Category Archives: human culture

Voting, Jonathan Haidt, and e e cummings

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A couple days ago I blogged about the research of Jonathan Haidt which suggested that we vote more in accordance with our feelings than with reason.  Given my poetry-flooded mind and heart, I recalled a quip from e e cummings, “he who pays attention to the syntax of things will never wholly kiss you.” I “felt” this was relevant but did not see how so I did note quote it in that post.  Now I understand. 

First, I should explain that cummings was such a recalcitrant that he would not comply with the simple rules of grammar like capitalization, punctuation, the spacialization of the page, and even “proper” use of words and images.  YET, in so doing his poetry conveyed profound wisdom and beauty to those whose mind/heart is “squishy” enough to be open to poetry.  But “wholly kissing” someone really pinged me, understanding that to kiss someone whole heartedly entails an ability to throw oneself into the intense passion of the moment so that he…in some sense…”forgets”… restraint, or concern for “syntax” or structure.  In other words, in that moment of passionate embrace, everything else is put aside. 

The feeling dimension of voting is important because it is very human.  But those who “wholly kiss” their candidate can easily lose respect for the “syntax” or structure and will be willing to overrule any and all other considerations in the election process.  The feeling function in their heart is so intense that they too closely identify with the candidate; in some sense they have melded with him so that he embodies the hidden desires and wishes of their heart.  They have pledged their heart to him, “lock, stock, and barrel” so that he knows he could tell them, “I could shoot someone in the middle of the street in Manhattan and my poll numbers would not fall.” 

This “feeling function,” (see Carl Jung) is a very important dimension of the human heart but can lead to catastrophe if it is not balanced by the “thinking function.”  But it is very easy to find oneself encumbered with tyrannical thinking patterns and motifs that are not subject to the internal dialogue that comes from employment of the feeling function. Thinking and feeling are not allowed to work in tandem, a cooperation which makes us a human and keeps us from becoming a mere ideologue. 

We Have A “Splinter in Our Brain” but Won’t Admit it.

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As individuals, things occasionally go awry. Our life tosses us a lemon and the making of lemonade out of it does not seem possible. We encounter loss, or a career setback, marital conflict, “acting out” children, or an illness and it seems like impending doom is near. Something akin to this was underway with Emily Dickinson when she coined that expression, “a splinter in our brain” which I use so often. In my clinical background I worked with clients who could be described as having one of those “splinters” wreaking havoc, or at least some distress in their life. They, or their parents, or the school, or the legal system noted something awry and referred them to me for counseling. But what would often stand in the way of any resolution was an unwillingness to acknowledge, “Houston, we have a problem here.” For, blaming someone else for our woes is a common human response; in some sense our culture teaches our children to resort to this avoidance mechanism.

“Houston,” my country “has a problem.” I could then immediately blame Trump and his disciples but I recognize he is but a symptom. Here I will not focus on the Republican Party, for which he is the mouthpiece of all they refuse to acknowledge; but, this can also be said about our entire country. Our country has allowed a “cancer to grow in the White House” just as in the Nixon era but we are stymied from a simple extirpation of the cancer. In the Nixon Watergate drama, it was Nixon’s own Republican Party who had the courage and patriotism to go to Nixon and tell him, “You gotta go.” There is no one in the GOP that has the courage to confront this tyrant though, and the GOP acts as a deterrent for any Democratic intervention. Consequently Trump is doing as his niece recently said he would do after losing the election, spending his time “breaking things.” That is a common response for any two-year old who is being denied any of his baubles, especially the comfort of thinking, “the world is my oyster.”

This tragedy has helped me to realize that my country’s narcissism and arrogance is being put on display for the entire world. This is not to trash my beloved country, but simply to recognize the very human-ness of our history and the present-moment we are living out. We humans have a tendency to think “it is all about me” even if this arrogance might be camouflaged in religious piety, aka “hypocrisy.” It is very challenging to allow this truth to sink into one’s heart, especially if piety has been his modus operandi most of his life–“c’est moi,” I confess! I am currently reading Barak Obama’s marvelous new book, “The Promised Land” and he is very open in sharing about the dark side of his ascendency to the world stage. This is because he has the humility to permit “internal dialogue” with himself, that quality which Hannah Arendt in “Life of the Mind” explains was egregiously absent in people like Adolph Eichmann. This “internal dialogue” with oneself makes it possible to engage in dialogue with other people, even those with a different perspective on life, and seek common ground. A brickbat is thereby thrown at the tyranny of certainty. And those of us who have to confront one of those “splinters” in our brain will often live through the experience of “brickbatting.”

