Category Archives: politics

Neurophysiology and Political Beliefs

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Several times in recent days I have addressed the subject of purity and the problems it poses when it becomes an obsession. These obsessional purists eventually live in a bubble and seek to obliterate anyone who would deign to think or behave differently than they do. I have received some very interesting responses from this blog post, some of which provided further grist for my mill. One suggested a neurological dimension to the conservative mindset (see “neuro notes” on wordpress) which led to even further google exploration on my own. I am going to share with you an article from Mother Jones magazine which suggests that conservatism is not a function of reason as much as it is underlying neurophysiology. Now in fairness, by extension the same can be applied to a “liberal” mindset or any other mindset. Our “thinking” is not autonomous and “objective”. There is always an underlying neurological substrate that influences our thinking, our reasoning. This is related to an observation I have shared several times from a source I cannot recall, “Our thinking is the belated rationalization of conclusions to which we have already been led by our desires.”

Now, I know the terror that this strikes in some hearts. I know because I once lived there and recoiled when notions of this sort were proposed. These notions always brought to my mind the arch enemy of my conservative mind, “RELATIVISM!!!!” And relevant to this demonic buzzword, there was the fear that “nothing is real.”

I do not see it that way now. Yes, things are much more relative than I used to think and much more relative than they appear to most people, especially conservative extremists. But I do believe in an Ultimate and do so with great passion. I just don’t have as much confidence anymore in my ability, or the ability of any human, to grasp and understand and control that Ultimate with his/her mind. When we allow our spiritual exploration to take us beyond that neurological substrate, and beyond any other underpinnings that science might posit, we find a primordial emptiness (or Nothingness) and that is where faith is required, faith in the sense of hope. This emptiness is expressed in the Christian tradition as “kenosis” or “self-emptying.” This requires an humility which the ego finds repulsive.

This leaves us seeing our beautiful world “unreal” in ultimate terms. But it is the only reality we know (as in consciously “know”) and is very important as it is the means by which the Ultimate can begin its/His unfolding. This hidden world gives the “seen” world meaning and therefore allows Essential Beauty to become manifest.

I’m going to share some of the wisdom of Lao Tzu before I conclude with the Mother Jones article by Chris Mooney:

Thirty spokes are made one by holes in a hub,
By vacancies joining them for a wheel’s use;
The use of clay in moulding pitchers
Comes from the hollow of its absence;
Doors, windows, in a house,
Are used for their emptiness:
�Thus we are helped by what is not
To use what is

MOTHER JONES ARTICLE

The past two weeks have seen not one but two studies published in scientific journals on the biological underpinnings of political ideology. And these studies go straight at the role of genes and the brain in shaping our views, and even our votes.

First, in the American Journal of Political Science [1], a team of researchers including Peter Hatemi of Penn State University and Rose McDermott of Brown University studied the relationship between our deep-seated tendencies to experience fear—tendencies that vary from person to person, partly for reasons that seem rooted in our genes—and our political beliefs. What they found is that people who have more fearful disposition also tend to be more politically conservative, and less tolerant of immigrants and people of races different from their own. As McDermott carefully emphasizes, that does not mean that every conservative has a high fear disposition. “It’s not that conservative people are more fearful, it’s that fearful people are more conservative,” as she puts it [2].

I interviewed the paper’s lead author, Peter Hatemi, about his research for my 2012 book The Republican Brain. Hatemi is both a political scientist and also a microbiologist, and as he stressed to me, “nothing is all genes, or all environment.” These forces combine to make us who we are, in incredibly intricate ways.

And if Hatemi’s and McDermott’s research blows your mind, get this [3]: Darren Schreiber, a political neuroscientist at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, first performed brain scans on 82 people participating in a risky gambling task, one in which holding out for more money increases your possible rewards, but also your possible losses. Later, cross-referencing the findings with the participants’ publicly available political party registration information, Schreiber noticed something astonishing: Republicans, when they took the same gambling risk, were activating a different part of the brain than Democrats.

