Getting Out of Iraq

I know that the big problem is getting out of the Iraq war with some success. I know what one answer is. Our army could leave tomorrow if we had one thing in place. THE BIG WHAMMY! THE MIGHTY MOUNTAIN OF AN ORGANIZATION CASTING THE DARK SHADOW OF A DIRE THREAT OVER THE ENTIRE NATION OF IRAQ if it were not capable of maintaining itself in a state of peaceful, civilized, cooperative existence. The people of Iraq have demonstrated that they can be a fearless people in the face of all their fearful circumstances. In the election they came out in spite of their vulnerability to attack. And, presently, to go out to shop— get gas— go to worship— and other needs!! Fearful but fearless.

Something truly scary must be created to hang over the heads of everyone as they go about resolving the internal conflicts of their CIVIL war. We Americans fought their revolution for them. Must we now fight their civil war, too? Yes, civil war, which, by the law of history I proposed, is universally a direct consequence of any revolutionary war.
What, then, is that force? THIS: The United Nations must be mobilized to handle situations such as this. If every member of the United Nations were to be required to contribute manpower, the world coming together to assist the U.S. forces to resolve the issue of Iraq. A truly scary threat of power to compete with the terrorists’ reign. Their society needs to be “locked down” by such overwhelming force that they would have the peace of a jail for a while, an iron curtain (like the trade barriers that our nation’s infant industries required in our early history) in order to practice and solidify peace-bringing, democratic processes. To stop whatever allows all the murder by—they’re all criminals, no matter the banner they fly.

Regimentation of Society by Religion

What effect does religious regimentation have upon the deliberative mind? The question contains the answer which deals with two mutually exclusive terms; the answer is, “none”. Regimentation excludes deliberation. Deliberation cannot be regimented like a military unit. The deliberative mind is not regimented, does not have outside authority ruling over it. The question gives rise to the next question: can the deliberative mind abide the regimented mind of religious belief? No, but the deliberative mind can deliberate religion. But I have not asked the primary question because I am too eager to leap forward beyond this question: does religious belief have a regimenting effect on an individual’s thinking? Yes. There is an ancient text, chapter and verse, dictating what must be believed, there are the organized authorities and charismatic figures that have the power to overrule individual thinking, and there is the phenomenon of childhood inculcation. Is that “inculcation” a form of brainwashing (coercive persuasion)? Obviously, yes. What is a child armed with to resist or question what is being taught?

If belief in a supreme being is held religiously, there is seldom anything to argue about, except my implied unbelief. From my point of view, there is much to be questioned about belief, especially in its organized state. My unbelief is questioned by the other side. Belief usually centers on the text that yields that belief. Unbelief usually centers on the questions raised by the science of observation and experimentation.

Do you “believe” in evolution? That is, take it on someone else’s authority, rather than on your own study? Evolution is not a matter for belief. It is, obviously, a matter of science. Once upon a time, that the earth was flat was a belief, as now, for many, because of the regimenting effect of religion, evolution is a matter of belief. Onward Christian soldiers!

The Terror of Islamism

Bullyism is the practice of achieving ends by physical coercion including torture, intimidation, the brain-washing mind-rape of coercive persuasion, and the lies of propaganda. It is a practice distinguished by aggressive rather than defensive action. A well practiced habit of achievement by means of physical torture, mental cruelty, emotional trauma, intimidation and brain-washing (coercive persuasion). The goal or achievement is eradication or radical suppression of the subject of its condemnation, an individual, group or a society. Bullyism is born out of a perception of power differences and the willingness of the aggressor to use dominating power in a situation where the willingness of the defenseless to acquiesce is sensed.

