REASON

 Binary arguments plague us these days. These are situations which offer only two opposing sides or choices, often implying that if one is true, the other must be false. A form of "either/or" thinking, it is sometimes considered a logical fallacy because it may ignore the possibility of more nuanced or complex realities.

If I am a MAGA, I can’t say that I don’t believe in abortions, but health care choices should be determined by a woman and her physician, making abortions safe and rare.

If I am a far-left progressive, I can’t say that gender dysphoria is a medical phenomenon affecting less than one percent of the population who should be loved and cared for, but that some gender-selection advocates have pushed the extremes of thought to uncomfortable levels.

If I am a MAGA, I can’t say that regulations stifle the economy, but some are necessary to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the general population.

If I am a far left progressive, I can’t say that protection of the welfare is essential, but that America has become over-regulated when we fine companies for not placing "Do not stand." warnings on the top of stepladders.

We must, as in some Biblical admonition, choose whom we will serve and how we will serve them, never in the lukewarm, or rational, middle, but hot or cold.

 Increasingly, we don’t seek to serve the vast general public.

Increasingly, we avoid reason to guide our thinking.

Increasingly, we approach life from the extremes of thought.

That’s how we have ended up where we are.

EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 ELECTIONS

Our next election won’t rely on facts. Both extremes of the political factions denounce any facts that don’t resonate with embedded emotions and this phenomenon is spreading laterally.

It won’t rely on the Rule of Law. We are abandoning that.

It won’t rely on majority rule. The electoral college obliterates that.

It won’t rely on history. We distrust the telling of history, sometimes for good reason. (See: The Lost Cause Myth.)

It won’t rely on information. Too few control the dissemination, quality and content.

It won't rely on calm reflection. Our cell phones demand too much of our time for that.

It won’t rely on a concept of morality. The most commonly accepted source of morality in America is a book that lauds mass extermination, the murder of innocents, slavery, and harems, among its other tenets.

It won’t rely on sacrifice for the common good. That goes without saying.

EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 WORDS

A couple of things I’ve seen recently bother me. One happened yesterday when I clicked a YouTube video featuring a replay of a local TV news show reporting a rape. All was fine except that the word “rape” was blocked. Same-same the “F” word or the other six forbidden utterances. Something is wrong here and I struggle to imagine just what it is.

I’m not a fan of gory, but I do revere history. The old films of war and holocaust now suffer from having explicit scenes and photos of dead bodies blurred. Disclosures appear before ads and videos warning that the following may make someone uncomfortable.

Have we gotten too “woke?”

I fear it may be so. Will the word “Nazi” be blurred in future telecasts because millennials don’t “feel safe” when they hear it? How about "Manson, Bundy, Dahmer, and Gingrich?"

I tell you what makes me feel “not safe.” It’s the wimping and bastardization of human intercourse and the blurring of reality in the name of succor. I've been so "not feeling safe" in my life that I would have emptied a clip on my Sainted Mother had she come screaming out of the jungle at me. I think it served to make the rest of my life more joyous. Reality teaches and strengthens. An impenetrable wall to block fear is nothing more than a woke Plato's Cave. 

The unfortunate result of all this? I’m drifting farther from the left and toward the center. I’ll never reach the cruelty, selfishness, and irrationality of the right, but the extreme left may lose a tacit supporter. And just ask those who participated in the American revolution, women’s suffrage, or the civil rights struggle how important tacit support is.

Exemptions

You kinda have to wonder what the Galilean thinks when he sees some of memes posted on Facebook. As far as anyone knows, he hasn't shared his thoughts on line. He does give us a hint, though, in The Sermon on the Mount.

It comes right after he reminds the crowd on the hill about the Old Testament injunction regarding killing.

 “But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.”

Oh goodness. He didn’t really mean to imply that being angry with one’s brother is tantamount to murder, did he? Listen, and you will hear the out “of context crowd” saying, “he really didn’t mean that. How can we rid the world of homosexuality if we don’t teach our children to be angry with a brother or sister who chooses such a life? Anger is bad? He surely didn’t mean that.”

Well, he said it, or so the story goes.

And this word “raca,” is an interesting one. Some say it comes from the Aramaic word “reqa,”meaning “empty headed.”