Republicans were using the right amygdala, the center of the brain’s threat response system. Democrats, in contrast, were using the insula, involved in internal monitoring of one’s feelings. Amazingly, Schreiber and his colleagues write that this test predicted 82.9 percent of the study subjects’ political party choices—considerably better, they note, than a simple model that predicts your political party affiliation based on the affiliation of your parents.

I also interviewed Schreiber for The Republican Brain. He’s a scientist who was once quite cautious about the relevance of brain studies to people’s politics. As he put it to me: “If you had called me four years ago and said, ‘What is your view on whether Republicans and Democrats have different brains?’ I would have said no.” Now, his own published research suggests otherwise.

The current research suggests not only that having a particular brain influences your political views, but also that having a particular political view influences your brain.

One again, though, there’s a critical nuance here. Schreiber thinks the current research suggests not only that having a particular brain influences your political views, but also that having a particular political view influences and changes your brain. The causal arrow seems likely to run in both directions—which would make sense in light of what we know about the plasticity of the brain. Simply by living our lives, we change our brains. Our political affiliations, and the lifestyles that go along with them, probably condition many such changes.

The two new studies described here are likely connected: It is hard not to infer that fear of outsiders or those different from you—along with greater fear dispositions in general—may be related to the role of amygdala, a brain structure that has been dubbed the “heart and soul of the fear system [4].” The amygdala has been repeatedly implicated in politics. Indeed, Schreiber’s research builds on prior brain studies: In a group of University College of London students, for instance, conservatives showed more gray matter [5] in the right amygdala.

So what’s the upshot? How about this: We need a much broader and more thoughtful discussion about what it means if political ideology turns out to be nothing like what we actually thought it was. Scientists working in this new field tend towards the conclusion that the new research should make us more tolerant, not less, of political difference—not to mention a whole lot more humble about our own deeply held beliefs.

(For additional information of the neuroscience of political belief systems, please google Jonathan Haidt for several very interesting and provocative You Tube lectures. Also, please check out this You Tube post by Neuro Notes: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFnAN0Tb-Nc)

The Danger of “Purity”

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Several days ago I blogged about the TV series “Breaking Bad” and segued into human culture and its tendency to not allow this kind of self-criticism, which is especially so with hyper-conservative cultures. One reader posed the question about my particular culture (the United States), “How could purity be such an issue in a land of such conspicuous free speech?”

The answer lies in the human heart and its deep-seated and dark need to isolate in a particular mindset, to “know” the truth, to be ensconced in an autistic shell; and when anyone “knows” the truth in this way, then he/she must convince others of this same truth, even at the point of the sword! And that is the reason that in a land of free press an individual or group of individuals will not be content with his/her little universe that American freedom has granted him/her. The poison of his/her interiority is so pervasive, so rigorous, so lethal that it cannot be stopped and it must proselytize. It must spread like cancer.

Of course, this “knowledge” does not employ honest use of human reason. It is a fragile heart that has grasped at the Kierkegaardian “flotsam and jetsam” when overwhelmed by the vortex of meaninglessness….or, to be more precise, when unconsciously threatened by that vortex. This mindset never knows (consciously) the vortex and seeks to destroy any inkling of its existence, not just in its own heart but in the hearts of others also. Thus the demand for “purity”, “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

Some of my readers are from other cultures and may not follow American politics. But if you happen to do so, you know that this “purity” motif is really pronounced right now in the right-wing base of the conservative Republican party. This movement has coalesced in what is known as the “Tea Party” movement within the Republican Party and it is really posing a threat to that party and also to our government. Though it is relatively small, this party screams loudly and have managed to cower the leadership of the Republican party and to influence a broad spectrum of that party.

