tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33622363529497728572024-03-13T17:10:55.654-07:00Contrariety [sic erat scriptum]"Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats." — Voltairedbrkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323403103114744193noreply@blogger.comBlogger234125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362236352949772857.post-33209074167798575332024-01-24T06:01:00.000-08:002024-01-24T06:17:23.410-08:00Enter Rajanaka Fire: Repost from Facebook Group January 2024<div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="ddig7" data-offset-key="at5m1-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 8px; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="at5m1-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="at5m1-0-0"><span style="font-family: georgia;">"My Fellow Americans..."
I've Changed the Name of the Group, Again.
</span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="ddig7" data-offset-key="1fkjs-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 8px; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="1fkjs-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span data-offset-key="1fkjs-0-0">Many of you can still hear Richard Nixon's voice here. It sends shivers down my spine. That of course is when we thought the worse thing that could happen to America was Nixon. Oh my, were we wrong. Reagan. Bush. And now </span><span data-offset-key="1fkjs-0-1" style="font-style: italic;">this</span><span data-offset-key="1fkjs-0-2">. Because last night some 164,000+ people thought that Trump should be president </span><span data-offset-key="1fkjs-0-3" style="font-style: italic;">again</span><span data-offset-key="1fkjs-0-4">. You mean the sheer chaos, menace, and con game wasn't enough the first time?</span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="ddig7" data-offset-key="3v5p3-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 8px; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="3v5p3-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="3v5p3-0-0"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ3ZuRMXhgzvQ_sWxXAL_vVl86EcSO5lKpQy_As6ZCMmZCLRF44-ZzccLsK5sHEBH5NIanNXxYwOItAlAhLTzVzuLoAnDseRd9_iIM3b3nOXUEQ2hziV1ZoJ10lQBkm19fB-yaEvsqW6deP6k0VxzLc6u3gJyljVLVC9e7zvzy24aio3mt39nAxcojVLcp/s275/download-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ3ZuRMXhgzvQ_sWxXAL_vVl86EcSO5lKpQy_As6ZCMmZCLRF44-ZzccLsK5sHEBH5NIanNXxYwOItAlAhLTzVzuLoAnDseRd9_iIM3b3nOXUEQ2hziV1ZoJ10lQBkm19fB-yaEvsqW6deP6k0VxzLc6u3gJyljVLVC9e7zvzy24aio3mt39nAxcojVLcp/s1600/download-2.jpg" width="275" /></a></div><br /></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="ddig7" data-offset-key="fforp-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 8px; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="fforp-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="fforp-0-0"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Part of me wants to bury my head in the sand until I come out to vote in November. Another me wants to sneak into Canada far enough north never to be discovered, simply disappear with polar bears. Suz and I talk about leaving but who wants these old folks? I would like to think he'll get trounced but I was wrong in 2016, which leads me back to these 164THOUSAND people. I feel ashamed, bewildered, angry, maddened, provoked, downright splenetic when I think these are actual voters, real people this corrupt, stupid, beguiled, or actually as vile.
To think we have 10 months more before, no matter the result of a free and fair election, he rejects any result that does not confer upon him absolute power. Anyone paying 20 seconds of attention can hear sane people shouting from the rafters, genuinely alarmed, pleading with people to see the danger and the depravity. But no. This is Amur'ka where stupitwhitepeople and even some others are determined to live in an alternative reality as ruinous and deluded as we know them to be.</span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="ddig7" data-offset-key="evo2c-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 8px; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="evo2c-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="evo2c-0-0"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="ddig7" data-offset-key="bce2-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 8px; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="bce2-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span data-offset-key="bce2-0-0">So what do we do? Hold our breath? Endless pranayama? Resort to the utter bullshit that It's All One and there is nothing to worry about? Say hopeful nonsense that soothes, dismisses, and mitigates? This situation is enough to make me read the Yoga Sutras as if that inane, escapist palaver were possible. You know, sort out your prakrti and enter into realization of purusa that is immune, disinfected, and forever unsusceptible to the real world. The alternative? I dunno, some Tantric claim to grandiosity, unanswerable authority, and personal prepotency that claims nothing can affect </span><span data-offset-key="bce2-0-1" style="font-style: italic;">me?</span><span data-offset-key="bce2-0-2"> Good luck with that. And if you need that kinda' guru, I know just where to look.
We could sing Hari Krsna all night not just cause we (might) think it's fun (please, go knock yerself out, I'll be waiting in the hall with my headphones locked into Coltrane), but because we think there is a Mystical, Divine, Blissful state that can relieve us or, better yet, save us. I'm not going to rain on your kirtan (at least not more than I just have) but I don't think that's gonna make this mess better once the hari wears off yer krsna.
So what next?</span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="bce2-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span data-offset-key="bce2-0-2">
Not every Eagles song sucks because we learn that every form of refuge has its price. I'm gonna need to work on my own personal Peaceful Easy Feeling, no doubt. And it's my own fault that I thought it couldn't get worse than Nixon (or maybe Reagan) and that Obama's election really did mean something. Well, what it meant was I underestimated our fellow citizens for whom I have no more f**ks to give except that </span><span data-offset-key="bce2-0-3" style="font-style: italic;">that is not an option. </span><span data-offset-key="bce2-0-4">Should we give up, not care, ignore, deny, or retreat, </span><span data-offset-key="bce2-0-5" style="font-style: italic;">the villains will ruin not just me and you but people waaaaaay more vulnerable. </span><span data-offset-key="bce2-0-6">We cannot abdicate or fail to act </span><span data-offset-key="bce2-0-7" style="font-style: italic;">somehow</span><span data-offset-key="bce2-0-8">.
</span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="ddig7" data-offset-key="5ic6t-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 8px; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="5ic6t-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="5ic6t-0-0"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I have never been on Joe's case 'cause I think he's the most consequential president in my lifetime---in terms of meaningful legislation actually passed, to say nothing of having paused utter catastrophe. But maybe we stop hating the gub'mint and start being citizens. </span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="ddig7" data-offset-key="8821l-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 8px; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8821l-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="8821l-0-0"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A student yesterday came to my office hours. He said, "I can't possibily assimilate the amount of information you offer in a lecture. Can you tell me what the important points are?" I replied, "You're not in college for me to tell you what I think is important since clearly I think it's all important. You're in college to figure out what you think is important. Sorting that out is why you are here, the information is just...information. What's important will will require tat you learn how to think."
We're going to need to sort things out.</span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="ddig7" data-offset-key="a3sbo-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 8px; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="a3sbo-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="a3sbo-0-0"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Thanks for Joseph for the suggestion. I think he nailed it. The world is on fire. We'd better sort this out before it really is too late.</span></span></div></div>dbrkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323403103114744193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362236352949772857.post-46716285344815963232024-01-18T03:25:00.000-08:002024-01-18T03:25:14.005-08:00Trump's Immunity Tells the Story and Democracy Itself at Stake<p><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; orphans: 2; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;">It's mid January 2024 and I ask where shall we be one year from now, no matter the clear outcome of the coming election? Let's take a nearer look to offer some future predictions.</span></p><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="brrt4" data-offset-key="28tob-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 8px; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="28tob-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span data-offset-key="28tob-0-0">
I shan't go on about the despicable behavior we witnessed again yesterday in the NY Federal Court. Suffice it to say, Trump proved himself again above the law by acting in ways that would not be tolerated by any other defendant.
There are many reasons why this behavior will further bolster his support with the R-MAGA Party, which is now the entire R-Party. (You've likely taken note of endorsements this week from Rubio, Cruz, et.al. The rest will fall in line, be assured.)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmZzn7X85CQJ04jso6vem1Tr9EVZQEfyUCgVaENGhKvKy3mNtxjfovsftopJ8xGzZXsgMM7kzbvqjRoRVBvqfCY1Ts8-7tiFU8oC3LWQz4_o_Vs_ehLmvhXkEbtAkoXIjJ_7fWvtkbdvTxzRVp8DpqQIlTAWNFduvdZVcnlY72StZSPVcEmUbCWmn9usG4/s284/download-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="177" data-original-width="284" height="177" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmZzn7X85CQJ04jso6vem1Tr9EVZQEfyUCgVaENGhKvKy3mNtxjfovsftopJ8xGzZXsgMM7kzbvqjRoRVBvqfCY1Ts8-7tiFU8oC3LWQz4_o_Vs_ehLmvhXkEbtAkoXIjJ_7fWvtkbdvTxzRVp8DpqQIlTAWNFduvdZVcnlY72StZSPVcEmUbCWmn9usG4/s1600/download-1.jpg" width="284" /></a></div>
Why does this fascism appeal?
Let us leave aside the religious machinations that form the psychopathy of Christian Evangelicals. (To say that these people are "not real Christians" is, btw, utter nonsense. To suggest that there are other Christians offended by them is merely to repeat the common historical fact that religious identity is itself disputatious. People are who they say they are, always start there. Then sort out who's who and why they think as much. This is critical thinking 101.)
The simplest (not the only) explanation is that all of his behavior can be summarized in one word: immunity. Immunity means that whatever he does or says is utterly beyond consequence and that any suggestion otherwise will be met with violent threats and retribution. So again, why is this appealing to so many?
For those terrified, insecure, aggrieved, entitled, and convicted of their own victimization, such claims to certainty, impunity, violence, and immunity from consequence is their own greatest aspiration. That Trump does it, means he emulates their own depraved ambition and yearning. That this will result in vindictive cruelties or demand mendacity, conspiracy, denial of fact, rejection of law, civility, or decency is not as important as the power this enjoins. Their aim is to gain such power by any means and sustain it however possible, including violence. None of this is speculation: we have a proven record given their use of the Big Lie, insurrection, etc.
None of these behaviors depend on their beliefs. It matters not whether they actually believe Trump's lies or make them their own. They may repeat all of his claims but this has little to do with conviction, belief, or even faith. Rather, saying whatever will provide the emotional satisfaction and fuel their deeper need to experience the "immunity or else" effect is all that is required. To keep asking whether MAGAs believe this or that claim is to misunderstand their agenda. Beliefs are always a cover for deeper needs, hopes, aspirations, and wants. Pull away this cover and the pleasure, the </span><span data-offset-key="28tob-0-1" style="font-style: italic;">feeling </span><span data-offset-key="28tob-0-2">that MAGAs get from being aggrieved, angry, fearful, certain, and </span><span data-offset-key="28tob-0-3" style="font-style: italic;">immune </span><span data-offset-key="28tob-0-4">is more important than any stated belief or idea.
</span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="brrt4" data-offset-key="ebbku-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 8px; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="ebbku-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span data-offset-key="ebbku-0-0">Once immunity has become the most important feature of one's deeper motivations and actions then virtually anything is possible. There are literally no longer rules except those that can be imposed on others. The mob may turn on itself or any individual, paranoia and loyalty are its most operative functions. Each can claim to be acting, as their God does, with impunity because they have the power and power itself is righteous justification. (This is not an unfair reading of the God of Job's claim over Job.)
Fascism is its own religion, Trump is their savior, they want the same power he has to be beyond any reach of accountability, to do as they please, claim any prerogative, impose any behavior, punish any objectors without due process, and above all scapegoat their "others". To compare MAGA with Nazi fascism is no longer a disqualifying exaggeration. To fail to compare MAGA with these precedents of history will prove fatal to democracy.
My real concern is not that the majority of Americans agree with this kind of racist, fascist politics. Rather, it is that the majority is either too naive to understand that </span><span data-offset-key="ebbku-0-1" style="font-style: italic;">this </span><span data-offset-key="ebbku-0-2">is the only matter that must be considered come November or too indifferent to notice. Personal resignation and nihilism are now ordinary features of the American psyche.</span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="ebbku-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span data-offset-key="ebbku-0-2"><br /></span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="ebbku-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span data-offset-key="ebbku-0-2">"Progressives" may not want to vote for Biden, the young may be too aggrieved and refuse to see the danger their third party vote poses. Many will be too preoccupied, indifferent, or estranged to appreciate how the blessings of a pluralist democracy will vanish and what that means for their lives. Will the Dobbs decision have electoral effects? Will folks care about the facts rather than their feelings and perceptions of the economy, the effect on international relations, the loss of freedom across the world? As America goes so goes the world, only for worse. It can yet be worse as the planet burns and the forces of totalitarianism and religious fanaticism bring more death and devastation.
None of this is predictive. I do think Trump can win and I despair that recognition because it tells me who my neighbors and fellow Americans really are. I am not only appalled by the fact that this will be a close election, I cannot even respect those who abdicate our broken politics when faced with this emergency before us. This is duty's arena. Those who can endorse Trump are beyond the pale and persuasion---they have had years to see what it before us, no matter what they chose in the past. Those who sit this out are not friends to decency, neither intellectually or morally fit for citizenship in a democracy.
It's going to be a long 11 months and then no matter the outcome of the election, the Immune will not admit defeat. Is violence inevitable even in the face of a crushing defeat? Of course it is. Those who cannot admit to any fact but their own certainty to rule will not hesitate to do anything to regain power.
I'm going to change the name of this Group again. We started as Rajanaka Storm and changed to Sky when Trump lost. It's time we raise the alarms again. Suggestions welcome.