Another “Dust Bunny” Paean With a Poem

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The “dust of the earth” which the Bible tells us we were created from is increasingly such a meaningful image to me.  Yes, it is probably because I’m closer daily to that point where I will become what Hamlet famously described as, “the food of worms;” but in the meantime I increasingly appreciate and even revel in my existential status of being a “dust bunny” of sorts.  This earthiness that each of us share, a commonality superseded only by That which undergirds the whole of this “goodly frame,” is a playground for each of us, a playground which, however, does involve occasional bumps and bruises..  The following poem by Ross Gay, described prominently in his biography as “a gardener,” so beautifully describes one poet’s intimate connection with and respect for this Earth.

If you find yourself half naked
and barefoot in the frosty grass, hearing,
again, the earth’s great, sonorous moan that says
you are the air of the now and gone, that says
all you love will turn to dust,
and will meet you there, do not
raise your fist. Do not raise
your small voice against it. And do not
take cover. Instead, curl your toes
into the grass, watch the cloud
ascending from your lips. Walk
through the garden’s dormant splendor.
Say only, thank you.
Thank you. If you find yourself half naked
and barefoot in the frosty grass, hearing,
again, the earth’s great, sonorous moan that says
you are the air of the now and gone, that says
all you love will turn to dust,
and will meet you there, do not
raise your fist. Do not raise
your small voice against it. And do not
take cover. Instead, curl your toes
into the grass, watch the cloud
ascending from your lips. Walk
through the garden’s dormant splendor.
Say only, thank you.
Thank you.

Perspective From the Lens of a Camera

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Perspective.  We all have one…and if you are “lucky” you will not be aware of it! By that I am alluding to a wise quip from the philosopher Paul Ricoeur who once noted, “You can’t have a perspective on your perspective without somehow escaping it.”  The “escape” can be frightening, especially if it comes too abruptly. (See the Apostle Paul on the Damascus Road.)

Photography has helped bring this matter to my attention.  This morning in The Guardian I discovered an Italian photographer, Olivo Barbieri, whose work is “interesting” with how it takes the happenstance of day-to-day life, captures it with the lens, and presents it to us.  This “capture” is known as “framing” in photography.  In the photography show, attached below, Barbieri displays a very wry grasp of his world and conveys it to people, such as “moi”, who appreciate the “wry” in life.  I’m sure some would look at his work and say, scratching their head perhaps, “Huh?”

Perspective is a life-long concern of mine.  If you read this “font of wisdom” very often, you will see how I focus on the matter, bringing emphasis to dimensions of life to which most people would not pay any attention.  If we lack perspective, we often will be consumed or even devoured by one of which we are not conscious; that can, too often, bode ill for us and those in our world.  Our president, and his disciples, are a current egregious example of this.

Below is a link to the Barbieri story and a copy of one of his pictures.  Several of his pictures are available if you check out the link.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2020/sep/22/eyes-playing-tricks-olivo-barbieri-italian-photographer-in-picture

“Bay of Pigs Award”??? Huh???

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Trump yesterday in a speech made a casual reference to him having been given the “Bay of Pigs Award.”  Immediately, we knew that no such award existed.  A bit of exploration revealed that at a Cuban museum sometime ago, Trump being a TV celebrity, was given a pin of some sorts for his lapel.  But in the speech yesterday, he illustrated a verbal “finesse” he and his minions have applied so often in the past four years, taking a “word’ or concept and “spinning” it a bit to totally misconstrue its meaning in the present world.  BUT, given the office he now holds, his words, deceitful though they might be, hold power and today many of his minions will be voicing admiration for his being honored with this “Bay of Pigs Award.” Trump is a god of sorts, though a very dark one, and he can “speak things into existence” though they have no existence other than what he has created with his word; and avid devotees with hungry ears and hearts readily aid and abet him, helping to make his lies into “truth.

Reality is specious, but that is frightening to consider.. These “minions” of Trump’s will swallow this b.s.,  hook, line, and sinker, and those who don’t will do the Paul Ryan and Reince Priebus two-step in response—doing or saying absolutely nothing.  And joining in this “two-step” will be kool-aid intoxicated GOP upper echelon of today such as Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham.  But these people are not necessarily “bad” they are simply powerless to speak out as speaking out would jeopardize the whole of their identity as staunch Republicans who follow the Loretta Lynn advice of, “Stand by Your Man.” And, yes, if they never find the courage to speak up, that makes them “very” bad.

This fiasco is serving the existential purpose of rubbing “reality” under our noses and daring us to smell the stink.  Oh, “reality” has more to offer than “stink,” but the “stink” is there…if we are honest. Just ask the marginalized sectors of our society. There is a sense in which reality is what we want it to be and the GOP is demonstrating for us just how far this “want” can go if it feels in jeopardy.  This “want” can be thought of a will and “will” unmitigated is destructive of the self and everyone around it.

