I am not a big fan of Al Franken the politician. Al Franken the political satirist and Saturday Night Live alum is a different story. I like that Al Franken very much. However, it does seem that I owe newly confirmed Senator Franken an apology. A recent rant regarding entertainers turned political activists and pundits found me questioning Franken’s qualifications to be senator. I lumped him in with the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Penn and Michael Moore. I can’t stand these guys. They often make me puke violently.
But, when compared to the qualifications of the de facto Republican Party Leader Limbaugh it seems Franken is a bit more qualified than I presumed; a good reminder to thoroughly research your topic before going off the deep end. Franken not only graduated from Harvard University with a political science degree in 1973 but he received a cum laude honor in doing so. Compare this to Rush Limbaugh whose mother claims he failed every single college class he attended. This includes a ball room dancing class. Now, to be fair that doesn’t mean he is not intelligent. It just indicates that he lacked a genuine interest in academics and wasn’t very studious. His mother would say in an interview that the only thing Rush really seemed interested in was radio. Limbaugh is even less qualified than Franken to be a political leader in this country. Yet whenever a fellow Republican criticizes Limbaugh or takes him to task they all seem to quickly back pedal and publically apologize. This says more about Limbaugh the gas bag and the bully then it does about his credibility or relevance to our countries current problems.
This doesn’t mean that I like Franken the politician. It just means he is a little more astute and educated than I realized. He is still a political hack and we have enough of those in Washington as it is. Franken’s education, impressive as it is, does not necessarily qualify him for a senate seat. Following Franken’s career path does little to assuage my concerns about him in such a powerful position. It is hard to see him as anything less than a marionette in the White House puppet show with Obama being the chief string puller. Franken, himself, is also often a gas bag and a big bully.
There is a lot of congratulatory celebration being done among liberals since Franken’s confirmation as the winner of the Minnesota senate seat, especially among progressives who are bound to feel more comfortable since he seems to have the White House’s ear. The question is whether or not he really has anyone’s ear. Obama is sure to see him more as an ace in the back pocket than anything else. My perception among my own friends and acquaintances is that they simply like Franken because he is a liberal –progressive and that means they are supposed to like him. No one has yet to share anything concrete about what he will bring to the senate other than an assured vote for any Obama administration policy.
Being fair to Franken he did button down his mind before hitting the campaign trail. There were no traces of the comedian / satirist that we have all known and loved or hated for years. He was quite serious about his message and what he wants to achieve. I don’t believe we are going to see Stuart Smalley walking down the steps of the senate building. Franken also seems to be willing to battle for cleaner energy an issue that is quite important to me personally.
Franken also seems sensible when it comes to ideas on how to keep health care costs – ideas that include nutrious food, exercise and freedom from violence. If fat America just ate better and exercised more it would help reduce costs of taking care of unhealthy people, which increase the costs for all of us. But, this is just campaign talk.
Franken’s strong support of unions is also a concern. In many ways the Union system has helped contribute to the great surge of jobs being sucked overseas and to the south. In fact they are as much to blame as capital.
Ten years ago I would have loved Franken. Today, however, I see him as a hold out from the leftist politics of the 1970’s. At this juncture I have decided to reserve my judgment and give Franken a chance despite my concerns. In the end he may be nothing more than a satirist and former Air America talk show host, whose bullying tactics and loud mouthed rants just make him a liberal version of his arch nemesis, Rush Limbaugh.
Monday, July 06, 2009
Friday, July 03, 2009
A Conversation with My Dear Old Dead Dad
I am undecided about the whole business of life after death. However, it is interesting how the voices of our dead loved ones speak to us beyond the grave. I distinctly heard my father’s voice this morning as I was reviewing recent posts on my blog.
“This is weird shit kid.”
“This is the garbage can of my mind,” I told him and not for the first time.
“I always had dreams of you becoming a writer.”
“I am in my own little way.”
“Yeah…but, what the hell is this?”
