Fools, Liars and a Few Good Men

Being a student of literature (and a writer) I always have respect and reverence for the great authors; those who have learned to use language like Rembrandt used a paint brush or Heifetz used a bow.  And it's not just a matter of their artistry, but also their integrity.  Language, of course, can be used for a variety of purposes; to inform, educate, entertain and misdirect.
It can be used for good or ill, and it is the latter that distresses me.

There are writers in my lifetime whose works I would describe as valid and genuine; authors who - despite any personal politics and agendas - paint an honest and accurate picture of society.  People like Garrison Keillor, Studs Terkel and Gore Vidal, amongst others.  There are those who can take a definitive mental picture of us and transform it into words, without any kind of distortion.  If you think about the fine controls on a TV set or those in a Photoshop program, it's relatively easy to add too much color, or take away too much clarity, or otherwise just warp the image beyond recognition.  It is no different with language.

And then, there are men (and women) who use language in a careless manner, and I'm not talking about mechanics (grammar, punctuation and spelling).  As a writer, I understand the importance of adhering to the guidelines.  In college, my bible was Perrin's Writer's Guide (4th edition).  If you were writing a scholarly or professional paper (much less a novel) this was your go-to source for the accepted rules of writing.  I'm willing to be forgiving where mechanics are concerned if the author really has something worthwhile to say.  Mechanics can be corrected and fine-tuned, but there is no substitute for truth, honesty and integrity.

As the images above suggest, I'm afraid that our society, our culture has become more a matter of liars and fools.  There are so many who intentionally or unintentionally misrepresent the truth and sadly, there are even more fools who are ready and willing to believe them and bestow upon them a false crown.

There probably aren't any new motives under the sun; love, fear, anger, hatred, the desire for freedom, the desire for power and material gain.  There are a few you could add to the list, but those are surely at the top.  Most of what we think, say and do would fall under one of those headings.

At the low end of the spectrum, you have the Fool; someone who is not particularly educated or experienced, either by school or by Life.  Their frame of reference in general is limited.  They can only define things in an elementary sense.  Now, there is nothing particularly wrong with being a simple man.  Surely, Thoreau thought of himself as a simple man, but he was hardly ignorant.  Thoreau thought about life in ways that many men never will.  

The Fool can be either a writer or a reader/listener, or both.  He simply doesn't have what one would call a full tool box where language and reasoning are concerned.  Some might suggest that religion can contribute to the production and creation of fools.  It can, if one chooses to limit one's exposure to the rest of the world and the world's literature.  I once knew a man who considered himself "born again," who made a statement about "…the Bible and all that other worldly writing."  That kind of person can be downright dangerous.  But I don't lay the blame solely on religion.  There are plenty of non-believing fools in the world; people who are only too willing to believe any variety of bullshit if you accompany it with some other kind of linguistic shiny objects.

The next level of ignorance above the Fool are the Imprudent.  These are people who possess a kind of working knowledge of language.  They are like children with a set of Legos.  They can join things together, but it doesn't resemble anything logical let alone useful.  America's Sarah Palin pretty much gave birth to the phrase word salad.  This woman could string together words like so many beads, but they made no sense.  No doubt, to her they did, but to other rational, educated people it was babble.  

These people can be even more dangerous because they're like boys trying to make a pipe bomb.  They don't understand the materials they're working with. Their work is crude at best.  At this level, we're talking about low-intellect politicians (as contrasted with true statesmen) and media talking heads.  People with only a novice level of language mastery can create some fairly twisted and ugly rhetoric.  They misrepresent the truth, they see meaning where there is none and gloss over other subtle points.  Worse, they can create fallacious meaning that fools are anxious to accept as fact.

Obviously names that come to mind are Fox news, Lou Gohmert, Lindsey Graham, Michele Bachmann, and Pat Robertson.  Like people with physical and congenital disabilities, these people can manage to tie their shoes and perhaps balance a checkbook, but when it comes to higher-level reasoning, they're lost.

