Funerals
I reckon every person has unique feelings about funerals. Logic dictates that funerals, whatever else they might be, are for the living, not the dead. At least this is the way I view it. As a consequence I don't attend funerals unless I am really close to the survivors. Today people move around a lot, so when many former friends die the funeral is far away. It would help if funerals were just for immediate family in order to get the body buried or cremated and then a month or two later a Memorial Service held at a convenient time with good weather so that people could plan a trip to the Memorial Service. I like Memorial Services better than funerals for another reason: these memorial services tend to be remembrances of the deceased by friends and family. This is far more meaningful to me than some religious droll. People in the audience are usually of varied religious beliefs so trapping them into a captive audience for religious prating is misguided. If I go to a funeral it is to support the family and remember the deceased, not to attend a religious service---that is what people go to church for.
Something is kind of weird about funerals, hard for me to put my finger on it, or generate any solutions. But many times the vast percentage of people present have made no serious effort in recent years to visit with, or communicate with, the deceased---yet there they are at the funeral. It just seems to me that if you are going to take the time, or travel a distance to be supportive of a friend, that ought to be done before they die, not after they are dead. People don't visit as much as they used to, communicative gadgets of various sorts replace visits. So, more and more, social gatherings become funeral oriented. For some, attending funeral services becomes pretty much their social gatherings. Of course there is nothing wrong with this, but it is not my cup of tea.
Even at Memorial Services it crosses my mind how much more it would have meant to the deceased if all these kind reflections on the deceased person's life could have been made while they were still alive to hear them. A kind of "please give me my flowers while I am living. It is funny how much more revered the dead are than when they were living. I have no solution. When I was teaching, required unsigned student evaluations were required. Students filled them out and one of the students would deliver the evaluations to the Dept. Office. Maybe we all need to be evaluated by our friends in a similar fashion. I don't think I would be so good at that. I tend to accept diversity, focus on the good in someone, and would be reluctant to 'burst their balloon' with insulting comments about their character. Of course no one does that at Memorial Services either. Too many people, too often, for too long, muddle through life with few supportive comments about their strengths. Then, when dead, the praise flows freely. Just weird.
I watched a giant front end loader scoop up dead bodies in Haiti and dump them into a mass grave. Just another indication that something is not right about human life on this planet right now. At a funeral some individual is dead and mourned. I for one, mourn less for those who have had a good life and die, than for those ever increasing number of humans on this planet who have essentially nothing, and live lives of quiet desperation until they perish from an early death. There ought to be daily services for these helpless 'living dead'. They ought to be paraded in front of us and we ought to be required to live amongst them. Maybe then, just a slim maybe, we would sacrifice a little to share a good life with them, and just maybe we would realize the atrocity of human overpopulation from irresponsible reproduction. How much human misery must accumulate before we are willing to face what is happening to our planet? How many species must disappear before we are willing to consider this unacceptable? Right now 87 species disappear from existence every day, some 30,000 a year. The death of individual members of a species is of no consequence to God's evolutionary process, but the death of a species? To miss the forest for the sake of the trees is fatal for human progress. Nature is already beginning to address human overpopulation and nature's methods in this area are brutal. This 'best of all possible worlds' appears to be heading full steam ahead to a major evolutionary correction. For people my age the question is: Just how fast is all this going to unravel? I think there ought to be a weekly funeral for all the species made extinct, for all the humans tossed in mass graves, for all the 'living dead' with no property, no health care, no clean water, no education, and no future. There are enough people in this category dying every week so that a front end loader could scoop them up and deliver them around the world so at each regional funeral we could watch them be dumped in a mass grave. Somehow, humans need begin to realize the severity of our situation on this planet. Obama's "yes we can" has no lasting power to it. Tis a pity, the "we" didn't last too long. We live in an age of instant gratification or else.
When I am dead I do not wish a funeral. I have no immediate family so there is no one in that category who need condolences. Most of my friends do not even know each other and live all over the place, so it would hardly be a social gathering with common friends. That leaves no purpose whatsoever to such a gathering. There is no imaginable reason why anyone should be burdened with arranging a funeral for some one in my category. I have had more than enough people be kind to me while living, and that is good fortune enough. A legitimate hermit should depart on his last voyage in solitary solitude. When dead I, for once, will have nothing to say. Death is not even remarkable----not to die would be astounding. When I meander thru a graveyard I look at all these stones and am reminded that for almost everyone, after about one generation, all living memories are gone about a person's existence. Gone with the wind is never more true. Kind of a sobering thought. I understand life is a continuum, that none of our lives started from scratch. Living cells beget living cells ad infinitum, and we but exist for such a fleeting time. In the lifespan of life on this planet our own lives are but a minute blip, like a firefly in the evening---a faint glow and then dark silence. The key to acceptance of all this is to understand, as best one can, the God's evolutionary process. We are, after all is considered, quite inconsequential as individuals BUT taken as a whole one can be ever so grateful for the opportunity presented to have been part of this astounding process. NOTHING LASTS FOREVER. We all know that, we really do. To sour on youth or health or love because it doesn't last forever is to be ungrateful for no purpose. Pretending life is otherwise ensures for sure no real contentment. Pretending that God is going to protect you from His evolutionary laws is to bring upon oneself endless frustration. Enjoy the show while it lasts, the curtain will come down sooner or later. If your family wants to have a funeral it is quite ok. If there is no need for a funeral that is quite ok too.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
Social Transformations
Social Transformations
I read a lot of biographies. How people think or behave is entertaining, educational, and helps me appreciate diversity. All these musings simply reflect my penchant for spending several hours thinking (writing) and several hours a day reading (so I have things to think about). My favorite time of the day are my walks---either in nature settings or wandering around Chicago. Each type of environment is relaxing in it's own way. I never feel less alone then when on these solitary treks, here and there, as the spirit moves me. I don't think anyone can really be contented and find any effective meaning in life without extended periods of self reflection on God's evolutionary process.
Humans are social creatures. Even I need social interaction. We all do. Whenever I read an autobiography about someone who lived in an isolated primitive community, and got displaced by disasters of this or that order, including genocide and environmental disasters, I am always impressed by the fondness of their memories of their former life in such simple communities. I mean, by our standards, they had very little---a few goats or other such creatures, maybe a small garden, little dietary variety, and material possessions which could be carried in a couple of large sacks. STILL, their fondest memories are of those 'good old days" even though they now live in a modern material-filled community. Clearly it must be the in-depth social interactions which they miss. Whatever else these communities were or were not, they were social cauldrons of intensely personal significance.
I have lived nearly 70 years now, long enough to have seen my own society go through many transformations, I suspect more transformations than in all the previous periods of human evolution. Social changes in my life time have moved rapidly, as evolutionary changes go. Abraham Lincoln would be absolutely astonished at all the changes. One of my favorite LIncoln quotes is the following: "If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it" This is pretty much a good blueprint for logical decisions about life. Each step in this process requires understanding. Understanding requires experience and observation free from inherited religious or cultural beliefs. Since America was first founded on the principles of freedom and justice for all, these principles have expanded to include more and more diverse groups. In the early days of our Republic it was pretty much the white male land owning citizens who had this freedom and justice. Democracy pushed the boundaries to include all white males, who then used endless political machinations to keep women and blks in 'their place'. Strangely, black males ended up getting to vote before white women. Once women got the vote, discrimination against them, in various ways, became difficult to maintain. Laws got passed which gradually began to level the playing field for women and blks. Today gays are beginning to get their share of freedom and justice. A lot of good social transformations have occurred despite a suspicion that being a plantation owner might well have been a personal ego trip which most of us probably would have enjoyed. But, as Terrell Owens would say: "Fair is fair".
I am not exactly Mr. Technology or Mr. Social or Mr. Materialism. The simple things in life bring me the most pleasure---a good walk, a good meal, a good conversation, a good book, a good laugh, a good amount of time to myself. As far as I am concerned enough is as good as a feast---to reach for more being counter productive in terms of contentment and effort. I watch people scurry around, all tensed up, behaving as if every minute of time must be filled with either work or entertainment. It is truly a rat race. All these efforts to acquire more 'THINGS' is supposed, I would guess, to make life more comfortable, more convenient, more efficient, and more private. Perhaps all these things do make life all of that BUT, somehow contentment, for most of the people I have observed, has not been forthcoming. To me, some of the 'busiest' people are, in reality, the loneliest. They are forever busy being 'busy as a bee' and if they get a moment left alone they reach immediately for some gadget which will provide them with someone with whom to chat. It is seldom any kind of meaningful conversation, more often than not meaningless babble. I hear these conversations when on a bus or train, or waiting most anyplace, and know exactly why I DO NOT have a cell phone (at least not one which anyone has the number to). No wonder the voting public is becoming increasingly ignorant about any matters of importance to life on our planet. Just when would these mindless 'busy as bee'ites' ever find the time to logically and methodically think about anything.
Laura Pappano has described our typical modern citizen as "overstimulated, hyperkinetic, overcommitted, striving, under-cared for, therapy dependent, plugged in, logged on, sleep deprived." People feel less and less like they are part of any community. Instead, they mostly have circled the wagons around their own family unit. To the extent this happens they suffer a collective loneliness from loss of meaningful interaction. In some sense we are drowning in our own rapid social advances. There was a time when a phone call was kind of special, especially long distance, when entertainment involved neighborhood activities, when travel meant an exciting trip probably not all that far, and if far, it would be a totally different kind of environment you would find yourself in. Phone conversations now are something you mostly do while you are doing something else, like driving, shopping, etc. I will always remember the time I was exiting a forest preserve from my walk, and across the street someone was having a party with people in lawn chairs on the front yard. All but one was on the cell phone to someone. Some party. It is becoming rare for people to discuss in detail anything---they simply get messages and keep on running.
The activities of most people today are heavily scheduled. There is no need to ask anyone if they have plans for the day, THEY DO---an endless series of repetitive tasks to stay in the rat race. If you ask someone what they did they will tell you what they crammed in, not what they thought about anything. Even marriage has hit it's lowest level ever in our country. I mean talk about circling the wagons---increasingly that means inwardly around yourself. Our best friends are the TV, the internet, our cell phones, chat rooms, video games, etc. People, it seems to me, are becoming less interesting with everyone seeking entertainment from their array of electronic gadgets. LIke what would more and more people really talk about? They have given so little original thought to matters of importance as to be essentially intellectually sterile. Maybe being amused is a higher good then generating your own meaning to life.
When I was younger there was a tendency to expect self-sacrifice, self restraint, and a distaste for waste. Today we are defined by consumerism, with piling our material wealth higher and higher. This mindless consumerism is destroying our society. This increasingly insane competition to get a bigger and bigger piece of the pie is creating a society in which a few have more and more of the wealth while the many have less and less of the wealth. In 1967 the richest fifth of families earned 7.5 times as much as the poorest fifth. By 1994 the richest fifth were earning more than 19 times the poorest fifth. Since 1994 this disparity has increased exponentially. Why? Those who are amassing all this wealth control Congress, and are in a position to create laws and regulations which enable them to grow their wealth even easier.