If bullyism is tried and it works, its success breeds a habit of aggressive action. Bullyism is probably a primary act tried very early in life and habituated before the cerebral cortex has formed as an inhibiting force. Try reasoning with a furious child! Empathize with the mom of a screaming, red-eyed child in the supermarket. Mom isn’t giving so the tantrum starts. So Mom must become the inhibiting power. Let it scream and ignore it hoping it will burn out in time? Pacify it with giving in to its demands? Compromise it with the substitution of something equally or more desirable to both Mom and child? Distract it with another object or event? Punish it with a shaking or a few well placed whacks? Remove it to the car outside and the care of a sibling? Hire a nanny? Shame it with the view of others looking on at this ugliness of the little perp? Make promises (bribes) of a future reward such as a trip to Disneyland? Hand it a dollar to spend on anything in the store costing a dollar? The red-eyed screamer is probably attempting to bully Mom to accede to a wish, making the Mom self-conscious with embarrassment (and the kid might sense this power to embarrass as another situational tool), the child needs to be dealt with at once. Discuss with the child the cause of the bullyism taking hold of the child at that moment. What are the simple alternatives chosen by the Mom and those by the child, giving the child some choices along with reasonable justifications for each alternative? The latter would take some extra time out of what was originally to be accomplished at the supermarket that day. Are the child’s concerns of little importance and deemed a very small thing by a busy, overworked Mom? Is the child’s education in civilized behavior worth the time it would take? Each time thereafter the time required would probably diminish, and the child would be inculcated with the rudiments of democratic society, the give and take of discussion and debate. And some little gray cells will start to make connections for future pathways of behavior.

Think of the bad societies of the past which were led by bullyism. North Korea now. Stalinist U.S.S.R. Pol Pot’s killing fields. Hitler’s Final Solution in Germany, one of the most religious societies. Societies with human sacrifice, cannibalism, robber barons, drug lords, the Vandals, Napoleon’s France, the Crusaders, the Inquisition, the Dar Fur rampage, Islamic radical terrorists. The history of the human race is a process of this sliver working its way through the body of historical experience until it finally comes out. (I had a pebble in my elbow form being ridden by my brother on the bar of his bike and being dumped backwards when he hit a railroad track at an angle. The pebble I did not know was there came out a decade later.)

The list of physical and verbal rage goes on. It’s Ann Coulter’s words. It’s “bring-it-on” George Bush the Preempter. (What, btw, was that which was preempted?) It was Hitler’s Big Lie” and Friday night decrees. Taliban beheadings. Bin Laden’s Twin Towers. Name-calling. Character assassination. The practices of individuals who have nothing but the willingness and ability to use any means in taking from others by force what they have. The law of the claw. The fright of the bite. The gist of the fist. The crunch of the truncheon. The idea of the i.e.d. The de-individuation of the mask.

Tyrannosaurus Rex, the giant lizard, would not be a good example of natural bullyism because there was no social content in its formidable nature. T. Rex specialized in size and tool of tooth for satisfying its hunger, at the top of the food chain. In the United States, the national symbol is a high-flying bird of prey, eagle eyes, a ripping beak and sharp talons, but all in the service of a respectable need to feed, although we probably chose it because of its rather fierce appearance. The lone eagle. (True at present because of our belligerent stance in the world.)

[(A digression.) Could our national symbol be the honey bee? It is a rather peaceful matriarchal creature providing sweet food for its young and assures survival by prodigious, full employment, worker industry. But each individual has a stinger—universal military capability, for dying in defense of its hive-nation. (Sounds somewhat socialistic, eh?) Now with its current endangerment we will learn how valuable it has been to our society. The bald eagle (recently on the endangered-species list) is held sacred by those who believe in its intimidating stature, to those who have that base streak of bullyism. And haven’t we made a name for ourselves as the world’s economic and military bully lately? If the choice of a national symbol were being made today, what would you choose? Animal, vegetable or mineral? Bison? Wheat? Gold?]