And at the top of the list, we have the bald-faced Liars.  They range all the way from a street corner huckster running a shell game to medical frauds to religious cult leaders to senators. What is perhaps most egregious is not just the boldness of their deception, but that they know there are Fools just ready and waiting to receive their fraudulence. There's simply no visible shame in their actions.  They're lying and they know it.  

I really wish there were such a thing as a national public access channel where an average educated person could get in front of a camera and microphone and speak directly to an issue in a way that other - shall we say - more respectable commentators could not.  There are a few things I could say about current political issues that neither PBS or NPR could air.  Oh sure, as individual citizens, we can vote, we can contact our representatives, we can write letters to newspapers, but we don't have the kind of media presence required to call a spade a spade. 

Just recently, there was the instance of former governor Mike Huckabee making disdainful statements about vocalist Beyonce', when he, himself had performed onstage with controversial used-to-be rocker, Ted Nugent.  No cogent man with a lick of sense or honesty would expect anyone to take him seriously after chumming-around with someone as toxic as Nugent, but supposedly Huckabee never saw or sensed the hypocrisy or irony.  There's simply no acquittal for this guy; he's either the liar, the fool, or both.  This was even pointed out to him, face-to-face in an interview broadcast to over a million viewers.  He didn't see it.  He wouldn't cop to it.  Anyone that dense shouldn't be allowed near sharp objects, let alone a microphone.

Then, there was that issue about Fox news fabricating the story of Muslim no-go zones in Europe.  I mean, just literally pull something out of your ass and put it on a national media network! 

In amongst all the Liars and Fools, we have what I like to call the Quiet Ones and the Loud Ones.  There are people who are never the first to raise their hands in class, who would rather not stand up and give a toast or a speech; people who are just trying to get through an average day without barking their shins on the coffee table.  They're people who, if you showed up at their door cold and hungry, would take you in, warm you up and feed you. They're people who might not always complain if you were rude to them.  They'd rather not make a fuss.  Garrison Keillor's fictional home town, Lake Wobegon is full of such folk.

And then, there are the Loud Ones.  These people will gladly take part in a parade or a demonstration.  They're not afraid to speak up.  Sometimes they're all too anxious to do so.  They complain about bad food when it often isn't all that bad.  They're not always rude, but they can be.  They like to crank up their car stereos until the windows are ready to blow out.  It's one thing to be outgoing and quite another to be vulgar. But they differ from the Quiet Ones in that they're usually anxious to speak up or speak out. 

So, mix 'em all up and what you get is a) those who don't know much and generally keep quiet about it, b) those who think they know something, but are too lazy to do a hoax check and quick to claim it's veracity, c) those who do know something and take pains to write it down in a cogent manner, d) those who don't really have a f*g clue, but will swear there's a conspiracy against them, and e) those who actually know something and either deny it, create misdirection about it, or outwardly lie about it to your face.

I won't even get into the topic of climate change.

Altogether, not what I'd call a healthy environment for truth and integrity.  How can you just deny a fact?  Or just literally make something up and put it out there like 2+2?

But that's the world we're living in; a world where alongside improved tornado detection and enhanced disease detection we have instant bullshit.  In stereo and Technicolor. 

We have military spy satellites with resolution down to 10 inches, and R-range radar that can see through walls, but not a hand-held bullshit detector we can point at a U.S. senator and have it go off with lights and a siren.

Welcome to our brave new world.

Evolved

I would like to think of myself as evolved.  According to psychologist Carl Rogers, a fully functioning person is one who is in touch with their deepest, innermost feelings and desires, one who works toward self-actualization, who is realistic, yet open to new experiences and capable of changing in response to those experiences.  I have a sense of ethics, a command of language, an understanding of logical fallacies, and a social perspective; the understanding that I am not an island but part of a larger humanity.  I have a sense of responsibility, discipline and compassion. 