Our country has rapidly progressed from a society of producers to a society of consumers. If it weren't for the service and military industries what exactly does America really have anymore? We are 38th in health care, way down the pike when it comes to modern mass transportation, reduced to second rate educational systems in more and more locations, most all production jobs lost to other countries, the highest percentage of citizens jailed in the world, a senseless War on Drugs, and senseless wars across the globe which foster terrorism directed at us from all these fronts.
The kind of television shows we watch tells us a lot about ourselves. American Idol and an assortment of 'reality' shows typify the current American mindset. I try to imagine why anyone would spend time watching these shows. They have zero to do with reality. It's all fantasy and ridicule, preying on people's emotions is some sort of twisted way. Maybe it would be all harmless enough if this were just incidental aspects of their lives. But it is not. Outside of work, if one is lucky enough to have work, these mindless forms of amusement generate ignorant, irrational, indifferent attitudes and understanding about others and real life. When one's day is preoccupied with unchallenging monotonous work and mindless amusements from an array of electronic gadgets, the content of one's thought, if I can use the term loosely, is rather shallow and tunnel visioned. It is no wonder when masses of these people vote, we get the results we get. By any serious measure, Americans in great numbers have reduced themselves to human lemmings madly, and collectively, in a frenzied mindless fashion, rushing towards every cliff in sight. We are now totally incapable of seriously addressing the many serious problems affecting the entire globe. This obsession with being amused every minute of the day has made us passive illusionists, unable to perceive real problems in human existence. We seek to be amused by input which is 'better' than real life. Of course, in the end, it is real life which determines our fate.
Before we were so in touch with the rest of the world in such an instantaneous fashion, it was our own communities which rooted our thought processes, our conversations, and gave us our essence of life. Today our community is almost irrelevant. People move constantly, and perhaps---if you can be so easily anywhere, where are you really? Wherever you are you live the same reclusive life, involved with the same communication gadgets, and spend your days either working or being absorbed by the same electronic amusements. It used to be a big adventure to travel and take pictures of where you went. I don't even take a camera anymore. I get, on a weekly basis, an array of really quality pictures over the internet from various friends. There are no pictures I can take which compete with these internet pictures. Part of me hates the fact so many astounding pictures arrive via the internet that it is hardly possible to any longer be astounded. We are now (us affluent) bombarded with the best of everything in endless amount, including music, movies, books, sports, etc. It is really surreal. Even more surreal is the way some of us live in such a style while most others on our now globalized planet live like desperate savages with virtually nothing. THAT IS REALITY. THE CONSEQUENCES OF THIS REALITY ARE TOO UNNERVING TO SERIOUSLY FACE.
We live more and more in some kind of virtual world, an abstract existence apart from realities of global distress and human overpopulation. We have redefined the very basis of relating. We used to visit each other, now we send emails. Visits are essentially reduced to immediate family members----maybe. Family units are so dispersed these days in most cases as to make meaningful sustained relations rather difficult. When I was young all uncles, cousins, and other relatives all lived within driving distance of each other. This is no longer.
In this massive information age we have trained ourselves not to see anything we are not looking for. Wonderment is becoming a lost experience. I sense that moments which inspire wonder and deep thought which leave us feeling utterly alive with meaning to our lives are fading. Whatever occupies our minds these days must be instant gratification. Today speed is king. Obama may have broken through our malaise and sparked a "Yes We Can" spirit. But in the end, if his goals cannot be accomplished overnight, the public will turn. Long range goals are irrelevant in today's climate of speed and instant gratification. I sit and wonder how fast is too fast for meaningful human existence? Humans are now like locusts swarming over the planet devouring everything in sight, including other species, natural resources, etc. How can anything good come from this mindset, this lifestyle?
With all the technological advances, are we any happier? I don't really know the answer to this, and any answer is hardly objective. I do know, that for me to be happy and especially contented, I have to distance myself from most of it. I need space and time to 'smell the flowers', to understand the meaning of all that swirls around, close at hand or with global issues. Twenty percent of our population picks up and moves every year. Is this good for their psyche? I don't know. With this gypsy like movement how well do people ever really know others in their community? Maybe it is not important to know others.
The average size of new American homes increased 41% between 1971 and 1997. Whatever else good or bad this might be, this certainly provides individual family members with more space (distance) from each other. And, increasingly each member has his/her own bathroom. Now that so many are 'busy bodies', lurching from robotized task to task, there is no time to be waiting for the bathroom. This is not to imply that I, less than anyone else, wants to wait to use a bathroom. But times just have changed. In the past people were more likely to just drop by to visit. Today that would be rude. There was a time, if someone dropped by on me, I would answer the door with my hat and coat on explaining I was just leaving and I wish they had called so we could schedule a visit. That worked like a charm and taught them a lesson. Also today we consider ourselves on good terms with our neighbors if there are no active conflicts, not because there is any meaningful interaction.
One question I have is whether a nation can fulfill it's social contract with the less fortunate amongst us in the virtual absence of social contact with them. It is ironic that the more overpopulated the planet becomes the less connected we are becoming with others in meaningful ways. All of the increasing misery being imposed on others across the globe is, for all practical purposes, an abstraction. We know this misery is out there, but it doesn't relate to us in any emotional way. 'Family values', as the term is used today, assures us that it is ok to put ourselves first. As long as we personally, and our immediate family, have good health insurance, good schools, good job opportunities, gadgets galore, a huge and well stocked house, etc. then all is well. We kind of sense that for others to have more, we might have to do with less, and that settles it in our minds: "don't fix what ain't broke, at least for us personally". It seems our hunger for wealth, power, and material goods is far beyond any real personal need. Most all of us are guilty except you and I, and sometimes I wonder about you.
For the modern 'family values' cabals the aim of family is not so much to prepare family members for the public world as it is to avoid it as much as possible. This may be a partial reason why so many young people choose to live alone. When I was young there was a lot of pressure to get married. Today that pressure is much less. Today there are as many single-person households as there are households of married couples with children. This is rather an odd way to solve human overpopulation. This new social isolation, 'family values', whatever else you might call it, leads to a lack of need for each other. Gadgets have replaced humans for life partners in many cases. I see all this even though I am single myself. But in my case it was never by choice.
Looking out for others is now pretty much relegated to Government and even here, conservatives deplore Government support for the unfortunate. In an interesting twist of logic these less fortunate are not victims but the cause of our problems. According to their conservative twisted state of mind everyone chooses their own road and it is not the obligation of others to rescue the less fortunate who just have made the wrong choices in life---like their choice of parents, or the country in which they were born, or the school district they live in, or their physical or mental abilities, or their looks, etc. These less fortunate exist but we choose mostly not to think about them at all and our attitude is more one of disinterested attachment. Religions have changed too, and for most people, if they belong to a church, they in reality pay more attention to their own views and the views of others then they do to church dogmas or biblical verses. Church services are full of rituals but because people in the congregation interact with each other hardly at all, the service is just a show, and a show which competes poorly with TV shows.
Communities today are kind of online communities. It is hard to define the nature of these online communities but they are more like avenues for those of like opinions to gather with others to voice the same opinions. It is the blind leading the blind. So much of today's manner of living ensures people stay apart. It starts with large houses so individual family members can have more space, then comes the high fence around the yards so we can isolate ourselves from neighbors, we teach our kids not to speak with or be friendly to strangers, visiting others is reduced to a trickle, and eventually we end up with a nation of strangers. We exchange information but we have little conversation. A two hour conversation about any topic is a rarity. Talking is no longer considered entertainment in some sense, it is just exchange of information. Most cell phone calls are purely informative, brainless, unimaginative dribble of no real consequence to anyone's life.
It is, I suppose, to be expected for someone my age to view all these social transformations with skepticism. There may be a lot more to all of this than meets an aged eye. I hope so.
I read a lot of biographies. How people think or behave is entertaining, educational, and helps me appreciate diversity. All these musings simply reflect my penchant for spending several hours thinking (writing) and several hours a day reading (so I have things to think about). My favorite time of the day are my walks---either in nature settings or wandering around Chicago. Each type of environment is relaxing in it's own way. I never feel less alone then when on these solitary treks, here and there, as the spirit moves me. I don't think anyone can really be contented and find any effective meaning in life without extended periods of self reflection on God's evolutionary process.
Humans are social creatures. Even I need social interaction. We all do. Whenever I read an autobiography about someone who lived in an isolated primitive community, and got displaced by disasters of this or that order, including genocide and environmental disasters, I am always impressed by the fondness of their memories of their former life in such simple communities. I mean, by our standards, they had very little---a few goats or other such creatures, maybe a small garden, little dietary variety, and material possessions which could be carried in a couple of large sacks. STILL, their fondest memories are of those 'good old days" even though they now live in a modern material-filled community. Clearly it must be the in-depth social interactions which they miss. Whatever else these communities were or were not, they were social cauldrons of intensely personal significance.
I have lived nearly 70 years now, long enough to have seen my own society go through many transformations, I suspect more transformations than in all the previous periods of human evolution. Social changes in my life time have moved rapidly, as evolutionary changes go. Abraham Lincoln would be absolutely astonished at all the changes. One of my favorite LIncoln quotes is the following: "If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it" This is pretty much a good blueprint for logical decisions about life. Each step in this process requires understanding. Understanding requires experience and observation free from inherited religious or cultural beliefs. Since America was first founded on the principles of freedom and justice for all, these principles have expanded to include more and more diverse groups. In the early days of our Republic it was pretty much the white male land owning citizens who had this freedom and justice. Democracy pushed the boundaries to include all white males, who then used endless political machinations to keep women and blks in 'their place'. Strangely, black males ended up getting to vote before white women. Once women got the vote, discrimination against them, in various ways, became difficult to maintain. Laws got passed which gradually began to level the playing field for women and blks. Today gays are beginning to get their share of freedom and justice. A lot of good social transformations have occurred despite a suspicion that being a plantation owner might well have been a personal ego trip which most of us probably would have enjoyed. But, as Terrell Owens would say: "Fair is fair".
I am not exactly Mr. Technology or Mr. Social or Mr. Materialism. The simple things in life bring me the most pleasure---a good walk, a good meal, a good conversation, a good book, a good laugh, a good amount of time to myself. As far as I am concerned enough is as good as a feast---to reach for more being counter productive in terms of contentment and effort. I watch people scurry around, all tensed up, behaving as if every minute of time must be filled with either work or entertainment. It is truly a rat race. All these efforts to acquire more 'THINGS' is supposed, I would guess, to make life more comfortable, more convenient, more efficient, and more private. Perhaps all these things do make life all of that BUT, somehow contentment, for most of the people I have observed, has not been forthcoming. To me, some of the 'busiest' people are, in reality, the loneliest. They are forever busy being 'busy as a bee' and if they get a moment left alone they reach immediately for some gadget which will provide them with someone with whom to chat. It is seldom any kind of meaningful conversation, more often than not meaningless babble. I hear these conversations when on a bus or train, or waiting most anyplace, and know exactly why I DO NOT have a cell phone (at least not one which anyone has the number to). No wonder the voting public is becoming increasingly ignorant about any matters of importance to life on our planet. Just when would these mindless 'busy as bee'ites' ever find the time to logically and methodically think about anything.