So does reality “stink?”  Well, reality just “is” and I will avoid the temptation to go Bill Clinton on you and observe, “Well, it depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is.”  We live in this conundrum that called reality and yes it does stink; but it also smells good a lot of the time.  We must not allow the present stink… dank, dark and ugly though it is, to crush us.  A waft of fresh air will come at some point and blow that wretching smell away for a moment in time, including the giant orange-mopped “stinker” that has brought it to us.

Artificial Intelligence Has Become Eerily Human!

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The London newspaper, The Guardian, has a wonderful story several days ago about artificial intelligence, aka “AI.” The paper commissioned a very sophisticated computer, the GPT-3, to write an essay about computers and their power over life as we know it and as it might come to be.  They offered three “prompts” to give it guidance and then this inhuman “heart” wrote a beautiful, thoughtful, and even “human” essay which you should read.  It is very revealing about the human heart and mind, both of which are guided by certain “prompts” which are difficult to ascertain; and even those we do “ascertain” are not its essence.  This is because the heart is Infinite and can never be “plumbed” though human nature is wired to think it can, and that it has even accomplished this.

This dilemma is the Mystery of Life which gave rise to religion, in addition to other “art” forms.  That Infinite Dimension which we ARE is designed to be curious and this “curiosity” needs to be explored… though within limits; for, remember, “Curiosity killed the cat!”  This limit cautions us to remember we hold within us a “treasure” which is but in an “earthly vessel.”  But human reason does not like this limitation, an existential understanding that I am only learning each day, “with fear and trembling.”

The delightful, frightening, though wryly-inspiring article can be found in the following link–https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/08/robot-wrote-this-article-gpt-3

Jerry Falwell, Jr. Was a Victim…of Sorts!

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Jerry Falwell Jr. fell victim to “christianizing.”  Being raised in conservative Christianity, with his father being a prominent preacher and eventual founder of the Moral Majority movement, he had no “choice.”  Spiritually-minded people of all persuasions often fail to realize that the wisdom given them by their tradition came through culture, one important dimension being language itself.  Furthermore, regardless of how noble the teachings of any tradition, these teachings come to us through this culture with its tremendous pressure. There is an hard-wired socio-cultural pressure to “sign-on” and fit into the group that one is born into and accept its central tenets without question.

Falwell, Jr. like myself got enculturated into his faith but has yet to find the courage and grace to wrench free of its grip to the point of finding “wiggle-room” so that the teachings could become less cultural and more personal; one could even say, “less institutional” and more personal.  Any spiritual teaching has to be “institutionalized” if it is to be passed on to future generations and there comes the rub; for, as this “institutional framework” evolves it creates positions for power to evolve and hungry young egos always realize that and see it as an opportunity.  As noted before, “c’est moi” as that was the direction early in my life though I only fancied myself as a “small fish” in a “small pond” compared with the larger pond that Falwell Jr. had available.

This is not a hit job on this hapless man who has been broadsided by reality.  If this “broad-siding” had not begun in my early 20’s and relentlessly gnawed away at my constitutional hypocrisy, I too would today be a fervent defender of my ego and passionate defender of Trump.  And the “gnawing away” continues as the Pauline “the flesh” never leaves us, for which I am grateful; for, it is lovely to be human and no longer to have to be “christian.”

A Poem Relevant to Our Nation, “Bow Down to Stutterers.”

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Joe Biden put something on our table last week that Trump will never do, given a constitutional flaw that makes it impossible to admit any fault—he admitted a human flaw, stuttering.  Furthermore, he offered the stage to a 13 year old lad who he has coached recently about stuttering, Braydon Harrington. Braydon humbly accepted  this opportunity to demonstrate tremendous courage and offer a brief speech in which he did indeed stutter

Though stuttering is a neurological disorder…as is every malady, including “being human”…I immediately thought of a poem in which this malady was approached in poetic imagery.  Edgar Simmons,  a Mississippi poet who grasped the nuances of the heart and was able to present stuttering from an interesting perspective.  In the poem which I will offer, he saw stuttering as representing a heart with so much energy that conveying  its burden into words was a challenge. This poem is so rich but one particular image really speaks to me, “The stutter’s hesitation/Is a procrastination crackle/Redress to hot force,/Flight from ancient flame.”  Simmons presents the stutterer as being gripped by a passionate intensity that words cannot contain.  It brings to mind Goneril’s response to her father’s (King Lear) question, “How much do you love me?”  She responded with a simple, “More than words can wield the matter.”

BOW DOWN TO STUTTERERS
By Edgar Simmons

The stutter’s hesitation
Is a procrastination crackle,
Redress to hot force,
Flight from ancient flame.

The bow, the handclasp, the sign of the cross
Say, “Sh-sh-sheathe the savage sword.”

If there is greatness in sacrifice
Lay on me the blue stigmata of saints;
Let me not fly to kill in unthought.