</span></span></div></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />dbrkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323403103114744193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362236352949772857.post-611030398169348862023-11-15T06:39:00.000-08:002023-11-15T06:40:58.706-08:00The World is Stranger Than Religion Can Imagine<p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #1c1e21; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">That we make the cut and have evolved to be human is miracle enough. Usually I don't land the plane first.</span></p><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #1c1e21; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2;"><div class="x1iorvi4 x1pi30zi x1l90r2v x1swvt13" id=":r1hi:" style="font-family: inherit; padding: 4px 16px 16px;"><span class="x193iq5w xeuugli x13faqbe x1vvkbs xlh3980 xvmahel x1n0sxbx x1lliihq x1s928wv xhkezso x1gmr53x x1cpjm7i x1fgarty x1943h6x x4zkp8e x3x7a5m x6prxxf xvq8zen xo1l8bm xzsf02u" dir="auto" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; line-height: 1.3333; max-width: 100%; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word;"><div class="x1e56ztr" style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 8px;"><span class="x193iq5w xeuugli x13faqbe x1vvkbs xlh3980 xvmahel x1n0sxbx x6prxxf xvq8zen xo1l8bm xzsf02u" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; line-height: 1.3333; max-width: 100%; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word;"><br />I refer to the last two paragraphs from Ross Douthat, the rightwing Catholic columist for the NYTimes, in a piece entitled "Where Does Religion Come From?" Unsurprisingly, Douthat argues for supernaturalism as if it's there to be found, like UFOs. I could go on here about how he confuses different forms of the imagination and our needs but he does concede that people conjure divinity for the purposes of inidividual consolation (aka the existential crisis) for fear of death and because they seek to share a social narrative that locates them in support communities. What's interesting to me about this piece isn't Douthat's utterly lame argument for the supernatural, it's that he buys into his own need it to make himself feel better about death and community narratives. The irony is pours like motor oil off the page.</span></div><div class="x1e56ztr" style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 8px;"><span class="x193iq5w xeuugli x13faqbe x1vvkbs xlh3980 xvmahel x1n0sxbx x6prxxf xvq8zen xo1l8bm xzsf02u" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; line-height: 1.3333; max-width: 100%; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word;">He writes also, “[T]he world is much stranger than the secular imagination thinks.”<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5yNeJNRVyDow1BrNHrxNYuEQMVm7Yp5PoCv-f1tu2NIWGpo_biu7apI3qp5NQPtb6yYf8UQF05sm_YzppikWt1IFBqG7Ge5SopUgzwyMgsGMQ3qwqJd67vPjuxysHT8P9tArtwHJ75wvJ9-OftbrkMNyOh0GBVvC9BXNCX9HTF5tOh80uVeDJ2gbIAuS0/s1526/399889423_6993612754028321_6604316672489936398_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1526" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5yNeJNRVyDow1BrNHrxNYuEQMVm7Yp5PoCv-f1tu2NIWGpo_biu7apI3qp5NQPtb6yYf8UQF05sm_YzppikWt1IFBqG7Ge5SopUgzwyMgsGMQ3qwqJd67vPjuxysHT8P9tArtwHJ75wvJ9-OftbrkMNyOh0GBVvC9BXNCX9HTF5tOh80uVeDJ2gbIAuS0/s320/399889423_6993612754028321_6604316672489936398_n.jpg" width="226" /></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><br /></b></span>Douthat is confused: the world is much stranger than the religious imagination can think. Religious imagination reduces reality to narrative fantasies without necessary regard for logic. We'll tell ourselves nearly anything, including conspiracies and fact denial, because it feels better. Why not prefer our imperfect human understandings of reality that demystifies as better methods and more evidence emerges.</span></div><div class="x1e56ztr" style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 8px;"><span class="x193iq5w xeuugli x13faqbe x1vvkbs xlh3980 xvmahel x1n0sxbx x6prxxf xvq8zen xo1l8bm xzsf02u" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; line-height: 1.3333; max-width: 100%; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word;">He concludes:<br />"Given the existence and influence of Christianity, it makes sense that some intellectuals in a decadent post-Christian society would be drawn back toward its consolations. But why were we given Christianity in the first place? Why are we being given whatever we’re being given in the U.F.O. phenomenon?</span></div><div class="x1e56ztr" style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 8px;"><span class="x193iq5w xeuugli x13faqbe x1vvkbs xlh3980 xvmahel x1n0sxbx x6prxxf xvq8zen xo1l8bm xzsf02u" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; line-height: 1.3333; max-width: 100%; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word;">The only definite answer is that the world is much stranger than the secular imagination thinks."<br /></span></div><div class="x1e56ztr" style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 8px;"><span class="x193iq5w xeuugli x13faqbe x1vvkbs xlh3980 xvmahel x1n0sxbx x6prxxf xvq8zen xo1l8bm xzsf02u" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; line-height: 1.3333; max-width: 100%; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word;">Here is what I wrote in reply in public:<br />People need personal consolation because mortality and death are real and they need each other for support because, well, life is hard. All of the narratives of religion about divinity are factual nonsense but at least Douthat acknowledges that people use nonsense because they need consolation. Once you dispense with the supernaturalism, you can get on with loving a life that ends with death. I'm not thrilled with extinct because I've gratitude for the miracle of experiencing mortal consciousness. I still like living. It's a "miracle" not because science and humans can't explain it but because we can.<br /><br />Chop wood, fetch water as the Zen adage puts it.</span></div><div class="x1e56ztr" style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 8px;"><span class="x193iq5w xeuugli x13faqbe x1vvkbs xlh3980 xvmahel x1n0sxbx x6prxxf xvq8zen xo1l8bm xzsf02u" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; line-height: 1.3333; max-width: 100%; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word;">Here's the Douthat link:</span></div><div class="x1e56ztr" style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 8px;"><span class="x193iq5w xeuugli x13faqbe x1vvkbs xlh3980 xvmahel x1n0sxbx x6prxxf xvq8zen xo1l8bm xzsf02u" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; line-height: 1.3333; max-width: 100%; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/15/opinion/religion-christianity-belief.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/15/opinion/religion-christianity-belief.html</a></span></div></span></div></div>dbrkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323403103114744193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362236352949772857.post-79912357941346642212023-10-19T07:54:00.001-07:002023-10-19T10:03:30.363-07:00 America's Angry Children and the Real Future of Democracy <p><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It appears that a significant number of people in my personal demographic---mostly older white folks, more of them rural than suburban, more of them much more religious than I---neither understand democracy or reject it. They may not know they reject democracy because they don't in fact understand it.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In all cases their behavior resembles that of petulant children (with apologies to real petulant children) or of authoritarians. These folks like authoritarians so long as they look like them or fuel their grievances and claims. What we are seeing while the world burns, war rages in Europe and Middle East, and the country is less than a month from closing down is not a Republican Party that is merely dysfunctional. That is far too kind and understates the problem.</span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3eH0B0DLQn0g0gNyyrw9YbjonI0iuLLd_rxSw2fgVuQhcxlABkm6PcRopwrxTdHREUbK27DvV2Wg3zxYBY5PoVF1DbOj5n_zxvekCARQ3fUeUjvbtRHSOcWGp0Dzp7oASIpwq23Q0pCKWXXuvgVgyYkEkndFFiiKuFFCIUsXVYQTkJdQDhg-StlUaUtSS/s600/d085c-banyan-1.jpg.webp" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="401" data-original-width="600" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3eH0B0DLQn0g0gNyyrw9YbjonI0iuLLd_rxSw2fgVuQhcxlABkm6PcRopwrxTdHREUbK27DvV2Wg3zxYBY5PoVF1DbOj5n_zxvekCARQ3fUeUjvbtRHSOcWGp0Dzp7oASIpwq23Q0pCKWXXuvgVgyYkEkndFFiiKuFFCIUsXVYQTkJdQDhg-StlUaUtSS/s320/d085c-banyan-1.jpg.webp" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /><o:p></o:p></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It would be an error to think there is a mature and governing majority within the larger Republican Conference or that it is but a few raging children, like Jordan or Gaetz, who need to get out of the way. The fact of the matter is that the current R-Maga Congress was elected by their voters not to govern. The majority of these elected representatives voted overwhelmingly not to certify the last election and cannot or simply will not admit that it was legitimate. It's hard to believe anything they say because they will say anything.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Those who are not election deniers will resume drowning government in their bathtub of grievances, conspiracies, and fantasies because that makes their voters feel good. The point of being elected isn't to do the difficult business of democratic government, it is merely to please those who vote and give you money.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What we have before us as a country might be called a Cold Insurrection but in fact appears to be its own kind of Slow-Walking and Not Without Violence Civil War. Trump just said on his platform that the people have "other rights" to secure the "justice" of his First Amendment rights, which should include threats and calls to violence directed at anyone who disagrees with him. By that he clearly meant that the Second Amendment somehow gives people the right to overthrow the government should it appear that the rule of law does not suit them. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Leaving aside that even this current corrupt SCOTUS could not endorse as a majority that utterly ridiculous interpretation of "the right to bear arms," it is nightly stated on Fox and Newsmax to titillate their viewers. Jim Jordan's stated aim is authoritarian rulership, that is, government not by democracy and compromise but instead absolute rule or more cynically by simply rejecting the function of any government.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The real problem is that Republican voters have apparently internalized every bit of the cynicism that Trump and the GOP opportunists around him use to manipulate them. They care not for any connection between national politics and the health and security of the United States. They have never known a United States that is as broken as they hope to make it, so their soothing lies and fantasies of destroying the deep state are more like the next good show on TV.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Ironically these voters, a fairly significant portion of whom, rely on the government for their very survival in the form of Social Security, Medicare, etc., must rely on everyone else (aka Democats) who they deride as the “deep state" to keep the country functioning. Wouldn't want Big Government to take away their Medicare, now would we? Unfortunately, and I say this with no glee, Republican voters are apparently that stupid.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That they prefer to vote for masters of performative nonsense, like Jordan and Gaetz, needs no further explanation: all of the Angriest Children and all but a few in not yet gerrymandered districts will get landslide reelections. But it matters not that these are the Angriest Children because the entire party has proven itself rotten to the core. Shall we ask Liz Cheney?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The MAGA voter will reelect representatives who do nothing for “forgotten” working families because it is Democrats who have somehow left them behind. Fox makes sure to stoke that grievance every day because anger secures eyeballs and makes for profit. Elected MAGA grifts on the endless narrative of discontent, conspiracy, and blame because that is more lucurative than serving their constituents with law making. Benghazi! Hunter Biden! Whatever the flavor of the day is, there's room for more soothing lies that capitalizes on ignorance and performative anger.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Conservative" Never Trumpers argue that MAGA is not conservative. But this is yet more nonsense. Theirs has always been welfare for the rich and corporate profit over every other consideration: their trickledown economics, "private sector solutions" for medical care, education, the environment, even civil rights have been nothing but catastrophic folly. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Conservative" ideals---smaller government, tax relief for the rich, deregulation---have been shown time and again to produce only more economic disparities and civil injustices. They bought the Gipper's lies because it sounds great and fills the pockets of their donors. Why this isn't obvious to any who claim decency when even their own economists admit to their motives is yet another characteristic of their failure. Follow the money to figure out why they don't care. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">But there are no "conservatives" even of this ilk left in Congress who aren't merely MAGA. MAGA doesn't care about any of these "conservative" objectives unless it profits them and keeps them in power. The usual failed conservative policies only serve this cynical objective. And to be clear: there are no elected Republicans who are not MAGA. Trump is almost certainly their standard bearer and they will all fall in line.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">We can reasonably ask why so many rural white voters, especially of a certain age, vote as they do for policies that don't serve their actual lives? First, like all Americans, they think this way because they have never had to live under a government that has actually been so dysfunctional as to cease operation, or has been burned down, or defunded. Jordan and the Angriest Children have made careers only out of encouraging such nihilism. This makes them unfit to govern but effective politicians because they never intended to govern.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">They will get elected by gerrymandered majorities and if given power will only foster more chaos: it's not a quirk, it's a feature. But here's the more important point that strikes home at the real problem before us: they actually do deliver what their voters want. Peering into living rooms blasting Fox, the MAGA voter wants a good show, and that means show trials, passion plays, and, above all, confirmation of their own misery while watching other people also feel unsettled and angry. The miserable also want "those people" who are coming for their stuff to be miserable or dead: it's not merely we didn't get ours, it's that <i>they </i>got ours. This is the message coming out of their information silos and anything to the contrary is "fake news."<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">To admit otherwise would be to admit their own mistakes and failures and, well, that just won't do, MAGA voters are incapable of recognizing serious legislators because by definition they reject compromise. They call this recalcitrant nihilism being "principled" when in fact it is an ignorance of the democratic system itself. When democracy gets in the way of their world view and, more significantly, their tender self-esteem then that doesn't matter either.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You can't be committed to democracy if you don't understand it and MAGA voters are more like a case study in widespread group Dunning Kruger Effect than actual citizens of a functioning republic. Fox and elected MAGAs know to keep the circus lively and tell their viewers how smart they really are.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">They've done the research, you know, on things like vaccines by reading stuff on the internet that proves the Deep State is trying to anniliate them. That science saved so many of them from disease and death isn't even a distant memory---that can be as soon as fifteen minutes ago given attention span---but because they never learned the truth. They were too busy listening to Republicans like DeSantis and watching Fox.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">MAGAs have been told that Trump will win in a landslide and that their favorite representative will stand by their president. Gerrymandering likely insures that their elected representatives remain in place to take their money and grift on their grievance. But it won't matter if they lose because they will not accept the results.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">We're headed either for another January 6th Insurrection or a Speakership that will not accept the Electoral College results. Any of them are capable of rejecting votes because they don't believe every American actually should get to vote. Republican "leadership" knows that they are going to need to be the vote counters to win in the crucial places and have long realized that majority elections at the presidential level are irrelevant to their rulership goals. There would be a need to burn down the government should they lose because they could not control the outcomes.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">They are actively engaged of course in doing just that: controlling process and outcome to assert their rule, which makes them wealthy and keeps the TV appearances coming in. If this sounds too cynical, I suggest we merely consider what is in fact happening right before our eyes.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The threat to democracy extends to the Russians, the Chinese, the Saudis and other authoritarians who see our failures more clearly than we do. But if the hopes of the American people rest with the American people then I say we're in for much worse than we can blame on others. Is there any reason to believe this Cold Insurrection will fail? Landslide victories from Democrats and a wise Joe Biden easily elected to a second term defeating Trump who will <i>likely already be a convicted felon</i> is perhaps our only real hope for better. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p>dbrkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323403103114744193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362236352949772857.post-75877803257869365472023-08-30T20:46:00.011-07:002023-08-30T21:31:54.678-07:00Democracy Must Save Itself<p><span style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;">There is still media talk about a Republican reckoning, that Trump’s legal troubles will catch up with voters.</span><span style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;">These voters loathe the notion of Democrats in power, particularly a second Biden term, but are going to finally concede to Trump’s unelectability.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG2hFymUjTS956Az45cJQXjVg3NIvFczjXaYFC7Jgql-OLbI6VQ6LgGTELpb5JvNk2sNFQASCLXIdduP7mYe7R5xaua9fC8YQXw4PKPs8-yVQ1UJfc3c-_Afn7Y8i_FrNX8bFpK_yuyL9xzUv4ADYPnQnV2Xio5Gussy-G-r2NbrboBd8CZgw_SqPITjmO/s299/Unknown.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="169" data-original-width="299" height="169" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG2hFymUjTS956Az45cJQXjVg3NIvFczjXaYFC7Jgql-OLbI6VQ6LgGTELpb5JvNk2sNFQASCLXIdduP7mYe7R5xaua9fC8YQXw4PKPs8-yVQ1UJfc3c-_Afn7Y8i_FrNX8bFpK_yuyL9xzUv4ADYPnQnV2Xio5Gussy-G-r2NbrboBd8CZgw_SqPITjmO/s1600/Unknown.jpeg" width="299" /></a></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;">The argument here is that there is more at stake than Trump himself and that the Republican Party’s political objectives are significant enough to distance from Trump.</span><span style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;">What else could DeSantis or Tim Scott or Nikki Haley be thinking?</span><span style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;">Thinking?</span><span style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;">This requires the presumption that MAGA voters, the base of the party that no Republican can win without, are indeed motivated by</span><span style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;"> </span><i style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;">political </i><span style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;">interests.</span><span style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Adobe Caslon Pro, serif;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"> That they are moved by </span><span style="font-size: 17.333334px;">policy</span><span style="font-size: 13pt;"> ideas. Trumpism is indeed rooted in an idea but it only </span><span style="font-size: 17.333334px;">political</span><span style="font-size: 13pt;"> inasmuch as it embodies a menacing look that means to become retribution against enemies. Trumpism is inseparable from him, from what that mugshot means<i> and </i>him<i>.</i></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;">We needn't go so far as to say that MAGA voters have no politics or that politics does not inform their choices. But it is a mistake to see their loyalty to Trump as political. The </span><span style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;">presumption that politics determines the choice of the MAGA base is just plainly false.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Adobe Caslon Pro, serif;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">Trump is a cult leader, not a politician because that is what MAGA loves about him. It’s not about particular policies, though cultists are often bemused by slogans (including </span><span style="font-size: 17.333334px;">those that appear to be policies, like "build the wall")</span><span style="font-size: 13pt;"> and the sheer <i>fun</i> of it all. It’s really about being part of </span></span><i style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;">it, </i><span style="font-family: Adobe Caslon Pro, serif;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">and </span></span><i style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;">it </i><span style="font-family: Adobe Caslon Pro, serif;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">isn’t more than what </span></span><i style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;">he </i><span style="font-family: Adobe Caslon Pro, serif;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">is so long as he provides the entertainment. </span><span style="font-size: 17.333334px;">What</span><span style="font-size: 13pt;"> is most entertaining is the feeling, including the </span><span style="font-size: 17.333334px;">exhilaration and the sense of power that MAGA means you can do what you want, and particularly what you want to do to <i>them</i>.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Adobe Caslon Pro, serif;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Adobe Caslon Pro, serif;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">It’s like going to the game. </span><span style="font-size: 17.333334px;">You</span><span style="font-size: 13pt;"> root for "us", for "our team" </span><span style="font-size: 17.333334px;">and</span><span style="font-size: 13pt;"> against "them." It’s what you do. It’s who you are. You don’t change fandom from week to week, much less to the opposition. At best you might lose interest. But that takes time, much more time than we have before the 2024 election. MAGA will die a slow death made from its own boredom before it </span><span style="font-size: 17.333334px;">succumbs to</span><span style="font-size: 13pt;"> truth or shame.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;">Cults often do espouse beliefs and even consistent beliefs---but this is not a particular feature of Trumpism. The fact that Trumpism isn’t about beliefs is a key to understanding that it is more about belonging and being <i>one of us. In Trumpism identifying through him is the point. </i>Ramaswamy out Trumping Trump makes not one iota of difference. <i>He is the point because he tells his followers that they need nothing but him to have everything they want.</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;">In Trump’s mugshot you see it all: it is about defiance, about giving them what for, it's about exactly what he said: I am your revenge. Such a base emotional commitment is more than enough to rally the fandom. Nothing can make a Red Sox fan ever admit the Yankees are less loathsome. But here the team isn't a cast of players or a franchise or an institution, it's <i>him.</i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Adobe Caslon Pro, serif;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">Cults don’t need to be religious to make devotion and heresy essential elements of identity. Trump stands for the kind of self-identity that will not be denied, not in the fact of facts or even criminal conviction.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Adobe Caslon Pro, serif;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">Without MAGA, no current R-candidate can consolidate enough votes to win the nomination and </span></span><i style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;">MAGA has no intention of leaving Trump no matter what he says or does.