Laura Pappano has described our typical modern citizen as "overstimulated, hyperkinetic, overcommitted, striving, under-cared for, therapy dependent, plugged in, logged on, sleep deprived." People feel less and less like they are part of any community. Instead, they mostly have circled the wagons around their own family unit. To the extent this happens they suffer a collective loneliness from loss of meaningful interaction. In some sense we are drowning in our own rapid social advances. There was a time when a phone call was kind of special, especially long distance, when entertainment involved neighborhood activities, when travel meant an exciting trip probably not all that far, and if far, it would be a totally different kind of environment you would find yourself in. Phone conversations now are something you mostly do while you are doing something else, like driving, shopping, etc. I will always remember the time I was exiting a forest preserve from my walk, and across the street someone was having a party with people in lawn chairs on the front yard. All but one was on the cell phone to someone. Some party. It is becoming rare for people to discuss in detail anything---they simply get messages and keep on running.
The activities of most people today are heavily scheduled. There is no need to ask anyone if they have plans for the day, THEY DO---an endless series of repetitive tasks to stay in the rat race. If you ask someone what they did they will tell you what they crammed in, not what they thought about anything. Even marriage has hit it's lowest level ever in our country. I mean talk about circling the wagons---increasingly that means inwardly around yourself. Our best friends are the TV, the internet, our cell phones, chat rooms, video games, etc. People, it seems to me, are becoming less interesting with everyone seeking entertainment from their array of electronic gadgets. LIke what would more and more people really talk about? They have given so little original thought to matters of importance as to be essentially intellectually sterile. Maybe being amused is a higher good then generating your own meaning to life.
When I was younger there was a tendency to expect self-sacrifice, self restraint, and a distaste for waste. Today we are defined by consumerism, with piling our material wealth higher and higher. This mindless consumerism is destroying our society. This increasingly insane competition to get a bigger and bigger piece of the pie is creating a society in which a few have more and more of the wealth while the many have less and less of the wealth. In 1967 the richest fifth of families earned 7.5 times as much as the poorest fifth. By 1994 the richest fifth were earning more than 19 times the poorest fifth. Since 1994 this disparity has increased exponentially. Why? Those who are amassing all this wealth control Congress, and are in a position to create laws and regulations which enable them to grow their wealth even easier.
Our country has rapidly progressed from a society of producers to a society of consumers. If it weren't for the service and military industries what exactly does America really have anymore? We are 38th in health care, way down the pike when it comes to modern mass transportation, reduced to second rate educational systems in more and more locations, most all production jobs lost to other countries, the highest percentage of citizens jailed in the world, a senseless War on Drugs, and senseless wars across the globe which foster terrorism directed at us from all these fronts.
The kind of television shows we watch tells us a lot about ourselves. American Idol and an assortment of 'reality' shows typify the current American mindset. I try to imagine why anyone would spend time watching these shows. They have zero to do with reality. It's all fantasy and ridicule, preying on people's emotions is some sort of twisted way. Maybe it would be all harmless enough if this were just incidental aspects of their lives. But it is not. Outside of work, if one is lucky enough to have work, these mindless forms of amusement generate ignorant, irrational, indifferent attitudes and understanding about others and real life. When one's day is preoccupied with unchallenging monotonous work and mindless amusements from an array of electronic gadgets, the content of one's thought, if I can use the term loosely, is rather shallow and tunnel visioned. It is no wonder when masses of these people vote, we get the results we get. By any serious measure, Americans in great numbers have reduced themselves to human lemmings madly, and collectively, in a frenzied mindless fashion, rushing towards every cliff in sight. We are now totally incapable of seriously addressing the many serious problems affecting the entire globe. This obsession with being amused every minute of the day has made us passive illusionists, unable to perceive real problems in human existence. We seek to be amused by input which is 'better' than real life. Of course, in the end, it is real life which determines our fate.
Before we were so in touch with the rest of the world in such an instantaneous fashion, it was our own communities which rooted our thought processes, our conversations, and gave us our essence of life. Today our community is almost irrelevant. People move constantly, and perhaps---if you can be so easily anywhere, where are you really? Wherever you are you live the same reclusive life, involved with the same communication gadgets, and spend your days either working or being absorbed by the same electronic amusements. It used to be a big adventure to travel and take pictures of where you went. I don't even take a camera anymore. I get, on a weekly basis, an array of really quality pictures over the internet from various friends. There are no pictures I can take which compete with these internet pictures. Part of me hates the fact so many astounding pictures arrive via the internet that it is hardly possible to any longer be astounded. We are now (us affluent) bombarded with the best of everything in endless amount, including music, movies, books, sports, etc. It is really surreal. Even more surreal is the way some of us live in such a style while most others on our now globalized planet live like desperate savages with virtually nothing. THAT IS REALITY. THE CONSEQUENCES OF THIS REALITY ARE TOO UNNERVING TO SERIOUSLY FACE.
We live more and more in some kind of virtual world, an abstract existence apart from realities of global distress and human overpopulation. We have redefined the very basis of relating. We used to visit each other, now we send emails. Visits are essentially reduced to immediate family members----maybe. Family units are so dispersed these days in most cases as to make meaningful sustained relations rather difficult. When I was young all uncles, cousins, and other relatives all lived within driving distance of each other. This is no longer.
In this massive information age we have trained ourselves not to see anything we are not looking for. Wonderment is becoming a lost experience. I sense that moments which inspire wonder and deep thought which leave us feeling utterly alive with meaning to our lives are fading. Whatever occupies our minds these days must be instant gratification. Today speed is king. Obama may have broken through our malaise and sparked a "Yes We Can" spirit. But in the end, if his goals cannot be accomplished overnight, the public will turn. Long range goals are irrelevant in today's climate of speed and instant gratification. I sit and wonder how fast is too fast for meaningful human existence? Humans are now like locusts swarming over the planet devouring everything in sight, including other species, natural resources, etc. How can anything good come from this mindset, this lifestyle?
With all the technological advances, are we any happier? I don't really know the answer to this, and any answer is hardly objective. I do know, that for me to be happy and especially contented, I have to distance myself from most of it. I need space and time to 'smell the flowers', to understand the meaning of all that swirls around, close at hand or with global issues. Twenty percent of our population picks up and moves every year. Is this good for their psyche? I don't know. With this gypsy like movement how well do people ever really know others in their community? Maybe it is not important to know others.
The average size of new American homes increased 41% between 1971 and 1997. Whatever else good or bad this might be, this certainly provides individual family members with more space (distance) from each other. And, increasingly each member has his/her own bathroom. Now that so many are 'busy bodies', lurching from robotized task to task, there is no time to be waiting for the bathroom. This is not to imply that I, less than anyone else, wants to wait to use a bathroom. But times just have changed. In the past people were more likely to just drop by to visit. Today that would be rude. There was a time, if someone dropped by on me, I would answer the door with my hat and coat on explaining I was just leaving and I wish they had called so we could schedule a visit. That worked like a charm and taught them a lesson. Also today we consider ourselves on good terms with our neighbors if there are no active conflicts, not because there is any meaningful interaction.
One question I have is whether a nation can fulfill it's social contract with the less fortunate amongst us in the virtual absence of social contact with them. It is ironic that the more overpopulated the planet becomes the less connected we are becoming with others in meaningful ways. All of the increasing misery being imposed on others across the globe is, for all practical purposes, an abstraction. We know this misery is out there, but it doesn't relate to us in any emotional way. 'Family values', as the term is used today, assures us that it is ok to put ourselves first. As long as we personally, and our immediate family, have good health insurance, good schools, good job opportunities, gadgets galore, a huge and well stocked house, etc. then all is well. We kind of sense that for others to have more, we might have to do with less, and that settles it in our minds: "don't fix what ain't broke, at least for us personally". It seems our hunger for wealth, power, and material goods is far beyond any real personal need. Most all of us are guilty except you and I, and sometimes I wonder about you.
For the modern 'family values' cabals the aim of family is not so much to prepare family members for the public world as it is to avoid it as much as possible. This may be a partial reason why so many young people choose to live alone. When I was young there was a lot of pressure to get married. Today that pressure is much less. Today there are as many single-person households as there are households of married couples with children. This is rather an odd way to solve human overpopulation. This new social isolation, 'family values', whatever else you might call it, leads to a lack of need for each other. Gadgets have replaced humans for life partners in many cases. I see all this even though I am single myself. But in my case it was never by choice.
Looking out for others is now pretty much relegated to Government and even here, conservatives deplore Government support for the unfortunate. In an interesting twist of logic these less fortunate are not victims but the cause of our problems. According to their conservative twisted state of mind everyone chooses their own road and it is not the obligation of others to rescue the less fortunate who just have made the wrong choices in life---like their choice of parents, or the country in which they were born, or the school district they live in, or their physical or mental abilities, or their looks, etc. These less fortunate exist but we choose mostly not to think about them at all and our attitude is more one of disinterested attachment. Religions have changed too, and for most people, if they belong to a church, they in reality pay more attention to their own views and the views of others then they do to church dogmas or biblical verses. Church services are full of rituals but because people in the congregation interact with each other hardly at all, the service is just a show, and a show which competes poorly with TV shows.
Communities today are kind of online communities. It is hard to define the nature of these online communities but they are more like avenues for those of like opinions to gather with others to voice the same opinions. It is the blind leading the blind. So much of today's manner of living ensures people stay apart. It starts with large houses so individual family members can have more space, then comes the high fence around the yards so we can isolate ourselves from neighbors, we teach our kids not to speak with or be friendly to strangers, visiting others is reduced to a trickle, and eventually we end up with a nation of strangers. We exchange information but we have little conversation. A two hour conversation about any topic is a rarity. Talking is no longer considered entertainment in some sense, it is just exchange of information. Most cell phone calls are purely informative, brainless, unimaginative dribble of no real consequence to anyone's life.
It is, I suppose, to be expected for someone my age to view all these social transformations with skepticism. There may be a lot more to all of this than meets an aged eye. I hope so.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Globalization Downsides
Globalization Downsides:
In my youth globalization was not yet fully implemented. Different parts of the world had distinct entities. Now, we live in a world rapidly becoming one work force, one culture, and one set of prevailing values. You can travel elsewhere to see different geographical or building sites, but that is mostly it. The food, the hotels, the means of communication, the culture, the dress etc. is becoming more and more homogenous. It used to be Americans were the ones with all the money. Not so true anymore. It used to be foreign cultures used to be unique, primitive, and peaceful. Not so true in most places anymore. In the past, poor meant the absence of modern 'stuff' but people lived off the land and had strong social bonds. Even in the poor areas of cities the people had little but they felt safe and had strong social bonds. The crime in poor areas was mostly one of theft.