Have you ever wondered how many times you have to say something to a reasonably intelligent person before the light comes on?
“If I don’t take out the trash on daily basis it tends to pile up cluttering my mind,” I told him. “Untended it leaves no room for me to do any real work.”
“Well then,” said dad, “Where is this real work you keep talking about?”
Apparently he has been listening. I guess being dead doesn’t cure a father from busting his son in the balls from time to time, especially if he sees his life veering off course. On the other hand my life has been veering off course for years now. You would think I would have finally bumped into something and reset course.
“I am working on it.”
“You’re always working on it.”
*sigh*
“Son, I love you…”
Here it comes.
I am pretty sure he was about to start the litany of unfinished projects followed by the ones I had been planning for years but hadn’t bothered to start.
“Do you remember when you graduated high school and I told you that I wasn’t sure you had the temperament to work in a corporate environment?” Dad asked.
“Yes,” I replied. I remember that conversation rather well. I had never been what you might call a math genius, but I discovered an aptitude for accounting and by the time I had graduated high school I had taken all of the accounting courses, business math and basic business classes that were offered. Unlike many of the other classes I took I got mostly A’s and B’s. My father, who always had a kind word about my accomplishments and was quick to encourage me to do whatever I wanted to try, cautioned me against going to business school. This was the mid 1980’s personal computers were just coming on the scene and no one had even heard of the internet yet. An undergraduate degree in liberal arts was still considered a valuable tool for future career planning. In college your undergraduate years were for getting a well rounded education. Then, after you spent some years in the work force you went back to graduate school to specialize in something more apropos to what you were doing.
I chose philosophy with a minor in American literature. I frequently was asked what my major was and pretty much always getting the same response.
“Philosophy? What the hell you going to do with a degree in philosophy.”
My response was always the same.
“A philosophy degree teaches you how to think subjectively and analytically. It encompasses imagination, creativity and logic. It also includes ethics which is a valuable subject for anyone going into business.”
My mother was among my chief detractors. When I had finally stopped messing around at the community college level (Earning two, two year degrees in the process) and applied to the Evergreen State College in Lacey Washington my mother nearly flew off the handle referring to the school as a place for burn outs and unwashed hippie types.
I had chosen the school because I had been exposed at North Seattle Community College to a coordinated studies program that had been modeled after the teaching style at Evergreen. At the time it was also rated among the top teaching colleges in the state. Several of my favorite instructors in high school had attended and it was understood that given my temperament and aptitudes I was to become a teacher. The teaching was to support me while I struggled to become a writer.
I also went to high school journalism conference in the summer before my senior year and had fallen in love with the bucolic campus. Unfortunately, at 23 I was emotionally something of a late bloomer and still living with my parents and two youngest siblings. My mother’s unhealthy influence on my life undermined any opportunity and so that become a road not taken. Finishing my college education would be an enterprise left for later years.
The real reason for the philosophy major was existential angst. Life seemed absurd and often pointless at times. My Roman Catholic faith was no longer cutting it or providing any kind of solace. I was looking for answers, although I was careful to keep my questions to myself as well as my various opinions. Those who have met me in recent years would hardly recognize that in me as I tend to not hold back on either these days.
So I quietly maintained the ruse that my father had provided me regarding the value of a liberal arts education. Fortunately around that time AT&T had published the findings of an internal study they had been conducting. They had followed the careers of several of their top executives for several years and had learned that the executives with liberal arts degrees went farther up the ladder and made larger incomes than those with other types of degrees or who had no college at all. My philosophy professor at the time even handed out a list of 100 careers for people with liberal arts degrees. I had made copies of it and handed it out rather than defending my choice in majors. It was a way of quietly telling others, “In your face.”
Back then you could still attend college in pursuit of the truth or for the pure delight of learning and still garner a certain amount of reluctant respect even though you were still likely to be labeled a professional student. I hate that term – professional student. It completely devalues academic skills and inquiry. But, our commerce driven culture rarely values anything it can’t market and sell for a profit. Even God is bought and sold as a commodity and some people make a decent living at it.