“Empty headed” is extremely mild compared to what some of our “Christian” friends post about Michelle and Barack Obama, oh, and their children. And one doesn’t see the Galilean providing an exemption for our African-American brothers and sisters, or … our gay ones either.

Of course other professed followers of the Galilean aren't exactly circumspect about posting their opinions of those whom they consider empty-headed fools, even at the highest levels of political office.

Is the message that we can't forbid ourselves the choice of eschewing indifference? Is he saying that we can't speak out against evil? Can we not resist a malicious cancer that threatens our country and planet? Are we bound by silence in the face of wrongdoing?

No. He implies that abusive words reveal the true condition of our heart for which we will be punished. Does murder begin in the heart? Is the hatred that causes a person to post memes, (perhaps created in Russia) the very root of the hatred that causes murder?

We just don’t know. We might ask a survivor of the Holocaust. Maybe that was the sort of thing the Galilean was warning us about on that lonely hill.

Is how we see what we see?

One odd thing about the South always amazes me. It has to do with herpetology. Yeah, that’s the branch of zoology concerned with reptiles and amphibians. You might think that I’m not an expert. I did, though, room with two men accomplished in the field as a college undergraduate. One earned a PhD in the field. The other used his Master’s Degree in Zoology to gain entry into Med School. Both are deceased now, unfortunately, and can’t bear witness.

The two of them had a habit of keeping live reptiles in our apartment. Need I say more? My impressions of the field of study are most extant.

Oh, and once, while stranded on an isolated base of the United States Navy, and suffering from poverty caused by a records SNAFU, I gained solace in my square time by reading, at the small base library, the classic work The Reptiles of North America by Raymond Ditmars.

So you see, by social media standards I am three steps above the “Exalted Expert” classification on the topic of snakes, the reptilian kind at least.

Here stands my dilemma. The common, what we call, Cottonmouth snake, Agkistrodon piscivorus is, of course, a venomous viper, also bearing the name “Water Moccasin.” They don't bear messing with, as the old folks used to tell us. They don’t tend to grow too large, being thick with blunt tails. Overall, these snakes normally range from 2 to 4 feet in length, but may grow longer. They do hang out near water, but seem to avoid stock ponds, maybe because cows tend to step on them.

Now, according to my former roommates, these snakes are somewhat secretive, hanging out in underbrush near those bodies of water. The two roommates had a difficult time finding one on various expeditions, a fact that I found most comforting back in the day.

Consider next the yellow-bellied water snake, Nerodia erythrogaste. These reptiles represent both a common and gregarious species. They are found just about everywhere in our state where there is a bit of water. In mating season, they tend to gather up and form writhing balls, for the pure fun of it, I suppose.

Here comes the rub. I don’t think I know of an Arkansan who has ever seen a water snake. Gosh, they fish, swim, hike, and cut down forests near lakes, never encountering a Nerodia. Odd, isn’t it? It’s like living in rural Arkansas and never seeing a Confederate flag.

On the other hand, I’m entertained almost weekly by the accounts of Cottonmouths on every lake, stream, pond, and mud hole in Arkansas. Giant ones, averaging six feet or more in length. You can hardly walk without stepping on one. Isn’t that something?

Yes, taxonomy is a strange thing. We tend, don’t we, to organize and classify our acquaintances the same as we do reptiles? As an admitted devotee of progressive government and politics, people classify me as a liberal, pronounced here “lib-ral,” and I’m not to be near their children or attend the local cross-burnings for fear of morality contamination. As Jimmy Buffett would say, “My feet stink and I don’t love Jesus.”

On the other hand, I tend to view folks who attend churches where they forbid their women to speak aloud in services as a tad backwards in the modern world. They must hate females, all of them, each and every one, wouldn’t you say? Don’t they behave like Neanderthals living in a homo sapiens world?

Wow. It just occurred to me. Maybe they aren’t, not all of them anyway. Maybe we just think about people the way we program ourselves to, seeing danger where none exists. Maybe we see venom where there is nary a drop.

I need to go study on this awhile.

Where is our center?

Did you ever wake up in the morning with nothing to say? I haven’t. What I have to say may not always make sense but I never run out. This morning, for example, I can’t help thinking about the center of things. For example, consider the center of the Universe. We, somehow think we are it. Sad thing is, we’re not. I’m not sure we even know where the center of the Universe is. It’s where the Big Bang started, but have we located it yet? If we have, let me know, and don’t tell me it is in Arkansas.