The three forces impacting the most on this globalization and the forces driving the nature of this globalization are irresponsible reproduction (overpopulation), communication devices, and the absence of global minimum wages. None of these three are generating the kind of globalization which will bring freedom, justice and prosperity to all. Humanity is kind of paralyzed by the nature of these forces.
I suppose, in theory, everyone is all for responsible reproduction. In reality, people still cling to it being their own personal right to reproduce as often as they want, with anyone they want, and let the chips fall where they may. Of course it is the offspring of this mindless mentality who pay the price. We understand the consequences of overpopulation in other species and understand the consequences of it to the offspring, but when it comes to our own overpopulation we pretty much shrug and say nothing can be done about it. The amount and degree of human misery accumulating across the globe from irresponsible reproduction is staggering. We are no longer looking at poor primitive societies who live off the land BUT masses of humanity with no food, no homes, no personal safety, no supportive social structures, no clean water---not really anything which can give much meaning or contentment to their lives. The reality is so appalling as to force us to look away, gate ourselves away from such a reality, and pretend we don't see it. Obama's "Yes, We Can" seems irrelevant to reality here.
No labor market can generate prosperity for an entire population without minimum wage laws. The lack of minimum wage laws in a global environment slowly turns every country into a country with a third world labor force. Wherever labor can be reduced to non living wages is where products will be produced. It is no mystery why America is losing it's manufacturing base. It is no mystery why corporations are downsizing, eliminating health care insurance, doing away with or reducing pension, and paying wages so low that people have to work several jobs to survive. And yet no one seems to get it, or if they do, they react as they do to global overpopulation----they pretend the problem will solve itself or is illusionary. Instead, we pretend major issues are one of religious dogmas, 'family values', gay marriage, tax cuts, school prayer, immigration, law and order----everything but the basis of the problem.
When you take the two above problems, combine them with modern communication methods, add increasing numbers of desperate people living lives of futile desperation, you end up with every dissident group empowered to become terrorists. It hardly solves anything to attach vile names to these desperadoes and their comrades---those who thrive on violence---since desperate people can be reasonably understood to get to the point where death is no longer feared, and they are angry and bitter enough to take as many of their perceived enemies with them as they can. It becomes a feeling of "I have no hope, no escape, but those of you born into situations of luxury are going to go down with me." And of course there are those who have legitimate mental disorders who are attracted to terrorism. With modern communication methods, requiring no physical meetings and unlimited access to destructive technologies on the internet, it becomes nearly impossible to arrest them. With massive efforts you may eventually track down symbolic leaders who have masterminded certain terroristic acts, but how many #2's and #1's do you kill before you realize it is of little practical significance. When captured, which is more rare, you can torture them unmercifully but what exactly do you expect to get from them? They really don't know exactly where anyone is, or what the individual terror cells are up to, or when or where the next attack will come. In conventional wars you can kill off enough individual soldiers to defeat a uniformed army supplied with sophisticated weapons. Those days are gone. America has enough weapons, including smart bombs, missiles, satellite cameras, etc to pulverize identifiable troops. But the troops sought are not uniformed, they don't amass together in one spot, there is little central control over them, each cell of terrorists plots their own nasty little deeds---mostly simple little homemade bombs left here and there or delivered personally via their own body. The capture or death of the so-called leaders means little to the individual terroristic cells. Terrorism today is more a way of life, a means of taunting your enemy, a means for desperate hate filled young people to be 'somebody' instead of a 'nothingburger' devoid of hope and bitter over his/her circumstance in life.
In the last analysis overpopulation and lack of global minimum wages is the basis of terrorism and will continue to be the basis of terrorism. Those with nothing to lose now have the basis to take down at least some of those with much to lose, and perhaps eventually to cause enough chaos to collapse empires, to cause them to implode upon themselves as empires in history always have. All the environmental and natural resource problems descending upon us from all sides are essentially the product of human overpopulation. Here is a stunning piece of information I picked up during a visit to the Natural History Museum in Chicago: The normal rate of species extinction during the long period of evolution is one species lost every four years. Today, we have 30,000 different specie becoming extinct every year, that is 82 per day. I guess many would simply shrug and say "So what? Who needs them? Most are just tiny little worthless creatures." Maybe, but I doubt it. The more one examines the brilliance of God's evolutionary process the more one sees the intricate balance needed for stability. Most human concepts of God are extremely self serving, with humans some sort of preferred and special creation, however we came to be. God likes us best of all His evolutionary creations, we are to have dominance over the earth, take what we want, behave as we wish, etc. Maybe the dinosaurs thought that too, or lacking that power of thought, at least acted like it.
There have been 6 mass extinction periods in evolution, all for differing reasons. In the worst, 90% of all land species became extinct. We now have a human generated period of mass extinction. Evolution, no doubt, will continue as it has for billions of years. I would like to see myself as more important in this process, but I accept the unearned good fortune that has come my way in this minute period of evolutionary existence. To predict evolutionary future is just beyond human capability, so after a bit, I do what seems most reasonable---I feel grateful and then take a nap.
In my youth globalization was not yet fully implemented. Different parts of the world had distinct entities. Now, we live in a world rapidly becoming one work force, one culture, and one set of prevailing values. You can travel elsewhere to see different geographical or building sites, but that is mostly it. The food, the hotels, the means of communication, the culture, the dress etc. is becoming more and more homogenous. It used to be Americans were the ones with all the money. Not so true anymore. It used to be foreign cultures used to be unique, primitive, and peaceful. Not so true in most places anymore. In the past, poor meant the absence of modern 'stuff' but people lived off the land and had strong social bonds. Even in the poor areas of cities the people had little but they felt safe and had strong social bonds. The crime in poor areas was mostly one of theft.
The three forces impacting the most on this globalization and the forces driving the nature of this globalization are irresponsible reproduction (overpopulation), communication devices, and the absence of global minimum wages. None of these three are generating the kind of globalization which will bring freedom, justice and prosperity to all. Humanity is kind of paralyzed by the nature of these forces.
I suppose, in theory, everyone is all for responsible reproduction. In reality, people still cling to it being their own personal right to reproduce as often as they want, with anyone they want, and let the chips fall where they may. Of course it is the offspring of this mindless mentality who pay the price. We understand the consequences of overpopulation in other species and understand the consequences of it to the offspring, but when it comes to our own overpopulation we pretty much shrug and say nothing can be done about it. The amount and degree of human misery accumulating across the globe from irresponsible reproduction is staggering. We are no longer looking at poor primitive societies who live off the land BUT masses of humanity with no food, no homes, no personal safety, no supportive social structures, no clean water---not really anything which can give much meaning or contentment to their lives. The reality is so appalling as to force us to look away, gate ourselves away from such a reality, and pretend we don't see it. Obama's "Yes, We Can" seems irrelevant to reality here.
No labor market can generate prosperity for an entire population without minimum wage laws. The lack of minimum wage laws in a global environment slowly turns every country into a country with a third world labor force. Wherever labor can be reduced to non living wages is where products will be produced. It is no mystery why America is losing it's manufacturing base. It is no mystery why corporations are downsizing, eliminating health care insurance, doing away with or reducing pension, and paying wages so low that people have to work several jobs to survive. And yet no one seems to get it, or if they do, they react as they do to global overpopulation----they pretend the problem will solve itself or is illusionary. Instead, we pretend major issues are one of religious dogmas, 'family values', gay marriage, tax cuts, school prayer, immigration, law and order----everything but the basis of the problem.
When you take the two above problems, combine them with modern communication methods, add increasing numbers of desperate people living lives of futile desperation, you end up with every dissident group empowered to become terrorists. It hardly solves anything to attach vile names to these desperadoes and their comrades---those who thrive on violence---since desperate people can be reasonably understood to get to the point where death is no longer feared, and they are angry and bitter enough to take as many of their perceived enemies with them as they can. It becomes a feeling of "I have no hope, no escape, but those of you born into situations of luxury are going to go down with me." And of course there are those who have legitimate mental disorders who are attracted to terrorism. With modern communication methods, requiring no physical meetings and unlimited access to destructive technologies on the internet, it becomes nearly impossible to arrest them. With massive efforts you may eventually track down symbolic leaders who have masterminded certain terroristic acts, but how many #2's and #1's do you kill before you realize it is of little practical significance. When captured, which is more rare, you can torture them unmercifully but what exactly do you expect to get from them? They really don't know exactly where anyone is, or what the individual terror cells are up to, or when or where the next attack will come. In conventional wars you can kill off enough individual soldiers to defeat a uniformed army supplied with sophisticated weapons. Those days are gone. America has enough weapons, including smart bombs, missiles, satellite cameras, etc to pulverize identifiable troops. But the troops sought are not uniformed, they don't amass together in one spot, there is little central control over them, each cell of terrorists plots their own nasty little deeds---mostly simple little homemade bombs left here and there or delivered personally via their own body. The capture or death of the so-called leaders means little to the individual terroristic cells. Terrorism today is more a way of life, a means of taunting your enemy, a means for desperate hate filled young people to be 'somebody' instead of a 'nothingburger' devoid of hope and bitter over his/her circumstance in life.
In the last analysis overpopulation and lack of global minimum wages is the basis of terrorism and will continue to be the basis of terrorism. Those with nothing to lose now have the basis to take down at least some of those with much to lose, and perhaps eventually to cause enough chaos to collapse empires, to cause them to implode upon themselves as empires in history always have. All the environmental and natural resource problems descending upon us from all sides are essentially the product of human overpopulation. Here is a stunning piece of information I picked up during a visit to the Natural History Museum in Chicago: The normal rate of species extinction during the long period of evolution is one species lost every four years. Today, we have 30,000 different specie becoming extinct every year, that is 82 per day. I guess many would simply shrug and say "So what? Who needs them? Most are just tiny little worthless creatures." Maybe, but I doubt it. The more one examines the brilliance of God's evolutionary process the more one sees the intricate balance needed for stability. Most human concepts of God are extremely self serving, with humans some sort of preferred and special creation, however we came to be. God likes us best of all His evolutionary creations, we are to have dominance over the earth, take what we want, behave as we wish, etc. Maybe the dinosaurs thought that too, or lacking that power of thought, at least acted like it.
There have been 6 mass extinction periods in evolution, all for differing reasons. In the worst, 90% of all land species became extinct. We now have a human generated period of mass extinction. Evolution, no doubt, will continue as it has for billions of years. I would like to see myself as more important in this process, but I accept the unearned good fortune that has come my way in this minute period of evolutionary existence. To predict evolutionary future is just beyond human capability, so after a bit, I do what seems most reasonable---I feel grateful and then take a nap.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Nelson Mendella
Nelson Mendella
I can't say Nelson Mendella has been much in my thoughts throughout my life. I ordered his autobiography with but mild interest. But his book is fascinating and thought provoking. When he was getting himself in trouble in South Africa over apartheid, I was finishing high school and then was in college. I do not recall now ever paying much attention to him. I knew both whites and blks claimed South Africa as their home. It seemed whichever side had control would certainly stiff the other side. It seemed a case of ignorant savages on one side and educated civilized fearful whites on the other. It is hard to find a country in Africa in which blks seem to be running any remotely admirable form of government. At least South Africa had some modernization. If the blks took over it seemed everything would likely head down the tube. And the whites would be deprived of property, probably even many killed from blk anger. Ones senses, over time, that many groups with legitimate grievances, once in power, just use the power to abuse and pay back their former oppressors. In these cases, it becomes simply a question of who gets to oppress who? Matters of justice, opportunity, respect are seldom the principal players.