“Well, son I take back what I said,” Dad replied, “You have planning to plan down to an art form. You should be capable of being successful at a corporate level, although your lack of profit accountability would make you more suitable for a state or federal job.”
My dad was a man of practicality in some ways. A job was how you paid the bills. It was what you did to build a life so that you could pursue other interests, such as writing. He also had vision. When it came to matters of business and economics his advice rarely stirred me wrong. In 1980 he came home with a Texas Instruments home computer. A tiny little affair that we hooked up to an old black and white television for a monitor and in order to program with it a cartridge with the basic language had to be plugged in. An old cassette recorder served as a tape drive and we covered over hours of music with the beeps, screeches and blips that was computer data.
“You both need to learn all you can about computers,” He told my brother and I, “This is the way of the future. Learn it or step aside.”
My brother Cory learned it and learned it well.
I stepped aside.
Partly due to my lack of math prowess and to the fact that my brother, who early on showed real brilliance and genius for the cyber arts, spent so much time at the tiny keyboard that that I gave up waiting for my turn. But, even then my interests in the areas of philosophy, religion and the occult were taking me down a different road.
“So is there a point to this dad?” I asked, “Or did you show up just to bust me in the balls today?”
“There is point. You are 42. You need to start living your life.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Seriously son,” he said, “Didn’t you tell me the last time I stopped by that I was too busy trying not to be my own father that I forget to live my life?”
“Yes. But, I am not busy not trying to be you.”
“We are more alike than you sometimes realize.”
That was true.
“You have a lot of unrealized dreams. Don’t die before you attempt at least a couple of them.”
My therapist recently told me that I was like a car with a powerful engine and drive train except that I was stuck in the mud and no matter how hard I stepped on the gas I was just spinning my wheels splattering mud everywhere. Reading between the lines: You are making a mess out of your life.
“You have a lot of ambition, energy and drive,” Dad said, “But you don’t have a direction for it. That’s why you always feel so tired. You waste all your energy and it tends to diminish into depression and anxiety.”
That was exactly what I was thinking. The dead have an astounding ability to read our minds. But, then human minds are simpler then we care to admit, at least the part of our minds that we identify with.
“You keep saying you can’t write because you have nothing to say, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Well how you are you ever going to have something to say if you don’t start living your life. Now why don’t you grab your laptop, your notebooks and hop in that land yacht you got parked outside and go get yourself a life.”
“That belongs to the devil. I am supposed to be working for him this summer.”
“That’s kind of weird,” Dad said.
I nodded.
Dad seemed lost in thought for a moment. Than his eyes blinked and he shuddered violently arms flailing as if he had been woken from a dead sleep by a sudden loud noise.
“Still, it’s an opportunity. Does he pay well?”
“I may actually get to keep my own soul if I don’t fail.”
“That’s good. Does he offer dental?”
I nodded.
“Well shit, you can’t turn your nose up at that. Do you know how hard it is to get a good dental plan these days?
“I am aware,” I said.
“Well there you are. Dental and your Soul that is way better then most corporate employees can hope for. It’s usually one or the other, often neither.”
How do you argue with that?
“I am hungry,” dad announced, “Lets get some lunch. I am really craving Chinese.”
“This is weird shit kid.”
“This is the garbage can of my mind,” I told him and not for the first time.
“I always had dreams of you becoming a writer.”
“I am in my own little way.”
“Yeah…but, what the hell is this?”
Have you ever wondered how many times you have to say something to a reasonably intelligent person before the light comes on?
“If I don’t take out the trash on daily basis it tends to pile up cluttering my mind,” I told him. “Untended it leaves no room for me to do any real work.”
“Well then,” said dad, “Where is this real work you keep talking about?”