Combine that with 65 years of social experience, 40 years of career experience, and 44 years of marriage, and I would think that would qualify me as capable of making a variety of value judgements about the world around me.

Maybe the things and people that drive me nuts do so simply by contrast.  

Maybe ignorance really is a kind of bliss.  I mean, if a person doesn't really understand what constitutes sexism, racism or sexual prejudice, they can't see anything wrong with committing same, and they can't properly identify it when they see it.  If a person stereotypes the unemployed and homeless as generally lazy, they have no problem with cutting social programs.  

If someone really doesn't understand the difference between intelligent oratory and word salad, they probably don't see much of a problem with people like Palin, Bachmann, O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Hannity and other talking heads.  

About 30% of Americans think homosexuality is a lifestyle choice.
About 20% think Obama is a Muslim.
Anti-vaxxers believe vaccinations cause autism, in spite of evidence to the contrary. And so, pertussis - a disease vaccination made rare - has made a huge comeback.

And then, of course, there's the Dunning-Kruger effect.  As comedian John Cleese put it,"If you're very, very stupid, how can you possibly realize that you're stupid?"

Question:  If someone coming up the street is carrying an AR-15, how do you determine if he's a good guy or a bad guy?

Question:  What balloon-headed suit and tie signed off on launching a flying device with spinning blades inside a restaurant?

Maybe I'm just too evolved for my own good…for my own sanity.

It Makes You Wonder

There has been a considerable amount of research done, and an equal amount of articles written about the God gene; specifically that certain areas of the brain "light up" and show activity when one is engaged in spiritually-related thought.  And I've often wondered how it was for early man, before people came together as hunter-gatherers and farmers, and began to live together in communities. Back before the first shamans arose, back before priests and "organized religion."  Back when it was just Man, and the world around him. How did he express his sense of wonder about everything, before written language, before people began to "divide" themselves into various "denominations."

But that's not specifically what this blog entry is about.  I'm more fascinated with brain activity as it relates to individual interests and abilities, along with the mystery of genetics as they relate to the same interests and abilities.

As a student of music and literature, I have had countless experiences with individuals who display both strengths and weaknesses regarding writing and sound.  On one hand, there are people that demonstrate considerable comprehension with tone recognition, rhythm sequences, chordal structure and creativity with musical elements.  And of course, there are those who demonstrate just the opposite; they have little to no ability in discerning pitch or musical structure.  They may listen to music, but they don't understand it.

And the same holds true for language and literature.  I've known people who display an innate ability for writing, character development, and literary devices like irony, imagery, foreshadowing, etc., in spite of their level of language mastery (including grammar).  They may make technical errors, but they display a real penchant for writing, reporting, story telling, etc.

And combining these two areas - music and language - I've seen the same thing.  There are people with considerable musical ability who seem to lack the talent for song writing or creation, which includes the elements of meter and rhyme.  They can copy or emulate a song, but they lack the talent to actually create one.

Taking this train of thought, I've applied it to other areas of human interest.  This may not be specifically scientific, but I do believe there is validity and merit in my theory;  that people don't (or don't always) gravitate toward an interest because they like it, but in fact they gravitate towards it and like it because they possess a talent or skill in that area.  

I have had guitar students who have persevered and been religious about practice/rehearsal, but it was clear to me that they would probably not progress or develop past a certain level of competency.  They could play the instrument with some accuracy, but they would never rise to the level of writing/performing.  Again, they could play, but they seemed to lack the creative spark.

The concept of nature vs nurture usually comes up at this point in the conversation, and I totally agree with it; that the level to which a person advances with any ability is a combination of both natural ability and encouragement of that ability.

My point in all this is that if people can display what seem to be natural, elemental abilities - music, language, mathematics, sports, dance, painting - then it seems totally valid to me that some people's brains are more attuned to spiritual and existential thought, and other people's brains just don't have the same electrical circuits in that part of the brain.

