This is the last musing before I spend some time seeking info on the history of our species in the evolutionary process. The genesis for this interest
“God Must Have Loved the Common People. He made so Many of them” (Lincoln)
This kind of clip will always be a favorite kind of clip for me. People like this have always elicited the most empathy from me. They are everywhere, and my teaching career had many of them crossing my path. As Lincoln said “God must have loved the common people. He made so many of them.”
People like Patrick are rarely disingenuous. And rarely, until they trust you, which is quite rare itself, do they tell you very much.
Perhaps I like Patrick because he is the direct opposite of Donald Trump. I admire Jesus Christ precisely because he was the opposite of a Donald Trump. What percent of the things a Donald Trump ever says or does would Jesus or Patrick ever say or do? Which of course is not to say Patrick is comparable to Jesus but does reflect my own dependence on the Golden Rule for my ethics, not any inherited religious scripture. If everyone used the Golden Rule as the basis for their ethics there would be zero need for various religions, and all those who believe their behavior on earth will get them to Heaven can still have that belief, not to mention how much more peaceful it would be for so many more of our own species. All the religious passion for teaching the heathens a lessen would be gone, all the inherited religious dogmas and fanaticism would be gone with the wind. We would simply embrace diversity and base our own behavior towards others on just how we would expect to be treated if we were them. Period.
I must have sat across someone like Patrick in my office thousands of times in my productive years, and in short order you feel the need to make some things go right for the person. Any attention from strangers makes them feel uncomfortable. Eye contact is brief. These ‘nothing burgers’, as our society tends to treat them—- never whine, never protest, never have much to say, never bother anyone, tend never to ask for help, are about as honest a person one will ever meet, and for the most part they stay to themselves and are as invisible as one is willing to let them be.
Patrick and Terrell Owens come out of the same formative years environment—the projects in Alabama. One rose to the top of the hill in his career and the other will likely never be much of a household name to anyone. Interestingly, hardly anyone in grade school, high school, or college remembers much about Terrell Owens and chances are great that, except for Patrick’s brief 15 minutes of fame, 20 years from now few of Patrick’s classmates will remember much about Patrick either. I suppose genetics comes into play here to some degree, especially will power in the case of Terrell, but the focus and confidence seems to have come from T.O.’s grandmother. Neither Terrell or Patrick would likely come to see their instructor—for differing reasons. So naturally I am impressed with Terrell who fought his way to the top on his own—literally. He wasn’t even first string in high school or most of college. Terrell had no posse, no army of coaches guiding him at every step of the way, no strong social circuit of friends, and neither does Patrick. Yet as much as I admire Terrell, I am just as angry at our society for walling off young people like Patrick in urban, suburban, and rural ghettos, most likely for them--- a life sentence.
We know a lot about Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome in soldiers returning from a front line battle in the service and we are aware of the kind of changes, sometimes permanent, that can occur to a soldier’s physical and mental health—and we know the cause is chronic high levels of stress hormones in their blood over a considerable period of time. Yet we totally ignore that this same elevated level of stress hormones can occur in many children living in our urban, suburban, and rural ghettoes—which today are scary places for adults, let alone children. To a lesser degree some children in middle class families, and even more in wealthy families, can suffer from chronic high levels of stress hormones. And yet we still don’t monitor these blood levels of stress hormones, let alone try to treat these medical conditions before damage, often permanent, occurs. I just don’t understand this. I guess it is another example that science is out, and feelings generated, by whatever, are in. We understand a lot about post traumatic stress syndrome causes in soldiers—including the relationship between chronic high levels of stress hormones and the damage caused. Nobody says their social and career limitations are their fault. Most of them can get some help, inadequate as it may be. I guess we don’t diagnose many of the kids living in our urban and rural ghettos because we would then have to face the realization that our neglect of these ghettos is destroying the lives of many of these kids, just like taking young people and putting them on the front line in our military invasions, on borrowed money, can ruin the lives of these young soldiers.
