi-philosophic (a la Ayn Rand) theories that celebrated (and still do!) the entrepreneur and the fabulously wealthy tycoons over the lowly worker, and argued for total free markets to propel the human race to ever higher achievements.  This morality was a morality of the strong, because the strong dictated the pace of development and progress.

Some of this morality took on nightmarish forms in the 20^th century – the Nazis and their eugenic holocaust for one - and became discredited.  But it can be argued that its logic is still incontrovertible if one believes only in a material world, perhaps just less dramatically or arbitrarily applied.

When one rejects the notion of a higher authority dictating morals, then the question of conscience becomes very interesting.  Why do we recoil at the thought of sterilizing the handicapped or the mentally deficient?  Why are we reluctant to kill others to get their food or possessions?  Is it because our conscience will not allow us to consider it?  And what is this conscience and where does it come from if not from some sort of higher authority?  Is it a product of evolution?  Why would we evolve to have such a conscience?  The animals don’t appear to be troubled by such concerns.  When they are hungry they eat another animal without the slightest bit of remorse!

Now we can argue that our higher evolved state has developed a conscience to allow us to form a more complex society to achieve ever more wonderful states of being.  This is certainly feasible where it concerns certain parts of the moral code – killing and stealing for example – that would otherwise cause society to unravel and create a less ideal situation for all.

But what about our compassion for the mentally deranged or the physically malformed or the developmentally disabled?  Or even those who appear not to have much motivation to work or contribute?  What a huge drain they are on our society!  We could develop our perfect world much more rapidly without dragging that part of the gene pool along with us!  Surely the part of our morality that prevents us from finding a quiet ‘solution’ for the infirm is a relic from the silly old religious times and ought to be jettisoned!

But our hearts ache for the weak, the sick and the downtrodden; for the mentally ill and the dispirited.  We continue to find powerful inspiration in acts of mercy, love and charity.  What imbues us with these emotions and feelings?

I find the argument that our consciences and moral pre-disposition are totally a result of evolution and its psycho/biological mechanics a weak one.  The logical path would be for human evolution to develop a very pragmatic moral code – to optimize the gene pool and focus attention and energy on the strong and successful.  But our hearts (souls?) will not accept that pragmatism, even when we do not embrace a spiritual belief system.

What is going on here?  Can it be that we all really do have a God-given conscience from some higher authority that is somehow innate and a part of some sort of soul or spirit?  Can our consciences and morality be interpreted or explained without including an external influence?

So in the end it is somewhat ironic that many of our most vociferous protectors of the weak and the downtrodden also claim to be atheists. Why do so many ardent advocates of social justice and moral behavior choose to totally deny any possibility of the divine?  For many it is a sincere belief that there is no valid evidence for any kind of spiritual phenomena.  For others it is a profound distaste for the human expressions of religious dogma.

The argument can be made that the fashionable intellectual rejection of God and religion is a combination of intellectual hubris and a very understandable reaction to the ills of institutional religion.  Intellectual hubris is the notion that anyone can truly categorically state that God exists or does not exist – an all-too-human example of pride.  To doubt is eminently reasonable, but to be certain is arrogance. 

Defiant atheism is surely a type of intellectual bravado, an affectation that feels good in the moment (or for many years) but probably does not have quite the same zest when contemplated on one’s deathbed.  Who in their final moment would not agree to continue to exist (or be resurrected) in some blissful form or another?  Only a stubborn fool would reject such an offer!

The other side of the atheistic trend is perfectly understandable as a reaction against the innumerable crimes perpetrated in the name of God by the world’s religions.  Is it any wonder that so many flock to the banner of non-belief when one considers the persecutions, wars, hatred, intolerance and enslavement in which religion has played a role?

So this is my modest attempt to demonstrate that the stubborn resilience of compassion could be an indication that we are indeed linked to something more than just the material world; that the divine, or God, fills our hearts with this compassion in the face of all logical and philosophical arguments against it.  For me, it is a comforting thought.

The Apollonian and Dionysian Dialectic

As a college student I was fascinated by philosophy.  Having returned from 8 months in Germany in 1975 with a reasonable competency in the language, I took a series of three courses at Stanford in German philosophy called Deutsche Geistesgeschichte.  One of the books we read was Nietzche’s The Birth of Tragedy.  This was Nietzsche’s first significant work.  At the time he was under the spell of Richard Wagner, the great opera composer, and the spirit of Wagner’s music was undoubtedly a big influence on Nietzche’s thinking.  The full title of the book was actually “The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music”, though it is generally known by the shorter title.

In this book Nietzsche argued, among many other topics, that art, and indeed the human condition, was a struggle between Apollonian and Dionysian forces.  For Nietzsche, Apollonian is used to describe the light-filled, measured and rational impulses in man.  Apollo, of course, is the god of light, and is also associated with refined beauty and aesthetic taste.  Apollonian character attributes are those that express individuality, control, refinement and intellect.

