Note: (Musing follows)
Author Notes about this Blog
This blog was set up originally simply as a file deposit for musings which I sent out to friends. Somehow a lot of people managed to find the URL, and that is ok. Since the blogs were not originally meant for general distribution most have not been carefully edited. I may go back now and do the proper editing. I have recently published a book titled: The Meaning of Life. Anyone interested can find it listed in Amazon.com under the author name Reid S. James. There is a description of the content along with the listing. It was published in late October 2013. Any income from the book will be donated to various 501 category charities. Given the nature of the book, to do otherwise would be hypocritical. Given the original intent of this URL I have never provided an opportunity for any response to these musings. I think I will leave it that way as I don't have the time for a lot of responding to comments by others. These musings are written as food for thought, and do not purport to be anything other than what the blog implies: personal musings. Were I to personally know many of you who visit this URL I sense we would have a lot of engaging conversations. There are too many now for that to be practical.
Knock-out game, Domestic Violence, Wars, Gun Deaths, Culture, and Government
I reckon most of us agree that violent behavior can be a combination of genetics and environment. I suspect that most of us can agree that 'violence begets violence'. We live in a world in which terrorism, gun deaths, drug war violence, ethnic wars, religious wars, and violence against the environment and other species is rampant.
Behind the physical violence and vitriolic verbal assaults on others is anger. ANGER IS GOOD WHEN when it arises for the right reasons and can be channeled into a resolution to a problem. Why are so many so angry at so many things these days? I know it is the best of all worlds for some of us, and the worst of all worlds for others. BUT, even many living in a modernistic materialistic best of all worlds seem really angry or frustrated about their lives. Why is this? The American Indians, for example, had to survive winters in the northern American continent with merely a tepee and a blanket. I wonder what the anger level was back then? My guess it was less back then because the playing field was level, there weren't some Indians with with heated homes and others with tepees and blankets. IT SEEMS WHEN EVERYONE IS IN THE SAME BOAT, ON A LEVEL FIELD, COOPERATION IS GENERATED RATHER THAN ANGER. We see this over and over again with natural disasters which destroy entire communities. We see this in Scandinavian countries where no one has to worry about the basic needs of life.
If someone were to ask me to describe life in the 21st century I would be incapable of such a task. People like myself live a lifestyle that maybe constitutes 5% of the world's population. It is the best of all possible worlds for us. The other 95% are not so lucky and the lowest percentiles are living in a cruel unforgiving atmosphere.
There are more people, in terms of total numbers, dying from curable diseases, starvation, homicide, war, or existing landless---refugees with unhealthy drinking water, and greater pollution---than ever before in human history. Books written about those who go to these wretched areas as part of humanitarian assistance present about as depressing a picture of life as can be envisioned, even by science fiction.
Anger is often a product of unequal playing fields. Unequal playing fields generate unequal wealth. And unequal wealth, to the extremes, generates societal implosion. REALISTICALLY, THE PLAYING FIELDS CAN NEVER BE MADE EQUAL. Diversity is one of the engines which drives the evolutionary process. No diversity, no progress. No diversity and a species would die off en masse from environmental changes. There would be no adaptation and no evolutionary advancement. One species characteristic of humans is an elevated sense of ethics. ETHICS EXISTS TO SOFTEN THE CONSEQUENCES OF DIVERSITY. Rather than any survival of the fittest in the cruelest way, as with lower level species, humans can make life more comfortable for the least amongst us and that, in a nutshell, is our ethical duty. BUT, if that is an ethical duty imposed on us genetically, we are, collectively and miserably, failing. THIS EVOLUTIONARY TRAIT HAS A LONG WAY TO GO.
Many often express to me how cheerful I always seem to be, sometimes even asking "what is my secret?" Maybe I am just too insensate to the realities of my own status in life. No one objectively, looking at my life, is likely to conclude that I have everything one could wish for in life. Given the nature of God's created evolutionary process, that would constitute a rather ignorant goal for anyone to set for themselves in life. The diversity generated by chance hardly makes us all equal, either in genetic constitution or the environment in which we live. If I am not the brightest person on the planet, why would I even expect to be? If I am not the handsomest person on the planet why would I expect to be? If I am not, by nature, the most personable chap around, why would I expect to be, etc. And, on what basis would I gather any modest achievements in my life and then proclaim "I did all this the old fashioned way, I earned them!". Or Claim any advantages I have in life are a gift from the God of my inherited religion?