Then consider things moral and political. Those used to be linked, you know, at least occasionally. Anyway, it’s tough times, the way I look at things, for those who would have us cling to a centrist view of our amazing Universe and try to see things from a balanced perspective.

No such luck. We are drawn with increasing force to either end of polar extremes. On the one end is a philosophy of greed, meanness, and selfishness. On the other end is silliness, self-destruction, and a shortsighted obsession with perfection as perceived by the perceiver.

Pity the poor centrist. Like the old hobo with one hand grasping an east-bound tanker, and the other on a fast-tracking freighter headed for the Golden Gate, we risk being pulled apart by indecision.

When I parted amicably with the United States Navy, I had what I considered a fairly small repertoire of wants.

I wanted a nice job in a respected profession. (Done)

I wanted to marry an exceptionally fine woman. (Done)

I wanted us to have a home of our own, (Done)

I wanted to read the entire works of William Faulkner. (Still working on it)

I wanted to develop a cadre of exceptional friends. (Done and continuing)

I wanted to learn to play the banjo. (Questionable progress, and in conflict with the preceding.

I wanted to be left alone and to bother no one. (More and more difficult)

I wanted to be a positive force in helping my former shipmates of various minority persuasions overcome the national resistance to their success in achieving what was possible for me.

For the last item, I thought we were making progress. Educational opportunities expanded. Jobs opened. Positive role models appeared in TV and film. (Sometimes)

Housing opportunities … well … not much progress there but signs were positive.

Our national corpus wasn’t healed, but was improving.

Then along came Barack Obama.

Oh my lord!

How could one man create such a subterranean monster of hatred? It rose, and is still stomping on our dreams and opportunities. The Center folded and the extremes dropped anchor in separate but equally dangerous shoals.

There, today, we ride the rough waves that will carry us into the future. Outside this morning, I continue to hear a destructive rain that seems never to stop. Up north, it’s snowing in May. These are results of our refusing to respect the fragility of our planet. Can the Center pull us back to within a safe harbor of reason and rational thinking? I don’t know.

I hope so, though

Sunrise With Schubert: March 7, 2018

The Dow is set for a 300-400 point drop today. Let’s hope it doesn’t occur. But, Hoover, Reagan, G.W. Bush, and now Trump. A pattern?

I continue to wonder why so many dear friends, whom I consider to be honest, sincere advocates of a small government and fiscal responsibility, have chosen Donald Trump to lead their party. Their political beliefs, after all, are much more in line with those of the men who drew up the original design of our country. There are some exceptions, the fear of a standing army being one, and the need for religion to remain in one’s “church of choice,” another.

I differ somewhat in my views, but I hope in an equally honest and sincere manner. I appreciate this constitutionally structured country of ours, now that we’ve had the good sense to value all men at 100 percent and women as equal beneficiaries of our abundances. I add to the teachings of the United States Constitution those of the Christian icon whom I call The Galilean. I find few incompatibilities, none fatal, between the Beatitudes and the Bill of Rights.

But differences of opinion, honestly argued within the Rule of Law, do, I believe lead ultimately to a sound government. Academics have found this true by studying the interactions of so-called “Guardians,” and “Advocates.”

Guardians, those prone to sacrifice progress for the sake of fiduciary conservatism, will, if granted too much power, lead to a rusting state and moribund economy. Advocates, those prone to chase every innovation and new idea, can, with that same unlimited power, lead us into bankruptcy.

It seems that in times when many considered America great, those two forces, in constant struggle, produced an economically sound country, for many. Minorities and women didn’t share the greatness, but no matter, it seemed. We would let them catch up on another day.

Anyway, we’ve lost that healthy “stability through diverse motivation” attitude that made us great. Trump’s party ignores laws and constitutional safeguards whenever convenient. His party members follow him and govern as it they will never be out of power again.

Do they know something the rest of us don’t?

Let all who love their country hope not.

Sunrise With Schubert: February 18, 2018

Perhaps we ought not to let the murder of 17 young Americans divide us further. We’re divided enough already, don’t you think?