Dionysus, on the other hand, is the God of the wine harvest and the festival, of uninhibited, often sensual release and inebriation.  From Nietzsche’s perspective, Dionysian impulses connect us to a more primitive state of being, without the rigid boundaries of individuality, allowing us to connect to the energy and intoxication of a communal life force.

For Nietzsche, and here I agree from my own experience, music is primarily Dionysian in its effect, allowing us to transcend our egos and individuality to experience a state of primordial unity and experience a rush of pure, ecstatic emotion.

But the Dionysian is also seen in other aspects of culture – in our efforts to lift ourselves out of the tyranny of the day-to-day and the sometimes stultifying effect of our disciplined, sober lives.  Drinking, eating, dancing, laughing, sex, sport, gambling all have elements of the Dionysian, because they challenge the order and restraint of our lives.  Dionysus offers chaos, excess and ecstasy as an anti-thesis to Apollo’s discipline and ‘know thyself’ restraint.  Dionysus encourages total immersion in contrast to Apollo’s maintenance of a critical intellectual and aesthetic distance.

Isn't this dialectic, though presenting us with a lifelong contradiction of impulses, the very source of life’s most sublime moments?  Doesn't the art of living consist of finding the proper balance, not suppressing one or the other?

For surely those who view the Dionysian as sinful and try to order their lives in a purely Apollonian manner become dry husks of human beings with no ecstasy and a very narrow scope of joy.  And those who totally indulge the Dionysian lose the edges of their individuality and self-control, slipping into the abyss of debauchery and hedonism.

But balancing the dialectic is not an equation or a recipe in the battle of life.  There is no formula for success and there is risk at every juncture.  We careen from one corner of the ring to the other, a self-righteous, arrogant creature on one side and an inebriated, profligate mess at the other.  It is naive to hope for perfection, for order, for peace, for harmony.  Life is a struggle.

A Liberal Arts Education

College students are all choosing business majors and educators are wringing their hands, wondering what will become of the liberal arts education!

The definition of the so-called liberal arts education has long been elusive.  I would define it as a thorough grounding in literature, languages, history, philosophy, theology, the arts (music, theater, painting, sculpture, etc.), math and science. 

But with this definition we would have to confess that a liberal arts education has been rare for some time.  Long ago students began to divide themselves into math/science types and non-math/science types, neglecting any education in the opposite realm after secondary school.  This may have been partly due to the volume of accumulated knowledge in all fields, which made it difficult to become conversant in the full spectrum.  But it also occurred because of a growing chasm between the arts and the sciences, with certain personality traits and characteristics being ascribed to each group that made it difficult to bridge the gap.  The ‘renaissance man’ archetype, once a common aspiration of many intellectuals, became a relic, discarded on the dustbin of history. 

One of the things I am proudest of in my life is that I made a big effort to avoid this distinction, getting both a B.A. in German Studies and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering.  Now admittedly, this was partly because I have never been able to focus very well, but it has proven to be one of my best decisions and has provided my intellectual life with a rich diversity of passions.

But the current economic conditions have sent tremors through the university system, and everyone is trying to identify ‘practical’ majors that will ensure a job upon graduation.  The liberal arts major is seen as a monument to irrelevance, and its adherents are viewed as useless intellectuals with nothing to contribute to the heroic efforts of ‘job creation’ that have become the mantra of modern business.

In addition to the lemming-like movement to business and management majors, now there is a growing urgency in education to teach everyone to ‘code’.  This is a reaction to the ubiquity of information technology, which is built on software.  But the fad of teaching programming skills to every child seems as misplaced as an effort to teach everyone how to design machinery in the industrial age.

Education is not ‘one size fits all’!  Germany, one of the few nations that has been successful in avoiding the loss of middle class jobs in the globalization time, long ago instituted a state-funded spectrum of educational paths that has served it well.  A university education is only available for a minority of students.  The rest have a cornucopia of options, from highly hands-on technical to purely administrative, and everything in-between.  Students pay a modest fee for this training if they pay anything at all.  The system is not perfect, but what system is?  The decision to prepare for various paths is made fairly early and it is not a simple matter to change once that decision has been made, which leads to some frustration and wrong choices.  But overall it seems to be a much better system than ours, especially for the non-university students.

The U.S. has long had a rather absurd goal of sending every person to a university.  This is foolhardy.  How many college students truly have the desire to immerse themselves in deep study of literature, political science, economics and the like?  Certainly only a small percentage of those that actually attend.  But because a college education is seen as a pre-requisite for any well-paid career, legions of students spend their parents’ or their own hard-earned treasure to pay their dues in uninspired academic languor, all the while focusing most of their energy on the serious business of partying and watching college sports.