History has dealt Africa cruel fates. It is a country where seasonal climate changes require seasonal migration, not just for animals, but often for humans too. Because of this, owning land was not feasible. Instead, people formed tribes which were kind of mobile families who adjusted to migratory and rural existences. Constant movement does not generate stable societies, or cities of buildings and tradesman, or any of the other factors which generate what we call civilized societies. But one cannot read any book by those who lived in such simple communities and not recognize how fond they were of such a life. When colonization ended, Africa was divided up into countries with the boundaries drawn up by Europeans on another continent. But Africa is a country which is not well served by boundaries----boundaries which impede seasonal migrations and force competing tribes to co-exist and compete for power. Then add eager-beaver missionaries of various ilk who interjected competing religious dogmas into the mix. Now you have different tribes, different religions, and the alien concept of owning property. What you end up with is modern day Africa---discombobulated chaos.
There have been whites living in South Africa for centuries. They have a right to feel South Africa is their country too. Of course Africans were there first and have a right, in that sense, to claim it is their country. And of course there are far more blacks than whites in South Africa. I have taught in a University where blk students were in the majority and fully understand the limitations of any nondiscriminatory application of justice to those in any kind of minority. If you are a white minority you pay a price. There is no way to press a button or pass a law and make everyone color blind. Depending on your goals, being in a minority setting in a majority society may or may not be suitable. Of course all of this is minor compared to the former apartheid situation in South Africa where a minority owned most of the wealth, including the land. Solomon himself would be stymied in such a situation.
To read Mendella's book is to see life through the eyes of one who started his life in a peaceful rural 'primitive' society and gradually became more educated, more urbanized, more aware of injustices heaped on his own race. Mendella is an effective leader because he has the capacity to see matters through the eyes of both sides. He genuinely wants justice and fairness to prevail. He doesn't hold a lot of grudges. He is a practical,kindly, tolerant person who understands that progress comes in bits and pieces. It seems there are two kinds of people who spend their lives fighting for justice. There are those who fight battles for individual justice in individual situations. This is a safer tactic. Then there are those who tackle the problems from a more general viewpoint and try to reform a government which discriminates through laws and tyranny. Nelson Mendella chose the latter path. This kind of path requires a unique courage, patience, and personality. With a different personality Mendella would have been eliminated by the South African Government early in his role as a reformer. Instead the Government leaders sensed Mendella was a smart, fair, decent enough guy, with noble intentions, BUT---to protect the interests of whites he had to at least be locked up for life. And thus he was put in jail, instead of being hung.
Most of us are never going to have the courage and devotion to take on a whole government possessing dictatorial powers, especially when the usual result is your own death. Mendella's faith, courage, and patience never wavered for more than 50 years. He spent most of these years imprisoned on an island. It need be remembered that Mendella was not some uneducated low class ruffian whose alternative to being a rebel was extreme poverty, poor health care, slave-like labor, and a short life span. Mendella was a lawyer who could make good money if he just accepted apartheid with all the injustices it laid on most of South African blacks. I can understand some urban gang member who fights because, in his eyes, there is nothing left to lose. Mendella and his fellow leaders (blk and white) were educated, civilized responsible individuals with an acute sense of fairness. They simply could not do otherwise when most of us would certainly have accepted our own good luck and been sure not to rock the boat---of course for the sake of our own status in life, our own financial situation, our own family, our own comfortable lifestyle. To me, decent people who go to such lengths to elevate the level of justice and freedom for all in society are true heroes.
I think most people are good people in some aspect of their life. The worst of thugs may be truly loyal and just to his own mother or other gang members. The difference between most of us and the Mendella kind of true heroes is one of range and scale. This range varies from age to age. Right now we are in the midst of a religious based 'family values' rage where one's responsibilities, concerns, and focus are centered on one's own family members. The socio-economic forces are such today that more and more people circle the wagons around their own family unit. If a person can protect their own family members, their duty is done. A lot of people, probably a hefty majority, really don't want to hear too much about the problems of others distant from their own immediate life circumstance. These other unfortunate people, at home or abroad, have no real relevance to the lives of the more fortunate, and besides, most of the fortunate honestly feel they have 'earned' their good fortune. If you feel you have earned your good fortune then others less fortunate can simply do the same thing----the old fashioned way---earn their good fortune. Whenever I hear anyone say God has blessed them with talent or good luck, or whatever, I always cringe. My favorite self made sport figure---Terrell Owens---is always doing that. This is nothing more than the old Smother's Brothers joke---"Mama always liked you better than me". Beliefs are just that, and so not provable, but I don't believe in any God of that nature. I don't even pray any more for God's help with problems in my life. The idea that God is going to help me and ignore the homeless, the poor, etc, is just, in my mind, preposterous. Like what kind of God would be that way? When I get sick I could pray for God not to let me die BUT, I have lived a good life, why would God intervene to save my life and not intervene to save a life of a helpless child in a refugee camp?
Let me make the assumption that Mandella is a true hero. To whom do I give the credit---Mendella? God? His environment? His genetical parents? The credit goes to the God created laws of evolution. We don't have to totally understand the evolutionary process. We know it exists and we know the results of millions of years of progress. God created the system. The magnificence, beauty, creativity, and value is in the system, not the individual players. This system is built around change, and the changes affect survival under ever changing conditions. Without the constant changes, no species survives. The idea that God fiddles around and decides which egg combines with which sperm is, to me, kind of farfetched. It is more likely, again to me, that God macro manages, not micro manages. God is the creator of the evolutionary process, not the micromanager. I am grateful everyday for the many UNEARNED advantages I have, by good luck, gotten. All of ethics is then focused on those with such unearned advantages doing what they can to make a better life for those less advantaged. Are there rewards for being ethical? I think so in terms of real contentment, and maybe in some life after death, but this latter seems farfetched. True, but then so is all of existing life farfetched by any measure of human comprehension.
Mandella, from early on, was constantly given opportunities to get out of jail or not be thrown in jail IF he would just justify apartheid. He never would compromise his principles to save his own freedom. When these principles affect the lives of a large group of people, this non compromise takes on momentous importance. Mandella languished in jail for many decades, and a blk man in jail in apartheid South Africa had no easy life. Over time the task of a minority white population to control a large majority blk population proved impossible. The desperately poor blk population had nothing to lose and whites began to fear they would be killed one by one in ever increasing numbers. Under these circumstances it is no surprise that the whites would turn to Nelson Mandella to become the major blk leader in a government controlled by blks. The whites knew Mandella was a practical, reasonable, fair person who really did believe in justice and freedom for all. Whites also knew that justice and freedom for all was going to result in wealth, including land, being spread around more fairly. To be fair sometimes necessitates considerable sacrifice. People who have the power to have it their way also have the power to have things done the fair way. These kind of power and fairness questions exist all over the globe. For example, in America we all really do know that it is only fair that government spend the same amount of money to educate a child of the non-affluent as it does a child of the affluent. We know this. But the sacrifice to do justice here is hard to swallow, and so it just, so far, never gets done.
Mandella is not leader who generates famous quotations. He has written endless practical observations and principles relating to justice and freedom. Some of the quotations below give us insight into the feelings and thoughts of a unique kind of leader.
When Mandella's father died the family was forced to leave the village he was born in: "I mourned less for my father than for the world I was leaving behind. Qunu was all that I knew, and I lived it in the unconditional way that child loves his first home. Before we disappeared behind the hills, I turned and looked for what I imagined was the last time at my village. I could see the simple huts and the people going about their chores; the stream where I had splashed and played with the other boys; the maize fields and green pastures where the herds and flocks were lazily grazing. I imagined my friends out hunting for small birds, drinking the sweet milk from the cow's udder, cavorting in the pond at the end of the stream. Above all else, my eyes rested on the three simple huts where I had enjoyed by mother's love and protection. It was these three huts that I associated with all my happiness, with life itself....I could not imagine that the future I was walking toward could compare in any way to the past that I was leaving behind."
Relating to his first experience at a University: "Perhaps as a result of all this unfamiliarity, I yearned for some of the simple pleasures that I had known as a boy.....Although I felt myself to be a sophisticated young fellow, I was still a country boy who missed country pleasures."
His favorite Marxist quote: "From each according to his ability; to each according to his needs."
"The oppressed people and the oppressors are at loggerheads. The day of reckoning between the forces of freedom and those of reaction is not very far off. I have not the slightest doubt that when that day comes truth and justice will prevail.....The feelings of the oppressed people have never been more bitter. The grave plight of the people compels them to resist to the death the stinking policies of the gangsters that rule our country.....To overthrow oppression has been sanctioned by humanity and is the highest aspiration of every free man."
"A freedom fighter learns the hard way that it is the oppressor who defines the nature of the struggle, and the oppressed is often left no recourse but to use methods that mirror those of the oppressor. At a certain point, one can only fight fire with fire."
Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farm workers can become the president of a great nation. It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.....Education was not compulsory for Africans and was free only in the primary grades. Less than half of all African children of school age attended any school at all, and only a tiny number of Africans were graduated from high school. "
"I have discovered that in discussions it never helps to take a morally superior tone to one's opponent."
"I returned to Qunu that morning and spent another few days there. I tramped across the veld to visit friends and relatives, but the magic world of my childhood had fled".
"It stands to reason that an immoral and unjust legal system would breed contempt for its laws and regulations. "
"I do not like killing any living thing, even those creatures that fill some people with dread."
"I felt the urge to give this woman money. In that moment I realized the tricks that apartheid plays on one, for the everyday travails that afflict Africans are accepted as a matter of course, while my heart immediately went out to be bedraggled white woman. IN South Africa, to be poor and black was normal, to be poor and white was a tragedy."
"The idea was to preserve the status quo where three million whites owned 87% of the land and relegate the eight million Africans to the remaining 13 percent."
"I always thought that a man should own a house near the place he was born, where he might find a restfulness that eludes him elsewhere."
"It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones---and South Africa treated its imprisoned African citizens like animals. "
"I went from having an idealistic view of the law as a sword of justice to a perception of the law as a tool used by the ruling class to shape society in a way favorable to itself. I never expected justice in court, however much I fought for it, and though I sometimes received it."
"Although I am a gregarious person, I love solitude even more."