Prufrock has been maligned
And Hamlet should have waived revenge,
Walked with Ophelia domestic corridors
Absorbing the tick, the bothersome twitch.

Let me stutter with the non-objective painters
Let my stars cool to bare lighted civilities.

Brief Thought from this “Third Rock from the Sun”

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I write often about the infinite complexity of being human, dwelling on this “Third Rock from the Sun,” and witnessing and feeling the weight of fulfilling this Divinely-given task. Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, understands this better than I, and writes beautifully about it:

We become human in the act of finding a place to stand within the irreducibly difficult and mobile interweaving of diverse presentations of what is there for our minds, grasping that to know something in the world is not to arrive at a final structural scheme for it but to inhabit a process of discovery in which there is always more otherness to encounter, the otherness of new perspective and new requirements for “negotiation.” (from “The Edge of Words: God and the Habits of Language.)

A Further Sojourn Into Hannah Arendt’s Prophetic Work

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I continue to explore the work of Hannah Arendt from which I shared in in recent posts.  And, from this blog-o-sphere that I participate in I have received nice feedback as well from friends I know in real-time.  Arendt’s work details how the absence of critical thinking will leave one mired down in the unacknowledged recesses of the mind and heart.  This venture into the heart’s machinations is disillusioning and frightening. Arendt offers us a powerful exploration of totalitarianism and its impact, individually and collectively on critical thinking. Without it a mind-set emerges and marches on, grim faced and determined to cling to preconceptions and biases that harm themselves and others, lacking any “interior dialogue” or self-talk.

In my morning sojourn through the cyber world today, I discovered related wisdom that I would like to share.  The first is from Gene W. Marshall in his book “Jacob’s Dream,” in which he writes from what I would describe as a post-modern view of Holy Writ:

Spirit freedom is not the same thing as the so-called free will that is often written about. The ego (as I have defined it) has free will but the ego’s definition of free will is limited by the ego’s definition of itself.  The ego is a construction of the human mind.  This construction may allow for the presence of some elements of our essential Freedom.  But because it is a human construction, the ego also restricts the full expression of our Spirit Freedom. (As I noted in last week’s blog, “We want only what we want.” and cannot see beyond our narcissistic view of the world. “The world is my oyster”!)

Here, Mr. Marshall’s thought leads us directly into the abyss that I shared from Arendt’s observations about Hitler and totalitarianism.  My vein of thought was very convoluted and even involuted as I tried to put into words that which cannot be put into words. This effort can take us into a murky world which is very “Zen like,” a state of being which I used to formulate in terms of “the working of the Holy Spirit.” And this biblical formulation still has merit for me.  The Apostle Paul described this process as the “Spirit” furrowing into the depths of our heart where we can “discern the thoughts and intents” of our heart, individually and collectively. (I recall a note by Rumi pointing this truth out in 13th century Iran, “Out beyond the distinctions of right doing and wrongdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there.”)

In the on-line journal, “The Mind Matters” I also discovered this morning a paragraph from Andre Gorz that is relevant:

For society is no longer to be found where it institutionally proclaims its existence…Society now only exists in the interstices of the system, where new relations and new solidarities are being worked out and are creating, in their turn, new public spaces in the struggle against the mega-machine and its ravages; it exists only where individuals assume the autonomy to which the disintegration of traditional bonds and the bankruptcy of received interpretations condemn them and where they take upon themselves the task of inventing, starting out from their own selves, the values, goals and social relations which can become the seeds of a future society.”

Gorz, who was a Marxist philosopher, captured the dynamic dimension of a social body and described bringing it to life, paralleling the process of a“human body”…an individual… self-reflect ing itself into “coming to life.” His term, the “interstices of the system” in sociological thought parallels our own individual heart in which components are roiling about in an effort to come to grips with our interior life, aka those “thoughts and intents of the heart’ that the Apostle Paul wrote about. This process can produce “life”, aka “Life” that is beyond the pale of the perfunctory life that our world offered us as a child. This makes me want to scrutinize further the bromide from my youth, “being born again.””

I know that my thoughts here are again convoluted and involuted.  I am trying to summarize that life is more than we know it to be.  I am more than I “think” that I am and I live in a world which is more than it “thinks” it is.  I am exploring a dimension of life that is mysterious and incomprehensible.  I can never “figger it out,” I can only pay attention to what is going on in my heart and what is “going on” out there as I “chop wood and carry water” for another day. Presently, I can only “pay attention” to the glory of a beautiful doggie lying here beside me, the cup of coffee I’m sipping, and the crackling of the fire in the wood stove. Shortly, the morning will begin to dawn and I will saunter outside into the cool of the morning air, pay homage to the plants and flowers that are thriving, and bow before the majestic tapestry of morning stars that linger before disappearing for another day. One poet described this as the mystery before which we can only, “glory, bow, and tremble.”