Apparently he has been listening. I guess being dead doesn’t cure a father from busting his son in the balls from time to time, especially if he sees his life veering off course. On the other hand my life has been veering off course for years now. You would think I would have finally bumped into something and reset course.
“I am working on it.”
“You’re always working on it.”
*sigh*
“Son, I love you…”
Here it comes.
I am pretty sure he was about to start the litany of unfinished projects followed by the ones I had been planning for years but hadn’t bothered to start.
“Do you remember when you graduated high school and I told you that I wasn’t sure you had the temperament to work in a corporate environment?” Dad asked.
“Yes,” I replied. I remember that conversation rather well. I had never been what you might call a math genius, but I discovered an aptitude for accounting and by the time I had graduated high school I had taken all of the accounting courses, business math and basic business classes that were offered. Unlike many of the other classes I took I got mostly A’s and B’s. My father, who always had a kind word about my accomplishments and was quick to encourage me to do whatever I wanted to try, cautioned me against going to business school. This was the mid 1980’s personal computers were just coming on the scene and no one had even heard of the internet yet. An undergraduate degree in liberal arts was still considered a valuable tool for future career planning. In college your undergraduate years were for getting a well rounded education. Then, after you spent some years in the work force you went back to graduate school to specialize in something more apropos to what you were doing.
I chose philosophy with a minor in American literature. I frequently was asked what my major was and pretty much always getting the same response.
“Philosophy? What the hell you going to do with a degree in philosophy.”
My response was always the same.
“A philosophy degree teaches you how to think subjectively and analytically. It encompasses imagination, creativity and logic. It also includes ethics which is a valuable subject for anyone going into business.”
My mother was among my chief detractors. When I had finally stopped messing around at the community college level (Earning two, two year degrees in the process) and applied to the Evergreen State College in Lacey Washington my mother nearly flew off the handle referring to the school as a place for burn outs and unwashed hippie types.
I had chosen the school because I had been exposed at North Seattle Community College to a coordinated studies program that had been modeled after the teaching style at Evergreen. At the time it was also rated among the top teaching colleges in the state. Several of my favorite instructors in high school had attended and it was understood that given my temperament and aptitudes I was to become a teacher. The teaching was to support me while I struggled to become a writer.
I also went to high school journalism conference in the summer before my senior year and had fallen in love with the bucolic campus. Unfortunately, at 23 I was emotionally something of a late bloomer and still living with my parents and two youngest siblings. My mother’s unhealthy influence on my life undermined any opportunity and so that become a road not taken. Finishing my college education would be an enterprise left for later years.
The real reason for the philosophy major was existential angst. Life seemed absurd and often pointless at times. My Roman Catholic faith was no longer cutting it or providing any kind of solace. I was looking for answers, although I was careful to keep my questions to myself as well as my various opinions. Those who have met me in recent years would hardly recognize that in me as I tend to not hold back on either these days.
So I quietly maintained the ruse that my father had provided me regarding the value of a liberal arts education. Fortunately around that time AT&T had published the findings of an internal study they had been conducting. They had followed the careers of several of their top executives for several years and had learned that the executives with liberal arts degrees went farther up the ladder and made larger incomes than those with other types of degrees or who had no college at all. My philosophy professor at the time even handed out a list of 100 careers for people with liberal arts degrees. I had made copies of it and handed it out rather than defending my choice in majors. It was a way of quietly telling others, “In your face.”
Back then you could still attend college in pursuit of the truth or for the pure delight of learning and still garner a certain amount of reluctant respect even though you were still likely to be labeled a professional student. I hate that term – professional student. It completely devalues academic skills and inquiry. But, our commerce driven culture rarely values anything it can’t market and sell for a profit. Even God is bought and sold as a commodity and some people make a decent living at it.
“Well, son I take back what I said,” Dad replied, “You have planning to plan down to an art form. You should be capable of being successful at a corporate level, although your lack of profit accountability would make you more suitable for a state or federal job.”