I would tend to call a student like Patrick into my office, since their grades were often unremarkable—not real good—and not real bad either, just plain unimpressive. “Why don’t you come to see your Professor to get help on getting your grades up?. “I know I just have to work harder, what can you do?” “Do you ever study with students getting better grades?” “How can I do that? After class everyone goes their separate ways?” “Do you have a job?” “I bag groceries but the store is an hour a way on the bus each way.” Why do you take a full load of courses when you work so many hours on top of spending 2 hrs each day on a bus? “I have a Pell Grant and I have to finish college in 4 years plus I need to work so I can help support my mom with food and stuff.” And so it goes, so many disadvantages unimaginable—few, if any of them, I ever had.
My guess (I don’t know Patrick at all except this clip) is that Patrick will manage a degree from somewhere in something or other, and then find it difficult to get a job (for varied reasons including his un-energetic demeanor, his mediocre grades, and no evidence of much self confidence. Or, if employers are kind hearted they may hire him but there is a good chance he will appear lazy, show little creativity or drive for advancement, may be undependable, overweight, or slow to learn etc. Medically, being raised in our stressful and unsafe American ghettoes can do all these things—via elevated chronic levels of stress hormones—especially those in their formative years. The neural circuitry needed for a proper emotional state, the ability to learn things, to remember things, to be properly motivated, plus the proper operation of all body systems requires a proper nurturing environment during the formative years.
I see it this way: Every government is responsible for all the communities within it’s borders.
That means every child should have the same amount of money spent on their education, not affluent communities spending sometimes 4 times as much money per child. Every child should be guaranteed a good school, good teachers, good health care, and a safe environment. Family values should not be restricted to genetic cabals. The Golden Rule should be the ethical basis of every society and form of government. Now that we understand the medical danger for kids in urban, suburban, and rural ghettos and it’s existence to a lesser degree in all economic levels, we should alter our educational system accordingly. There is no need any longer for a teacher to give lectures all day long on subject matters. In most cases better lecturers on the subject matter are available on the computer. This frees up a teacher’s time to provide individual attention to those kids with chronic high levels of stress hormones. Each child with this medical problem should have a team of teachers assigned to find out the origin of the stress and the options for reducing the stress. These teams should have wide ranging authority to act, even if it involves interfering with parental actions, if they are part of the problem. It is so disingenuous to have strong opposition to abortion and yet let every child be on his/her own after birth. As a community, all the kids are our kids. As a community it is everyone’s responsibility to ensure all children have as level playing field as possible during their formative years. Period. Chances are (I can only speculate based on this short video) that Patrick, like so many other children in our modern ghettos, does not feel safe outside of his home, if even safe there. If he did not see other kids get attacked, or bullied, or have things stolen from them, or get threatened, then he was at least well aware that this could happen to him. Once this kind of stress gets ingrained, it tends not to go away, and the only option open is to be as invisible as can be: don’t get involved with others, don’t speak up about anything in class, never have in your possession something of material value which others might want. Don’t get friendly with other groups less one be demanded to participate in activities which could get one into trouble (and more stress), and essentially just stay invisible. His goal, to get a diploma, even if he had to walk and take buses for hours to get to and from school, was something he could do on his own. It was something he could do in peace without it impinging on anyone else’s life. To the extent any of this is true, he will probably not recover and function in ways which will lead to much success in any kind of affluent lifestyle. And many others, who grew up in a safe neighborhood with good schools, good teachers, good health care, and endless opportunities for advancement, express disdain for those like Patrick—lazy, poorly motivated, little willpower, and so on. We have found the problem and it is us.
There is no reason the Patrick’s of this world should reach adulthood suffering from varied degrees of post traumatic stress syndrome. The kid in this video is frightened, tries to be invisible less he get dragged into social stresses he can’t handle. He probably has never been more than ten miles from his home, probably has few real friends, and if he did, why would no family see to it that he had a way to get to his own graduation, not walk and ride buses for hours in his cap and gown to get there? And why would no teacher or administrator not be aware of his circumstance and intervene to help? This grown man still sits head down and let’s his mother talk about events happening that are about him, not her. She appeared to be a good mother, maybe the only one he trusts. Probably, in terms of an affluent and socially interactive life, it is all over for Patrick. My guess his teachers, if asked about him, would simply say “Not much to say about Patrick, comes to class every day, is very quiet, doesn’t bother anyone, never causes any commotion, manages to pass most of the tests with minimal competency, not the brightest bulb in the room, and other than that I don’t know much about him.” These teachers may just as well have sent the lectures on video tape to Patrick’s house for all the good their presence in his world does for him. We can pretend the growing size, dangerous, and stressful environment of our ghettoes, urban and rural, are not a threat to our society—but they are right now, and will likely be even more so in the near future. The violence won’t come from the Patricks buried in their midst, but other kids medically damaged from chronic stress, will act out with mindless violence when the right time arrives. The Illusion that we have them safely out of sight, out of mind, will be a rude awakening down the ever less distant road.
