Category Archives: Democrats

Thoughts About a Chattering Monkey Mind

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In the following epigram, one of four epigrams under the title “Four Poems after Callimachus” by Stephanie Burtt, I discover the presence of a cautionary self-reflection with anyone who deigns to write…even in the humble milieu of the blogosphere.

(Epigrams, 60)

Lucky Orestes.
          If you know his story,
you probably think that saying so makes me a jerk.
Fair enough. But I’ve been losing my mind
in my own way this week: Orestes lost his,
but at least he didn’t insist
on asking his loyal companion to read and critique
his own book-length original fictional work.
That’s why he kept Pylades as his friend.
True friendship can exist.
          As for me,
I need to learn how not to speak,
when not to hit send.

I am “full of words”; yes, even too full of them, like Elihu in the book of Job who noted, “My belly is full of words, like a taut wineskin, about to burst.”  And that is ok; all of us have our “belly” full of something and I’m glad my stubborn willfulness is sublimated into verbiage as opposed to less benign “stuff”.  But I’m certainly learning how to “not hit send” more often and the same discretion is being exercised in my daily life.  It makes me remember a bromide from a pastor in my youth, three filters through which should pass anything we might say—-1) Is it true?; 2)Is it kind?; 3) Is it necessary?  Number three is really challenging, putting about anything we do or say into question.  I recall the tune from the ‘60’s, “Silence is Golden” by the Tremeloes.  My meditation experience of the past ten years gives rise to these thoughts about silence.  This practice continues to remind me of the chattering of the monkey mind and how that much of this chattering can take the form of “noble” thoughts.  It often is still “chattering.”  W. H. Auden noted, “We are afraid of pain, but more afraid of silence.”

Our Existential, Perspectival Imprisonment

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There was an interesting and very revealing exchange this morning between Joy Reid (MSNBS) and an internet respondent.  Reid described the Republicans as a, “Racial and religious cult of personality.”  The internet response from a woman who obviously was a Republican quipped, “Sounds like the far left who can’t look past their own racial and cultural identity.”  This woman brought to the table a key dimension in our nation’s present drama, noting how “racial and cultural identity” shape our view of the world.  BUT, what she probably does not realize is that the “bias” she sees with Joy Reid and Democrats also is very relevant to her and the Republican Party.

This matter of perspective I have summarized as, “What you see is what you are.”  It is impossible to not let our background and very immature, even infantile, desires influence how we see the world.  BUT, it is possible to recognize…and experience…this existential quandary and thereby find a moment of “self” awareness which can make room for others, for difference.  Philosopher Paul Ricoeur put it this way, “It is impossible to have a perspective on your perspective without somehow escaping it.”  The core issue here is of the heart, a willingness to recognize…and experience…that all of us trapped in, “the small bright circle of our consciousness beyond which lies the dark.”  This “darkness” is described by some as a “gap,” the sudden ability to see that beyond our narrow little view of the world there are others who have their “own narrow little” and it needs respect just as does ours.  On this subject, which I emphasize so often here and in my day-to-day life, I think that this perspectival trap that is endemic to being human is relevant to the famous teaching of Jesus—to find our life we have to give it up; or, as I like to paraphrase, “Get over yourself.”  We are taught in my culture to be intoxicated with our ideas, our “thinking,” and fail to ever learn that, “the finger pointing to the moon is not the moon.”  The word is not a “thing”,  but a mere pointer to the “Thing”, aka in philosophy known as, “the Thing in itself.  Refusing to acknowledge this existential dilemma makes one an ideologue.