Related to the “purity” issue is the fear of having been “penetrated.” This fear of violation was most clearly articulated last year when Michelle Bachman (who I like to describe as “Michelle ‘Deep Penetration’ Bachman) raised the hackles even of her Republican party by arguing that Islamist extremist had “penetrated deeply” into our government. In this purity obsessed mindset, always rife with paranoia, any incursion of “difference” is seen as a threat, a threat that must be deterred and even obliterated. For if their purity is violated, it will shatter…in their estimation…like a fragile vase. I argue, on the other hand, that mature purity can withstand threats and survive with the ensuing ambivalence, not giving in to the temptations of impurity

This purity obsession is compensatory. It is a defense mechanism designed to block the ravaging impurity which lurks in the human heart and is feared by these extremists to be seeping out and threatening to overwhelm them. Karl Jung said, on the other hand, such impurity (which he called the shadow) is to be acknowledged, embraced even, and thus deprived of its power. And “embracing” this dark energy does not mean succumbing to it. Those who are most likely to succumb to it are those who resist it the most. As Jung put it, “What we resist, persists.”

 

Epistomology and Confirmation Bias

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The recent controversy in the United States over Chuck Hagel’s nomination by President Obama for Defense Secretary has given rise to the usual right-wing hysteria and obstructionism. Last week these conservatives seized upon a humorous note made by a New York newspaper columnist who facetiously suggested that Hagel had opined in Islamist radical newspapers, taking that columnist’s satirical quips as being factual.

This illustrated the problem with interpretation for all of us, conservative or liberal. We must remember to utilize the Shakespearean “pauser reason” when we hear or read something, recognizing that it is human nature to seize upon data that satisfies our agenda. Another example was Michelle “Deep Penetration” Bachman about a year ago when she sonorously intoned re the presence of sharia law in two United States communities, presenting the preposterous allegation as casual fact. Shortly thereafter someone pointed out that this was not true and that one of the cities had not existed in decades. Bachman had come across this juicy tidbit and must have had childish delight as she thought, “Oh, wait until I get to announce this!” Well, if she would have employed this “pauser reason”….recognizing that she was about to posit something that was very sensational…she could have had her handlers verify the report. But the information was just too much a “tasty morsel” and she had to pass it on, knowing that her paranoid base would go for it, much like pigs after slop.

But, I reiterate, “This childish naivety is not just a conservative problem. It is a human problem.” We always have our preconceptions and then seek information that confirms this bias, a phenomena known as “confirmation bias” or “epistemic closure.” Yes, even “LiteraryLew”, is susceptible and guilty of this human frailty…cursed be the thought! If we recognize this truth, it can humble us a bit and make us less apt to be too smug and arrogant about our “lofty” ideas and our “gospel” truth. Our ideas might have “lofty” qualities and our truth might have “gospel” qualities but probably not as much as we would like to think. Those “other guys”, that ubiquitous “them”, might just have validity in their perspective and have something to offer us.

 

The Hobgoblin of Little Minds

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Two days after the Obama reelection in November, the Fox News reporter, Sean Hannity announced on-air that his view of immigration had “evolved” and he was willing to take a more lenient position. And since then many Republicans are taking a similar stance, deciding that on that issue in particular they have to adjust their views if they are going to have any chance of winning more Latino voters.

There are some members of the Republicans, however, who are digging their heels in and castigating those of their party who are equivocating on this and other issues. They feel that compromise against bedrock principles of their party…and all of their principles seem to be “bedrock” to them…is completely verboten. The Republican hysteria about “compromise” was so severe last summer that John Boehner in one TV interview refused to even use the word “compromise” when cornered on the matter.

But, Hannity and his ilk can equivocate on this and other matters and still be conservative Republicans. Changing your mind on issues does not mean that you have sold your soul to anyone, certainly not the “liberals” or Obama. The ability to change your mind is a sign of mental health and emotional maturity. Ralph Waldo Emerson said 150 years ago, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” Being consistent for the sake of consistency is lame, to put it mildly.