</i><span style="font-family: Adobe Caslon Pro, serif;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"> As indictments pile up and the real threat of conviction on any number of crimes manifests, the majority of R-voters will rally around their leader. They may not like Trump any more than the evidence before them but to change teams at this point is to admit failure, a failure that pre-dates Trump's take over of their party. These folks </span><span style="font-size: 17.333334px;">simply</span><span style="font-size: 13pt;"> cannot vote for the D and will more than likely pull that R lever under any circumstances. </span><span style="font-size: 17.333334px;">Just</span><span style="font-size: 13pt;"> ask them. There will be no such reckoning on political grounds because we are no longer dealing with a political movement.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Adobe Caslon Pro, serif;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">That so-called “reasonable” Republicans, like the governors of Virginia and New Hampshire, are acting as if the politics are at stake is shameful. Worse. It is morally contemptible. Continuing to say that the fate of the country is in fact a matter of politics, that is, of Democratic policies they cannot abide is more than a mere failure of imagination or political dissimulation. It is a serious, even profound moral failure that must be assigned and repeated until their shame, conscience, and intellectual dishonesty becomes unbearable, even for the power-craven.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Adobe Caslon Pro, serif;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">Nearly all elected Republicans have announced that there is nothing is more important than preventing another Democratic victory: they raise hands, like their Junior Varsity colleagues on stage at the Republican “debate”, agreeing to support whoever is the R-nominee, knowing full well that if Trump bears their standard they will have likely participated in the end of America as it has existed at least since 1864. Apparently, the need for power and the ability to dissimulate for the sake of personal survival is more important than the fate of the republic. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;">So the most important question isn’t whether Trumpism is a political movement but what we are going to do in face of a cult that appears powerful enough to take political power because so many are willing to deny the danger the cult leader poses to democracy itself.<br /><br />To call MAGA a cult is not hyperbolic. I think it wise in fact to avoid hyperbole just as it is to continue to address Republican voters with a certain stoic curiosity about their choices. It’s unlikely Trump is moving any previous Biden voters. Our partisanship is as immovable as Rs are unpersuadable from their cult mind.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;">In terms of behavior, the assimilation of information, and emotional connection, Trump has near complete control over his followers. Information is siloed and restricted such that followers are told what to accept and what can be ignored. Few actual beliefs or principles are at work because in this form of cultism more important is purity, that is, that one remains <i>inside </i>the group. Purity translates directly into following the next directive and sustaining the rejection of alternatives, particularly anything to do with Democrats. Last, Trump’s emotional grip on the cult aims at their most primal self-identity: feelings themselves are a refuge because to deny him would not only admit to error, it would be to deny self.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;">This means that the facts, be they legal or logical and evidentiary, are unimportant. Nothing can be said that the cult has not heard and dismissed before. Any admission of error now would be tantamount to admitting they’ve been wrong all along. Once you’ve been conned, it’s nearly impossible to admit you were conned, and it’s far more likely you’ll continue to play the game <i>and</i> raise the stakes. There’s little reason to believe anything will persuade the MAGAs to alter their behavior, much less admit to error or a changed mind. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;">We can only reasonably surmise that MAGA itself can’t be stopped and that most Republicans will refuse to acknowledge the gravity of the threat before us. Why? Because this is exactly what has been the case for the past eight years.<br /><br />There are a few voices of more recent “conversion” like Chris Christie, but to think that there is a Republican anti-Trump and pro-democracy movement of consequence that will save us is simply not realistic. The Lincoln Project, Steve Schmidt, the Bulwark have been anti-Trump since voting against him in the last election. Are there really <i>more</i> hearts and minds to be changed that haven’t <i>already</i> made up their minds?<br /><br />Trump and Trumpism can be defeated if there is an election as free and fair as the last. What that will take is every Democrat voting again and in truth <i>more </i>Democrats. Trump won more votes in 2020 because those people were voting for <i>him</i>. They will likely do as much again. <br /><br />Younger voters must turn up and if they do on the basis of issues well-articulated, political positions including women’s body sovereignty, the climate catastrophe, civil right, gun violence, and the rest, then Trump will lose again.<br /><br />But it’s going to be close. And as disheartening as that is, and as shameful as we might say are those R-voters who really do know better but fail the <i>moral</i> test, there is something <i>still something worse</i>: Should Democrats fail to show up in significant enough numbers in the purple States and somehow Trump gains yet another minority Republican victory, we will have lost the country. Can we please pause for a moment to consider <i>that</i>?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;">We must make a positive case for policy and values, for moral decency and democracy even as we make clear the real danger this cult poses to the existence of the country. Making just the existential case for America may not be enough. People need to vote <i>for</i> something that moves them and, as I see it, democracy however posed will not alone suffice to motivate folks to get out to vote. Outside the cult, voters need policies and positions that stand for their values. We will not defeat the cult by being cultish. We can only defeat them with ideas that motivate a positive initiative of real political value. Of course, we still have to hope that all the votes will be counted.<br /><br />MAGA will retreat back into its bunker only when its elderly voters die. It will take generational change to reject a cult’s influence and role in determining destinies. The children of cult members don’t necessarily buy into the cult. Some MAGAs may even retreat quietly, even be influenced by news, facts, and events right before their eyes and may choose not to vote. But those folks will not vote <i>for</i> anyone else which means the fate of the country really does lie with voters.<br /><br />The MAGAs will never admit to the conn, that’s a bridge too far, but that is not important. What MAGA voters will latch on to next need not concern us: we live in a culture of cults, whether that means sports teams or guns, or cooking and antiquing. People have plenty to do that isn’t MAGA.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;">MAGA is going to have to die a natural death and fail because it lost recruits and its leader is somehow out of the mix. Trump must be absented from power by decisive electoral failure if we are to have the slightest chance and any meaningful future. There is not going to again be normalcy until generational change occurs and that itself is contingent on the next election.<br /><br />At present we have but one choice and one way to save the republic for any meaningful future: we must get out every vote and hope the system has enough integrity to count them honestly. We did this before and, sadly, that is once again our only effective play. Neither persuasive arguments nor convictions are going to matter much. It won't be the courts, some brilliant interpretation of the 14th Amendment, or a magic wand that will save us from ourselves. Democracy can only be saved by democracy. And if it does not, it will almost certainly not get another chance.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif; font-size: 13pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Adobe Caslon Pro", serif;"> </span></p>dbrkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323403103114744193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362236352949772857.post-62122861931513950792023-08-23T09:27:00.003-07:002023-08-23T09:31:59.656-07:00Is there no virtue among us?<p>"Is There No Virtue Among Us?"<br /><br />For me the year always begins in September. I am among the lucky few for whom the coming of school was something good, something I could understand not because it was easy but because it brought us together to learn about ourselves.<br /><br />I had fears and trepidations but I thought no matter how challenging or overwhelming it all might seem, this was a place where we could grow understanding. What are our assumptions and from whence do they arise? What is the evidence, from whence and what has not been allowed? What are your reasons? How do you draw your conclusions? What are the implications of your understandings and how will they guide, inform, or fail to inform your actions?</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHDmgRTYZ8OlHjRchJOURv5j3wjZLZBpGQePdod5MYTOHiUmBHf0PlLx_wUTbI1CjtGs71WMXAjkgwEvO6i6WC1RbFsEGRGca9grrU0VVwUp3fl3KK2uK4hnRBhAq-w5hUaHmv9obyn5RokrOeWNaz6kI6Dg3LIdNCek1K1xXBuLmorPkP9qlk7eZcqlO0/s3264/James-Madison-Grave-8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHDmgRTYZ8OlHjRchJOURv5j3wjZLZBpGQePdod5MYTOHiUmBHf0PlLx_wUTbI1CjtGs71WMXAjkgwEvO6i6WC1RbFsEGRGca9grrU0VVwUp3fl3KK2uK4hnRBhAq-w5hUaHmv9obyn5RokrOeWNaz6kI6Dg3LIdNCek1K1xXBuLmorPkP9qlk7eZcqlO0/s320/James-Madison-Grave-8.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br />Now I wonder how much of what matters is open for honest discussion. I'm not interested in causing a stir but no matter what our personal preferences may be, we live in perilous times where it is difficult to attempt undisguised conversation. Questions that should be matters of policy, debate, and, yes, compromise to reconcile our genuine differences have devolved to nothing less than existential matters of survival. I wish this were only hyperbole.<br /><br />There are too many examples to note but a report this morning from the Washington Post tells us that we are deeply, irrevocably broken and divided on a partisan basis over the climate, and how much less the fragilities of this democracy and the relentless culture wars that threaten to ruin the last shards of decency and civil discourse. We seem incapable of sharing even the same facts, much less agree to disagree. And so very few seem committed to learning the skills of argument grounded in good faith and respect for the truth.<br /><br />Truth has been reduced to performative grifts and silos of misinformation that seem impenetrable to break. You will see plenty of that if you can stomach the Republican "debate" this evening.<br /><br />I came across a piece of James Madison this morning regarding Judicial Powers of the National Government, dated June 20, 1788. In this complex comment, Madison tells us that our liberty requires consideration of restrictions and principles upon which there is likely to be contrary interpretation. He is particularly keen to point out the distinct role the courts will play in framing the rule of law in a democracy. He frets over jurisdiction and gives countenance to the privilege of jury trial, and above all what he terms the "uniformity of justice."<br /><br />If we cannot abide the outcomes of equal justice under the law, we will become little more than the mob or will revert to the claims of the powerful autocrats to whom the law does not apply as it does to all. We seem to be on the verge of losing democracy to the autocrats who have duped masses of people to reject democracy itself for a racist populism.<br /><br />For all of Madison's own many inexcusable faults, he grasps the heart of the matter wholly germane to our current crisis---for what we face as a nation is a crisis and of existential dimensions. Those who cannot accept the results of elections are not likely to accept the rulings of the law either.<br /><br />Madison asks rhetorically, "Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks--no form of government can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea."<br /><br />So there we have it, the question plainly put: is there, will there be "any virtue in the people"? We have spent very little time in the past few decades teaching how virtue is made much less how to think, read, and write critically with respect for the facts. Madison didn't expect these skills of the people to be well-honed but he did understand that without a real sense of virtue, of knowing the difference between right and wrong and being able to act upon it, that we would not survive in this democratic experiment. <br /><br />Whatever next happens in the circus of the media, the court of public opinion, or the legal system, we will certainly fail if this current "wretched situation" finds no solution. I am more than a little worried that a significant percentage of the American people would prefer a morally flawed, proven criminal autocrat than the deliberations of the law and messy workings of this fragile democracy. If we must count on virtue then we will have to make some and not merely count on it.<br /><br />I think we shall know before too long if there is the slightest hope for this country, or if our flaccid indifference, short attention span, and under developed considerations of virtue will be our end.<br /><br />I for one am tired of shouting matches with those for whom there is no respect for fact (or even the notion of fact) nor a shard of decency in their hearts. No pointless debate will solve our problems until we are prepared to have the more authentic conversations that invite the difference between right and wrong.<p></p>dbrkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323403103114744193noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362236352949772857.post-22948660683419157362023-05-21T08:09:00.006-07:002023-05-21T08:47:48.008-07:00 A Bridge Not So Far<div class="separator"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDpfW7pzTsUZpyqfjr-QwzxIA5ed9qFvJQM2cD0tU_0UqrCGcXcYEK31KCJCU2qauvzi1gpz56m2UBaQL3tc42WJie2O0LHFxk7JEN-DhNVZxOq7ZjlwhUn-6HM4Vf0uH5Nyr-Nw8ezPKRZE0_vl75qx80IOFdn9MC0pvAbfIbrrlezvLfnCvrq4LnaA/s800/rajanakamanhattanbridgepigment.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDpfW7pzTsUZpyqfjr-QwzxIA5ed9qFvJQM2cD0tU_0UqrCGcXcYEK31KCJCU2qauvzi1gpz56m2UBaQL3tc42WJie2O0LHFxk7JEN-DhNVZxOq7ZjlwhUn-6HM4Vf0uH5Nyr-Nw8ezPKRZE0_vl75qx80IOFdn9MC0pvAbfIbrrlezvLfnCvrq4LnaA/s320/rajanakamanhattanbridgepigment.jpg" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><br /><br />May 21 2023<br /><br />I read the news this morning, have you? I know. Who wants to do that?</span><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><br />There is so much of real concern. Today the headlines are more than war, climate catastrophe, corruption, racism and bigotry shamelessly advocated by one of America's two political parties. <br /> Today it must include a crisis that does not need to happen, one entirely of our own making, one wholly avoidable. What sort of society conjures such madness when there is so much that needs to be addressed in shared interests? Why do we seek our own pain, our collective ruination?<br /><br />To appreciate the debt ceiling crisis---and it is a crisis---we must first opine a bit on human nature. I may not know jack (or his best friend's name) about economics but I pretend to contemplate our shared humanity. What I know is that humans are capable of things worse than we ever like to admit and sometimes better than we imagine.<br /><br />Let's start with the importance of denial. In the face of illness, death, impending catastrophe, even inevitability there is no quota placed upon our willingness for denial as a strategy. We would, as Bartelby reminds us, prefer not to. We postpone, live "as if", and do everything we can to say not me, not today, even never because admitting otherwise is traumatic, painful, far too real. To put this in our vocabulary, we need the Maya because reality is just too much to deal with before the sky actually does fall. <br /><br />Denial is a feature not a quirk when it comes to being human. It's no more solvable than any other shadow that occupies the human light that burns as consciousness. <br /><br />Let us add to the normal denial (not a good thing, just a normal thing) the abject ignorance of those driving this bus over the cliff. It is genuinely painful to hear Republicans speak about, well almost anything but economics in this case is as dangerous as it is (and I don't like this word but it seems undeniably true) stupid. Think of the fact that 68 million voters thought Trump competent to run this economy. Think of who controls the votes in the Republican Congress. Yes, we are in serious trouble because they simply don't comprehend where this is taking all of us with them.<br /><br />Then there is the cruelty, the sheer vindictiveness blended into mendacity, craven indifference to consequences, and the shameless joy they take in making people hurt. Cruelty is the point and again Trump is their example: the law like any tangible advantage should belong only to them and must never apply to anyone else, especially their enemies. But that latter point is crucial: they may define themselves with madness, ignorance, and cruelty that they refuse to admit but they are much happy to define themselves by who they perceive to be their enemies. They are not partisans, they are nihilists because they don't care to protect even their own if that means giving in to their "enemies". <br /><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;">I say the problem isn't partisanship. I think it is that we are not partisan enough. Partisans stand with their side but care not to destroy their opponents. Rather they merely figure out how to live with it all. Refusing to accept racism, bigotry, the expurgation of women's rights, the rejection HUMAN rights is not hate: it is to side with humanity. Nihilism is not an abstraction, it is a way of life. "They" must fail at any cost. It's not as if we have not seen this before. But ironically we need to say that the Nihilists must fail and that we are also in the business of helping them live to see another day. Enter Joe who says as much every single day.</span><br /><br />Republican white supremacy along with their nihilism must fail. Caring about all people, even those who want the world to burn if it means destroying themselves and somehow admitting that these shameless, willful bigots too are human and so warrant concern, this may not be a solvable dilemma. I will not grieve their demise in any form that might take even if I will not seek to expedite the worst for them. We are going to need peace even if we cannot have reason. We will not survive a culture based principally on menace and violence. <br /><br />It seems apparent that playing Russian roulette with the entire structure of the American (and so the world) economy is not beyond this intellectually arrested and ethically bankrupt Republican Congress. The debt ceiling, according to those who really understand this mess, is no joke. But Republicans enjoy watching sane people squirm, they will do anything to "own the libs" and that includes driving the country over a cliff. <br /><br />The gambit to use the 14th Amendment would require litigation and even if that were expedited to the SCOTUS (as the country melts down), what then? This is a novel legal theory and what makes anyone think that this corrupt Court will not simply allow the world to burn. Remind me, wait you don't need to. Dobbs. Shall we entrust the full faith and trust of the American economy to the likes of Alito, Thomas, and the drunken frat boy sexual abuser? There is really no sane way to rely on the Court to fix what this Congress can ruin and Biden I think knows this. Otherwise the threat of the 14th Amendment or the trillion dollar coin would be made much more.<br /><br />None of this needs to happen so why didn't the Democrats eliminate the debt ceilng move---why a two step, where you spend the money and then refuse to pay the bill? Because the politics of saying there is no ceiling for debt despite the fact that the spending was authorized by both parties is too hard to sell to people who can't understand or refuse to pay attention to even this simplest argument. Never underestimate the ability of people not to understand when that depends on thinking with a shard (just a shard) of complexity----call me the cynic for that one. If reason made for politics we'd be living on Vulcan. Earthlings for all of their rational achievements prefer simple feelings to complex ideas. Politics is 99% "gut feeling" which is why it is equally foolish to think that Trump cannot win again.<br /><br />So Yellen is running out of paper tricks, Powell is likely shitting his establishment Republican pants---MAGA hates McConnell almost as much as Democrats. (Check that, they hate Democrats more than they love life: this is why they are nihilists, not just racists and morons.) So now what?<br /><br />We must be better than we want to be. As they rig and manipulate the system, use their corrupt courts and the power of the structural advantage (think electoral college because the popular vote really does NOT matter), we must be smarter, wiser, more prudent. We must not become bent upon their destruction but rather the victory of decency. They live in a world in which not only must dogs win but cats must lose. We must make room for the cats (no matter how we might feel about them) because without difference we are nothing but sameness and that, that leads to everything that is destructive about humankind.<br /><br />I don't know if cooler heads will prevail. I don't respect holding the world hostage for the sake of hypocrisy, stupidity, and nihilism. I am going to spend my day reading something more humanizing and enjoying the beauty of this late spring day. But I am not indulging in denial so here I am with too many words writing to you on a Sunday morning. We should be scared enough to step up and pay attention, at the very least, especially when we are more or less powerful to control what happens next. Sometimes paying attention and deciding who you want to be as a person is all you manage. Let us manage that together. We must be that bridge not too far but close enough to hold each other.</span></div>dbrkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323403103114744193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362236352949772857.post-84421263376196632542023-03-05T06:38:00.003-08:002023-03-05T06:38:50.514-08:00RE: The National Divorce<p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> <span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; orphans: 2; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;">I'm a little slow on the uptake but David French is the new right wing commentator on The Time op-ed page. He is of course wrong about almost everything since Republican policies have proven themselves utter disaster since Ike was President. That said, he's not unreasonable, he's just usually wrong. Meh. My unhelpful judgment notwithstanding he makes no case here why secession is a bad idea other than that it would be terrible, dangerous, and undoubtedly violent. That's reason enough.</span></span></p><span data-offset-key="dsjm3-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><span data-text="true"><span style="font-family: georgia;">
The problem at this point of partisan inflection is not simply that we disagree but that we neither respect nor much like each other. People divorce for many reasons but irreconcilable differences are cause (certainly that is the legal case). In what world are our differences reconcilable about fundamental issues? On gun safety? Police reform and violence? Climate catastrophe? Education, ummm, Florida? Women's healthcare? Racism? Our fellow citizens traffic in overt, shameless hate and we are supposed to respect these as values, particularly justified by their religion? All the while Red Republicans live off the Feds when it come to Medicare, Social Security, you name it, they take more than they ever give. Sounds like grounds for divorce to me.
That said, such a parting is as French says impracticable, surely dangerous and if we can't agree on naming a Post Office or the facts of an effort to overthrow the government, we're going to amicably part? Of course not. There is no solution, no way to around the problems, and nothing good comes of burying our heads in the sand and pretending we don't have to care. If you ignore politics it's because you not only have the right to do so but a sense of privilege that abdicates democracy itself. Such folks might well deserve to live in an even worse authoritarian oligarchy that passively accepts dictatorship.
I'll repost my reply to French. My not really public conclusion is that we can't retreat to our Blue refuges and think that immunizing. You may live in happy blue dots but the red infection is certainly going to ruin the fun sooner or later. Blithe indifference and insouciant superiority will not suffice. So what is the solution? To rally politically as far as it is truly possible with the active intention of marginalizing Red power over us. We must use the resources of the law to reduce their effects. Problem is, they are about half the nation so it's also likely we're just screwed.