It took years for me to comprehend this, and slowly, over the years---to understand that neither I, nor anyone else, is the center of God's evolutionary process. We may badly want to think otherwise, and seek desperately to find a way to get God to exempt us from some of the laws which govern the evolutionary process. There are so many things every person wants, or does not want to be, and naturally it is comforting to think we can find a way to get God on our side---personally protecting us. That comfort leaks repeatedly as, by chance, just as many bad things happen to us or anyone, as any one else. And the more we believe God is personally on our side the harder comes the fall when we gradually realize this is simply not true. NONE OF US ARE EXEMPT FROM GOD'S EVOLUTIONARY LAWS.
So whose side is God on? His brilliance, compassion, and foresight are reflected in the evolutionary process which He created. This process, billions of years old now, is still a work in progress. Viewed from this grand over-all perception, what could be more brilliant than this process which wends it's way progressively upward over eons of TIME. We would do best to understand that this opportunity we have all received is for us to be but a minuscule part of this process---that is all we get. Like in a poker game, no one chooses the cards they get dealt. And God, like an honest poker dealer, does not select who is going to get the best cards. LET US REMEMBER THAT AT BIRTH WE HAVE NOT YET EARNED A DAMN THING.
Thus, in reality, we have a choice. We can complain about all our imperfections or disadvantages in life, or we can do the best we can with the cards we have, and realize how much we achieve in life is AS MUCH dependent on others as it ever is ourselves. For all of us, in varying degrees, just how much we can really get out of life, given our cards dealt, DEPENDS ON OTHERS. We need depend on the more fortunate in life for their help and the less fortunate in life depend on us for help. Thus, diversity amongst humans exists just like it does with other species. But, and this is a huge BUT, we are genetically endowed with an ethical sense which can be developed like any other genetically endowed sense. In essence, that ethical sense has the ability to understand others are just as important as ourselves. The ramifications of this are that the less fortunate can achieve a greater level of contentment in life only through the help of those more fortunate. This means, from a practical sense, that A JUST SOCIETY CAN ONLY EXIST THROUGH THE APPLICATION OF THE GOLDEN RULE. We can pray 10 times a day, but it is a waste of time. God doesn't need us to tell Him to make life better for ourselves or others. God gave us the ability to, individually and collectively, maximize the amount of contentedness everyone receives in life, no matter what cards are dealt at birth.
Only when existing cultures exist on earth which do not reflect the above do we find ourselves dealing with so much violence in various forms, in our own country or others. If I am cheerful it is because I realize a lot of good things were handed to me by genetic or environmental chance, and that it has been the kindnesses extended to me by others which have permitted the modest achievements which have given me adequate contentment in life. If we understand when ENOUGH IS ENOUGH, half the battle for contentment is over. When we accept that OTHERS COUNT AS MUCH AS OURSELVES, the other half of the battle is won. In essence, HALF OF ALL THE GOOD THINGS I CAN DO FOR MYSELF ARE TO BE MATCHED BY ALL THE GOOD THINGS I CAN DO FOR THE LESS FORTUNATE.
Being born in the United States was a lucky gift by chance. Being raised in a good neighborhood environment was an added piece of good luck. The schools I went to, the parents I had, the medical and dental care I received, the athletic ability I received, the kind of friends I had in my formative years----all of these I certainly never earned but are good enough reasons to remain cheerful.
Not everyone born in the U.S. was given such a good hand at birth. Some, of course, were dealt a better hand, but like in poker, the hand you get is the hand you get and only a fool spends any time moping over the cards in their hand. But unlike poker, others can help us with advice, example, and often actually put some better cards in our hands. Thus our odds for some success can be better in life than in poker.
Most Americans agree every child DESERVES a good school with the same amount of money spent by the public to educate him/her as the amount of public money spent to educate any other child. Why would any child deserve less? Same with health care. Every child deserves excellent health care. Why would any child deserve less? And it progresses from there. Why would any of our citizens not deserve good health care or good opportunities for jobs, or a living wage for a job, or a pension of some sort for old age, etc. Here is where America is failing badly and the reason for the title of this musing.
We can, and do, deprive others of what we have been blessed with at birth---and wall them off in decrepit ghettoes of some sort, and jail them when they respond in ways which jeopardizes our own sense of well being. We call it justice but it is nothing more than ensuring there will remain an unlevel playing field. Much of what we like to call justice is nothing more than laws to ensure that we who have been given much, will find a greased pathway to additional gains of some sort in life.
Of course it is natural to take care of oneself, one's own family, one's own friends, and those who look, think, dress, and worship as we do. BUT IT IS NOT ETHICAL TO DO THAT AND LEAVE THE LESS FORTUNATE TO FEND FOR THEMSELVES.