But True Believers have a hard time changing their mind because in the depths of their heart that would mean to them, “Oh no. I have been wrong!” Well, welcome to the world! Who hasn’t and who will not continue to be from time to time? All of us are short-sighted and need to have our eyes checked occasionally or perhaps clean our glasses.

(True Believers was a book by Eric Hoffer about fanaticism which is worthy of a reading evn in modern times.)

Lessons from Senator Kirk’s Brush with Death

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Senator Mark Kirk had an interesting report in the Washington Post yesterday about his recovery from a life-threatening stroke last year and the emotional and physical anguish that this NDE (near death experience) subjected him to. His report suggests this event has greatly humbled him, enriched his faith, and given him new hope in life, not only for himself but for mankind, even including the always dead-locked, hyper-partisan Congress.

His facing death forced him to address his finitude. Death does that. And the teachings of most world religions is that we can, and should, die before death and thus begin to live a more full, mature life. When we die symbolically we can tap into another…or other…dimensions of life which our ego-bound consciousness has kept us from seeing and experiencing. This will allow us to see that we are all on the same team, that the “us-them” paradigm is deadly, and that there is more to life than meets the eye. Here is Kirk’s report:

“Am I going to die today?” I asked Jay as we rode together in an ambulance through the streets of Chicago. Jay Alexander was my doctor but also my friend, and I knew he wouldn’t lie. “Just give me a percentage,” I pleaded.

“There’s a 98 percent chance you’re not going to die today,” he said.

It wasn’t the way I expected my day to go, but as soon as I’d felt dizzy and experienced numbness in my left arm that Saturday morning, Jan. 21, 2012, I knew I was in trouble. An MRI soon discovered that the inner lining of my carotid artery had peeled away. The dissected artery was blocking the blood flow to my brain, putting me in imminent danger of a stroke.

Anticoagulants kept my blood pressure down, and for a few hours I seemed to stabilize. But then the numbness and tingling on my left side worsened, and my vision got blurry.

Jay, who had met me at the emergency room at Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital, ordered me transferred to Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, which has a certified stroke center. It was on the way there that he gave me my chances and assured me that, given my age and health, my chances for recovery from a stroke were good.

I was in my hospital bed when the waves came and I began to lose control of my body and mind. Unbelievable, I thought. I’m only 52. I didn’t even know anyone who’d had a stroke.

More than a week later, I regained a confused consciousness in the intensive care unit. I knew I was lying in a bed. I thought someone was sharing the bed with me, but it was my own leg. I vaguely remember a party the ICU staff had for the Super Bowl and the smell of the food they brought.

I had two operations to relieve the swelling in my brain and remained at Northwestern Memorial until Feb. 10, when I was transferred to the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC). In all that time, I remember only one rational thought: I needed to get out of there and back to reality, back to my job serving the people of Illinois, which has always been the greatest ambition of my life.

I still worried I would die. I dreamed that three angels came into my room and wanted me to go with them, but I said no because I knew where I was, on the ninth floor of the RIC, and why I was there: to begin a long, difficult recovery from an ischemic stroke.

When you’ve been flat on your back for weeks, your circulatory system doesn’t respond well the first time you try to get up. The therapists at the RIC were prepared for that. They strapped me on a table and tipped it upright. I passed out immediately. When I came to, I realized how hard a recovery I faced if I couldn’t even stand up.

I had blood clots in my leg that were treated with anticoagulants. I asked a doctor what would happen to me if one of the clots broke loose. “You could have a pulmonary embolism,” he answered, “and you would die.”

At best, I thought it unlikely that I would recover enough to return to the Senate. I had always been a glass-half-empty kind of guy, a believer in Murphy’s Law.

The staff at the RIC consider that kind of attitude debilitating, and they don’t tolerate it in their patients. My physical therapist, Mike Klonowski, was a tyrant and, God bless him, a great inspiration. The stroke had severely impaired my left leg, but Mike expected me to walk again. He would teach me how to do it, or we would both die trying.