There's no question that people express different levels of spirituality, or at least they express it in different ways, from simple quiet meditation to writing on the floor in an almost epileptic state.  I don't believe this is totally a matter of nurture and how they were brought-up.

It is my belief that just as people exhibit varying levels of ability and interest in activities - music, art, sports, hunting, fishing, child care, elder care, you name it - something in our brains is connected with or related to a sense of spirituality and existentialism. That particular circuit of the brain can be simple and uncomplicated or it can be more advanced. 

Now, clearly, anything can be taken to a level of absurdity and dementia.  As humans, we can become fixated and obsessed with most anything.  This is no secret or epiphany.  

I firmly believe that as the science of brain mapping advances, that most all areas of human ability and talent will be identified if not measured.

Word Abuse - Addiction

There are many words in the English language which are misused and abused.  One of my favorites is myriad, which seems to have really gained popularity with media talking heads.  This word is an adjective - like big, or green, or loud.  It does not require a preposition.  But this is an abuse of mechanics; not meaning.

What I find more aggravating is when people abuse words for purposes of exaggeration.  They want to express their feelings about something, so they use the most powerful word they can find. Obviously, the word awesome has been done to death.

Today, I want to talk about addiction.  This word is most commonly used regarding the use of a habit-forming substance; something that is clearly harmful to the body and which will result in withdrawal symptoms when the person quits or reduces usage of said substance. Opiates and alcohol immediately come to mind as examples.

Unfortunately, this is not the scenario to which people refer when they talk/brag about their affection for things like:  chocolate, junk food, pastries, or sex, but they will insist that they are indeed addicted to them.  Rubbish.

Addiction - in the form of a craving, yen, or passion - is a normal human condition.  Anything that feels good, or that we like the taste of, we generally want more of.  Sorry for the grammar, there, but that's the way it is.  If it brings us any kind of pleasure, we want more.  But the point is that this passion or affection is not limited to just food or physical pleasure; it can include other common, popular leisure activities - lawn care, football, hunting, fishing…the list is endless.  But again, people will insist that they are indeed addicted to ________ whatever.

Actual addiction is - above all else - a rather pathetic or hopeless state of being; not just a matter of lack of will power.  What many people suffer from is simply a lack of (or refusal to exercise) moderation.  A little is good, so more is better.  Addiction occurs when your particular passion takes control of your life such that it affects the quality of your work, your job attendance, your duties and obligations to employer and family.  At that point, you're probably in need of some professional counseling or a big wake-up call.

For most of us, things like chocolate, junk food, sex, or even alcohol are not a big problem.  We put things in perspective.  Life is a series of ups and downs, of anticipation and satiation.  Steak usually tastes better if you don't eat every day. Hunger can be a good thing.

I think what people infer when they use the word addiction is that they are not to blame for their actions, for their excesses because….well…they're addicted.

Bollocks.  Moderation - a form of mental balance - requires effort, and that is the part some don't like.  Indulgence isn't a matter of effort (although energy is expended); it's just an abandonment of control.  

Having a passion for something (or somebody) does not mean that one jettisons all sense of control.  

I think we misuse the word addiction in the same sense as the word love.

What we really mean is, we just like it a lot.

Truth be told, at the end of the day, we're ALL addicted to something or other. The only thing that makes the difference is that most of us are in control of our addictions.  And the rest - they don't seem to know when enough is enough; that you can only get so high in the moment, that there should be moderation and periods of non-indulgence.  Most everything in Life is defined by contrasts; hot/cold, light/dark, up/down.  But for too many, a hundred is not enough and one is too many.  And that's true for everything, not just alcohol.

Some Thoughts This Holiday Season

The other day, I ran into this rather hateful person on another internet blogging platform.  She was an interesting person; seemingly well spoken, either a nurse or some other kind of professional in the health care system, very positive in her sexuality, but one of the more hateful atheists I've run across in a while.  It wasn't just enough to believe or not believe and just coexist; there had to be bashing and ridicule involved.  And that just rubbed me wrong.