"These young men were a different breed of prisoner than we had ever seen before. They were brave, hostile, and aggressive; they would not take orders, and shouted 'Amandia' at every opportunity. Their instinct was to confront rather than cooperate. The authorities did not know how to handle them, and they turned the island upside down. During the Rivonia Trial, I remarked to a security policeman that if the government did not reform itself, the freedom fighters who would take our place would someday make the authorities yearn for us. That day had indeed come on Robben Island.....In these young men we saw the angry revolutionary spirit of the times. I had had some warning. At a visit with Winnie a few months before, she had managed to tell me through our coded conversation that there was a rising class of discontented youth who were militant and Africanist in orientation. She said they were changing the nature of the struggle and that I should be aware of them."
"The young man, who was no more than eighteen years old, was wearing his prison cap in the presence of senior officers, a violation of regulations. Nor did he stand up when the major entered the room, another violation. The major looked at him and said, "Please, take off your cap". The prisoner ignored him. Then in an irritated tone, the major said, "Take off your cap". The prisoner turned and looked at the major, and said, "What for? I could hardly believe what I had just heard. It was a revolutionary question: What for? The major also seemed taken aback, but managed a reply. "It is against regulations," he said. The young prisoner responded, "Why do you have this regulation? What is the purpose of it?" This questioning on the part of the prisoner was too much for the major, and he stomped out of the room, saying, "Mandella, you talk to him." But I would not intervene on his behalf, and simply bowed in the direction of the prisoner to let him know that I was on his side."
"The Black Consciousness Movement helped fill a vacuum among young people. Black Consciousness was less a movement than a philosophy and grew out of the idea that blacks must first liberate themselves from the sense of psychological inferiority bred by three centuries of white rule. Only then could the people rise up in confidence and truly liberate themselves from repression."
"A garden was one of the few things in prison that one could control. To plant a seed, watch it grow, to tend to it and then harvest it, offered a simple but enduring satisfaction. The sense of being the custodian of this small patch of earth offered a small taste of freedom."
Mandella's response when the Government offered to release him from prison if he would renounce violence. "I am surprised at the conditions what the government wants to impose on me. I am not a violent man....It was only the, when all other forms of resistance were no longer open to us, that we turned to armed struggle. Let Botha show that he is different to Malan, Strijdom and Verwoerd. Let him renounce violence. Let him say that he will dismantle apartheid. Let him unban the people's organization, the African national Congress. Let him free all who have been imprisoned, banished, or exiled for their opposition to apartheid. Let him guarantee free political activity so that people may decide who will govern them. I cherish my own freedom dearly, but I care even more for your freedom. Too many hae died since I went to prison. Too many hafe suffered for the love of freedom. I owe it to their widows, to their orphans, to their mothers, and to their fathers who have grieved and wept for them. Not only I have suffered during these long, lonely, wasted years. I am not less life-loving than you are. But I cannot sell my birthright, nor am I prepared to sell the birthright of the people to free."
"We had right on our side, but not yet might"
Visiting his youthful village after his release from prison: "What endured was the warmth and simplicity of the community, which took me back to my days as a boy. But what disturbed me was that the villagers seemed as poor if not poorer than they had been then. Most people still lived in simple huts with dirt floors, with no electricity and no running water. When I was young, the village was tidy, the water pure, and the grass green and unsullied as far as the eye could see. Kraals were swept, the topsoil was conserved, fields were neatly divided. But now the village was unswept, the water polluted, and the countryside littered with plastic bags and wrappers. We had not known of plastic when I was a boy, and though it improved life in some ways, its presence in Qunu appeared to me to be a kind of blight. Pride in the community seemed to have vanished."
"I was not born with a hunger to be free. I was born free---free in every way that I could know. Free to run in the fields near my mother's hut, free to swim in the clear stream that ran through my village, free to roast mealies under the stars and ride the broad backs of slow-moving bulls. As long as I obeyed my father and abided by the customs of my tribe, I was not troubled by the laws of man or God.
It was only when I began to learn that my boyhood freedom was an illusion, when I discovered as a young man that my freedom had already been taken from me, that I began to hunger for it. At first, as a student, I wanted freedom only for myself, the transitory freedoms of being able to stay out at night, read what I pleased, and go where I chose. Later, as a young man in Johannesburg, I yearned for the basic and honorable freedoms of achieving my potential, of earning my keep, of marrying and having a family---the freedom not to be obstructed in a lawful life.
But then I slowly saw that not only was I not free, but my brothers and sisters were not free. I saw that it was not just my freedom that was curtailed, but the freedom of everyone who looked like I did. That is when I joined the African National Congress, and that is when the hunger for my own freedom became the greater hunger for the freedom of my people. It was this desire for the freedom of my people to live their lives with dignity and self-respect that animated my life, that transformed a frightened young man into a bold one, that drove a law-abiding attorney to become a criminal, that turned a family-loving husband into a man without a home, that forced a life-loving man to live like a monk. I am no more virtuous or self-sacrificing than the next man, but I found that I could not even enjoy the poor and limited freedoms I was allowed when I knew my people were not free. Freedom is indivisible; the chains on any one o my people were the chains on all of them, the chains on all of my people were the chains on me.
It was during those long and lonely years that my hunger for the freedom of my own people became a hunger for the freedom of all people, white and black. I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed. A man who takes away another man's freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness. I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else's freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.
When I walked out of prison, that was my mission, to liberate the oppressed and the oppressor both. Some say that has now been achieved. But I know that that is not the case. The truth is that we are not yet free; we have merely achieved the freedom to be free, the right not to be oppressed. We have not taken the final step of our journey, but the first step on a longer and even more difficult road. For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way the respects and enhances the freedom of others. The true test of our devotion to freedom is just beginning.
I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter. I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended.
I can't say Nelson Mendella has been much in my thoughts throughout my life. I ordered his autobiography with but mild interest. But his book is fascinating and thought provoking. When he was getting himself in trouble in South Africa over apartheid, I was finishing high school and then was in college. I do not recall now ever paying much attention to him. I knew both whites and blks claimed South Africa as their home. It seemed whichever side had control would certainly stiff the other side. It seemed a case of ignorant savages on one side and educated civilized fearful whites on the other. It is hard to find a country in Africa in which blks seem to be running any remotely admirable form of government. At least South Africa had some modernization. If the blks took over it seemed everything would likely head down the tube. And the whites would be deprived of property, probably even many killed from blk anger. Ones senses, over time, that many groups with legitimate grievances, once in power, just use the power to abuse and pay back their former oppressors. In these cases, it becomes simply a question of who gets to oppress who? Matters of justice, opportunity, respect are seldom the principal players.
History has dealt Africa cruel fates. It is a country where seasonal climate changes require seasonal migration, not just for animals, but often for humans too. Because of this, owning land was not feasible. Instead, people formed tribes which were kind of mobile families who adjusted to migratory and rural existences. Constant movement does not generate stable societies, or cities of buildings and tradesman, or any of the other factors which generate what we call civilized societies. But one cannot read any book by those who lived in such simple communities and not recognize how fond they were of such a life. When colonization ended, Africa was divided up into countries with the boundaries drawn up by Europeans on another continent. But Africa is a country which is not well served by boundaries----boundaries which impede seasonal migrations and force competing tribes to co-exist and compete for power. Then add eager-beaver missionaries of various ilk who interjected competing religious dogmas into the mix. Now you have different tribes, different religions, and the alien concept of owning property. What you end up with is modern day Africa---discombobulated chaos.
There have been whites living in South Africa for centuries. They have a right to feel South Africa is their country too. Of course Africans were there first and have a right, in that sense, to claim it is their country. And of course there are far more blacks than whites in South Africa. I have taught in a University where blk students were in the majority and fully understand the limitations of any nondiscriminatory application of justice to those in any kind of minority. If you are a white minority you pay a price. There is no way to press a button or pass a law and make everyone color blind. Depending on your goals, being in a minority setting in a majority society may or may not be suitable. Of course all of this is minor compared to the former apartheid situation in South Africa where a minority owned most of the wealth, including the land. Solomon himself would be stymied in such a situation.
To read Mendella's book is to see life through the eyes of one who started his life in a peaceful rural 'primitive' society and gradually became more educated, more urbanized, more aware of injustices heaped on his own race. Mendella is an effective leader because he has the capacity to see matters through the eyes of both sides. He genuinely wants justice and fairness to prevail. He doesn't hold a lot of grudges. He is a practical,kindly, tolerant person who understands that progress comes in bits and pieces. It seems there are two kinds of people who spend their lives fighting for justice. There are those who fight battles for individual justice in individual situations. This is a safer tactic. Then there are those who tackle the problems from a more general viewpoint and try to reform a government which discriminates through laws and tyranny. Nelson Mendella chose the latter path. This kind of path requires a unique courage, patience, and personality. With a different personality Mendella would have been eliminated by the South African Government early in his role as a reformer. Instead the Government leaders sensed Mendella was a smart, fair, decent enough guy, with noble intentions, BUT---to protect the interests of whites he had to at least be locked up for life. And thus he was put in jail, instead of being hung.
Most of us are never going to have the courage and devotion to take on a whole government possessing dictatorial powers, especially when the usual result is your own death. Mendella's faith, courage, and patience never wavered for more than 50 years. He spent most of these years imprisoned on an island. It need be remembered that Mendella was not some uneducated low class ruffian whose alternative to being a rebel was extreme poverty, poor health care, slave-like labor, and a short life span. Mendella was a lawyer who could make good money if he just accepted apartheid with all the injustices it laid on most of South African blacks. I can understand some urban gang member who fights because, in his eyes, there is nothing left to lose. Mendella and his fellow leaders (blk and white) were educated, civilized responsible individuals with an acute sense of fairness. They simply could not do otherwise when most of us would certainly have accepted our own good luck and been sure not to rock the boat---of course for the sake of our own status in life, our own financial situation, our own family, our own comfortable lifestyle. To me, decent people who go to such lengths to elevate the level of justice and freedom for all in society are true heroes.
I think most people are good people in some aspect of their life. The worst of thugs may be truly loyal and just to his own mother or other gang members. The difference between most of us and the Mendella kind of true heroes is one of range and scale. This range varies from age to age. Right now we are in the midst of a religious based 'family values' rage where one's responsibilities, concerns, and focus are centered on one's own family members. The socio-economic forces are such today that more and more people circle the wagons around their own family unit. If a person can protect their own family members, their duty is done. A lot of people, probably a hefty majority, really don't want to hear too much about the problems of others distant from their own immediate life circumstance. These other unfortunate people, at home or abroad, have no real relevance to the lives of the more fortunate, and besides, most of the fortunate honestly feel they have 'earned' their good fortune. If you feel you have earned your good fortune then others less fortunate can simply do the same thing----the old fashioned way---earn their good fortune. Whenever I hear anyone say God has blessed them with talent or good luck, or whatever, I always cringe. My favorite self made sport figure---Terrell Owens---is always doing that. This is nothing more than the old Smother's Brothers joke---"Mama always liked you better than me". Beliefs are just that, and so not provable, but I don't believe in any God of that nature. I don't even pray any more for God's help with problems in my life. The idea that God is going to help me and ignore the homeless, the poor, etc, is just, in my mind, preposterous. Like what kind of God would be that way? When I get sick I could pray for God not to let me die BUT, I have lived a good life, why would God intervene to save my life and not intervene to save a life of a helpless child in a refugee camp?