One day he pulled me into a seated position on my bed, but I couldn’t stay upright. He kept pulling me up, and I kept falling over. “Give me a second, will you,” I snapped. “I’m about as weak as you can get.” But whenever I thought I couldn’t do anything, Mike and everyone at the RIC always answered, “You will be able to.”

He had me on the treadmill as soon as I could manage. I regarded my left leg as a lifeless appendage. Mike kept insisting that it would bear weight. The moment I realized that it would, and that I could swing it from my hip and propel myself forward, was the breakthrough revelation of my rehabilitation.

Kept upright by a track and a harness, I wanted to run down the hallway that day — and tried. But Mike stopped me and told me that slow walking was more instructive to my brain. I disagreed; we had a screaming match. He prevailed.

Hour after hour on that infernal machine, trying to do a simple thing that my brain would no longer communicate to my limb, was torture. Once, during an exhausting session, I threw up on Mike. He just looked up and said, “I can’t believe you did that to me.”

I wanted to give up almost every day. I was indescribably fatigued. I wanted to sleep all the time, a common desire in stroke sufferers. But I was beginning to believe. I used the prospect of returning to work, of climbing up the steps of the Capitol and walking the 50 paces to the Senate floor, as motivation. With every swing of my leg on the treadmill, I became more convinced I would do it.

Once, when I was a little down in the dumps, the RIC chaplain read to me from the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 6: “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?”

I’m different from what I was. My left leg and left arm might never work like they once did, but my mind is sharp. I’m capable of doing the work entrusted to me by the people of Illinois, but I am forever changed.

I’m an optimist now, grateful for every blessing. Bad things happen, but life is still waiting for you to make the most of it. I want my life to count for something more than the honors I once craved. I believe it will.

My faith is stronger. My humility is deeper. I know I depend on family and friends more than I ever realized. I know, too, that the things that divide us in politics are infinitesimal compared with the dignity of our common humanity.

Climbing the steps of the Capitol on Jan. 3 was one of the greatest moments of my life. It was a goal fulfilled and a message to all stroke survivors: Never, ever give up.

I was the beneficiary of many kindnesses from colleagues on both sides of the aisle after my stroke, and those acts will forever matter more to me than any political differences. I don’t expect to be the same senator I was before my stroke — I hope to be a better one. I want to make my life matter by doing work that matters to others. I want to do it with the help of my friends, Republicans and Democrats, and to share the satisfaction of knowing we have honored our public trust together.

I was once a pessimist. I’m not that man anymore. And that change, brought about by misfortune, is the best thing that ever happened to me.

 

The Absolute Truth about the Gun Issue!

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There are two observations about the recent gun-violence issue that I would like to recommend. The first is by Neil Donald Walsch in the Huffington Post (See http://www.huffingtonpost.com/neale-donald-walsch/its-beliefs-not-behaviors_b_2348379.html) and the second is by Rebecca Hamilton in Patheos.com. See (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/publiccatholic/2012/12/affixing-blame/ )

Walsch can best be described as a New Age spiritual teacher and Hamilton is an Oklahoma legislator who has a strong Catholic faith. Each of these individuals emphasize the importance of addressing the underlying issues in the current controversy.

But the “underlying issues” are not easily addressed for they are not seen by the naked eye. They dwell in the realm of the spirit and that dimension of life is not really recognized by our culture any more. Yes, millions profess to be “Christian”…and therefore they are, I certainly don’t doubt that…but I suggest that their real god is often consumerism just as it is with the rest of our culture. We like stuff. Our real values are with stuff. We glibly profess “Jesus as our Savior” but if we look closely Jesus is merely another item in the category of our “stuff.” He is merely another accoutrement to our persona, something we have donned to convince ourself and others that we are “Christian.” And this is not the fault of Jesus or teachings about him!