My dad was a man of practicality in some ways. A job was how you paid the bills. It was what you did to build a life so that you could pursue other interests, such as writing. He also had vision. When it came to matters of business and economics his advice rarely stirred me wrong. In 1980 he came home with a Texas Instruments home computer. A tiny little affair that we hooked up to an old black and white television for a monitor and in order to program with it a cartridge with the basic language had to be plugged in. An old cassette recorder served as a tape drive and we covered over hours of music with the beeps, screeches and blips that was computer data.
“You both need to learn all you can about computers,” He told my brother and I, “This is the way of the future. Learn it or step aside.”
My brother Cory learned it and learned it well.
I stepped aside.
Partly due to my lack of math prowess and to the fact that my brother, who early on showed real brilliance and genius for the cyber arts, spent so much time at the tiny keyboard that that I gave up waiting for my turn. But, even then my interests in the areas of philosophy, religion and the occult were taking me down a different road.
“So is there a point to this dad?” I asked, “Or did you show up just to bust me in the balls today?”
“There is point. You are 42. You need to start living your life.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Seriously son,” he said, “Didn’t you tell me the last time I stopped by that I was too busy trying not to be my own father that I forget to live my life?”
“Yes. But, I am not busy not trying to be you.”
“We are more alike than you sometimes realize.”
That was true.
“You have a lot of unrealized dreams. Don’t die before you attempt at least a couple of them.”
My therapist recently told me that I was like a car with a powerful engine and drive train except that I was stuck in the mud and no matter how hard I stepped on the gas I was just spinning my wheels splattering mud everywhere. Reading between the lines: You are making a mess out of your life.
“You have a lot of ambition, energy and drive,” Dad said, “But you don’t have a direction for it. That’s why you always feel so tired. You waste all your energy and it tends to diminish into depression and anxiety.”
That was exactly what I was thinking. The dead have an astounding ability to read our minds. But, then human minds are simpler then we care to admit, at least the part of our minds that we identify with.
“You keep saying you can’t write because you have nothing to say, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Well how you are you ever going to have something to say if you don’t start living your life. Now why don’t you grab your laptop, your notebooks and hop in that land yacht you got parked outside and go get yourself a life.”
“That belongs to the devil. I am supposed to be working for him this summer.”
“That’s kind of weird,” Dad said.
I nodded.
Dad seemed lost in thought for a moment. Than his eyes blinked and he shuddered violently arms flailing as if he had been woken from a dead sleep by a sudden loud noise.
“Still, it’s an opportunity. Does he pay well?”
“I may actually get to keep my own soul if I don’t fail.”
“That’s good. Does he offer dental?”
I nodded.
“Well shit, you can’t turn your nose up at that. Do you know how hard it is to get a good dental plan these days?
“I am aware,” I said.
“Well there you are. Dental and your Soul that is way better then most corporate employees can hope for. It’s usually one or the other, often neither.”
How do you argue with that?
“I am hungry,” dad announced, “Lets get some lunch. I am really craving Chinese.”
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Sins, Sex Dreams & Theology - An Interlude
I have weird sex dreams.
At least I think they are sex dreams. I would love to have them interpreted sometime, but I always stop short because I am afraid of what these dreams might actually say about me and my inner life. I get enough vitriol and spit in the face from Christians as it is.
One dreamtime I spent copulating with a dwarf woman. Not a dwarf as in the Lord of the Rings, but as in a human being afflicted with dwarfism. Her face was that proto-typical standard of post modern beauty. She was super model beautiful but in miniature. She bore an uncanny resemble to former adult film actress, Bridget (a.ka. The Midget) Powers. I once attended a bachelor party where she was featured in one of the obligatory pornos shown that evening. It was very surreal watching this tiny, attractive woman get lanced by a very large and muscular man with an above average cock in both length and width. It makes you wonder how that is even possible, which may account for how she appeared in my dream.