</span></span></span><span class="x1fey0fg" style="background-color: white; color: var(--blue-link); font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><span data-offset-key="dsjm3-1-0"><span style="font-family: georgia;">https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/05/opinion/national-divorce-civil-war.html#commentsContainer</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhXJa4MbNoW-SYHQukadidq_9rwc2HH90HPZgEwhlN3Z6VGgVblx60i6JGHwUWYyhjkn-0pZNmlVNhhhKpSYxkqQV3dLwNhya-ce1FrhF23N9CwO0o3yiv_lU3cvECpvVf-wWk6SOG3I8BAZmmtCdTELmkYfB1UoCSlOvNjhfd5mb_IdZBvXh_EbI7w2w" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img alt="" data-original-height="694" data-original-width="942" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhXJa4MbNoW-SYHQukadidq_9rwc2HH90HPZgEwhlN3Z6VGgVblx60i6JGHwUWYyhjkn-0pZNmlVNhhhKpSYxkqQV3dLwNhya-ce1FrhF23N9CwO0o3yiv_lU3cvECpvVf-wWk6SOG3I8BAZmmtCdTELmkYfB1UoCSlOvNjhfd5mb_IdZBvXh_EbI7w2w" width="320" /></span></a></div><br /></span></span>dbrkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323403103114744193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362236352949772857.post-67851568158506825862023-02-27T15:38:00.002-08:002023-02-27T15:38:12.112-08:00 What I Am Tellling Them and Why<p></p><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="fumb4" data-offset-key="63jum-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 8px; orphans: 2; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="fumb4" data-offset-key="37ine-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 8px; orphans: 2; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="37ine-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="37ine-0-0"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yet another well-documented article today about the death of the humanities in higher education. Once again the issue that receives no consideration is the one that matters most to me. </span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="fumb4" data-offset-key="dpcpl-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 8px; orphans: 2; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="dpcpl-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="dpcpl-0-0"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="fumb4" data-offset-key="7bg23-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 8px; orphans: 2; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="7bg23-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="7bg23-0-0"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What is left of humanities studies is nowadays centered on the politics of inclusion and how and if our study of being human will make for a more just world. Who could possibly object to these needs and aims? Of course the article further details the impracticalities and so the apparent irrelevance of college work that doesn't land a job with a particular skill and expertise purchased at this great expense. Thus the humanities are consigned to navel gazing and less than basket weaving. After all, who doesn't need a good basket and what how do Dante, Dickinson, Tu Fu, Kalidasa, Shakespeare, Patanjali, and Akka Mahadevi have any relevance to making at least a decent basket?</span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="fumb4" data-offset-key="99v82-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 8px; orphans: 2; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="99v82-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="99v82-0-0"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="fumb4" data-offset-key="5btn3-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 8px; orphans: 2; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="5btn3-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="5btn3-0-0"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Undoubtedly accomplished students with STEM degrees are going to have employment opportunities and advantages going forward. No one could possibly dispute this and, you will recall, even Obama told students not to major in Art History. I knew then, in something like '08, that I was merely rearranging the deck chairs on civilization's Titanic. </span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="fumb4" data-offset-key="4b14f-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 8px; orphans: 2; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4b14f-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="4b14f-0-0"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="fumb4" data-offset-key="d8olr-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 8px; orphans: 2; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="d8olr-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="d8olr-0-0"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It is a privilege to sail into the heart if life has presented you a near empty or too crowded life boat. But reducing life to survival, resources, and shelter is yet another kind of crime. We cannot make every conversation about survival if we are to live lives of value. We must do better. Everyone deserves the privilege of searching the heart and exploring the greatness of human creativities. I would suggest it's something of a necessity.</span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="fumb4" data-offset-key="4o97b-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 8px; orphans: 2; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4o97b-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="4o97b-0-0"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="fumb4" data-offset-key="4gqa9-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 8px; orphans: 2; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4gqa9-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="4gqa9-0-0"><span style="font-family: georgia;">So I will continue to play in the string quartet even as the boat sinks. When these kids are 40 and success has brought its usual damages and life is beginning to catch up---sickness, children, death, aging parents, the rest---what will really finally get them is their impoverished souls. The gateways to the soul do not remain forever wide open. In truth, they narrow as we claim the benefits of worldly leisures and address the required banalities of success. The heart is never a desert but sooner or later you must drink from its well-springs and they are filled only with the resources of learning and creativity: if there is no poetry, no music, no literature, no critical thinking and mythic imagination, the thrist will dessicate, the soul will shrivel. </span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="fumb4" data-offset-key="48i00-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 8px; orphans: 2; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="48i00-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="48i00-0-0"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="fumb4" data-offset-key="2tbbi-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 8px; orphans: 2; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="2tbbi-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="2tbbi-0-0"><span style="font-family: georgia;">They are unprepared for life not because they have chosen STEM or something practical but because the most important things that are going to happen to them as human beings having nothing to do with practical matters. Without serious study of the human past and our literary and artistic achievements we will become a soul-less society. And of course incapable of claiming the resources we will need to live with ourselves. </span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="fumb4" data-offset-key="fcfqr-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 8px; orphans: 2; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="fcfqr-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="fcfqr-0-0"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="fumb4" data-offset-key="1v02d-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 8px; orphans: 2; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="1v02d-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="1v02d-0-0"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The task of the humanities may involve our social and moral betterment but that is not its best or most important purpose. The reason we study human creativities---as we study myth and the rest---is because the deeply private experiences of the heart must enter into these conversations in order to be human at all. Neglect those efforts at your peril. At some point we are all going to recognize that the bell tolls for thee.</span></span></div></div>dbrkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323403103114744193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362236352949772857.post-84323817545639683662023-02-18T05:28:00.010-08:002023-02-18T05:55:42.682-08:00 Making Peace In the All of It<p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="var(--primary-text)" style="background-color: white; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">"I read the news today, oh boy..."</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="var(--primary-text)" style="background-color: white; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><br />And of course, no one likes the bad news. We seem to get a belly full nearly everyday if we dare to pay attention. To ignore it may be a matter of mental health. Just how much can we take? And the good news is that there usually is good news: life isn't just a vale of tears, life itself should never cease to be the wonder it is. We can make wonder but we can just as much appreciate what is right on offer.<br /><br />To be grateful is heaven itself, as Blake reminds us, and to be paying attention to all the rest of the truth surely has its consequences. It's likely "bad for business" to offer up here, in social media, views that encourage the whole of the conversation. Why not just tell folks what we'd all prefer to hear? Wouldn't more come to your yoga class?<br /><br />I've always maintained the yoga means engagement with everything we experience and that it asks us to be vigilant, serious, to develop our critical awareness, and not to shrink from the uncomfortable truths. That can prove stressful and make us reach for an alternative definition, that yoga provides us the relief, the reprieve, the place we go to find remission and restfulness from the world. That is not an argument without merit if we consider the full spectrum, especially from those proposing a nirvana (extinction) of the recurrent suffering (samsara).<br /><br />But I've never been sold on the soporifics. I do love puppies (alot), rainbows, and memes about how we can distinguish suffering from pain as much as the next person. I don't love <i>being</i> in the fray or feeling frayed anymore than you. I'm not looking for a fight. Still I will not look away. I won't stop caring about learning the truth even when I can't do much about it.<br /><br />We may be afraid of the truth because we've learned the hard way that it does not always set us free. This means however that we must take up the task of living with ourselves no matter our commitments to understanding and honesty.<br /><br />A case in the news is worth our reflection on this matter, I think. You will have had to have paid at least some attention to the news to follow. There is far worse news in the news, so this will come as little surprise.<br /><br />You will recall that Dominion is the name of the company that made voting machines used in th last election. They were singled out by Trump, the insurrectionist conspirators, and the right wing media as having had a hand in "rigging the election." Dominion has sued for defamation and this week the process of legal discovery proved unremarkable: Fox and its minions all knew there was no rigging, no fraud, that the case against Dominion was slander, false, a ruse to feed their audience the story they wanted to hear. What we know now about the Dominion case is that the Fox Propaganda machine was concerned over their credibility in this one case because they actually had told the truth: Biden won. That was the problem. What they also knew was that their viewers were not willing or able to accept the truth. So they sustained the lies not because they believed them or even because they wanted to but for the money. (It's always the money, btw.) (H</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: georgia; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">ere's the op-ed from Michelle Goldberg that makes the case, plain as day: </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/17/opinion/fox-news-dominion.html#commentsContainer">https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/17/opinion/fox-news-dominion.html#commentsContainer</a>)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="var(--primary-text)" style="background-color: white; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><br />Should these revelations concern Fox? That they've been outed and hold their audience in such contempt? Hardly. The Fox audience will either never hear (from Fox) or won't care that they've been had, that their heroes are grifters, liars, and frauds. People so determined to believe what they want will either find an excuse for them, deny the truth, or simply turn off any message that doesn't conform to their world view. Empires have been built on lies and fantasies with even less credence. Emperor Constantine knew this just like the Murdochs.<br /><br />My point is simple enough: are we content to live in our safe delusions or do we dare to find out what's true? And then how do we choose to live with those facts of life?<br /><br />I say, there is no time to be merely cynical. Better to hold fast to the heart, and while we reckon with our own foibles and flaws, sustain a certain humility for the difficult processes of learning and learning from our mistakes, we stay the course, we try to be human with all our will and effort. Being good may be optional but it is the better option. When others need help to withstand the onslaught, offer what you can. But don't turn aside. If you need help, reach out. Life's blessings should be abundant. Its upheavals will remind us there is more to do. Yoga can be about more than the easeful. Yoga can make peace with staying in the fray.</span></span></p><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="var(--primary-text)" style="background-color: white; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><br /></span></span></div>dbrkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323403103114744193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362236352949772857.post-79774460658773329302022-08-29T04:50:00.000-07:002022-08-29T04:50:52.005-07:00What You Haven't Earned Is More Important<br /><br /><div>This week there’s been a lot of hubbub about forgiving student loans. I had them. I paid them. I am thrilled others will find relief from such onerous debt because why should they have to go through this? Just because I have?<br /><br />Is this one of those Two Kinds’a People Thing? You know those who think everyone should suffer as they have to “earn their way” or maybe that others needn’t have to go through it quite so ? Do we all have to suffer more to somehow be better? I think not.<br /><br />Don’t mistake me, as Spinoza reminds us, “All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.” But there’s always room for more care, compassion, and insight than self-important claims to meritocratic virtue, most of which ignore how they’ve been built on privilege, luck, and appanage. The value of an education is not merely a job, a profession, or in what you've earned. It's in the heart that can open to a deeper appreciation of what might be possible.<br /><br />“Merit” has its own complications---not the least of which is that its shadow is virtue. But when you have worked really hard for something it can lead you to work harder and harder and harder and then you forget to do other important things like take time to love what’s valuable.<br /><br />Merit surely has value but not everything valuable comes from merit. We don’t need to earn love. Grace must have priority.<br /><br />***<br /><br /><br />No one could possibly believe that this loan forgiveness is a "solution." It was not meant to be. It was a political effort that appeals to important elements of the Democratic Party. The question then is whether it is good politics in addition to whether it is morally adroit. I would argue that the former is open to debate and the latter is plain.<div><br />Republicans will use this to rally resentment and pose their grievances. This is, after all, their sole political platform. They have no ideas other than to anger and inflame their base with culture wars. This will suit them just fine. Nothing Biden or Democrats could do---and I mean NOTHING---would be acceptable to them in terms of any action or policy. Part of their grievance is simply to hate us, we the Libs.</div><div><br />So does it rally Republicans even more to vote? Purely a political question. More importantly, does it anger, estrange, or disaffect Democrats from voting and who does it incentivize to vote? I think the people most benefited by this policy are also unlikely to vote because they received it. In other words, I find Democrats unreliable voters on issues, on voting _for_. Dobbs will more likely draw voters, as Kansas proved. Thus I think the policy is likely neutral.</div><div><br /></div><div>Nothing changes the venal Republicans; not much affects Democrats. Are there any Democrats estranged by this policy? Not enough to matter. Politics solved. However, this was bad politics insofar as it is a distracting talking point that cycles in the news. Biden and the Democrats must talk about how Republicans are a real and present danger to democracy---because that is TRUE and that message must dominate, penetrate, be made every single moment every day.<br />Was this a good thing? A moral thing that attempts to redress an onerous, horrid situation? Namely that education is unaffordable and yet so important that it drives people into debt? I would assert that to be paramount. This was a good thing and certainly not the best thing or a solution. There can be no solutions without the political will to alter systems and structures. In today's America, that is a pipe dream. So Biden did what he could, appealed to some segment of his diverse coalition, and helped a ton of folks who are most in need of such relief. It is a fact that the majority of beneficiaries will come from under represented communities and working class families. It is a good thing and that might be the best we can hope for under the circumstances.<br /><br /><img 2000="" c="" cdefs="" cfecolormatrix="" cfecomposite="" cfegaussianblur="" cfeoffset="" cfilter="" cg="" clineargradient="" cpath="" cstop="" cuse="" d="M8 0a8 8 0 00-8 8 8 8 0 1016 0 8 8 0 00-8-8z" defs="" dy="-1" e="" fill="none" filter="url(%23c)" filterunits="objectBoundingBox" g="" height="118.8%25" http:="" id="a" in2="SourceAlpha" in="SourceAlpha" k2="-1" k3="1" lineargradient="" offset="0%25" operator="arithmetic" result="shadowBlurInner1" src="data:image/svg+xml,%3csvg xmlns=" stddeviation="1" stop-color="%2318AFFF" svg="" values="0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.299356041 0 0 0 0 0.681187726 0 0 0 0.3495684 0" viewbox="0 0 16 16" width="118.8%25" www.w3.org="" x1="50%25" x2="50%25" x="-9.4%25" xlink:href="%23b" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" y1="0%25" y2="100%25" y="-9.4%25" />3<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Like<br /><br /><br />Reply<br /><a href="https://www.facebook.com/douglas.brooks.5492/posts/pfbid02Pg7Vc5fkEpk4XioKX1M1wKaQRcHjqPkTfMpZKzxTznsVUw3YZesVGg9TipuV3U8jl?comment_id=734603137632113&__tn__=R*F">40m</a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Active<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div></div>dbrkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323403103114744193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362236352949772857.post-74030412419600385372022-08-29T04:38:00.002-07:002022-08-29T04:39:43.978-07:00Welcome to the Department of Irrelevance and Dead Languages<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFHfB_7EBskxAQdy4fZUWV9DYChLxs-oBqXfFnYAUamTdvJGfYYCu05VZ6VyuyJCiOXhzfH6DGfjSvYhnhxcEYuRVnFtKSXTOJZz0zC2Dsw0ZiNRlx8uDiRyMV8HQaWP524Ivbd-1LQ1n_bav1J9ISdQxYr86RIoPStrxpxtlZQR8tpEGwBbeePV-8Sw/s680/302428948_124507683664148_444346361003916293_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="527" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFHfB_7EBskxAQdy4fZUWV9DYChLxs-oBqXfFnYAUamTdvJGfYYCu05VZ6VyuyJCiOXhzfH6DGfjSvYhnhxcEYuRVnFtKSXTOJZz0zC2Dsw0ZiNRlx8uDiRyMV8HQaWP524Ivbd-1LQ1n_bav1J9ISdQxYr86RIoPStrxpxtlZQR8tpEGwBbeePV-8Sw/s320/302428948_124507683664148_444346361003916293_n.jpg" width="248" /></a></div><p><br /></p>You will notice from the chart above that I teach the least popular, perhaps the least important subject in the humanities.<br /><p></p><p>Our Department is Religion & Classics.</p><p>As professional fields these are two very different worlds---journals, conferences, guilds, etc. Our original intent was to rescue a failing Classics program (circa 1986) but also to form a Religion Department that demurred from the apologetic description as "Religious Studies." We meant to say that we are of course NOT a theology or advocacy department (or supposed to be) but rather critical secular historians and linguists, etc.</p><p>They don't call the people down the hall from my office "Historical Studies," so "Religious Studies" is an apology implying a distinction that might be useful for some but is essentially insulting and wrong-headed. We imagined that we are NO DIFFERENT from every other subject: assumptions, evidence, reasons, conclusions, these are the things we do and we investigate. So far, so good, right? We who study religion professionally have always had to argue for our legitimacy in the academy.