On what rational do we purport to think God favors us over any other of his creations via His evolutionary process, let alone think that we are made after God's own image, or think like God, or we alone---after following the dictates of our inherited religion---are going to Heaven after death? Isn't all of this a bit self-centered?
It is when we begin to think like this that our society begins to function in ways which will cause our society to implode in due time, perhaps sooner than we can imagine. I don't think it is possible, in this day and age, where all sorts of gadgets enable us to be well aware of how others live, to plead ignorance of just who these less fortunate are. This makes it impossible for us not to have an awareness of just how sad are the lives of so many. For me personally, as with a lot of people, this sadness for the plight of the less fortunate makes it really easy to accept for ourselves WHEN ENOUGH IS ENOUGH and to READILY SHARE ANY EXCESS WEALTH with the less fortunate.
Frankly, any form of government which allows some in society to hoard excess wealth for themselves, in some genetic, or any other kind of cabal, is a government bereft of ethics and foresight. Sloppy sorriness without action is useless sorriness. If all someone has is some sort of vague sloppy sorriness for the less fortunate while they throw their excess money around on materialistic modernism, or their own family members---then this particular someone is not ethical at all. They are simply self serving and ignorant when they claim it is their wealth to do with what they want, that they 'gained it the old fashioned way, they earned it'.
It is not that people cannot earn wealth and be ethical, but it is what they do with earned wealth that determines wether they are ethical, and can ever reach a high degree of contentedness with their lives. IGNORING THE PLIGHT OF THE LESS FORTUNATE IS NEVER A ROAD TO REAL CONTENTMENT.
What kind of ethical culture would use property taxes to fund schools? That is nothing more than a selfish scheme to make sure those with the most wealth have the best schools for their children. What kind of ethical culture would let the quality of health care depend of the wealth of the person in question? What kind of culture would peg social security to the cost of living and deny that relationship to the minimum wage? What kind of culture would let people buy goods made with slave labor (less than a living wage)? Not only is this practice a disaster for those working at those wages, but it puts those companies out of business who pay a living wage.
What kind of culture would spend the majority of public money on military expenditures that exceed the military expenditures of every other industrial nation combined? What kind of country would wage invasions of other countries one after another and finance these invasions by borrowing the money---money to be paid off by future generations? What kind of ethical country would use an army of paid mercenaries to suffer all the casualties while the rest of the citizens have no sacrifice demanded of them at all? If there is something worth fighting for then everyone should have to sacrifice in some way for such an adventure. What kind of country let's majority preference decide which recreational drugs are legal? What drugs are legal should always be decided by qualified scientists knowledgeable about the drugs in question and never politicians or majority preference. What kind of culture allows some medically or socially harmful addictions be criminalized instead of providing medical treatment for any addictions? What kind of a culture allows ghetto kids selling marijuana to have mandatory 10 year sentences and yet a bartender can sell liquor to binge drinkers and legally make a profit doing it? All addictions are a medical problem and should be treated as a medical one. What kind of culture allows the wealthy to treat addiction to certain substances with medical rehabilitation and the poor to get mandatory years in jail? What kind of culture allows it's major national sport teams to be owned by a privileged 'old-boys-club' of wealthy men and run as an unregulated, no limits, personal toy?
Ok, enough. But let us now shift to view much of life as viewed by the less fortunate among us, those living in our walled off ghettoes across the globe. Children in these ghettoes have some of the modern gadgets the wealthy have. They see and understand what others have been given that they have never been given.
Of course they get angry about their lot in life and the cards dealt to their hands. Of course they express that anger in different ways. And some of those ways make the rest of us angry. After all, we did not personally deal those cards to them. Our anger at some of their actions is expressed via jailing them, and keeping them distant from our own lives. And we have considerable anger toward them since with 5% of the world's population we have 25% of the world's prisoners in our jails at roughly $30,000 per year.
The situation is this: we are angry and jail them, but their violent anger continues to express itself. It is hard to impose an unlevel playing field on those who have nothing left to lose and still keep them in their place. It is also dangerous. Being poor by itself does not always doom proper development during the formative years. I taught for years in a University where many of the students came from the seamiest areas of the city. While generalizations have many exceptions, some of these 'poor as dirt' students were raised in a very supportive and loving environment often by a single parent or a grandparent, uncle, aunt, etc. They had no chip on their shoulders and they stood out as being responsible, tolerant, eager to learn, sharing, personable, independent, caring individuals. All they had going for them was their character and their character made them popular and good citizens.