And this emphasis on “stuff” belies what C. S. Lewis called the sin of “misplaced concreteness”, a taking for real what is only ephemeral. And being guilty of this sin, being immersed in this “misplaced concreteness”, our heart hungers for Reality and so we have to have “stuff” to assuage that gnawing hunger.

 

(Now re the title, please remember I love irony!)

Now the gun-fetish is only one of the many examples of impoverished identities glomming onto “stuff.” And most of the gun owners, even those who really like their guns, continue to have a life (which is to say an identity) and don’t hold-forth gun ownership as the essense of who it is to be a man or an American. A gun is merely an object and like any object it can elicit a fetishistic attachment. The best example of this was during the 2008 Democratic Primary debate when a question was posed to the candidates via You Tube in which a young man asked the candidates what they were going to do to protect “My baby”, proferring then an assault rifle. I think Joe Biden at that moment put things in perspective when he chided the young man for deigning to call a gun “my baby.” But the young man revealed an emotional attachment to guns which I really think is often part of the problem.

Now sure, it is important to like “stuff” and to do so means some degree of emotional attachment takes place. But with some gun owners, this attachment often goes way over the top and it becomes the primary element in their identity. And at that point a paranoid element is floating about in our country re an “intrusive government” who is going to “take our guns away.” That gets the rabid gun owners panties in a wad immediately, especially when right-wing media is egging them on.

Let me conclude on a facetious note, playing again with cause-effect: A recent survey revealed that gun-enthusiasts were two-to-one more likely to be Republicans. Being a loyal and pig-headed Democrat, perhaps we should ban all firearms and then everyone would be a Democrat! This is relevant to David Letterman’s famous quip, “Mobile home parks cause tornadoes.”

Obama’s “Clinging” to Guns and Religion

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President Obama was caught on tape in the 2008 campaign speaking dismissively of those who “cling to guns and religion.” Now that was an impolitic moment for him but I agree that often people do “cling” to things, including guns and religion. I do not think he would disparage anyone for liking guns and certainly not religion. But he recognized that when people “cling” to things…or shall we stay “stuff”…it often impairs their ability to make rational decisions.

“Clinging” often belies an impoverished identity which makes an individual to compulsively place value on “stuff” (including ideas and beliefs) as a way to assuage a gnawing emptiness on the inside.

But how can “clinging” to faith be a problem; or, certainly “clinging” even to Jesus? I think a meaningful faith is very intense and passionate but if it goes beyond the pale, it poses problems and there are always warning signs. For example:

a) If your faith creates an urge to kill people who believe differently than you, I think there is a problem.

b) If your faith creates a need in your heart to intimidate, browbeat, and shame others (certainly children) into believing the way you do, there is a problem.

c) If your faith creates in your heart the belief that you have “got it right” and that everyone should believe just as you do, you have a problem.

d) If your faith creates in you an emphasis on correcting the ills of the world, while totally neglecting the ills of your own heart (which are always wreaking havoc on those nearest and dearest to you), then you have a problem.

Now these are four rules that I’ve created off the top of my head. There could be many more. Violation of these rules almost always comes from a passionate intensity which outruns the Shakespearean “pauser reason”. This is “clinging” to religion rather than having a simple faith which permeates the whole of your being and radiates out to others in your life. This is often an obsessive-compulsive disorder in full sway or even an addiction. This is at best an ersatz religion.

 

The “Shame-hole” of Self Awareness

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Last week Rachel Maddow used a line that grabbed me, referring to the “shame-hole of critical self assessment.” She was discoursing about the difficulty that people have in “self” assessing, in employing meta-cognition and becoming “self” aware. This ability to become self aware is the gift of our forebrain, a gift which we all have but one which is often not utilized. I have heard political commentators note in the recent election that most people do not use this forebrain and vote on the basis of reason but on the basis of emotion which means that astute politicians will always appeal first to emotion.