</p><br />Of course the problem is exacerbated because so many Religion Departments are filled with religious people who shamelessly advocate one (usually) or another (or many?) religions. This undermines our mission. Being religious doesn't disqualify you from studying religion but neither does it have anything to do with teaching religion. In fact, the conversation about being religious only complicates and confuses the matter. There should be a wall of separation between studying religion and being religious that is taller and more formidable than church and state. Keep your religiousness out of the conversation. I don't talk about my personal chemistries in chemistry class do I?<div><br /></div><div>I also argued from the outset that Arabic, Sanskrit, and other languages we teach (not Modern) should be treated as "Classics." This angered the Classicists who saw it as undermining their guild, even their subject. You can only study Sanskrit in Religion and Classics yet Sanskrit is apparently neither religion (because it is not) nor is it classic (because the Classics guild hold that "classics" means only Greek and Latin and are ill-disposed to admit others in their sandbox).</div><div><br /></div><div>At a place like Rochester we originally in R&C made a BFD out of our secular identity and insistence that we are not advocates. I think that no matter how clearly or frequently we have made this case it doesn't much matter. It is too culturally ingrained, too nuanced a point, and we are too unwilling to learn this important, nay vital distinction. All we can continue to do is shout about it and hope someone/anyone listens. Maybe it doesn't matter that much either.<br /><br />I would not personally describe myself as advocating or adhering to any religion since that is irrelevant to my profession and work. However, our method in the study of religion is secular, I happen to be both an atheist and a Hindu measured by the duck test. Does it waddle? Quack? But so what? Who cares? BEING one IS NOT qualification of expertise. (I might describe my own religiousness as utterly secular too inasmuch as the method and the "belief" is nothing but what I also do academically. Secular critical study is as much my "religion.") I am biological and chemical but that is no qualification for expertise in the study of biology or chemistry. Being "religious" is ZERO qualification for the critical study of religion. '</div><div><br /></div><div>Being "religious" is data, it is what we <i>study</i>. One's personal relationship to a religion must be irrelevant if the subject belongs at all in a university. Most scientists are so ignorant about what we do as scholarship that they think we are advocates and dismiss our subject or would prefer to abolish us.<br /><br />That said, now imagine how students or, worse, their parents understand NONE of these points and arguments. Religion is worse than Art History, which even Barack Obama told us could not be any longer justified. But why? Because costs make college prohibitive.<div><br /></div><div>I will continue to rant. And this is shameless advocacy but not for being religious. If you are religious I might study you. If you are religious I might not care if you don't make your religion my problem. Many religious people do make their religion my problem, like Samuel Alito or Clarence Thomas. </div><div><br />Unless we study history, literature, language, and culture we will be under exposed and ill informed citizens and humans. How can we presume to organize socially and politically if we have so little appreciation of what we might learn about being human from one another? The Humanities are not a luxury but a necessity, especially if we have any hope at the more complex and precarious human endeavors like the rule of law or the public good. <br /><br />However the same necessity of inquiry frames topics in science. Because we are culturally illiterate we are unable to fathom climate science. Because people are under educated, ill-informed, and under exposed to the truths of science, we frame debates about vaccines and disease in ways that should embarrass and shame us all. We look stupid. Worse, because we don't know how to study religion and how opinion, faith, belief, and unexamined data operates on the human psyche we confuse religion with science. Then we are worse than stupid because now what we feel or believe has more weight than reasoned argument.<br /><br />We are human, imperfect and science is not infallible. But it is the best we have and if it is a test of personal belief versus the evidence of reputable academics, there is no serious choice. Are you with the magical goatherders of the Bronze Age or do you understand what academics has in fact done to advance the human cause?</div></div>dbrkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323403103114744193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362236352949772857.post-8210463886448883262022-06-25T07:32:00.004-07:002022-06-25T07:32:52.672-07:00The Confederate Party of Lincoln<p></p><div class="bi6gxh9e" data-block="true" data-editor="9l06p" data-offset-key="clfgi-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 8px; orphans: 2; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"></div>When Lincoln wrote that the nation was conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all are created equal he knew this wasn't true because it had not been realized. He proposed a new birth of freedom of, by, and for the people. These phrases are so well known we likely don't fully appreciate how radical it was to say in its day.<div><br /></div><div><br />Lincoln was conceiving the United States that had been merely United States. In that he was targeting the Confederate oligarchs who had maintained a minority rule and a federal government that secured the rights of all people. In their view government must not be the peoples' unless it serves the interests of the few who are competent to decide for the collective. Reverting to claims of State's rights was their means to secure power in the hands of the few thus insuring that the will of the people could not interfere with their cultural claims and financial interests.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil1RcIHQ_KWTVpCce1bi8f-c2ZSDujVKusbsGBP1txdnJilLYg6vvtOUQwdqU_ksJMBUKAbUI6Wej82M04lFK0cmZG49CKdifiBUO5aIo26Ve49EFvaUOx886Ex_Fbn6VtrSuzqZSy34uWvP5krrL3Ox1jFdzDRzSJt3kRty1fPccxd1wDAGJ_uNAAqQ/s800/Lincolnatgettysburg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="649" data-original-width="800" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil1RcIHQ_KWTVpCce1bi8f-c2ZSDujVKusbsGBP1txdnJilLYg6vvtOUQwdqU_ksJMBUKAbUI6Wej82M04lFK0cmZG49CKdifiBUO5aIo26Ve49EFvaUOx886Ex_Fbn6VtrSuzqZSy34uWvP5krrL3Ox1jFdzDRzSJt3kRty1fPccxd1wDAGJ_uNAAqQ/s320/Lincolnatgettysburg.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br />It is the combination of these two Confederate features that has once again seized control of our system. The minority means to govern and if they cannot govern with the consent of the majority or use the system to secure their power, they mean to rule by any means. Should that process fail to maintain their power they have demonstrated the willingness to use violence. Rule over the majority by intimidation and force are key elements of fascism.<br /><br /><br />It is no small irony that the current Republican Party and the illegitimate and corrupt Court that imposes their will over the majority mimic the interests and agendas of the Confederacy that Lincoln brought to defeat. At some point I think the impositions of minority rule will once again not only splinter us but will bring the kind of civil unrest and protest that we may not be able to resolve using the mechanisms of liberal democracy.<br /><br /><br />As rights are taken away---and Roe is just the beginning of that dismantling---people will actually come to realize more palpably the oppression that the minority means to impose. There is a forthcoming ruling of the Court that will likely effectively eliminate the ability of the federal government to delegate regulations to agencies, thus wrecking havoc on the EPA, FDA, well, all of it. The rules will somehow belong to the States where business oligarchs will make sure, as they have with guns and climate, that the majority's will has no power. <br /></div>dbrkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323403103114744193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362236352949772857.post-10656601006274862462022-06-11T09:33:00.003-07:002022-06-11T09:33:31.598-07:00 The Seven Point Plan<br /><br />Cheney declared there was a “sophisticated seven-part plan,” and future hearings will dive deeper into its components She did not enumerate the process, so I thought I would suggest the process.<div>(Kudos to Susan Glaser for the core listing references.)</div><div><br />1. Trump’s spreads election misinformation; <br />2. he plots to fire the acting Attorney General in order to get the Justice Department to further his false claims; <br />3. he pressures Vice-President Mike Pence to block the counting of the electoral votes, and he pressures military, CIA, DOJ and others to confirm his lies,<br />4. he pressures Republican officials in the States and Republican-led state legislatures to switch their electoral votes and scheme to send fake electoral certificates to Congress; <br />5. he coordinates with violent conspirators, including Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, largely through his proxies, like Stone<br />6. he summons the mob to the Capitol on January 6th; <br />7. he refuses to do anything to stop them once they are there, rampaging in an effort to stop the vote count (removing Pence from the scene, declaring the votes illegitimate, and eventually getting a stooge like Grassley as Pro Temp to do the "re-count.") <br />Voila. The Coup almost works. <br />Don't think they haven't learned from these mistakes. Next time they mean not to fail. Next time means the next election they lose and will never again admit to losing. Tyranny is not quite here but the grounds for democracy are gone. What remains are we the people responsible for establishing the rules for free and fair election and compelling integrity.</div>dbrkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323403103114744193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362236352949772857.post-80694238000878335952022-06-11T05:14:00.006-07:002022-06-11T05:22:13.611-07:00 Willful Ignorance, Critical Thinking, and the Matter of Unknowing<br />If we want to understand why Republican America is so blithely ignorant, misinformed, and disinterested in the truth about a seditious insurrection conspiracy led by a grifting, lying, fraud who is mentally ill and utterly unfit for any political leadership we need to understand from whom they get their news.<br /><br />This trail of misinformation and manipulation helps further explain why those who could know better---persons less mentally deficient than Trump in Republican leadership have decided to ignore the truth. Their relationship to money and power precludes their interest in the truth. Rep Cheney made that point crystalline this week.<br /><br />But after we account for willful dissimulators, what do we make of the vast swath of Republican voters and other ignorant Americans who care not for the tasks of citizenship?<br /><br />Two articles appeared this morning that caught my attention. The first appears in The Atlantic. Here David French outlines what so many in his circle of Republican friends don't know and how little they do. He also outlines the putative misdeeds that these seemingly "good" people attribute to Democrats. You can easily find this piece via the googlemachine.<br /><br />We can dismiss the majority of Republicans as pathetic, unfit for democracy but it is as important to note how they have been manipulated and corrupted. In true Orwelian doublespeak fashion this is what they say about those of us who read The New York Times or other journalism that might actually have a shard of integrity.<br /><br />We might retort that if you can't believe "the media" then the January 6th Committee invites you to believe your own eyes and the sworn testimony of those who suffered "carnage" and "chaos", police officers beaten and slipping in blood to fend off the mob that Trump brought to support Proud Boy and Oath Keeper white nationalists bent upon overthrow of the duly elected government. Facts are not alternative.<br /><br />In our culture getting "eyes on" is more important than any form of written or spoken word. American short attention spans, illiteracy, and willful disinterest in matters of import cannot be underestimated.<br /><br />That said, what half the county prefers is Fox News, another Orwell-worthy name since the propaganda channel's shameless efforts espouse the Trumpista claim: whatever we say the dupes believe. In order to keep their dupes in line Tucker Carlson's show during the Jan6thComm hearing did not break for commercials for the first hour to keep eyes off the truth.<br />=<br />If you follow Twitter in the rightwing universe you are being told that the gravest threats to American democracy involve support for Pride. I kid you not. And of course the espousing of violence is shamelessly advocated without the slightest moral consideration since these advocates of hate deem themselves the true Christians. Abhorrent as this all is, it's like junk food: you become what you consume.<br /><br />Eyes off is as important as eyes on. This means as The Atlantic and the NYT article below demonstrate that America is not only ignorant and manipulated by the power of rightwing propaganda, it has little critical ability to move out of its information silos.<br /><br />We hear only what we want to hear while we are being told what it is we want to hear is true. There is no both-sides-ism to my point. The "left leaning" news includes the facts. Facts are pesky and difficult to create because they require serious human efforts that involve critical thinking. We have to trust, for example, in the methods and evidence of science and scientists when we are ourselves less capable of understanding the material ourselves. You might do as much when you ask Google Translate for a bit of help with French too. I mean simply when you don't know, you need help, you have to admit your vulnerabilities. Whether people have the capacity to understand what learning entails is another matter entirely.<br /><br />Given the nature of global events it's fair to say that everyone is under-informed. I am distraught when matters of science done by actual scientists is dismissed just as I am when folks are unwilling to consider journalistic standards and efforts at professional integrity.<br /><br />Republicans use "the media" to mean their political adversaries s when they are their propaganda advocates. I for one think there is still such a thing as professional, personal, and moral integrity. To discern that requires critical abilities. Those need to be understood, taught (they are not intuitive), and applied. Get on your Spock or your enterprise might crash into the sun.<br /><br />Offering up our best understanding, being transparent about methods and sources, and holding ourselves to ethical standards may be a requirement for functional democracy. Confirmation bias needs its counterpunctual: how could I know if I am mistaken? Do your best to create the facts and interpret them honestly: this is what you are taught to do in college if you actually received an education. It should be what is taught by 8th grade but that is another discussion.<br /><br />What we need to understand here is not that both sides are ill-informed or stuck in silos of preferred political values or persuasions. What we need to see that that a significant portion of the American electorate is participating in well-orchestrated conspiracies, subject to fraud, and can't tell the difference because they refuse to consider the quality of their sources and the agendas of those who would manipulate them.<br /><br /><br />https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/09/us/tucker-carlson-sean-hannity-fox-news-jan-6.html<br /><br /><br />dbrkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323403103114744193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362236352949772857.post-36718129330743287002022-06-10T12:19:00.002-07:002022-06-10T12:19:57.937-07:00All is Not Lost, Everything is a Footnote to the First Word<div style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="du4w35lb k4urcfbm l9j0dhe7 sjgh65i0" style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 16px; position: relative; width: 590px; z-index: 0;"><div class="du4w35lb l9j0dhe7" style="font-family: inherit; position: relative; z-index: 0;"><div class="" style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="" style="font-family: inherit;"><div aria-describedby="jsc_c_4f jsc_c_4g jsc_c_4h jsc_c_4j jsc_c_4i" aria-labelledby="jsc_c_4e" class="lzcic4wl" role="article" style="font-family: inherit; outline: none;"><div class="j83agx80 cbu4d94t" style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; font-family: inherit;"><div class="rq0escxv l9j0dhe7 du4w35lb" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; position: relative; z-index: 0;"><div class="j83agx80 l9j0dhe7 k4urcfbm" style="display: flex; font-family: inherit; position: relative; width: 590px;"><div class="rq0escxv l9j0dhe7 du4w35lb hybvsw6c io0zqebd m5lcvass fbipl8qg nwvqtn77 k4urcfbm ni8dbmo4 stjgntxs sbcfpzgs" style="--t68779821: 0 1px 2px var(--shadow-2); border-radius: max(0px, min(8px, -999900% - 39996px + 999900vw)) 8px; box-shadow: 0 1px 2px var(--shadow-2); box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; overflow: hidden; position: relative; width: 590px; z-index: 0;"><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="" dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="ecm0bbzt hv4rvrfc ihqw7lf3 dati1w0a" data-ad-comet-preview="message" data-ad-preview="message" id="jsc_c_4g" style="font-family: inherit; padding: 4px 16px 16px;"><div class="j83agx80 cbu4d94t ew0dbk1b irj2b8pg" style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: -5px; margin-top: -5px;"><div class="qzhwtbm6 knvmm38d" style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px;"><span class="d2edcug0 hpfvmrgz qv66sw1b c1et5uql oi732d6d ik7dh3pa ht8s03o8 a8c37x1j fe6kdd0r mau55g9w c8b282yb keod5gw0 nxhoafnm aigsh9s9 d9wwppkn iv3no6db jq4qci2q a3bd9o3v b1v8xokw oo9gr5id hzawbc8m" dir="auto" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; color: var(--primary-text); display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; line-height: 1.3333; max-width: 100%; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word;"><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Another thought today about the January 6th Committee because it's important to mitigate our not unwarranted, perhaps overly cynical view that nothing will come of it. Is our government hopelessly lost to dysfunction?</div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">The evidence is in. Not yet.</div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Take to heart this fact: the recently defeated president of the United States attempted to overturn the Constitution rather than accept the outcome of an election. He and his cohort conspired and executed a coup attempt. They failed. Why?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-P0GuLy0P_Z0XOorAX-xf2GiHP7HmLjK1SWeJ15pud7q1Z9OQSkKdBOv4taS6e5Ubnd-9M73CiZ-o8GpoOsmd9DIGumsyKLhnInXhTZWz9zeds8JRi8T215xPH2q0P375GQm6zhka2JRK29E-_kRGOulIlWlZLajh-LaVmkVy5JVlb2TK3U2jfwWOqA/s640/IMG_9419.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-P0GuLy0P_Z0XOorAX-xf2GiHP7HmLjK1SWeJ15pud7q1Z9OQSkKdBOv4taS6e5Ubnd-9M73CiZ-o8GpoOsmd9DIGumsyKLhnInXhTZWz9zeds8JRi8T215xPH2q0P375GQm6zhka2JRK29E-_kRGOulIlWlZLajh-LaVmkVy5JVlb2TK3U2jfwWOqA/s320/IMG_9419.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Brave and patriotic people stood up for the truth and stopped him. Brave and patriotic people now seek to hold him to account. In the future brave and patriotic people will likely have to stop them all again. This is not cynical anymore than it is pointless. This is the real work of citizenship. How quaint? This is your country. This imperative of citizenry obtains only if you care about democracy. Democracy has not yet failed. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Be one of those brave and patriotic people. Do not let our democracy fail. Continue to do the right thing. Insist that others join you so that we do not fail. If you don't we will fail because everything about democracy actually depends on We the People. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">If you want democracy you will have to save it but not by yourself. We is the first word of the Constitution. All the rest is We too.</div></div></span></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="du4w35lb k4urcfbm l9j0dhe7 sjgh65i0" style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 16px; position: relative; width: 590px; z-index: 0;"><div class="du4w35lb l9j0dhe7" style="font-family: inherit; position: relative; z-index: 0;"><div class="" style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="" style="font-family: inherit;"><div aria-describedby="jsc_c_4s jsc_c_4t jsc_c_4u jsc_c_4w jsc_c_4v" aria-labelledby="jsc_c_4r" class="lzcic4wl" role="article" style="font-family: inherit; outline: none;"><div class="j83agx80 cbu4d94t" style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; font-family: inherit;"><div class="rq0escxv l9j0dhe7 du4w35lb" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; position: relative; z-index: 0;"><div class="j83agx80 l9j0dhe7 k4urcfbm" style="display: flex; font-family: inherit; position: relative; width: 590px;"><div class="rq0escxv l9j0dhe7 du4w35lb hybvsw6c io0zqebd m5lcvass fbipl8qg nwvqtn77 k4urcfbm ni8dbmo4 stjgntxs sbcfpzgs" style="--t68779821: 0 1px 2px var(--shadow-2); border-radius: max(0px, min(8px, -999900% - 39996px + 999900vw)) 8px; box-shadow: 0 1px 2px var(--shadow-2); box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; overflow: hidden; position: relative; width: 590px; z-index: 0;"><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="ll8tlv6m j83agx80 btwxx1t3 n851cfcs hv4rvrfc dati1w0a pybr56ya" style="align-items: flex-start; display: flex; flex-direction: row; font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 16px; padding-right: 16px; padding-top: 12px;"><div class="buofh1pr" style="background-color: white; color: #1c1e21; flex-grow: 1; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2;"><div class="j83agx80 cbu4d94t ew0dbk1b irj2b8pg" style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: -5px; margin-top: -5px;"><div class="qzhwtbm6 knvmm38d" style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px;"><span class="d2edcug0 hpfvmrgz qv66sw1b c1et5uql oi732d6d ik7dh3pa ht8s03o8 a8c37x1j fe6kdd0r mau55g9w c8b282yb keod5gw0 nxhoafnm aigsh9s9 d9wwppkn iv3no6db jq4qci2q a3bd9o3v b1v8xokw m9osqain hzawbc8m" dir="auto" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; color: var(--secondary-text); display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; line-height: 1.3333; max-width: 100%; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /></span></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>dbrkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323403103114744193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362236352949772857.post-8808665123389969542022-06-10T06:37:00.002-07:002022-06-10T06:39:18.038-07:00The Coup in Progress and the Committee<p> In case you missed it there is coup-in-progress that is the continuation of the January 6th Coup Attempt that very nearly succeeded. Republicans mean not to fail this next time. The Committee is underway. Last night was the first hearing and here's what I think.