This is a “spiritual” matter that I’m addressing, but words like “spiritual” are so tarnished by present-day life that often it means only some “mind” set we are comfortable with.  And in dressing it up with words like “god” or the “holy spirit” we fail to recognize we are often only referring to a mind set which has no reference to anything other than the aforementioned quote by Conrad Aiken, “the small bright circle of our consciousness.”  I I am finding that words like “spiritual” and other “god-talk” rhetoric are often missing the “personal” dimension.  Making these words, and the whole of any Holy Writ, has value when we allow it to sink into the secret crevices of our heart where, per Emily Dickinson, “the meanings are.”  In Christian tradition this is relevant to the Apostle Paul who described this emotional/intellectual/spiritual quest involves being open to the “Spirit of God” which is “quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”  Here I will provide the whole of the above referenced Emily Dickinson poem:

There’s a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons –
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes –

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us –
We can find no scar,
But internal difference –
Where the Meanings, are –

None may teach it – Any –
‘Tis the seal Despair –
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air –

When it comes, the Landscape listens –
Shadows – hold their breath –
When it goes, ’tis like the Distance
On the look of Death –

 

Ideologues Can Be Liberal!!!

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I have posted frequently about ideologues, explaining that I’m one in recovery and like being “in recovery” with any illness, the illness will always be present!  But “naming the demon” gives me some distance from the poison that would otherwise still have me enslaved.

I’ve very troubled with my country’s election campaign this year.  Yes, Donald Trump is “troubling” but that is not my only concern.  The fans of Bernie Sanders are demonstrating an investment in him which often puts me off given the frequent self-righteous fervor and invective that is taking place.  At times it is quite apparent that they love “Bernie” so much that they are responding with downright hatred for Hillary Clinton.  I really like Bernie myself and have greatly admired him though this admiration is currently being given pause.  His “success” in the primary season and reached the point where I fear that he is posing a threat to the best opportunity my country has to thwart this Trumpian beast that is “lurching toward our Bethlehem.”

Bernie is a wonderful voice for the progressive cause.  But he should remember the wisdom of W. H. Auden, “Truth, like love and sleep, resents approaches that are too steep.”  Or, to frame it another way, “Discretion is the better part of valor” and I fear his obsession with his campaign is lacking discretion.  This Trump monster that is threatening our village is deadly serious and at this point in the campaign Hillary is in a commanding lead that most competitors would respect.  Sure, the “system is rigged” in that there are rules in place that Hillary is benefiting from but it is a little bit late go be complaining about the rules.  It reminds me of Trump himself who brazenly disregards all rules.

Here is a link to a blog that prompted me offer this discourse:

http://www.shakesville.com/2016/01/the-inherent-misogyny-of-sanders.html

 

“Waging the Collective War We Are”

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W. H. Auden’s observation, “We wage the war we are” also applies to human collectives. Carl Jung eloquently described the “collective unconscious,” one example seen often in mob psychology where otherwise law-abiding people can have subterranean demons stirred up to the point of violent behavior. And sociologists and anthropologists…and other social scientists…are adept at delineating how our connection with social groups influences our behavior much more than we ever would like to acknowledge. Psychologist Jonathan Haidt has very interesting recordings on YouTube and TedTalks in which he shows evidence that my “firm conviction” to be a liberal Democrat is not without unconscious motivation just as Conservative Republicans are also driven by similar needs.

Even the species as a whole can be compared to an individual child, still early in development, struggling to integrate fragmented impulses into a working, harmonious whole. Just in my lifetime, with technological advances like computers and the internet, our world is so much “smaller,” so much more a “whole”, and we are so very near, yet so very far, to being able to come much closer to world peace and harmony than ever before. We have the means, but lack the will. And I recently came across someone who pointed out the “coincidence” that terrorism has emerged as a formless (i.e. “stateless”) expression of the violent dimensions of our collective unconscious. Jung would say that our collective unconscious is telling us that all of our accomplishments deriving from our conscious need for structure and organization, are finding their complement in the chaos of violence. It is as if our collective unconscious is reminding us, “Oh yes. Technology and progress is great. But it comes by sublimating repressed violent impulses and these violent impulses need to be given attention.” The goal is to continue to seek meaning and coherence in our world while simultaneously acknowledging and addressing the violent unconscious impulses that are within us all. And this can be done through sublimation such as with religion, literature, art and mythology. But I issue a caveat re religion—“Danger, danger Will Robinson.” For religion can easily become just another form of violence as we see so often today.