But I want to focus on that “shame-hole.” Wow! What a notion that is. And from my own personal experience it is so powerful to suddenly be made “self” aware, to be confronted with reality, and forced to realize that how one perceived the world was not how the world actually is. In other words, in involves accepting the notion, “I was wrong or in error. I screwed up.” This is the famous Rick Perry “Oops” moment. (And by the way, I admire him for having the temerity to offer that honest assessment, which will inevitably end up on his tombstone!)

Shame is such a powerful experience and our fear of it keeps us from dealing with reality. We prefer to keep our head buried in the sand, to remain in the comfort of those “well-worn words and ready phrases that build comfortable walls against the wilderness.” (Conrad Aiken). As T.S. Eliot noted, “Human kind cannot bear very much reality.”

One other thought, shame “hole” brings to my mind “black hole” and I think the two notions are related. The black hole evokes terror with all of us but no more that raw, unmitigated experience of shame. I think that is what Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” was about.

 

Failure is More Important than Success (Politically Speaking)

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I have empathized with Mitt Romney (and with the GOP) in the recent electoral defeat. I can’t help but feel sorry for Romney even though I liked him less and less as the election campaign progressed. But, he was and is still a human being and I know this defeat is excruciatingly painful for him.

I hope he will find the courage…and Grace…to learn from this experience. And I mean “learn” as a human being as “human being-ness” is more important than politics. Romney has a soul as do we all are and his time on this earth is for the purpose of refining this soul and allowing its Source to find the fullest expression. I hope that he can use this loss…this “failure”… for that purpose.

Here is one of my favorite poems by Eugene Mayo about the experience of loss, presented as “failure”:

Failure is more important than success
Because it brings intelligence
To light the bony
Structure of the universe.

When we “fail”…when we fall on our asses…we have an opportunity to learn from the experience. “Intelligence” has an opportunity to flash into our heart and life. This “intelligence” is not merely cognitive but is intrinsically spiritual and from it great wisdom can flow and everyone can benefit.

Jacques Lacan once noted that nothing of any value comes into this world without loss. He was utilizing object-relations theory to develop the notion that Jesus had in mind when He advised that we find our life only when we lose it.

But it is painful. And that is what the image of the Cross is about.

“Our Long National Nightmare is Over”

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These were the words of President Gerald Ford in his speech after Richard Nixon stepped down from the Presidency in 1973  These same words come to my mind yesterday morning after the election tumult had ended, though I do not think the “nightmare” is completely over.

I am so very relieved with O’Bama’s win and with some other causes that I was in favor of around the country. And part of me wants to gloat, I guess, but I’m glad that I’m mature enough to not even really want to. The issues the we face as a culture just do not permit childish behavior such as gloating, even for “no-bodies” like myself. I think it is very important that we “no-bodies” realize that our behavior and attitude are very important just as it is with the “some-bodies” of our world. For even we “no-bodies” must realize that ultimately we too are a “Some-body” and that our behavior and attitude contribute to the karma of the world. Let me explain it one other way. I am a “small-fry” in that I’m not important so why would it matter what I think or feel? Well, I think it does. Each of us contributes to a collective consciousness in some infinitesimal way.

I see some evidence that the “Big fries”, the “Some” bodies are responding to this election with graciousness. It is so important that a spirit of consideration and respect begin to take place in our country, especially in its leadership. Romney certainly was gracious in his concession speech and O’Bama indicated a willingness to do the same. I can imagine how devastating this loss was for Romney and I hope he has the courage and humility to go through the grieving process, then get on his feet, and step to the plate and find his place in our country’s political leadership. He is now a national leader and we need him. I fear his party will savage him, blaming him for the loss, when the reason for the loss went far beyond their choice of candidate.

“Just get over yourself” is something I have to tell myself almost daily when often I find myself taking myself too seriously and making poor choices in behavior and attitude. If our political leadership could do this from time to time I think our current political morass could be worked through, that our leaders would be able to make decisions without prostrating themselves to the alter of “electability”.