But along with the above, from the same neighborhood, are those students raised in a very stressful, hostile, cold, emotionally unstable environment. In earlier times, when poor neighborhoods had their streets and porches teeming with neighbors, these kind of children could get some support and genuine love from others. But today many neighborhoods are too dangerous for kids to hang in yards or streets--- these kids are raised behind bars with a high level of fear toward others and everything in life. The degree of anger that can build up in a child penned up behind bars on doors and windows, with little of the benefits any child deserves, can generate extreme hostility towards those not so deprived of the same benefits. It can become an attitude of: "YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT ME, I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU."
I once called a student into my office who came to class maybe twice and was obviously just grabbing some Pell grant for education with no intention of going to class. He just wanted the money. I asked him, "Do you think it right to take money from other people who want to help you and just pocket it without even trying to pass a course?" His answer, to the best I can recollect, in his own dialect which I can't duplicate, went something like this: "Quit the bullshit. No one is trying to help me. No government has ever tried to help me. You really think I could pass this course? You know what kind of schools I went to? A lot of tax money went to educate you, to keep you healthy, to fix your teeth before they had to be taken out, to make you safe, to give you a safe environment. I don't care about you or anyone else. I would rob you in an instant just for the hell of it, to make you feel some of the pain I have felt all my life. I was going to rob you just for calling me into your office about this grant money. But a girl in the class told me you actually try to help a lot of them. So I cut you some slack."
I asked him: "Don't you think you could rise above the past, dress differently, and begin to start a different life? The object should be for you to get people to like you, not fear you." I may as well have asked him if he was making plans to travel to the moon. "Where I live, this is the way you dress to make sure no one messes with you, or dares break into your house and mess with your family. It is dog eat dog where I live and no one better mess with me and they know it. What are they gonna do about the money I already spent from the grant? Put me in jail? I already been in jail---jail time ain't nothing but rest time for me and free food. Nobody in society has cared about me ever, and if they come in my neighborhood they will find out how much I care about them. My life was over a long time ago and all I need is enough to eat and be left alone. It is a trade-off. I take enough to eat and they get to live."
The above condenses some of the harshest things the guy said, but the picture is clear enough. Perhaps he is right, we collectively, had the chance to help him and we failed. The damage done cannot be undone. Our formative years are not forever.
And neither was his. He did not get what every child deserves in their formative years because our culture did not deem it a high priority. We cared that his life not be aborted prior to birth, but after that our ethics ceased. We are not ignoring the needs of others on purpose, we are just too caught up in unregulated, unrestricted capitalism and family values. Those who are caught up in amassing wealth do not consider it their obligation to direct their excess wealth to ensure the less fortunate get a level playing field. And those wrapped up in family values are focused almost exclusively on their own families, not just in the formative stages of their offspring, but often forever, including inheritance matters. For many people with 'family values' there is no room for the less fortunate.
Our own government, in some sense, parades around the globe acting like this guy acts in his neighborhood. Nobody is going to mess with us, not with all our smart bombs, drones, missiles, and automatic guns. We send the same message to this guy that we send to other nations. Upset us about most anything and we will use violence to get our way.
Strangely, we have used our weaponry and leveled infrastructures across whole nations, killed people by the millions and at a ratio something like for every one of us they kill, we kill ten of them. But violence begets violence---at home and abroad.
These 'others'---at home and abroad---don't have smart bombs, missiles, drones, fancy military equipment of most any sort. They have booby traps, suicide bombers, terrorists of various ilk, snipers galore. And every time, it is we who tire, declare our invasion over, and go home, each time leaving an enhanced culture of violence, intolerance, revengefulness, and widespread anger. It is simply weird. A tyrant like Sadaam killed an estimated 10,000 people in like 10 years He is dead but the death rate to get rid of him is in the millions of his own people and while we are gone now, the killing rate continues. VIOLENCE BEGETS VIOLENCE.
Assuredly, the process of evolution will move on, with or without some major catastrophic correction, and in due time, kindness and tolerance will rule, not violence, to generate peaceful societies. IT IS HARD TO HATE THOSE WHO LIKE AND HELP YOU. THERE IS THE REAL PEACE PLAN.
If the young man in my office had felt some kindness as a child from the culture in which he lived, which is our culture, he would not have ended up so full of hate. As John Kennedy said: "If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich." Those of us who are fortunate have much to fear, if not for ourselves, then for the future of our offspring. And if we want to pass onto our offspring the kind of good life we may ourselves have now, we need give priority to what Kennedy was saying. FOR ANY SOCIETY, KEEPING MOST OF IT'S WEALTH IN GENETIC CABALS, OR ANY OTHER KIND OF CABALS, IS A FATAL MISTAKE.