Perhaps a rogue elephant would better portray an animal driven to bullyism by human intrusions into its space. There is a social element in bullyism. It is learned. Human specimens which have specialized in the powerful physique may also have developed powerful urges to throw their weight around. Athletic models abound for the “peaceful” channeling of individual power. I would propose a law of sport: the more opportunity for sports in a society, the greater is the prospect for a thriving democratic society. Soccer hooliganism lowers the perception and state of the democratic values of that society. I would propose a “law” of culture: the more peaceful relations among cultural groups, the greater is the prospect for a thriving democratic society. Our heritage of separation of church and state, thus squelching the theocratic impulse to be seen in much of the rest of the world, contributes to our claim that we are one of the outstanding examples of a thriving democracy. The playground bully evidences the lack of sportsmanship. He has been taught the power play that comes of size and fighting skill. What has not been inculcated in the playground bully is the alternative human response to inhibit or moderate and control aggression by substituting more democratic attitudes for the good of the whole and his personal future welfare.

The “-pathies”, antipathy, apathy, sympathy, empathy

I recently experienced three losses, a friend, an acquaintance, and a much admired celebrity. There was also the rape and murder of a young woman in the news. In the past I have suffered the losses of family, mother, father, a half-sister, a cousin, a nephew. What are those losses on a scale of sorrow? Distant, in time or space. Oh, too bad. Interesting. Really? Oh, no! Close. Closer. Closest. Intimate.

The “-pathy” experienced depends on several things. The manner of passing, sudden or expected, prolonged expectation. Accident, sickness, brutality. Unwanted or desired. The “pathies” in expressing sorrow are apathy, sympathy, empathy, antipathy.

In sympathy, sorrow is feigned or genuine, is a social gesture, a feeling for the aggrieved, tinged with a subliminal fear of loss of one’s own life with vivid imaginings, expressed as hate of the unjust or undeserved death.

Empathy has been behaviorally defined as unconscious muscular imitation, what one goes through helping a high-jumper over the bar, in the shoes of the jumper. The empathetic mourner can bring on tears in word or deed, but since the empathetic response is not so much the feeling with the survivor but the feeling of and for the departed, as if experiencing the departed’s death.

When asked what should be done about the apathy of the American voter, some will answer, “I don’t know and I don’t care.” What do the apathetic say when a friend or acquaintance dies? “I’m sorry for your loss”, or a similar cliché.

Some people do not like to discuss death. Their antipathy extends to the demise of friends and family. The subject is excluded from their attention. I do not understand it. Even on a more philosophical plane the subject is taboo. Unreal! I know one person who has to bury the topic in talk of a heavenly paradise, and there he stays, ever comforted. The boo-boo has been kissed and made all right.

Writing a letter of condolence in each case is daunting. I try to evoke what it was like to stand in the presence of the friend or acquaintance, picking some accurate descriptive words, avoiding any religious overtones about a belief in what happens to the departed after passing. For a more distant loss, I would try to define exactly the nature of what was lost. If a loss can be attributed to a known life-style that “earned” its sudden end, feelings are different for the distance or nearness of the individual, and any expression of sorrow probably focuses, not on the abvious lesson to be gained by the aggrieved or on the suffering of the departed, but on offering help and sympathetic listening to the aggrieved.

To understand is not to sympathize. To empathize is not to sympathize.

A Letter of Condolence to Our Society

Sorrow Applied to Our National Apathy

Get this picture of protuberances on our bodies: a needle (comfort drugs), an ear bud (comfort sound), a mug (comfort food),

HOW DO WE DEFINE DEMOCRACY?

I heard one commentator ask the question. I am continually surprised how often people who are supposed to know better bandy about words and never question for definitions. Amnesty, for one. How dumb can the wise be?

A highly compacted definition of democracy:

Democracy is a process of discussion and debate serving the ends of political, social and economic problem-solving. The discussion process must have leadership that understands the dynamics of people working in groups. The group process demands knowledge of the social, emotional, and intellectual enrichments and barriers in the problem-solving continuum. The democratic process must have participants who understand the nature of the discussion sequence from problem to solution and the symptoms of discussion breakdown that call for organized debate to resolve differences and attain the solution. The democratic process must have leaders and participants who, in a vast nation-society, are prepared to have their communication go through the process of mass mediation. All leaders and participants must have an understanding of the laws and ethical standards governing communication.