I keep reading where we ought to talk to one another. That sounds like a good idea to me. I’m not quite sure how it would work, though. I’m not sure how to talk to someone who doesn't believe the scientists who say the Earth wasn't created 6,000 years ago. And I’m sure there are those who don’t know how to talk to someone who doesn’t believe scientists when they say that genetically modified foods are safe.

What are we to do? There are those in either direction who would change their beliefs on neither Torquemada’s grandest torture mechanism, nor from the soundest logic of Socrates. How can sincere dialogue take place in the middle of such chaos?

Maybe it could if we lop a couple of standard deviations off each side of the political spectrum and try again. I could start by saying that I know a few of things with which I think my philosophical opposites would agree, or at least agree to discuss without resorting to ad hominem attacks. To wit:

America, with all its warts and blemishes, is still the envy of most other countries. They wouldn’t criticize us so if it weren’t.

It’s not the number of activists who make change happen. It’s the type of activists who can work for change while attracting enough tacit support to allow victory and not pissing off enough people to ensure failure.

Science and technology are both wonderful things, but, as the late Stephen Jay Gould opined, the two of them can outrace, at times, our moral and ethical growth.

When regulators believe that their job is to write regulations instead of protecting the health, safety, and welfare of the polis, we become an over-regulated society and many lose faith in government.

Without a system of governmental oversight, our rivers may catch fire, daily life may become a nightmare of anarchy, and dangers that we may not even imagine now may destroy us.

We don’t really want our planet destroyed.

We may not agree with Mattie Ross of the immortal True Grit, that “enough is as good as a feast,” but we should agree that those who have everything should not want to obtain more on the backs of their fellow countrymen. At least I hope we think so.

Few people or groups of people are either perfect or without some redeeming points.

A lack of education does not obviate a lack of goodness.

Education is not evil.

Southerners are not all racists idiots, Easterners are not all hypocritical elites who preach brotherhood from their limousines, Northerners are not all gangsters and union thugs, and Westerners are not all drugstore cowboys or nuts who have all rolled to the edge of the known world.

We’re all in this together.

Feel free to add your own. I'm ready to talk.

Talking is good.

Morning Thoughts: December 23, 2017

“Blessed are ye that weep now, for you shall laugh.” That’s how Luke told it. “Blessed are those that mourn, for they shall be comforted,” is how Matthew reported it.

Both were, of course, telling of the words of the Galilean at the Sermon on the Mount, one of the most respected writings, historically, ever recorded. Mahatma Gandhi claimed it as a favorite work, but berated Christians for their lack of observance. The Sermon was a foundation of the now much-reviled Social Gospel, so comforting to those who mourned during the Jim Crow era of our country. Its teachings have fallen much into disuse in this age of “doers,” and “takers.” As Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. observed, there has been no proposal to place the Beatitudes on a statehouse lawn.

Those who espouse the so-called “Prosperity Gospel,” find the Beatitudes an embarrassment and consign them to the ash heap of history along with the entire sermon. They use the ubiquitous “out-of-context” defense by which we discard any Biblical teachings that contract our long-held beliefs or imprinted biases.

Anyway, one couldn’t help but recall this particular Beatitude during a week when three-quarters of our country mourned. What did they mourn? They mourned what they saw as the successful attack by a minority upon the poor and others of the “least of those among us.” Their counterpoints viewed their success as what they termed a Biblical prophecy, although exactly which one remains a mystery.

This dialectic frames the condition of our country now, it seems. Dissension ferments a bitter fruit within us, because finding common ground with those who trust in such diametrically opposed viewpoints is difficult, if not impossible. A divide, as great philosophically as the Grand Canyon is geologically, renders finding common goals difficult. What, we wonder, will happen to those standing on the side of the chasm that turns out to be the wrong side of history?

A holy heart residing within is the belief of a person with deeply embedded beliefs, implanted by nurture. A troubled soul can confront one who thirsts for knowledge. So we stand, tongues lashing and fingers pointing across the divide, each side hoping for history’s absolution.

Maybe the answer would involve what we currently refer to as a paradigm shift. As with the squirmy concept of what some people call the “axial age,” i.e, we find ourselves in a situation where the old paradigm is ending and the new paradigm isn’t ready yet.

We can only hope that cool heads and reasoned communication prevail in its formation.