As jobs have become more scarce, the masses of students in university have become more utilitarian, choosing job training subjects that were not even options a couple of decades ago.  The most popular choice is the so-called business major – emphasizing accounting, organizational behavior, marketing and other business world topics.  Formerly, these topics were only taught in business schools, and typically to students who had already been out in the real world and returned for an MBA.  But now, in the desperate quest to gain advantage in job searches, students have turned away from traditional liberal arts subjects in the belief that this more practical knowledge will give them the edge.

This is precisely the type of education that Germany has put in a separate category from university education.  There is no need for a four year university education to learn business fundamentals.

Many will argue that a classic liberal arts education is no longer relevant, that majors such as history or literature do not prepare one for the workplace.  But I strongly disagree.  The skills that one obtains by deep study of history, literature and other liberal arts are exactly the enduring skills that allow one to become a profound contributor to society – critical thinking, complex logical analysis and writing, a sophisticated understanding of the nature and progression of civilization.

These are skills that are still immature at the end of high school.  It is a sad fact that most people read their last piece of classical literature or philosophy in their senior year of high school when they do not have the intellectual depth or foundation to truly understand or incorporate its message in their lives.

Similarly, many people never pursue a rigorous study of history or the evolution of political and social thought because they equate it to the memorization of facts, figures and dates that they abhorred all through high school.

Ideally, a liberal arts education in college gives a person a basis for lifelong learning and a capacity for deep inquiry and comprehension that will contribute to success in any endeavor.  This can certainly be acquired outside of the university, but it rarely is.

Many students will not have the passion to continue liberal arts studies.  They should not be encouraged or required to do so.  Having large hordes of indifferent students attending universities taking courses that hold meager interest for them is a waste on many levels.  And perhaps the transformation of many universities into ‘trade schools’ that focus on business majors is simply a way of backing into this realization. But the simultaneous disparagement of the liberal arts education and the associated decision by many parents to pressure their kids into ‘practical’ majors is indeed a sad trend.

Are we living vicariously?

It seems civilization moves ever more rapidly toward voyeurism.  Modern man spends much of his life watching someone else do something or immersing him or herself into a virtual reality that bears little resemblance to real life.

We watch people act in movies, on television or at the theater.  We observe as entertainers sing or play instruments; we view dancers on stage.  We pay handsome sums to be awed by athletes performing their heroics on a dozen different fields of play.  We spend hours and hours entranced by social media and video games.

Before television, the cinema and mass communication; before the computer and the Internet; before organized professional sports; before video games and facebook and twitter and snapchat – there was a communal life: creative social, artistic and athletic activity that demanded local organization and participation.  People came together to sing, dance, play sports, create art, even make skits or plays. 

It seems there was a time when one didn't have to be a Pavarotti to sing in three part harmony with a group of friends.  Everyone was familiar with folk and popular songs and took every opportunity to join in song with their neighbors, whether in church or for celebrations, or whenever people came together. 

In those days every person who was fortunate enough to own an instrument found other musicians and contributed whatever talent they had to any social gathering.  Now, how many people study a musical instrument in their youth only to abandon it, the instrument rusting away sadly in a closet or attic? If one is not good enough to make a profession of it or compete with the virtuosos, then why continue goes the thinking.  But is watching a talented performer even half as fulfilling as participating, even if the standard is much lower?

There was an age when men and women danced for the sheer joy of movement and romance, rather than on the rare occasion of a drunken grinding ritual.  How many men past the age of 22 can one get out on a dance floor today? Where are the folk dances or even the parlor dances of yesteryear?  It is a sad indication of our cultural decay that a wedding is the only event these days that will inspire most people to leave their seats for the dance floor.

There was a time when weekends were an opportunity to go outdoors for walking and exerting oneself physically; to explore and experience nature amid the companionship of friends or family.  All too often now, the weekends are spent in stubborn isolation, anchored in front of a TV watching sports or a movie, or trapped in the addictive grip of video games or social media.

And where has the art and joy of communicating via the written word gone?  Letter writing, once an important component of any educated person’s social life, has now completely vanished.  Well-developed ideas and thoughts are rarely encountered.  In their place are the quick witticisms and the endless superficial patter of facebook and twitter quips.

Part of our addiction to voyeurism can be laid at the feet of the media – the insidious manipulation of Hollywood and Madison Avenue.  How can our trifling efforts to create and enjoy an active world of our own compare with the exotic super-lives that the rich and talented lead, or that movies and magazine conjure up, or a virtual reality offer?  And of course it is partly due to sloth.  It is so easy to watch - to sit and vicariously experience all that life and the world have to offer.  But what kind of ‘experience’ is that?

The true joys of living cannot come to us secondhand.  They must be experienced directly through a deliberate participation in the everydayness of life.  The glamorous lifestyles and the virtual realities that are offered up as wishful fare for spectators are spiritually hollow - a self-deception and a sham existence, where at best our voyeurism is self-indulgence and at worst a kind of living death.