I told her it's entirely possible for either an atheist or theist world to devolve into a screaming murder festival.  The religious leader sends his people into battle because he thinks his god commanded it.  And the Stalins and Maos of the world do the same because they see their people as nothing more than meaty fuel to be ground up to feed the machinery of the State.  But in both cases, the people are equally dead.

There are good (and bad) people on either side of the argument.  Atheists have people like Warren Buffet who donated over $40,000K to humanitarian causes. Bill Gates who donated over $27 billion to global health and education.  Believers have people like Mother Theresa, Albert Schweitzer, MLK, John D. Rockefellar.  All these people - for one reason or another - believed in generosity and philanthropy.  And then, atheists have people like Jeffrey Dahmer, Mao, Stalin, Ted Kaczynski.  Believers have shitstains like Fred Phelps, al-Zawahiri, the KKK, and New England witch hunters.

I told this woman that atheists experience SOME sense of morality.  When somebody hustles you out of $10 on ebay, you don't nod and say,"Interesting. This fellow lacks the genetic predisposition toward equitable dealing that generations of sexual selection in favor of social behavior has instilled in the rest of us."  Hell, no!  You're pissed. You think what that guy did was wrong.  You want justice. You think he should have acted differently.

I told her that even though there's no wrong molecule floating in the air and there's no justice element on the Periodic Table, you think a swindler should have acted some other way, according to some invisible ideal that everybody is aware of and knows about.

Life is not all a matter of cold, hard reason. We all have a little crazy in our worlds, and we all depend on some fantasy that floats outside the boundaries of cold reason.  What about that notion, free will?  To a neuroscientist, that's as real as the Tooth Fairy.  But if there's nothing beyond the physical, then your ability to choose your actions vanishes along with God, heaven and the angels.

Atheists hate wars, genocide, dictators, dishonest corporations and sexist male assholes.  They hate all that because they know that the ability to have empathy for other humans is the only thing that separates us from the cockroaches.  Don't even get me started on the GOP.

I was twelve years old when JFK was sworn into office.  At that fairly innocent and naive age, I thought that education, reason and brotherly love could solve all our nation's (let alone the world's) problems.  And two years later, I saw JFK assassinated, followed by his brother, Bobby.  Then, the loss of MLK.

So, at this holiday season, I still believe in the power of love and education, but no doubt the hateful shitstains of the world - atheist AND believer - will just fuck things up for the rest of us; the non-believers and believers (at any level) who aren't hateful bastards.  People who have no interest in converting anyone else.  People who just want to live their lives in peace.

Season's greetings and love to you all.

Dreams vs Reality

Libertarianism is an ideal, a dream, like Shangri-La; an imaginary society where there are little to no problems, most of which they assign to government and over-regulation.  

The hard truth about many of today's anti-tax, anti-government pundits is that their philosophy comes down to little more than myopic selfishness.  They want smaller government, not because there is any real threat of tyranny, but so they can do whatever they wish with their property or business, regardless of the consequences to their neighbors or the shared environment.

Nobody has yet found any way of putting together a decent city transportation network without some form of government management.  The same goes for several other aspects of urban infrastructure, like water and sewers.  The greatest single step forward in improving general health in history was the construction of underground sewers.  London before 1800 was a good example of how waste disposal was handled when government stayed out of it and it was left up to individuals.  It wasn't handled.

Vaccination is another area where government involvement yields greater benefits than the "market" does.  When immunization is a matter of who decided they can afford it, the disease remains a threat to every generation.  When vaccines are made fully available to all, the total long-term cost is much lower.

Can government become too large and costly?  Of course.  But government per se is not evil.  There are more than sufficient examples of countries where the citizens are fairly satisfied with their government operations; countries that provide single-payer health care regulated by the government; such as Canada, Norway, Sweden, Japan, the UK and several others.  Are those systems "perfect?"  Of course not, but in many ways, they're a damned site better than what we have in the US.  The ACA was a step in the right direction, but we can do better.