Let me make the assumption that Mandella is a true hero. To whom do I give the credit---Mendella? God? His environment? His genetical parents? The credit goes to the God created laws of evolution. We don't have to totally understand the evolutionary process. We know it exists and we know the results of millions of years of progress. God created the system. The magnificence, beauty, creativity, and value is in the system, not the individual players. This system is built around change, and the changes affect survival under ever changing conditions. Without the constant changes, no species survives. The idea that God fiddles around and decides which egg combines with which sperm is, to me, kind of farfetched. It is more likely, again to me, that God macro manages, not micro manages. God is the creator of the evolutionary process, not the micromanager. I am grateful everyday for the many UNEARNED advantages I have, by good luck, gotten. All of ethics is then focused on those with such unearned advantages doing what they can to make a better life for those less advantaged. Are there rewards for being ethical? I think so in terms of real contentment, and maybe in some life after death, but this latter seems farfetched. True, but then so is all of existing life farfetched by any measure of human comprehension.
Mandella, from early on, was constantly given opportunities to get out of jail or not be thrown in jail IF he would just justify apartheid. He never would compromise his principles to save his own freedom. When these principles affect the lives of a large group of people, this non compromise takes on momentous importance. Mandella languished in jail for many decades, and a blk man in jail in apartheid South Africa had no easy life. Over time the task of a minority white population to control a large majority blk population proved impossible. The desperately poor blk population had nothing to lose and whites began to fear they would be killed one by one in ever increasing numbers. Under these circumstances it is no surprise that the whites would turn to Nelson Mandella to become the major blk leader in a government controlled by blks. The whites knew Mandella was a practical, reasonable, fair person who really did believe in justice and freedom for all. Whites also knew that justice and freedom for all was going to result in wealth, including land, being spread around more fairly. To be fair sometimes necessitates considerable sacrifice. People who have the power to have it their way also have the power to have things done the fair way. These kind of power and fairness questions exist all over the globe. For example, in America we all really do know that it is only fair that government spend the same amount of money to educate a child of the non-affluent as it does a child of the affluent. We know this. But the sacrifice to do justice here is hard to swallow, and so it just, so far, never gets done.
Mandella is not leader who generates famous quotations. He has written endless practical observations and principles relating to justice and freedom. Some of the quotations below give us insight into the feelings and thoughts of a unique kind of leader.
When Mandella's father died the family was forced to leave the village he was born in: "I mourned less for my father than for the world I was leaving behind. Qunu was all that I knew, and I lived it in the unconditional way that child loves his first home. Before we disappeared behind the hills, I turned and looked for what I imagined was the last time at my village. I could see the simple huts and the people going about their chores; the stream where I had splashed and played with the other boys; the maize fields and green pastures where the herds and flocks were lazily grazing. I imagined my friends out hunting for small birds, drinking the sweet milk from the cow's udder, cavorting in the pond at the end of the stream. Above all else, my eyes rested on the three simple huts where I had enjoyed by mother's love and protection. It was these three huts that I associated with all my happiness, with life itself....I could not imagine that the future I was walking toward could compare in any way to the past that I was leaving behind."
Relating to his first experience at a University: "Perhaps as a result of all this unfamiliarity, I yearned for some of the simple pleasures that I had known as a boy.....Although I felt myself to be a sophisticated young fellow, I was still a country boy who missed country pleasures."
His favorite Marxist quote: "From each according to his ability; to each according to his needs."
"The oppressed people and the oppressors are at loggerheads. The day of reckoning between the forces of freedom and those of reaction is not very far off. I have not the slightest doubt that when that day comes truth and justice will prevail.....The feelings of the oppressed people have never been more bitter. The grave plight of the people compels them to resist to the death the stinking policies of the gangsters that rule our country.....To overthrow oppression has been sanctioned by humanity and is the highest aspiration of every free man."
"A freedom fighter learns the hard way that it is the oppressor who defines the nature of the struggle, and the oppressed is often left no recourse but to use methods that mirror those of the oppressor. At a certain point, one can only fight fire with fire."
Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farm workers can become the president of a great nation. It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.....Education was not compulsory for Africans and was free only in the primary grades. Less than half of all African children of school age attended any school at all, and only a tiny number of Africans were graduated from high school. "
"I have discovered that in discussions it never helps to take a morally superior tone to one's opponent."
"I returned to Qunu that morning and spent another few days there. I tramped across the veld to visit friends and relatives, but the magic world of my childhood had fled".
"It stands to reason that an immoral and unjust legal system would breed contempt for its laws and regulations. "
"I do not like killing any living thing, even those creatures that fill some people with dread."
"I felt the urge to give this woman money. In that moment I realized the tricks that apartheid plays on one, for the everyday travails that afflict Africans are accepted as a matter of course, while my heart immediately went out to be bedraggled white woman. IN South Africa, to be poor and black was normal, to be poor and white was a tragedy."
"The idea was to preserve the status quo where three million whites owned 87% of the land and relegate the eight million Africans to the remaining 13 percent."
"I always thought that a man should own a house near the place he was born, where he might find a restfulness that eludes him elsewhere."
"It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones---and South Africa treated its imprisoned African citizens like animals. "
"I went from having an idealistic view of the law as a sword of justice to a perception of the law as a tool used by the ruling class to shape society in a way favorable to itself. I never expected justice in court, however much I fought for it, and though I sometimes received it."
"Although I am a gregarious person, I love solitude even more."
"These young men were a different breed of prisoner than we had ever seen before. They were brave, hostile, and aggressive; they would not take orders, and shouted 'Amandia' at every opportunity. Their instinct was to confront rather than cooperate. The authorities did not know how to handle them, and they turned the island upside down. During the Rivonia Trial, I remarked to a security policeman that if the government did not reform itself, the freedom fighters who would take our place would someday make the authorities yearn for us. That day had indeed come on Robben Island.....In these young men we saw the angry revolutionary spirit of the times. I had had some warning. At a visit with Winnie a few months before, she had managed to tell me through our coded conversation that there was a rising class of discontented youth who were militant and Africanist in orientation. She said they were changing the nature of the struggle and that I should be aware of them."
"The young man, who was no more than eighteen years old, was wearing his prison cap in the presence of senior officers, a violation of regulations. Nor did he stand up when the major entered the room, another violation. The major looked at him and said, "Please, take off your cap". The prisoner ignored him. Then in an irritated tone, the major said, "Take off your cap". The prisoner turned and looked at the major, and said, "What for? I could hardly believe what I had just heard. It was a revolutionary question: What for? The major also seemed taken aback, but managed a reply. "It is against regulations," he said. The young prisoner responded, "Why do you have this regulation? What is the purpose of it?" This questioning on the part of the prisoner was too much for the major, and he stomped out of the room, saying, "Mandella, you talk to him." But I would not intervene on his behalf, and simply bowed in the direction of the prisoner to let him know that I was on his side."
"The Black Consciousness Movement helped fill a vacuum among young people. Black Consciousness was less a movement than a philosophy and grew out of the idea that blacks must first liberate themselves from the sense of psychological inferiority bred by three centuries of white rule. Only then could the people rise up in confidence and truly liberate themselves from repression."
"A garden was one of the few things in prison that one could control. To plant a seed, watch it grow, to tend to it and then harvest it, offered a simple but enduring satisfaction. The sense of being the custodian of this small patch of earth offered a small taste of freedom."
Mandella's response when the Government offered to release him from prison if he would renounce violence. "I am surprised at the conditions what the government wants to impose on me. I am not a violent man....It was only the, when all other forms of resistance were no longer open to us, that we turned to armed struggle. Let Botha show that he is different to Malan, Strijdom and Verwoerd. Let him renounce violence. Let him say that he will dismantle apartheid. Let him unban the people's organization, the African national Congress. Let him free all who have been imprisoned, banished, or exiled for their opposition to apartheid. Let him guarantee free political activity so that people may decide who will govern them. I cherish my own freedom dearly, but I care even more for your freedom. Too many hae died since I went to prison. Too many hafe suffered for the love of freedom. I owe it to their widows, to their orphans, to their mothers, and to their fathers who have grieved and wept for them. Not only I have suffered during these long, lonely, wasted years. I am not less life-loving than you are. But I cannot sell my birthright, nor am I prepared to sell the birthright of the people to free."
"We had right on our side, but not yet might"
Visiting his youthful village after his release from prison: "What endured was the warmth and simplicity of the community, which took me back to my days as a boy. But what disturbed me was that the villagers seemed as poor if not poorer than they had been then. Most people still lived in simple huts with dirt floors, with no electricity and no running water. When I was young, the village was tidy, the water pure, and the grass green and unsullied as far as the eye could see. Kraals were swept, the topsoil was conserved, fields were neatly divided. But now the village was unswept, the water polluted, and the countryside littered with plastic bags and wrappers. We had not known of plastic when I was a boy, and though it improved life in some ways, its presence in Qunu appeared to me to be a kind of blight. Pride in the community seemed to have vanished."
"I was not born with a hunger to be free. I was born free---free in every way that I could know. Free to run in the fields near my mother's hut, free to swim in the clear stream that ran through my village, free to roast mealies under the stars and ride the broad backs of slow-moving bulls. As long as I obeyed my father and abided by the customs of my tribe, I was not troubled by the laws of man or God.
It was only when I began to learn that my boyhood freedom was an illusion, when I discovered as a young man that my freedom had already been taken from me, that I began to hunger for it. At first, as a student, I wanted freedom only for myself, the transitory freedoms of being able to stay out at night, read what I pleased, and go where I chose. Later, as a young man in Johannesburg, I yearned for the basic and honorable freedoms of achieving my potential, of earning my keep, of marrying and having a family---the freedom not to be obstructed in a lawful life.
But then I slowly saw that not only was I not free, but my brothers and sisters were not free. I saw that it was not just my freedom that was curtailed, but the freedom of everyone who looked like I did. That is when I joined the African National Congress, and that is when the hunger for my own freedom became the greater hunger for the freedom of my people. It was this desire for the freedom of my people to live their lives with dignity and self-respect that animated my life, that transformed a frightened young man into a bold one, that drove a law-abiding attorney to become a criminal, that turned a family-loving husband into a man without a home, that forced a life-loving man to live like a monk. I am no more virtuous or self-sacrificing than the next man, but I found that I could not even enjoy the poor and limited freedoms I was allowed when I knew my people were not free. Freedom is indivisible; the chains on any one o my people were the chains on all of them, the chains on all of my people were the chains on me.
It was during those long and lonely years that my hunger for the freedom of my own people became a hunger for the freedom of all people, white and black. I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed. A man who takes away another man's freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness. I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else's freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.
When I walked out of prison, that was my mission, to liberate the oppressed and the oppressor both. Some say that has now been achieved. But I know that that is not the case. The truth is that we are not yet free; we have merely achieved the freedom to be free, the right not to be oppressed. We have not taken the final step of our journey, but the first step on a longer and even more difficult road. For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way the respects and enhances the freedom of others. The true test of our devotion to freedom is just beginning.