</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpDO3deY3wJu-_m7mK6LHoCFAX3XHOJsg6ziPX9bHDnw86P0N89lR4o37d3zl-tzY0GmJdqqD46smcHLKoephS6iANAcumwMUbWfEVDizh4YZmIdCcSqeOZXWJSglx6dmKYkdR-FQRnrF80ciQr0TZFu7iXWT5xkNS_B2d5lJjqvGVj8QI8PRAgl_jJQ/s1640/Screen%20Shot%202022-06-10%20at%209.38.14%20AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="236" data-original-width="1640" height="46" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpDO3deY3wJu-_m7mK6LHoCFAX3XHOJsg6ziPX9bHDnw86P0N89lR4o37d3zl-tzY0GmJdqqD46smcHLKoephS6iANAcumwMUbWfEVDizh4YZmIdCcSqeOZXWJSglx6dmKYkdR-FQRnrF80ciQr0TZFu7iXWT5xkNS_B2d5lJjqvGVj8QI8PRAgl_jJQ/s320/Screen%20Shot%202022-06-10%20at%209.38.14%20AM.png" width="320" /></a></div></blockquote></blockquote><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="ecm0bbzt hv4rvrfc dati1w0a e5nlhep0" data-ad-comet-preview="message" data-ad-preview="message" id="jsc_c_d8" style="font-family: inherit; padding: 4px 16px;"><div class="j83agx80 cbu4d94t ew0dbk1b irj2b8pg" style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: -5px; margin-top: -5px;"><div class="qzhwtbm6 knvmm38d" style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px;"><span class="d2edcug0 hpfvmrgz qv66sw1b c1et5uql oi732d6d ik7dh3pa ht8s03o8 a8c37x1j fe6kdd0r mau55g9w c8b282yb keod5gw0 nxhoafnm aigsh9s9 d9wwppkn iv3no6db jq4qci2q a3bd9o3v b1v8xokw oo9gr5id hzawbc8m" color="var(--primary-text)" dir="auto" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; line-height: 1.3333; max-width: 100%; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word;"><div class="kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Three Takeaways and Futures</div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">1. It is the Committee's intention to demonstrate that this was an orchestrated, planned coup that Trump sponsored like a mob boss using his underlings to execute. It happened to fail.</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">This time. </div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">AG Garland? Are you listening? If this is not the crime of seditious insurrection led by a former president what exactly is?</div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">2. Republicans know that their voters explicitly or tacitly endorse the Coup. Last night Fox did not break for commercials while the Committee was in session so that its viewers would not be tempted to change the channel. Of course, Fox is culpable in establishing the narrative after the coup attempt that it was not a coup but "legitimate political speech" and that the big lie is not the clear and present danger it is to democracy.</div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Fox will insure that the vast majority of Republican voters, content as they are to endorse the coup, the lies that caused it and the lies that support the coup-in-progress, remain in line. Rep Liz Cheney telling the truth is being lionized for telling the truth while she is being run out of her party. Expect only more of the same. Minds are made up. Nothing about these hearings will move the electorate.</div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">3. Should they lose the next election Republicans and Fox intend for their coup-in-progress not to fail. Democracy no longer matters (i.e., you must be willing to lose, as Democrats clearly are) and they mean to gain power and never relinquish it again peacefully. Their voters endorse their claim to power at any cost. Many would prefer a "peaceful" takeover thus seizing the government by destroying norms and using the law to carry out the coup-in-progress.</div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">The minoritarian rule of white supremacist nationalism will prove more important to the Fox viewer than democracy. Wall Street will endorse the rise of fascism as the oligarchs secure power. If we do not act to protect democracy there will no recognizable America once Congress is Republican. As soon as 2023 we may well see their vindictive agenda at work: don't be surprised if they impeach Biden. Cruelty is the point: they are fueled by fear, grievance, anger, and revenge.</div></div></span></div></div></div></div></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="stjgntxs ni8dbmo4 l82x9zwi uo3d90p7 h905i5nu monazrh9" data-visualcompletion="ignore-dynamic" style="border-radius: 0px 0px 8px 8px; font-family: inherit; overflow: hidden;"><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="l9j0dhe7" style="font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><div class="bp9cbjyn m9osqain j83agx80 jq4qci2q bkfpd7mw a3bd9o3v kvgmc6g5 wkznzc2l oygrvhab dhix69tm jktsbyx5 rz4wbd8a osnr6wyh a8nywdso s1tcr66n" style="align-items: center; background-color: white; border-bottom: 1px solid var(--divider); color: var(--secondary-text); display: flex; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 0.9375rem; font-variant-ligatures: normal; justify-content: flex-end; line-height: 1.3333; margin: 0px 16px; 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vertical-align: top;" width="18" /></div></span></span></span></span></span></div><div class="bp9cbjyn j83agx80 pfnyh3mw p1ueia1e" style="align-items: center; display: flex; flex-shrink: 0; font-family: inherit; height: 22px;"><div class="gtad4xkn" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 7px;"><span class="tojvnm2t a6sixzi8 abs2jz4q a8s20v7p t1p8iaqh k5wvi7nf q3lfd5jv pk4s997a bipmatt0 cebpdrjk qowsmv63 owwhemhu dp1hu0rb dhp61c6y iyyx5f41" style="align-content: inherit; align-items: inherit; align-self: inherit; display: inherit; flex-direction: inherit; flex: inherit; font-family: inherit; height: inherit; justify-content: inherit; max-height: inherit; max-width: inherit; min-height: inherit; min-width: inherit; width: inherit;"></span></div></div></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /></div></div></div></div></div></div>dbrkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323403103114744193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362236352949772857.post-15569900930027269892022-06-01T05:53:00.005-07:002022-06-01T06:52:45.724-07:00More About the Widening Gyre<br />Let us be frank though I know that is not an inviting thing to say.<div>Uvalde, Buffalo, Heller, January 6th Committee, war in Europe, the planet burns, gas is $5 a gallo, food is expensive, and I fear that America is losing itself or whatever it may have ever had of democracy's promise. Too grim? Because too true? I cannot and will not "blame" anyone much less President Biden because that is facile and as unhelpful as it is unfair. We need each other and a reckoning. I think we are not up for it. They are running out the clock, like they always do.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7wdasuAI-5Yi3Aelv9KmhGX1ip4D4a2joWTbCPFXu70CtHQ4E8flqrr-3uJUSfXCB4MnC6y9SwbOJANJzai_t2oS7QRhMUCXwJeQ_18WoomH_d5Jzm2w9LuR5QOeWg3rtQUsD6gjxnxCGqdyNWyJx6zowHSfH9I4aMCYohdWd4Km5zb3usOQ_aTku8g/s3027/sadiemewindow.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3027" data-original-width="1848" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7wdasuAI-5Yi3Aelv9KmhGX1ip4D4a2joWTbCPFXu70CtHQ4E8flqrr-3uJUSfXCB4MnC6y9SwbOJANJzai_t2oS7QRhMUCXwJeQ_18WoomH_d5Jzm2w9LuR5QOeWg3rtQUsD6gjxnxCGqdyNWyJx6zowHSfH9I4aMCYohdWd4Km5zb3usOQ_aTku8g/s320/sadiemewindow.jpeg" width="195" /></a></div><br />There is a blank gaze, a pitiless sun as the darkness drops again and yet we must with all good hearts come to meeting. We must continue the conversation no matter the sense of futility. We must hold each other in the centre that does not hold. And so we must find a way to contend with what will be made better only by a million small turns that demand every ounce of care. We doubt we are as able these things as we are sure that it took as many turns to get here albeit with far less attention.<br /><br />The President commented that he is hoping for "rational Republicans." I tried to restraint my chortle so as not to reveal the obvious with too much disrespect for decency in the face of fact. The only question I have is whether he knows this is bullshit and he needs to say it because he thinks he does or if he thinks there is such a thing. The latter is more frightening than the former.<br /><br />It doesn't help to be the pessimist though I find optimism, especially in the face of facts, equally pointless. Biden, like Obama, even like the cynical, grievance driven Republicans has to say that things will somehow "get better" or that we have a bright future only if.<br /><br />What they all understand but will not say is that the facts are refused as much as they may (or may not) be in dispute. With the Jan 6th hearings coming I wonder whether any public airing of the evidence will matter one bit. Whose mind will change? What motivation will be kindled? Why would we believe that truth telling will make things better when so many are served by their lies and delusions? There are apparently no rational Republicans, or at least that how it seems to me.<br /><br />Facts are often too hard to bear and the remedies are not actually remedies at all. Rather our struggles will depend as much on our willingness to live in complexities we cannot fully fathom, much less control. If we are folks who understand those things then how does that bring us to any reckoning with advantage over the forces of disarray? What destiny we don't make may befall us because we aren't in truth the change we wish to see happen---no mortal has that kind of power over worlds of karma and lila. We can only be part of meaningful movements of change. But it is no small matter to create such movements, much less ones that depend upon perseverance in the face of honest travail.<br /><br /><br />It would be helpful to understand better the difference between the kind of world we wish we lived in and the kind we do---and what we can do to address that chasm. What I think we see when we do reflect upon the shared situation is how frustrating and difficult it is to effect a collective better. Coming to terms with the facts is no small matter but what we cannot agree upon in America seems to be anything like shared facts, even those most hard won. We don't have much collective trust in science or critical thinking because most of us have little capacity for either. Harsh but untrue?<br /><br />I'm not suggesting we were better off when the few media outlets gave us the same paternalist palaver on the evening news. But I am saying that our abilities to collect ourselves to create serious civil conversation has never seemed harder, even in the face of all of the information that is readily available. Virtual worlds have made harder truths harder still to agree upon.<br /><br />We need a more sophisticated, serious, and mature level of discourse, just like we need helpful even buoyant narratives to frame the changes we must face. But for most of us change is disruptive, difficult, and reluctant even as we admit that the constraints of education and emotional capacity test our abilities to communicate effectively and honestly with each other. If we make a necessary personal commitment to engage would that really help? I proffer the contrary to bolster the rhetoric: Where else could we go that wouldn't make matters worse? We need to make things better. Now what?<br /><br /><br />Our pace and the demands of making it through another month give us little opportunity to reflect as we feel the pressures to just do something. In the meantime of course there is war, climate, sickness, and the costs we seek to address in our everyday lives. And we must hold the centre that does not hold, as Yeats reminds us. In that widening gyre and passionate intensity find ways to make meaning inside ourselves. That can only happen if we continue to reach out and connect with each other.</div>dbrkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323403103114744193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362236352949772857.post-40920244222961035022022-04-17T08:17:00.010-07:002022-04-17T10:29:56.822-07:00Sure to Offend Someone: The Easter Bonnet Problem<p><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; orphans: 2; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On Giving Good Hat </span></span></p><div class="bi6gxh9e" data-block="true" data-editor="5j62b" data-offset-key="7k98h-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 8px; orphans: 2; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="7k98h-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="7k98h-1-0"><span style="font-family: georgia;">
So it's Easter and who doesn't like bunnies, chocolates, estrogen, and spring? It's snowing in Bristol as I write this. If you happen to like ham, I suppose I can easily get with the bacon part of the ham. It's all so goyam, you know?</span></span></div></div><div class="bi6gxh9e" data-block="true" data-editor="5j62b" data-offset-key="4i4g6-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 8px; orphans: 2; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4i4g6-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="4i4g6-0-0"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="bi6gxh9e" data-block="true" data-editor="5j62b" data-offset-key="6j11q-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 8px; orphans: 2; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="6j11q-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span data-offset-key="6j11q-0-0">If you like to say "Happy Easter" that's cool with me 'cause everybody should be happy about </span><span data-offset-key="6j11q-0-1" style="font-style: italic;">something. </span><span data-offset-key="6j11q-0-2">I suppose I should start there because it'll be interesting to find out if this next bit offends you, somehow. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtYxOyGWDkV35r8D5KAZaZH2A0umVAKyoAVEpi-_QEZ749fYxJT0yTET1y5Il7srGGiPt6kuYPklIbmLzxmR-IH8LjwHcdysMoa0I75WLWFoyf6L4iM9_0nmEzqJrl8prB4PiRW2ZyxTrn4ilNvv_5YpUpH84dixSDClvbAtQcftr_VitsOc8bZEhpbQ/s2916/dalai-hat0717.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2916" data-original-width="1790" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtYxOyGWDkV35r8D5KAZaZH2A0umVAKyoAVEpi-_QEZ749fYxJT0yTET1y5Il7srGGiPt6kuYPklIbmLzxmR-IH8LjwHcdysMoa0I75WLWFoyf6L4iM9_0nmEzqJrl8prB4PiRW2ZyxTrn4ilNvv_5YpUpH84dixSDClvbAtQcftr_VitsOc8bZEhpbQ/s320/dalai-hat0717.jpg" width="196" /></a></div><br /></span><span data-offset-key="6j11q-0-3" style="font-style: italic;">
</span><span data-offset-key="6j11q-0-4">You've likely noticed I have a penchant for offensive religious jokes but I will insist that they need to be <i>funny</i>. No professional scholar of religion who can't laugh <i>at</i>---not just <i>with</i>---religion is anyone I want to hang with. (<--very awkward sentence structure, hehe...) </span></span><span data-offset-key="6j11q-0-4" style="font-family: georgia;">Then again, I almost never hang with fellow religion scholars. They are almost to the last </span><span data-offset-key="6j11q-0-5" style="font-family: georgia; font-style: italic;">nicer and more likable </span><span data-offset-key="6j11q-0-6" style="font-family: georgia;">than I am and that only sometimes bothers me. But far far far too many </span><span data-offset-key="6j11q-0-7" style="font-family: georgia; font-style: italic;">believe stupitshit. </span><span data-offset-key="6j11q-0-8" style="font-family: georgia;">And this is not limited to, say, Easter.</span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="6j11q-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span data-offset-key="6j11q-0-9" style="font-style: italic;">
</span><span data-offset-key="6j11q-0-10">A pal of mine who I do work for just said, in effect, and I kid you not, "Do you think you could be nicer to the people who don't really know you, people on our team?" I merely reminded him that I am not nearly as funny as I wish I were and that even my mom said once that my brother was better looking but I was smarter. This is actually true. I know I can sound unnice. I can even sound arrogant and obnoxious because I have an unwarranted amount of self-confidence when I'm not up all night gaslighting myself with imposter's syndrome.
</span></span></div></div><div class="bi6gxh9e" data-block="true" data-editor="5j62b" data-offset-key="6hq66-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 8px; orphans: 2; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="6hq66-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span data-offset-key="6hq66-0-0">Like the Canceled Easter joke---they found the body. Of course I made myself into a faithful child when my parents, bless them, looked at askance at my interest in religion. It took me a while to figure it out but I was interested in eastern religious bypass until I met Appa who had the most remarkable way of not trying to persuade you of anything. Appa taught by merely pointing things out and sorta'kinda'hopin' that you would come to it of your own accord. I mean I went to him lookin for Full On No Kidding Advaita Oneness Bypass and instead of merely calling Utter Bullshit on this nearly psychotic theory of yogic bypass, he merely worked his way around the edges until he landed on the core of the matter---and never once, not ever did he call it out. Like I just did. Mere name calling here, not even a worthwhile argument. But meh. That doesn't make it less bullshit.
So I nearly got tossed out of Divinity School on a weekly basis and I do love me some Hindu temple and pilgrimage. You do know that it's because it's a long, strange trip into the darkest corners of our Collective Unconscious, a one way ticket to the abyss of meaning that we can only make while here, in this limited, conditioned, unfinished and always three-fourths unknown self of embodiment. Wow, that was way too serious for a post about bunnies and chocolate. WTF is wrong with me?
But here's the core of this.
I am reading allllll sorts of SINCERE wishes for a Happy Easter. I even have friends who can say this with a straight face. I mean, I'm all for the Durkheimian sociology of ANY holiday, just get together under some religious pretense and have a few laughs, don't invite that Trump Uncle who you never liked that much anyways (and if you did, well, it was a mistake), and get on with the food. If there's booze involved, I won't object unless it's a more serious matter for you, in which case my actual serious support and I'll pour you something vegan non-alcoholic no problem eva'.
But when I get the sorta' serious Happy Easter greeting it's just f'in' weird to me. I can't separate this from the Jesus Died for Our Sins and then Didn't Really Die part 'cause I not only think that is obviously untrue to even people who say it is but because it's just a very bad myth. I'm all for a good myth---tell yerself a healthy lie for better reasons, but be careful because people </span><span data-offset-key="6hq66-0-1" style="font-style: italic;">will not get the joke. </span><span data-offset-key="6hq66-0-2">Next thing you know you are apologizing and blaming the interwebs for not conveying your in-person sincerities. I dunno, but people are so easily offended about f'in' everything these days. I suppose many have good reason but life I tell you is basically offensive to anyone paying attention.</span></span></div></div><div class="bi6gxh9e" data-block="true" data-editor="5j62b" data-offset-key="vi0o-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 8px; orphans: 2; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="vi0o-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span data-offset-key="vi0o-0-0">Then there's the "happy easter to all those who celebrate" bit. WTF does that mean? Does it mean you like to get together with yer peeps for some food lovin'festing? Who could object to that? Does it mean you grew up with some traditions and your family was swept up in the fictions of history that could have been much better had we told other stories? Does it mean this is an allegory you can roll with? Okay, fine. You might say Jesus was supposed to be a swell guy, that he told us to love each other and not be dicks. Last I looked the people claiming the Christian mantle are mostly not like that, and never have been (but who's judging that ye be judged? John somethingsomething endzone sign </span><span data-offset-key="vi0o-0-1" style="font-style: italic;">here</span><span data-offset-key="vi0o-0-2">.)
Anyways, I resent 2000 years of lies that have been told as literally true. Cause they </span><span data-offset-key="vi0o-0-3" style="font-style: italic;">really do think it's literally true. </span><span data-offset-key="vi0o-0-4">Ask our pal d'Current Pope who you may say is a swell guy 'cause he's not a Nazi like that last guy. I think their hats suck too. I dig hats. I like religions that give Good Hat. Give me some Dalai Lama banana slug hat anytime. Way better hat. All the rest is just bunnies and chocolates and I'm totally okay with that. Any you. For real.