What about education?  Private schools for all?  What about students who require more attention, time and effort?  Little profit in that.  Do we not educate them and turn them loose in society with no skills?  Oh, home school everyone?  What if the parent can barely read or do math?  Who regulates?

One of the biggest problems with Libertarianism is that humans are just not wired for it.  Human decision making is often highly irrational and selfish or lacking in compassion/benevolence.  If everyone retreats to their acre and we have nothing in common besides the military and courts, we no longer have a country.  Even the founding fathers (who were Libertarian-leaning) realized there must be something that binds us together.

Left to his own designs and motives, Man often doesn't care about his fellow man or society as a whole.  If businesses were not required to provide certain safety training, regulation, and PPE (personal protective equipment), many would not do so.

The "market" has its ups and downs, so as a society, we've created things like unemployment compensation and SNAP.  A civilized society has some sort of structured "safety net."

And then, there's the issue of guns, AS IF we don't already have enough of them with too little regulation.  The US has 88 guns per 100 people and more gun deaths than any of the other 27 "developed" countries.

Despite Libertarian illusions, none of us are entirely self-reliant.  All of us are part of a community and benefit FROM that community, rich or poor.  There are certain things that individuals cannot do for themselves.

One way or another, if the problems of a city or a nation are neglected, those problems will spread and eventually end up on everyone's doorstep.  Believe in "freedom," but grasp this hard truth:  taxes are anarchy insurance, the fee we pay to guarantee we don't lose it all.

Why do so many of America's poor vote Republican?

Into the Google window, I typed,"Why do so many of America's poor vote Republican?"  What I found (and pasted) below may not totally answer that question, but it shines quite a bit of light on the problem.

Gary Yongue, writer for the UK Guardian says:
"The first thing to note is that most of them don't.  In 2008, 73% of those who earned less than $15,000…voted for Obama. But if someone's core conviction is that abortion is murder or gay marriage is wrong then their decision to vote for a candidate who is against abortion or gay marriage is not an act of delusion but conviction."

Raymond Freeman, for the VCReporter, wrote:
"America is a frightened country.  It has lost its confidence.  The white population will soon be a minority.  Republicans are experts at appealing to nostalgia for a simpler past.  Simple folks feel more comfortable voting for simple candidates, such as Palin.  They believed she 'understood' them and rejected attempts to point out her ignorance.  Religious arguments are easier to make.  America is the country of that old-time religion.  Almost half of the population believes the Bible is literally true.  They will vote for someone professing the same belief."

Jonathan Haidt, professor of Psychology at U. of Virginia, says:
"Conservative positions on gays, guns, god and immigration must be understood as means to achieve one kind of morally ordered society."

Roger Schank, psychologist, says:
"It is common to make the assumption that people are thinking when they vote and they are making reasoned choices.  I harbor no such illusion.  They are not reasoning, nor do they want to try.  They simply believe what they believe.  What do they believe?

1. They don't like blacks. It isn't that they are racists.  They will be polite if a black person appears.  They will say blacks hate America.  They sound more reasoned in their own minds if they say it that way.

2. They don't like "wussies."  Kerry? Gore? Dukakis? Not real men.  Bad people are trying to kill us.  We need to kill them first. Those guys wouldn't pull the trigger. (I'm not making this up. I wish I were.)

3. They worry about money.  Who wants to take their money away?  Liberals, of course.  They want to give it to the blacks.

It is all very nice to come up with complex analyses of what is going on. As is often the case, the real answer is quite simple.  Most people can't think very well.  We don't try to get the average child to think in this society, so why, as adults, would we expect that they actually would be thinking?  They think about how the Yankees are doing, and who will win some reality show contest, and what restaurant to eat at, but they are not equipped to think about politics and, in my mind, they are not equipped to vote.  Adult belief systems rest on childhood beliefs instilled by parents mostly and by assorted other authorities."