I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter. I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Killing as Sport
Killing as Sport
This has baffled me for years. Some people enjoy killing and others abhor it. Of course there are degrees to the liking or abhorring. This sport has seemingly nothing to do with any of the other human differences such as ethnicity or religion or economic class or environment etc. My brother enjoyed killing things, I did not and such differences are endless across the human spectrum. I don't think it is something that is taught, at least not in many cases. I used to raise chickens as a boy and sell the eggs. If a chicken was sick or being mercilessly attacked by other chickens it had to be killed---strung up and it's throat cut till it bled to death. No matter how necessary I was just traumatized, totally turned off by it all.
Hunting never appealed to me. I simply never have any desire to kill anything outside of small insects. It never struck me that ending a life is something to find appealing. I never saw hunting as much of a sport in that the danger and risk is almost always on the side of the hunted animal. I can't recall any hunter I have known to ever have been killed or maimed in any way by the animals he was hunting. My father hunted but he rarely came home with anything, maybe a quail or pheasant now and then. I don't think he ever tried very hard. I had an uncle who used to raise pheasants in pens and then let them go in his corn fields so 'hunters' could parade through the rows of corn and shoot them. Seems silly to me.
I have sat at the top of hills with my brother and shot groundhogs as they emerged from their holes great distances away. That was easier as I was not close enough to watch the death. Some ghetto gang members learn to enjoy killing, sometimes killing during a robbery for no apparent reason. I have chatted with many a young person who can't wait to join the army, are turned on by the risk and adventure and look forward to the killing fields. I always think I wouldn't want any army around my neighborhood with soldiers like that part of the army. In far too many cases a volunteer army attracts those young people looking for a license to kill. When we read about some of the atrocities they commit we then act shocked and often don't believe these atrocities happened. It is just a small few we like to say. Maybe, but the small is larger than we admit, and why do we accept these young people into an army which will represent us abroad?
Hunting does not appear to be a moral issue as such. Throughout evolution there are always the hunted and the hunters. It is an integral part of evolution. There are certainly times when killing other humans is justified. If your country is invaded defense is legitimate. German soldiers did not belong in Poland or Russia or France. Russian soldiers did not belong in Afghanistan. American soldiers did not belong in Vietnam, etc. Mass murders endorsed by government leaders does not make it legitimate. Blind patriotism as the reason for participating in such mass murders is unethical. In the end each of us is responsible for any acts of murder we commit. There needs to be a legitimate reason. Religious people who kill or support killing crusades are the most difficult to understand. Religious based killings are often of the most vicious kind. I find that strange. It is like if a person believes God wills they kill, they then feel free to be as savage about it as their feelings dictate.
We all know sex and violence sell, attract audiences. We also know that the kind of senseless violence found in modern invasions or internal genocides can leave all involved with deep mental problems. Many of our soldiers come back from these kind of senseless brutal conflicts with an inability to have normal feelings of empathy or tolerance or patience. Their emotional state is all screwed up. Some call them heroes, I call them victims. Heroes are soldiers who fight valiant battles on a battlefield against an invading uniformed army. Hardly see those kind of contests anymore. The only ones pretty much left running around the world in military uniforms are Americans. We have military bases, green zones, safe zones, whatever you want to call them, all over the world. Sort of like Britain, France, and Spain did back in the early days of our history. We copied, they gave it up, and we go into massive debt to overextend ourselves all over the globe. This is hardly endearing ourselves to the rest of the world. We are always saving somebody---from communism, from religious extremists, from bad leaders, from drug trafficking, from their refusal to let us control their own natural resources, and whatever else seems to be in our own best interests. The word sovereign hardly exists in our vocabulary anymore. I kind of liked that word and know our founding fathers kind of cherished it. When our own frontier expansion was used up we kind of just kept on going----it was our manifest destiny. I guess not much different from the manifest destiny of Hitler, the Taliban, Irish Catholics, Irish Protestants, the Moral Majority, the Jews, the Communists, the Muslims, etc. I prefer to look on the Universal Golden Rule as the only legitimate manifest destiny. All else is self illusional bullshit.
I will never know why some people like to hunt animals and kill them. If I see two deer in a field and I shoot one, I know the other one will miss it's fallen friend. Yet I also know that humans and other animals depend on the killing of other animals for food.
If I shoot one of the deer because I don't have any food or I kill it for sport, the remaining deer will still be sad. Some aspects of life are just beyond human comprehension. Maybe some day down the road in God's evolutionary process humans will understand mysteries like this. Right now, I just don't. I used to get my exercise in a different county in my state. There the forest preserves were overpopulated with deer. Now the county in which I live has forest preserves devoid pretty much of animal life. They shoot, for example, all the deer they can find. I have watched these 'professional' hunters arrive at dusk in their huge all terrain vehicles, all dressed like about to go on some rough and tough hunt. Most of them are grossly overweight and merely park near a deer trail, climb up in a tree and wait for a deer to walk by and then shoot it. I get more physical exercise in an hour than they do all night. I have no objection to deer herds being culled, overpopulation is bad for the environment, and humans are no exception. But of course, in this case, the 'Yahoos' with a need to kill for pleasure are turned loose and simply kill anything that moves in the forest preserves. Maybe they stuff animal heads and hang them on their wall. Each of us, myself and them, consider the other an asshole.
I can never reach any conclusion about hunting. It just remains, to me, a mystery as to why some people enjoy killing animals and others find it emotionally traumatic. Of course there is a continuum here, not any sharp division. Feelings on either side can range from intense to mild to indifference. I guess it just is.
This has baffled me for years. Some people enjoy killing and others abhor it. Of course there are degrees to the liking or abhorring. This sport has seemingly nothing to do with any of the other human differences such as ethnicity or religion or economic class or environment etc. My brother enjoyed killing things, I did not and such differences are endless across the human spectrum. I don't think it is something that is taught, at least not in many cases. I used to raise chickens as a boy and sell the eggs. If a chicken was sick or being mercilessly attacked by other chickens it had to be killed---strung up and it's throat cut till it bled to death. No matter how necessary I was just traumatized, totally turned off by it all.
Hunting never appealed to me. I simply never have any desire to kill anything outside of small insects. It never struck me that ending a life is something to find appealing. I never saw hunting as much of a sport in that the danger and risk is almost always on the side of the hunted animal. I can't recall any hunter I have known to ever have been killed or maimed in any way by the animals he was hunting. My father hunted but he rarely came home with anything, maybe a quail or pheasant now and then. I don't think he ever tried very hard. I had an uncle who used to raise pheasants in pens and then let them go in his corn fields so 'hunters' could parade through the rows of corn and shoot them. Seems silly to me.
I have sat at the top of hills with my brother and shot groundhogs as they emerged from their holes great distances away. That was easier as I was not close enough to watch the death. Some ghetto gang members learn to enjoy killing, sometimes killing during a robbery for no apparent reason. I have chatted with many a young person who can't wait to join the army, are turned on by the risk and adventure and look forward to the killing fields. I always think I wouldn't want any army around my neighborhood with soldiers like that part of the army. In far too many cases a volunteer army attracts those young people looking for a license to kill. When we read about some of the atrocities they commit we then act shocked and often don't believe these atrocities happened. It is just a small few we like to say. Maybe, but the small is larger than we admit, and why do we accept these young people into an army which will represent us abroad?
Hunting does not appear to be a moral issue as such. Throughout evolution there are always the hunted and the hunters. It is an integral part of evolution. There are certainly times when killing other humans is justified. If your country is invaded defense is legitimate. German soldiers did not belong in Poland or Russia or France. Russian soldiers did not belong in Afghanistan. American soldiers did not belong in Vietnam, etc. Mass murders endorsed by government leaders does not make it legitimate. Blind patriotism as the reason for participating in such mass murders is unethical. In the end each of us is responsible for any acts of murder we commit. There needs to be a legitimate reason. Religious people who kill or support killing crusades are the most difficult to understand. Religious based killings are often of the most vicious kind. I find that strange. It is like if a person believes God wills they kill, they then feel free to be as savage about it as their feelings dictate.
We all know sex and violence sell, attract audiences. We also know that the kind of senseless violence found in modern invasions or internal genocides can leave all involved with deep mental problems. Many of our soldiers come back from these kind of senseless brutal conflicts with an inability to have normal feelings of empathy or tolerance or patience. Their emotional state is all screwed up. Some call them heroes, I call them victims. Heroes are soldiers who fight valiant battles on a battlefield against an invading uniformed army. Hardly see those kind of contests anymore. The only ones pretty much left running around the world in military uniforms are Americans. We have military bases, green zones, safe zones, whatever you want to call them, all over the world. Sort of like Britain, France, and Spain did back in the early days of our history. We copied, they gave it up, and we go into massive debt to overextend ourselves all over the globe. This is hardly endearing ourselves to the rest of the world. We are always saving somebody---from communism, from religious extremists, from bad leaders, from drug trafficking, from their refusal to let us control their own natural resources, and whatever else seems to be in our own best interests. The word sovereign hardly exists in our vocabulary anymore. I kind of liked that word and know our founding fathers kind of cherished it. When our own frontier expansion was used up we kind of just kept on going----it was our manifest destiny. I guess not much different from the manifest destiny of Hitler, the Taliban, Irish Catholics, Irish Protestants, the Moral Majority, the Jews, the Communists, the Muslims, etc. I prefer to look on the Universal Golden Rule as the only legitimate manifest destiny. All else is self illusional bullshit.
I will never know why some people like to hunt animals and kill them. If I see two deer in a field and I shoot one, I know the other one will miss it's fallen friend. Yet I also know that humans and other animals depend on the killing of other animals for food.
If I shoot one of the deer because I don't have any food or I kill it for sport, the remaining deer will still be sad. Some aspects of life are just beyond human comprehension. Maybe some day down the road in God's evolutionary process humans will understand mysteries like this. Right now, I just don't. I used to get my exercise in a different county in my state. There the forest preserves were overpopulated with deer. Now the county in which I live has forest preserves devoid pretty much of animal life. They shoot, for example, all the deer they can find. I have watched these 'professional' hunters arrive at dusk in their huge all terrain vehicles, all dressed like about to go on some rough and tough hunt. Most of them are grossly overweight and merely park near a deer trail, climb up in a tree and wait for a deer to walk by and then shoot it. I get more physical exercise in an hour than they do all night. I have no objection to deer herds being culled, overpopulation is bad for the environment, and humans are no exception. But of course, in this case, the 'Yahoos' with a need to kill for pleasure are turned loose and simply kill anything that moves in the forest preserves. Maybe they stuff animal heads and hang them on their wall. Each of us, myself and them, consider the other an asshole.
I can never reach any conclusion about hunting. It just remains, to me, a mystery as to why some people enjoy killing animals and others find it emotionally traumatic. Of course there is a continuum here, not any sharp division. Feelings on either side can range from intense to mild to indifference. I guess it just is.
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