</span></span></div></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />dbrkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323403103114744193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362236352949772857.post-27309017044758542602022-02-27T08:59:00.005-08:002022-02-27T09:15:30.893-08:00Silent enim leges inter arma: When Silence is the Voice of the Sacred Calling Us to Speak<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Constantia, serif;">The atrocity of war, killing human beings---what more can be said that hasn’t before voiced the lament, the confusion, and paradox that invariably arises when we ask ourselves when is it “justified” to defend</span><span style="font-family: Constantia, serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: Constantia, serif;">living</i><span style="font-family: Constantia, serif;">, to secure one’s way of life?</span><span style="font-family: Constantia, serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Constantia, serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Constantia, serif;">I cannot subscribe to a passivism or any resignation to the machinations of karma, as if the arc of justice will somehow right itself without our value, commitments, and actions.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Constantia, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Constantia, serif;">In the Epic Mahabharata’s “call to the yoke” an honest choice is put before us: turn to engage the battle or accept the consequences imposed by one’s conquerors. This choice further suggest one of the earliest uses of the word “yoga” to mean the engagement that puts before us the stakes. To raise the stakes may not be an individual’s choice; we are more likely, as it is here in the Epic, subject to the whirlwinds of history, the turmoil arriving like a storm, a reality we must accept factually, not of our individual making but undoubtedly remaking us. The bell tolls for thee.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Constantia, serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiv-7iF2q5vS0F-ySQDbLKmh3504RavhFhpqj3DegTt1r-SqFZEC_pVJzt4zeh8d5o7PXlemmzXry_ubiN3NFKzuGNOcX0_Cn4bEUihU0MQGzBjAvZcYSFb9DBv5I_7PYR-HnO0LY6B0bMH1WTh_Z33Bc_KACtTHJENleTFY-lf_9MSRlBrjYeCaG8kAA=s640" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiv-7iF2q5vS0F-ySQDbLKmh3504RavhFhpqj3DegTt1r-SqFZEC_pVJzt4zeh8d5o7PXlemmzXry_ubiN3NFKzuGNOcX0_Cn4bEUihU0MQGzBjAvZcYSFb9DBv5I_7PYR-HnO0LY6B0bMH1WTh_Z33Bc_KACtTHJENleTFY-lf_9MSRlBrjYeCaG8kAA=s320" width="240" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: Constantia, serif;"><br /><br />Should the better decision of such painful reality be to flee and seek refuge from the battle, who could condemn such a choice? It is a modern fact that two-thirds of refugees never return home. The price of such exile cannot be gainsaid. Estimates at present are that more than 300K+ Ukrainians have left the country since the Russian invasion. At the same time we know that ordinary civilians are being armed to fight alongside the military or however they can to defend their homeland. I offer no judgment as to the choices individuals need to make for their families, their conscience, or their principled values.<o:p></o:p></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Constantia, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Constantia, serif;">I was reminded this morning of a legal phrase <i>inter arma enim silent leges</i>, which means “for among (times) of arms, the laws fall silent.” It is used in cautionary ways not to justify the use of arms but more importantly to remind us that the laws should not fall silent even as we acknowledge that the most rational acts of self-defense will take us further into crisis of conscience and ethical reflection. <br /><br />The oft-cited legal phrase is actually a restatement from Cicero’s speech to Milo (<a href="http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/cicero/milo.shtml" style="color: #954f72;">http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/cicero/milo.shtml</a>), where he writes, “Silent enim leges inter arma” which means something like “for the laws between arms are silent.” It is what he says next that reveals further his intention. He writes, “nor do they order them to wait, since one willing to wait must be punished before an unjust punishment must be repaid before the just (nec se exspectari iubent, cum ei qui exspectare velit, ante iniusta poena luenda sit, quam iusta repetenda).<br /><br />That sounds a bit confusing to our ears but in effect we are being asked to consider how taking a more immediate action to defend one’s self or repay a criminal action may eventually bring the law down upon ourselves. Alas, how do we hold ourselves to account for choices we never wanted to make and yet <i>must</i>. The ever-prudent Cicero knows well that we have to live with ourselves <i>and</i> in society that holds sacred the value of law that organizes sacred boundaries. <br /><br />It is not merely justification or rationalization we seek when we take up arms but the sacred itself. We want to know, to feel, to experience the boundaries that say “here, not there,” “this, not that,” “now, not then” in ways that speak to dignity, decency, integrity. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Constantia, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Constantia, serif;">We want to find out more about what makes us human and what it means to defend the very notion of humanity itself. Humanity <i>is</i> the sacred we are seeking in the face of a world in which the profane is untold horror and oppression. To acquiesce to the defeat of freedom and dignity is to deny our human sacred <i>need</i>. We create the law to honor the sacred because without those claims it becomes all too clear what we will do to one another. We want something we can stand on when the storm will not abate.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Constantia, serif;"><br />“Although very wisely and in a certain way silently, the law itself gives the power to defend, which forbids a person to be killed not with a weapon for the purpose of killing a person; so that, since the weapon was not being investigated for the purpose, one was judged to have used a weapon for the purpose of self-defense, not to have had a weapon by means of threatening to kill another.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Constantia, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Constantia, serif;">When we see the courage of ordinary people taking up arms against an unprovoked and criminal incursion meant to defeat their ideals, their principles of self-governance, from those come to steal their liberty and their way of life, we see such self-defense not only as a legal right but as a call to the sacred.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Constantia, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Constantia, serif;">If there is nothing sacred for which we live then there will be no meaning to the realities of suffering and death---and that we must not forsake when the claims of the criminal aggressor call us to the yoke. We are faced with the implications that come with raising arms and violence that with all our hearts we did not seek nor seek to inflict.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Constantia, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Constantia, serif;">Defending humanity is no simple choice to engage the fight or seek another refuge: it is the call to a sacred that invariably brings forward the complications of shadows that accompany the light we seek. However just the cause, the pain inflicted and the shadows of conscience are as much the truth of the sacred as they are a manifest profanity. We must not rationalize the need for violence but defend the sacred as cause to live freely.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Constantia, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Constantia, serif;">Here is the passage cited from Cicero:<br /><br />11. Silent enim leges inter arma; nec se exspectari iubent, cum ei qui exspectare velit, ante iniusta poena luenda sit, quam iusta repetenda. Etsi persapienter et quodam modo tacite dat ipsa lex potestatem defendendi, quae non hominem occidi, sed esse cum telo hominis occidendi causa vetat; ut, cum causa non telum quaereretur, qui sui defendendi causa telo esset usus non minis occidendi causa habuisse telum iudicaretur. Quapropter hoc maneat in causa, iudices, non enim dubito quin probaturus sim vobis defensionem meam, si id memineritis quod oblivisci non potestis, insidiatorem iure interfici posse.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Constantia, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Constantia, serif;">For the laws between arms are silent; nor do they order them to wait, since he who is willing to wait must be punished before an unjust punishment must be repaid before the just. Although very wisely and in a certain way silently, the law itself gives the power to defend, which forbids a man to be killed not with a weapon for the purpose of killing a man; so that, since the weapon was not being investigated for the purpose, he was judged to have used a weapon for the purpose of self-defense, not to have had a weapon by means of threatening to kill him. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Constantia, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Constantia, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Constantia, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Constantia, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Constantia, serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Constantia, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Constantia, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Constantia, serif;"> </span></p>dbrkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323403103114744193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362236352949772857.post-64981071235721073152022-01-24T07:45:00.000-08:002022-01-24T07:45:11.174-08:00 Can We Be Whole in a Partisan World? The Superficial Truths Need to Come First<p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">24 January 2022</span></p><div class="bi6gxh9e" data-block="true" data-editor="1eqnt" data-offset-key="esb23-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 8px; orphans: 2; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="esb23-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><span data-offset-key="esb23-0-0">This weekend I read about a man who was privileged enough to retire, buy an island, live </span><span data-offset-key="esb23-0-1" style="font-style: italic;">alone </span><span data-offset-key="esb23-0-2">for decades, spending most of his time planting trees, and then refusing millions of dollars to sell his island. I could be that castaway because I feel ready to cast away this world. Is that a time in life or feature of the world? Could it be both?
This may just sound like complaining. Or even envy. If it does then apologies in advance. I think there are a few points to make and when they are less then sanguine or "hopeful"---not a word or even an idea that I much fancy under the best of circumstances---even a point worth making can sound peevish or malcontent.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi7d9GVgYYb5K2NV9Io4MeNy-xxCbILXKBKEyssW6foL4Du_rYyf1nG6_3t37VnWTBlVBC4_Z3tdXZorm8mRd7revQKXBf6ykz_8etO0KT0i9QxNrBMRyRHTvhBtoMzwtStOdtRCVHLtIEQNIzB0EHdAhY-QJ0R5ujg2gY8MhMs_CzPTodHIcyS-BzJpQ=s4032" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi7d9GVgYYb5K2NV9Io4MeNy-xxCbILXKBKEyssW6foL4Du_rYyf1nG6_3t37VnWTBlVBC4_Z3tdXZorm8mRd7revQKXBf6ykz_8etO0KT0i9QxNrBMRyRHTvhBtoMzwtStOdtRCVHLtIEQNIzB0EHdAhY-QJ0R5ujg2gY8MhMs_CzPTodHIcyS-BzJpQ=s320" width="240" /></a></div>
I haven't been reading as thoroughly over the past few months in public affairs. I cancelled subscriptions to podcasts, newsletters, and no longer watch or listen any talking heads, not even my favorites. I'm glad they are out there sounding the alarms and raising a clamor but to what end?
For my part, I have retreated into what I call "the work"----any and all things I would consider "yoga." By that I don't mean things exclusively Indian or from the histories of yoga properly speaking. What most people think is "yoga" has little or nothing to do with what I mean here. They aren't wrong. Meanings need to be understood for us to communicate. That is at least part of this repine.
I include in the term "yoga" all literature, art, reflection, and criticism from any cultural source that speaks to my soul. The criteria of inclusion is </span><span data-offset-key="esb23-0-3" style="font-style: italic;">sahrdaya</span><span data-offset-key="esb23-0-4">: that's the word for soulfulness, literally, with heart. I want to spend the rest of my days thinking, reading, having rich, serious conversations. That's all I really want. It seems to me I should want more but for now this will do.
Politics </span><span data-offset-key="esb23-0-5" style="font-style: italic;">should</span><span data-offset-key="esb23-0-6"> be in that realm, for it is Dharma even if that is but a limited sense of the meaning of that word. We must work to hold ourselves together---Dharma's literal meaning---and to negotiate with those whose values and visions are not ours.
We need to find ways to live with each other even when, frankly we'd rather not have much of a relationship at all. It's like having an ex- with children involved: you need at least a working relationship to prevent misery. Misery prevented is a good day. that may lower the bar but can we just start there?
I don't need to have my all of neighbors to dinner. I do need them to show up when the house is burning down---that still seems to work. Thank you, Fire Department. But I also need them to admit to a common set of facts and that is clearly failing. Not much about living together in this society seems to be working well or even tolerably. What happens when things are intolerable? We tolerate still because that is what we must do. What </span><span data-offset-key="esb23-0-7" style="font-style: italic;">does</span><span data-offset-key="esb23-0-8"> that</span><span data-offset-key="esb23-0-9" style="font-style: italic;"> mean?</span><span data-offset-key="esb23-0-10">
Democracy can argue over what to do about the facts but it cannot have too, too much variance over what constitutes the shared formative assumptions and renderings of the evidence. Simply put, we need common facts in order to have diverse opinions. Opinions subject to the tacit rules of reason are called arguments. We need to be able to argue, not merely quarrel or fight. Democracy stands no chance when we cannot debate more or less the same facts.</span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="esb23-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="esb23-0-10"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div></div><div class="bi6gxh9e" data-block="true" data-editor="1eqnt" data-offset-key="cdsjd-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 8px; orphans: 2; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="cdsjd-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="cdsjd-0-0"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">My turned down personal volume admittedly has elements of resignation---I mean resignation from this society. That is not a responsible or serious position. One does not live apart from the social contract, the law, the ethos of culture and its formulations in the world. I believe I am suffering from a lack of seriousness about what I need to do to be whole person in this society. But is that really the case?</span></span></div></div><div class="bi6gxh9e" data-block="true" data-editor="1eqnt" data-offset-key="elsr0-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 8px; orphans: 2; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="elsr0-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="elsr0-0-0"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="elsr0-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><span data-offset-key="elsr0-0-0">Like it or not, we are participants and not spectators to our world and as Americans that means </span><span data-offset-key="elsr0-0-1" style="font-style: italic;">this </span><span data-offset-key="elsr0-0-2">culture, however fragmented, diverse and segmented, however its differences appear from place to place. Furthermore, it is not only impossible but irresponsible to abdicate the de facto participation of citizenry </span><span data-offset-key="elsr0-0-3" style="font-style: italic;">if </span><span data-offset-key="elsr0-0-4">we want democracy---the best worst form of government we know.</span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="elsr0-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="elsr0-0-4"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div></div><div class="bi6gxh9e" data-block="true" data-editor="1eqnt" data-offset-key="fg1q3-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 8px; orphans: 2; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="fg1q3-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><span data-offset-key="fg1q3-0-0">Here's the rub and it chafes me to the point of erosion. First, I see no remedy to the misinformation (actually the dysinformation) of our current ecosystem. This means no common set of facts and please no false equivalencies here about both sides and how we choose our "news" sources. The Fox nation is fed a steady stream of culture war racism and Confederate ideology inciting violence and commending hatred. Not so many liberals are asking if we can use our guns yet.
Let us hope we on the side of reason---the only alternative to voilence---stay rational. Because we cannot share facts we cannot argue meaningfully. But it's actually worse than that. Their "conservative" denialism is part of their identity formation, so the facts simply don't matter. Masks are mandated in New York right now and the other day I saw dozens of people in Wegmans without them.
How to enforce when the culture's social contract is broken? We are not only two (or more) nations, we are not even a culture or a society: we acting as if we live in different worlds because </span><span data-offset-key="fg1q3-0-1" style="font-style: italic;">that is what people want</span><span data-offset-key="fg1q3-0-2">.</span></span></div></div><div class="bi6gxh9e" data-block="true" data-editor="1eqnt" data-offset-key="1po5k-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 8px; orphans: 2; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="1po5k-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><span data-offset-key="1po5k-0-0">Those who dispute the facts cannot be reasoned with---let us say just that's about vaccines or the election's results, the particular topic doesn't matter. More personally, I see no point in such conversations and I want more soulfulness and less futile engagement with, well, </span><span data-offset-key="1po5k-0-1" style="font-style: italic;">life</span><span data-offset-key="1po5k-0-2">.
I cannot in conscience wholly resign because already defeats democracy. We must stay informed and vote, even if they destroy democracy and none of our agenda is reali zed. Democrats hold all three branches of government and cannot among themselves agree on what needs to be done. How frustrating is that in the mix? Their opposition is determined to see them fail and they are seemingly determined to fail themselves. Currently, I cannot abide more participation than this.
Last, and this charges further feelings of resignation and our political failure: there appear to be no consequences to criminal and traitorous behaviors. Of course since we can't agree on the facts and the courts are stacked with partisans, there can be no justice. Trump's criminality is like climate change. It can't be denied, it is right before our eyes.
And what do we do about it in any meaningful way? There appear to be no consequences to anything that demands our collective will to bring the facts to bear. Trump so far has walked, as he always has, largely free of any consequences not only because he is a crafty, rich enough to use the system con artist but because his "I can do anything" view of the world is what "conservatives" want. This is, of course, a foundation of fascism, not of liberty. The Gadsden Flag, truck decals of Calvin pissing, refusal to mask---you name it, it's all of a piece. The idea of "freedom" is not only irreparably corrupted, it is meaningless.</span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="1po5k-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="1po5k-0-2"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div></div><div class="bi6gxh9e" data-block="true" data-editor="1eqnt" data-offset-key="4pdr5-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 8px; orphans: 2; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4pdr5-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="4pdr5-0-0"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">I would be disingenuous if I said that these circumstances don't evoke a measure of hopelessness. No matter the facts it seems, there are few meaningful consequences.
<br /></span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4pdr5-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="4pdr5-0-0"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">
So the world literally burns and floods, we witness the slow-march to democracy's death, we are the majority and "control" the levers of federal government and are apparently utterly powerless to prevent failure that is plain to the meanest eye. Pandemic and politics have cured me of people is what I said the other day when we returned from a "vacation." This involved normal things like travel, going "out" and seeing the world filled with other people. No, thank you.</span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4pdr5-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><span data-offset-key="4pdr5-0-0">
Of course it's also clear that I don't know what vacation means, I apparently don't like it, and if I never go on another it'll be too soon. If taking a day to ride the bike or read something I want to or not have to talk is vacation, then I'm all in. Otherwise, come see me here, at the end of our driveway, in the still-burnt house that may never be fully repaired.
Come spend some time on the porch but don't ask me to mingle with the population, at least half of whom apparently think </span><span data-offset-key="4pdr5-0-1" style="font-style: italic;">that</span><span data-offset-key="4pdr5-0-2"> guy should still be president or that the current guy is a doddering fool. (Joe is neither a fool nor does he suffer doddering senility, even if you don't agree with him.)</span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4pdr5-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="4pdr5-0-2"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">
The worst of these politics is yet to come, not to sound the cynic. The slow walk to fascism doesn't seem so slow. Republicans are using the law to make sure they will never lose again. Their behavior insures that the circumstances of pandemic will only continue to ebb and flow leaving us all in danger. And like you, I'm tired of wearing a mask.</span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4pdr5-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><span data-offset-key="4pdr5-0-2">
I will of course wear one on the outside when I </span><span data-offset-key="4pdr5-0-3" style="font-style: italic;">must</span><span data-offset-key="4pdr5-0-4"> interact with our fellow citizens but the mask on the inside seems more comfortable and more likely where I want to be.</span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4pdr5-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="4pdr5-0-4"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">
I don't feel like I need more friends, though that would be welcome. I want more time with the friends I have. What I am sure about is that I will have to think long and hard about wanting to go out into the bigger, wider world just to see you.</span></span></div></div>dbrkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323403103114744193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362236352949772857.post-70667356300394684542022-01-01T09:12:00.010-08:002022-01-01T09:28:42.722-08:00The Peaceful Secession Theory<p>Alas, there is more talk of secession and what Congresswoman Greene is calling a "peaceful divorce." I am in favor because their alternative is undoubtedly violence against those they despise. Good Christians are what they call themselves. I would agree: there is nothing unusual about their Christianity. </p><p>(Not all, blahblahblah. Not all is always true, which means it isn't interesting or the point. If someone somehow identifies with "Christian" are they responsible for these dangerous fools too? I think not. But what are they thinking?)</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjh6TOIRmHSOiuPnGgzfKercEYDPVLiEgCotKh3KZCA06Z0FAu-pOFBM8HTh__g-lo--pSVcN-OPsvXjmvi4c8ANwXIB3U53bfP-CQqMGKkGCH-FH2MNsG0y5kP_7KOk6_r_evd2asLVrLZ8XrI_oxKgRnvFMJyPaAyFZayZwJjPJGyUG_IT_n7Hr_zBQ=s1280" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="936" data-original-width="1280" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjh6TOIRmHSOiuPnGgzfKercEYDPVLiEgCotKh3KZCA06Z0FAu-pOFBM8HTh__g-lo--pSVcN-OPsvXjmvi4c8ANwXIB3U53bfP-CQqMGKkGCH-FH2MNsG0y5kP_7KOk6_r_evd2asLVrLZ8XrI_oxKgRnvFMJyPaAyFZayZwJjPJGyUG_IT_n7Hr_zBQ=s320" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p>Christians began in apocalypticism those 21 centuries ago and they are still at it. The End is near. <i>The End is not our fault but rather it is theirs: it is sin, they are the sinful. We are the saved. Well, we are too sinful but not like them. They need to be extinguish, that is God's work that will expiate our sin. Redemption is nigh!</i></p><p>Some people never learn or, to put it more honestly, can't learn. And when you can't learn from your mistakes because you can't admit them or accept what life really delivers, you create the religious fantasies you need to address the fear, anger, anxiety, and delusion that are only further stoked by the narratives you are creating.</p><br /><span data-outline-text="true">This means that the cycle of delusion that comes with religions that teach us we are helpless to understand the deeper facts will only advance: the incapacity to address the problematics of truth only fuels more of the same. So we <i>cannot know</i> and yet we are the ones who <i>really know. </i>It's that kind of absurdity we must contend with. These good Christians believe it is all God's plan and that it is both a mystery and perfectly available and clear. Clear? Umm, sure.</span><br /><br /><span data-outline-text="true">Apocalypticism postpones what is coming but is always basking in the certainty that it is. You don't know but you <i>could </i>know. The paradox must abide: we are at God's mercy and that too must also come with a dose of secret, esoteric knowledge that confirms one's "deeper" understanding. This is why our crazy Trumper uncle who is of course a "good Christian" is reading those websites and telling us all about our ignorance, the "real" truth, and more stupitshit: he has to be privy to the "real" truth. Another key to the end is near is that "they" are the devil. The next move is to "stop the steal" by stopping "them" from butdestroying what is "ours." You can Make America Great Again while the world is also ending. Go figure. But this is no joke.</span><br /><br /><span data-outline-text="true">Trumpism is just Neo-Fascism, which is why these Christians are his most ardent supporters. It's all of a piece: we are the rightful heirs, the true believers, we are the ones who must stop "them." So all of this talk about guns and secession is not idle talk. January 6th was prelude and Armageddon is not far if we just take them seriously. We should. Your life might depend on it. These are Christians who will send any of us to death in the name of their savior.</span><br /><br /><span data-outline-text="true">Once in a Divinity School class in front of a whole clowder of Christians, I said aloud "people who can believe a human being resurrects from the dead will believe anything..." and so long as it is said to fulfill a fantasy of denial and invention. (N.B., this comment did not go over well.) I cannot wish misfortune on these folks but they are likely anti-vaxxers and Trumpers and all the rest too---and so I have no shard of concern for their outcomes. I hope they take care of each other and are less of a burden on our already burdened world.</span><br /><br /><span data-outline-text="true">Good people will suffer because stupid people do willfully stupid things---is that too much to admit? Why is it that people we think are not stupid do such things? Because fear and anxiety are far easier to access than calming powers of reason and tolerance. Despair and hope are light and shadow, of course, but it's the way fear can stanch empathy that poses the greatest risk to "others." Our crazy uncle might love us enough not to shoot but certainly not if we were "them." Otherness is anxiety's scapegoat. </span><br /><br /><span data-outline-text="true">I ask rhetorically about their burden because it sounds so cruel and I don't like that feeling. I do feel for their pain and the horror of their loss. I don't need my own house nearly burning down to imagine what it feels like to see your house burn down. The powers of empathy require imagination and care---we can reach across consciousness into other's hearts if we dare to think that the other is another form of ourselves. The fine line is always present: I am also not you, which means I cannot pretend to know your life, even as I am nothing but you. The place we must inhabit to coexist is that somehow I am like you.</span><br /><br /><span data-outline-text="true">But compassion fatigue is no sin, I say, when it is the honest outcome of offering more than is deserved that is received with dismissive opprobrium. So, let them burn. May the rest of us survive and flourish, best we can.</span>dbrkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323403103114744193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362236352949772857.post-61224406393972363052021-12-26T08:35:00.001-08:002021-12-26T08:35:41.013-08:00The December Sky in 2021<p><span style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia;">I wrote this morning for the Rajanaka Sky Group on Facebook because there is some politics and real world stuff in here. But I'm posting it here too because I talk about how I miss you and hope to see you on Zoom or even at Rajanaka Camp this July? Reprise, voodoo chile slight return.</span></i></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span data-offset-key="19udh-0-0" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
A Review: If This is Winter, Does it Still Snow?