Democracy is discussion. The alternatives are, on the one hand, anarchy, and on the other, dictatorship. Our democracy lies in the middle, between the anarchy of conversation and the aristocratic demagoguery of the public speaker. Mostly we muddle through, greatly inefficient because we as a whole have not experienced knowledgeable discussion and debate with other adept people; we do not know the difficult means of navigating the rough waters of human emotion, habit and intellect. We are impatient with those slower to catch on and adjust to the trend of a discussion. The great problems: truncated discussion, premature debate, representative government.

On Blogging

For some, blogging is a business, or a full-time avocation. For me, blogging is a flutterby collection. I catch ideas and preserve them by PINning them to this board, making an exhibit for anyone to see. Each oPINion a specimen for OBSERVation, PINning down ideas in the abstract symbols of language so that I know what I think. I also talk to find out what I am thinking, with an auditor to assist me.

Symbolic balancing alternatives is an exercise of reason, an index of my sanity. I want to avoid being unreasonable (by degrees a form of insanity). That is the essence of the deliberative mind.

The alternatives to be balanced in reasoning are of two basic kinds. On the one hand are flights of fancy, which are imagination as the free manipulation of images and the source of creation. On the other hand are facts, the cold, hard, stubbornly insistent and re-occurring elements of experience. Facts must pass the social test and the credibility test. The former asks, “Do you see what I see?” The latter asks, “What qualifies you as an observer?” In those two basics are art and science. Someone once said (Einstein, or Alfred North Whitehead?), “The final tuft and essence of science is art.” Scientists often resort to the artful language of simile, analogy, and metaphor to convey their most difficult and complex findings to laymen. Or, an Einstein plays the violin.

There is the image of the pirates of the Caribbean. Now some want to dress up as those pirates and go see the original movie that may have a cultish following, as with the Rocky Horror Picture Show. For a few, the fun will stop when they try to “actualize” the unreal image and convert the imagined into the fact of piratical behavior. Pirate, meet Sherlock Holmes. Creation and imagination go awry.

Some powerful emotions are better explained through the mathematical language of the piano keyboard under the hands and majestic creativity of W. A. Mozart. Tuft and essence.

(Wild Hair: When does a child watching a TV weather report understand that the borderlines of the states are portrayed as imaginary and not a ground feature.)

Criminals Doing Sickening Things

Not infrequently do we read the national headlines and hear on television of a criminal atrocity that makes our entire society almost literally sick to the stomach and heart, acts committed by bestial beings in our midst or prowling about when they should not have been. And they know who they are because they have their mottos carved on their brains if not on the skin of their arms. Nearly everybody thinks, put them to death by chopping of body parts one small inch at a time. Revenge! And cries for the death penalty. Thus are their deeds swept under the rug. And then there comes another sorry mess. And then next. And the next. Ad nauseam.

I believe there is a better way. What society does not have is a way not to sweep each incident under the rug. Out of sight, out of mind. The best punishment for the worst crimes is life without parole. A cell. Food. A toilet. A hard bed. Four walls. Books to read. Time to think of that o so brief rage that made them “happy”, with only one normal, inevitable end. Of what use is that to society but revenge?

What society does not have is this process. After the criminal is apprehended, arrested, tried, convicted, sentenced, and incarcerated, require each such criminal to be interviewed by the best person to elicit the details of the course of personal history that led to a sorry end for the innocents as well as the guilty. That’s not the end! Require also each lengthy interview to be transcripted for the use of a beat reporter who will fill a daily or weekly column with a summary of the salient information. Everyone must have the opportunity to read the true and complete story of the whole nasty affair and perhaps to understand the social “causes”, understanding that may feed into solutions for social problems. Society then can be more vigilant and prevent more innocents being destroyed.Society is not yet mature. The future of humanity lies in more mature societies. The process I describe may lead to a less infantile approach to crime, “ Kill ‘em and put ‘em out of our misery!”