People like Patrick, in the past, when I was young, in historic simpler days, may have been poor but they felt safe and their poor neighborhoods were bustling with people sitting on porches, kids playing in the streets, and endless parties in the neighborhood. Today these poor kids can’t even leave the house, have bars on the windows and doors, while fear being shot or hurt at school. So when something good happens to someone like Patrick it is especially emotionally moving to me. What kind of kid is more deserving of a ray of good luck and recognition in their life? The cruel reality is that it may be too little, too late to restore the potential he may once have had.
The only upside to Patrick’s inherited environment is that expecting so little, he probably will end up satisfied with little, as opposed to those with much—whose want for more has no limit. American youth are 48 times more likely to die from guns than the youth in other industrialized countries. I wonder what the odds are for Patrick? He better be careful with his new car. Don’t make a wrong turn and be driving where he makes certain policemen uncomfortable and end up getting shot. We all know only a few cops are bad cops but why, when the bad cops behave badly, do their union leaders always support them? So many of us today, if we emotionally like someone or some group, we act too much like those mothers who support the actions of their son no matter what the bad behavior of the son. Trump is right. He can swindle people and not only get away with it, but become wealthy with every bankruptcy, pay no taxes even though wealthy, and as he stated not that long ago—he could kill someone and his supporters would stand behind him. I’ll take Patrick any day as admirable over the Trumphites of the world.. Mother Nature bats last, always has, and God’s laws created to govern the evolutionary process will remain in place, despite the endless self serving illusions on the part of our human species, believing that we are now in charge. We will shortly see, probably in my lifetime, just how all this turns out. Hang on to your hats—this is going to be a rough ride.
If the current cultural status here and across the globe can be described in one word I would choose “disingenuous”. We have all learned via endless cyberspace communications round the clock that ‘disingenuous’ is everywhere. So many things are what we pretend them to be, not what they are. I start with the 75 million displaced refugees living in tent cities on barren lands, and add all the Patricks in the world, getting to the number of people suffering severe environmental stresses in their lives—all this is as astonishing as it is depressing. If ways to make the Golden Rule the basis of human ethics fails, then all our real global problems, all new in human history, will cause our species to implode on itself as would any species which becomes overpopulated fighting over limited natural resources. We can ignore the community environment of the Patricks in our urban, suburban, and rural ghettos, and they will continue to get bigger and more dangerous—in other words, we can be be disingenuous about the nature of their existence and destiny, but this exploding culture permeating societies across the globe is what it is. Hermit-hood protects me from the direct and daily impact of this social disease, and I suppose, when all is said and done, is why my empathy is directed toward the Patricks and Owens of the world. Whatever else they are not, for whatever reasons, they are not disingenuous. Different as night and day, come from the identical type of formative environment—one an amazing survivor (self made) and the other likely saddled with a medical condition which makes him uncompetitive in any rat race, depending on luck to find a little hidden safe niche, where he can be as invisible as possible and yet survive. That is no grand dream for his life, but if he can find it, some contentment for him will be achieved. “God must have loved the common people, he made so many of them”.
P.S. On a personal note I can’t count the number of times times when, teaching college students, others would remark to me, “You are here to teach physiology, why do you get involved in their personal problems?” Part of it is because, as a physiologist, I understand the vital impact of environment during the formative years to one’s mental and physical health. Another part of it may be that with no kids of my own, they became, for a short stint, my kids in a total sense, not just inanimate objects to lectured at for brief periods each week. By the time many of these students reached my classroom, the damage had already been done. After the formative years it is very difficult to reprogram their emotional, intellectual, and organ physiology. And therein lies a depressing reality. We thought spending our priorities on endless military hardware and invasions, would make us safe and protect our citizens. Wrong. All these modern day urban, suburban, and rural ghettos are like a cancer to our society—-growing exponentially, victims here, there, and everywhere.