The December Sky in 2021
I hope you're enjoying some lovely holiday time with family, safely. As safely as possible in these times. "These times" looks like they are going to go on awhile. Maybe a long while. I hope you are laughing and doing things you like with people you love. I miss seeing you in person. With all my heart.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjLzFB_1wxHIk66ucMxQPNhPbLwD6I9x8vhB4bF88c_coq5Lwcpxx6xi8NDRE3PL82pY7-2Qhj6TYjydXNr6gZxC2vWVkTZK1w9Qw-L6YS2UfMQbEui93Y8ips3kdvcWA2UYbkxCkT0XFwxOZyaKXPY1skhCXl0pwW6vfYLPtPSbp3Huw2CzwqxV-nefw=s980" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="335" data-original-width="980" height="109" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjLzFB_1wxHIk66ucMxQPNhPbLwD6I9x8vhB4bF88c_coq5Lwcpxx6xi8NDRE3PL82pY7-2Qhj6TYjydXNr6gZxC2vWVkTZK1w9Qw-L6YS2UfMQbEui93Y8ips3kdvcWA2UYbkxCkT0XFwxOZyaKXPY1skhCXl0pwW6vfYLPtPSbp3Huw2CzwqxV-nefw=s320" width="320" /></a></div>
I don't miss the travel but I bet you can understand that. I did about 20 years on the road, sometimes three weekends a month. We get to meet now quite regularly on Zoom. I will keep that up till my last breath. I will not forsake our community in all of it's virtual glories. Come when you can. Please? I realize that it's not the same. We all have Zoom Fatigue but that's far better than Covid.
For me, I am happier going out into "the world" as little as is humanly possible. I'm not advocating or even suggesting that you share these feelings or views. Much of this is our situation and yours is likely quite different.
You may like the world more than I do. You almost certainly live in a more civilized place. We have the beauty of countryside and the blessings of volatile weather, which I actually like a lot. The Storm rages here, literally. I came for the job but I'm staying for the weather. For real.
You've likely noticed that I have stopped commenting on the news as a daily enterprise. I've quit The Bulwark subscription, don't watch any of the talking heads (we lost the TV in the fire and have not replaced it), and I have deleted all my podcast subscriptions to the very smart, dedicated people who comment so wisely.
Those pundits have made it their job and I admire that. I think they are no less right than ever. I think it doesn't much matter that they are right. My own punditry need not contribute.
I couldn't be "Lawrence O'Donnell" or, you know, anyone who has to report daily on our collective malaise. I don't envy Heather Cox Richardson, though I admit that she is the only one I still read daily. Sometimes I skip. I'm busy with work that does not demand these particular engagements. I appreciate no less their due diligence and intelligence and goodness.
As I've said, I've reached the point where I can longer entertain that my own commenting does much good. Certainly, I don't feel particularly less well-informed but I'm also not less stressed or upset by what's happening. I read the news and feel, you know, as horrible as usual about it. But not about you. You I love and wish every good thing.
One need only read in cursory ways to get to the same kinds of internal responses. Did you see the piece in The Times this morning about Enid, Oklahoma? Need we say more? I think we all know where we stand. I think we know who we are. I think those matters are beyond persuasion.
Rajanaka Storm/Sky was devised as a place to share dignified rage. I still maintain that we can decide who we want to be with each other. I am obviously raging, right here, now.
I still vest my trust and friendship in you. I have not "given up". Instead I nowadays feel the boundaries are actually easier to keep. Pandemic has made me lonely for you and for civilization but those are literally remote from our experience out here.
I simply no longer want to talk with Republicans. Any of them. I wouldn't care if they are my family or my neighbors. Truth is, I want as little to do with them as human beings as possible. I hope that they will not take up arms or use them to enforce their views. I'd bet plenty are "nice people" so long we talk about nothing important.
We can do things, like get a coffee or transact groceries without saying or doing anything more important than the honest exchange. But I don't particularly care to talk to people wrapt in conspiracies, bad information, unvetted "facts", religious beliefs, or politics that strike me as undemocratic, unjust, and so contrary to my own that we have virtually nothing in common but that we are the same human species.
I will also say something more...unkind? I don't actually care any longer what happens to them though I confess to some resentment that they are making the world a lot less safe and much more unpleasant, that they are costing the rest of us a fortune by wasting resources and destroying what little chance we have of planetary survival. They are a lost cause to me. I see no reason to think otherwise.
So I do my best to keep boundaries and in these pandemic times simply don't go out of the driveway if I don't have to. I miss culture. I miss civilization. But I don't live in an interesting city and work keeps me largely at home. I think this a blessing beyond all privilege.
I am truly sorry if you have to venture into the world to make your living. I have to go to the University physically of course but that is a mere inconvenience in comparison to what you undoubtedly must endure.
I miss you and I miss India so much that it aches in my bones. I miss a lovely night out and a day with art or a night with music. But there's really no where to go 'round here that we want to go. We'd have to leave the dog and we're happier with her than any encounter save one with you. You would make it worth the trip. That's why I am inviting you here for Camp. More later about that.
We have actually planned a trip "outside"---you could call it a vacation though I honesty have no idea what that means. If it goes off properly it will surely be a good thing. I mean, we all need to get out some.
But if we didn't go, I think Suz and I wouldn't care much: we'd just as soon stay home with the pup. She would make art. I would still be the professor. We're privileged and we know it. People who must work in the world are in danger of, well, a lot of other people whose behaviors are, well, let's be honest: contemptible.
But the country? I think that matter is simpler to address. We are divided and there is little prospect for better. I see no future with them. I am not a cynic though I do think "faith" is among the least helpful of all human projections.
This is a very foolish thing to say among most yogis---and most folks?---who somehow still revere the faithful. I prefer to trust those whom I regard worth trusting but not to have faith. We can discuss the difference if it interests you. I try to imagine what it would take to do better in my own life in everyday matters and to do those things with some consistency. Take care and do good things when you can, right?
I do fear for the kinds of ignorance that define the body politic because of what they "believe." Belief is no road to fact and truth, unlike fact, is the province only of philosophers.
Philosophers are apt to express preference as truth but that's likely because there is nothing better than a well expressed preference when it comes to truth. Facts we need to share. When we don't share the facts we have no reason to think democracy will survive.
Truths are personal or when we are less solipsistic, collective ways of living. I like philosophy, I've made a living with it though sometimes I prefer only the merely anodyne world of facts.
Facts can get in the way of the truths you prefer. That makes me use the facts---as best we can discern---to determine truths that help me (and others?) to get along. So I'm claiming no truth that applies to you too, only suggesting ways to live with what we experience.
My rage has not abated just because the insurrecion failed last time or because we're in the hurricane's eye before the next election. But I do find that if I read only the headlines and a few selected articles, I get enough to know what's surely coming
I don't think there will need to be an insurrection next time---power will be merely seized "legally"---and the majority aka those who voted for Democrats will merely capitulate. I think we are watching the slow-walk end of democracy in America.
My own town council went the way of Enid, OK years ago. My neighbors fly their Confederate flags and Trump banners proudly. I stay here at the end of our long driveway wishing I were Canadian by birth but not longing to be the ex-pat. That strikes me as too complicated and anyways I was born to run. I prefer to sit with you whenever that's possible.
Below is the link to The NYT piece. I actually read the whole thing. I advise caution. It's too obvious what will be said.
But for today I'm going to back to the Mahabharata to translate and record an audio book of that we'll be reading together. Wanna come? I'm still taking time to learn Japanese furiously, for fun. It's hard and if you find Japanese easy, you're way smarter than I (though that would not be hard.) I'm also woorking on learning more about Sycthian archeologies and the PIE artifacts of the Steppes. This venture into comparative mythologies is a huge task---so many languages, so much history and geography to cover.
I may yet rearrange the disorder of literally dozens of boxes (really they are now huge plastic bins) of notebooks filled translations and comments). The task of 2022 is to put them in "order." I will undoubtedly leave a huge mess inasmuch as I will leave these boxes of notes and books but I promise to make it all easy to throw out. I really really hope to see you on Zoom soon.
We mean to have a live Summer Camp in July in Bristol. I mean to go to India in 2022. Wanna come? Those things will happen if at all possible. And like I said, Zoom will be my way to meet with you mostly (Camp! Camp!) until Yama comes a'callin'. That link, right:
</span><span class="py34i1dx" style="color: var(--blue-link); font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/26/us/oklahoma-masks.html</span></span>dbrkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323403103114744193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362236352949772857.post-80678916943944484662021-11-23T19:02:00.001-08:002021-11-23T19:07:29.134-08:00 You Might Not Like Change Anymore Than I Do<p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">The times are a’changing and it seems undeniable we must adapt and adjust. But change itself is not something that comes to me or maybe to any of us all that agreeably. I am a creature of irenic habits, not all of which are virtuous or solicitous or even complaisant but are nonetheless mine.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">We can argue about being possessive of our possessions but as the protectors of life on the icy moon of Jupiter put it plainly, “All these worlds are yours, except Europa. Attempt no landing there. Use them together. Use them in peace.” Asimov was on to something. And I take this personally. I might need change to expand horizons but I want it without intruding on my icy moon. Is that too much to ask for?</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaDDNlnQAqsgNK5KB6zlc3lTzfEYhpuqsSf2vCFJQkNcJg4lQlhjfgDyvryoC9Fjgmfu7DLVO8E62I3MVInA9LkaEyX6Z_cI0X-eubuq6-loN1zFwKmus6GNEwh5qCFQJujqUgp_uan5Rw/s2048/ottypainting112021.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1714" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaDDNlnQAqsgNK5KB6zlc3lTzfEYhpuqsSf2vCFJQkNcJg4lQlhjfgDyvryoC9Fjgmfu7DLVO8E62I3MVInA9LkaEyX6Z_cI0X-eubuq6-loN1zFwKmus6GNEwh5qCFQJujqUgp_uan5Rw/s320/ottypainting112021.JPG" width="268" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /><br />How did I get on this jag? I mean, why bother? </span><span style="font-family: times;"> It's all very vogue-y to say that change is a good thing until we think about how much we don't really fancy it. So I set to thinking about this because I would be dishonest if I said that I like change. So the impetus for the essay.</span><span style="font-family: times;"><br /><br />Two of the artists I admire most---Tom Petty and the Boss---both remarked in personal memoirs about how much they <i>hate change</i>. They really did use the word “hate” and not to speak for them but for myself, <i>I get it</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">I think hating change is easily misunderstood, which is why I cite Petty and Springsteen. I want to associate my own change-hate with them to get myself on their jag. How’s that? Neither of these guys ever decided to be oldies acts, though are both deeply sentimental. Neither is nostalgic because they don’t want to go <i>back</i> in time, only forward---with the past along for the ride, sometimes sitting in the back, sometimes riding shotgun. They’ve spent lives creating new and more art not without a love for their audience’s hopes or without regard to pleasing them but always to please themselves.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">As Rilke would have it, what’s the use of art that isn’t <i>also</i> for yourself? But neither Petty nor Bruce have been willing to bend with the trend, answer to others’ demands for songs to sell to some new audience that <i>demands</i> change. Change demands and who can like that? So instead they’ve cast their lots, accepted the consequence of <i>hating change</i>, ‘cause know who they are, what they <i>want to be</i>. It’s certainly privileged to take such a stand but what exactly is the alternative? If you know, I’m listening.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">You can know what you like, you can really <i>hate change</i>, and still be warm to difference, tolerant and broadminded, clement, magnanimous, receptive, and progressive. It strikes me that one is <i>more likely </i>to be charitable, good-humored, and easy-going precisely <i>because</i> you <i>hate change</i>.<br /><br />Seen in these terms change is loathsome because it indulges and imposes, because it too easily concedes to craze and bends to vogue. We don’t have to despise a fad or a fancy much less be cross with others because we don’t share tastes or preferences. I don’t mind change <i>in others </i>if that’s what <i>they</i> like. But I might be suspicious that their judgment is speeding ahead of their wits and wonder if identity is moving faster than any better comprehension.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">Wisdom is pretty much the antithesis of change because it is hard-won and <i>moves</i> and <i>through </i>rather than merely with the furor, the folly, or the rage. We can still rage on and rage on, calmly, but <i>not change-ly</i>.<br /><br />I like things to be fresh, sometimes new, well-kept, and best of all better <i>with use</i>, but I don’t much fancy surprises unless they won’t change things too much. I won’t chase the latest, at least not if it's going to change things too quickly for my tastes, and most of all <i>I don’t go looking for change</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">Change is gonna happen, evolution like entropy is a state of affairs and not much of a choice. We all gotta’ get on with life because time really does wait for no one. Change may have to be accommodated, even reconciled, but it doesn’t have to be loved. Tolerance has little to do with love or at least not necessarily so. I can tolerate change and hate it at the same time. Now that tells you something about tolerance too.<br /><br />When I hear “change:” I rally to unhappy meanings like reckless, careless, thoughtless. We mustn’t mind urgency when it’s the order of the moment or disdain dispatch when there is not a moment to lose. And when do we ever have moments to lose?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">I will try never to doubt the <i>value</i> of the spontaneous even when it seems rash or hairbrained. I will sing the praises of the intuitive but not at the expense of the rational because they need not be opposed. Change is a false dichotomy: it’s telling you that who you are <i>now</i> is not connected to who you want to be. If that’s the case, you’ve got a lot more to do to help yourself than just change.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">We must certainly not be opposed to time doing <i>its </i>business of change but I won’t find myself interested in being timely, fashionable, and I positively dislike being hurried. I admire the uninhibited for their courage and the unexpected shouldn’t be treated as inadmissible when we must first accept it and only then decide where our exceptions can be made. But I always prefer to lace my boots slowly as a kind of pleasure, I would never rush the stage even if I might be the first to applaud. Change disrespects time and time is the honor we share with the living.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;">None of <i>these</i> things strike me as careless but change certainly does. Change may not be telling you to reject what you like but it it may well be telling you that you <i>need</i> to be more than you are and not what you have. If you find change exciting, titillating, or groovy, I won’t object and I might even be intrigued. But I won’t necessarily do what you want me to do because you think I need a change. I’m not going to change but for the ways I hope I can still grow and get better at being myself. As for the rest, use them in peace.</span><span style="font-family: Athelas;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>dbrkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323403103114744193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362236352949772857.post-3838431040365063582021-09-13T07:49:00.003-07:002021-09-13T08:04:38.875-07:00Our Toddler Nation<br /><br />Robert Bly is still with us and I am glad everyday for all that he wrote in his storied career. The book that followed Iron John, which was immensely influential on culture, was the little-read Sibling Society. Bly's thesis is that America has refused to grow up, that people seek attention childishly rather than do the work required to deal with a complex self in a world they cannot control. Bly was pointing to the false proclamations of freedom and the bypass, the barely concealed racism and nostaligic nonsense that was fueling the "Reagan Revolution." Robert was not only insightful, he was prophetic.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6Ak5NkXPgApm4z9ciCLmkggrc_jI5XafhoGRsc0c3Jxq8K4QG5QPhRyaGsp-XYhYlKSvDq-NOUIic09GbpEjTvqVaJpxz3-5LzKg1y5Ad976sDmGpRpLNZSl-l9xdLXMyd5iKyqolFSeD/s640/IMG_5861.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6Ak5NkXPgApm4z9ciCLmkggrc_jI5XafhoGRsc0c3Jxq8K4QG5QPhRyaGsp-XYhYlKSvDq-NOUIic09GbpEjTvqVaJpxz3-5LzKg1y5Ad976sDmGpRpLNZSl-l9xdLXMyd5iKyqolFSeD/s320/IMG_5861.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div> <br />We are now a nation of three year olds with car keys and guns.</div><div><br /> As we witness the coup of the minority Party to seize control of the government, dispose of democracy, and impose their rule, we are also watching their base embrace the failures of their narcissism. Rejecting the vaccine has become a badge not merely of stupid or absurd conspiracy theories (i.e., implanting computer chips), it has revealed itself to be the desperate need of fellow Americans to gain attention. </div><div><br /></div><div>Finally the majority will not indulge the unvaccinated's need to be important because they seek attention. Their anguish, fear, reasons have now been shown to be what they are: excuses and foot stamping obdurate childishness. Imagine if we had to get TB vaccines that left a scar---as it is still the common badge of honor and public responsibility in much of the world where people still die from breakthroughs of this horrible disease. Republicans would have even more ways to claim their "freedom" while they endanger the sane.</div><div><br /></div><div>Of course, there can be no liberty that rejects the injury that will be done to other. Freedom is not a free for all of your personal choices---your weaponized narcissism is not acceptable. <br /><br /></div><div>Unfortunately toddler-esque behavior is not limited to Republicans who appear willing to die and risk long term illness consequences to "own the libs." I have found more than a few lefty-yogis whose credibility has now been wholly undermined. If someone can't get a free, life-saving vaccine whose risks have been proven minimal, how can you trust them about anything else they say or do? The gravest threat to America and to democracy is not from abroad, it is from our fellow Americans.</div>dbrkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323403103114744193noreply@blogger.com0