Generally dreams involving sexual penetration for me seem to take place in public. There is always people around which seems odd to me because in my waking life I am loathe to even be naked when I am home alone. My girlfriend likes it when I sleep naked next to her, but I don’t often accommodate her unless I am extremely hot. I usually compromise by staying in shorts but being bare-chested. Oddly, when I was younger I didn’t have this problem. Now, I can’t even look at myself in the mirror when I get out of the shower and I prefer to towel and dress in my darkened bedroom.
But, during my dreamtime sexual encounters I am quite free except the sex is not about love or pleasure; rather, it is about needing to accomplish an important task in order to save myself or someone else. It’s about responding to a threat of danger. Sometimes unseen as in the case of my dwarf partner or, as last night, a seemingly real and observable threat such as the crystallization of the surrounding country side, but needed as it is, I enter into the act mindlessly and unwillingly. I would rather be doing something else.
My encounter with dream Bridget was quite unique in that it felt quite tactile and I remember remarking on how “normal” her vagina felt as if I expected it to feel some other way. I remember Bridget laughing at me as well as an unknown woman who seemed to be my constant companion at the time. It is also interesting to note that the dreams end well before orgasm. Sometimes this is quite disappointing. If you are going to spend your sleeping hours traveling the inner universe having sex with multiple partners it would be nice to finish the job once in awhile.
Interestingly my girlfriend was recently describing a sex dream she had and admitted that she was afraid to have sex in her dreams because it felt like she was cheating on me. How totally fucked up are the both of us? I tried telling her it’s just a dream and she should just enjoy the hell out of it.
Last night I found myself in a broken down old school bus in the middle of some forest. The surrounding trees were becoming entrapped in giant ice and those of us on the bus were in danger of being trapped in ice as well. The next thing I know a bearded man removed his pants and revealed a vagina. But his vagina was made of ice or it was being blocked by a barrier of ice. I immediately mounted the ice mangina and started pushing myself through the ice. It was a bit uncomfortable, but I was able to break through and enter the vagina. During the act neither I nor the owner of the ice mangina could make eye contact. After Ice Mangina I went on to a woman sitting next to us and had to repeat the same act, except this time I could make eye contact.
Perhaps the most disturbing sexual imagery that has ever appeared in my dreams happened in my early twenties. I found myself peering in through the kitchen window of my childhood home. It was deep night and I could feel the scratching of the fir trees that shielded the window from the late afternoon sun against my skin. The pine needles poking through my thin tee shirt like sewing needles. Sitting at the old Formica table was myself and across from me was the notorious Anton Le Vey, high priest of the Church of Satan. Le Vey was dressed in his typical costume. I could not hear what he was saying to me as I watched us from the window. But, I could see that I was listening intently and Le Vey was smiling warmly his teeth big and white surrounded by his goatee. I assumed he was expounding his spiritual philosophy. I felt quite comfortable with the infernal disciple of hell and that scared me.
Suddenly my vision blurred and I found myself outside a building in downtown Seattle. It had been raining and the ground and air were damp. Jesus rounded the corner from seemingly nowhere wearing what I believed were the typical cloak and sandals of his era. He nodded at me and then proceeded to get into the back seat of a parked Buick or Oldsmobile to have sex with the woman who had been with him. She was dressed in modern attire. I remember seeing them going at it from the corner of my eye and I screamed in terror trying to erase the blasphemous imagery from my mind.
I woke up at that point my sheets saturated with my sour sweat. I remember shivering violently in the dark terrified of what had occurred. At this point in my life I was still a marginal Roman Catholic and although I seldom prayed or attended mass the indoctrination of a vengeful God seeking to banish blasphemers to the agony of eternal damnation had me cowering alone in the dark.
“You humans put way to much stock in your dreams,” Satan said to me after I had told him about the dream. “Let’s assume for a moment that God, as you understand him does exist, you have no control over the content of your dreams. It’s all subconscious. So whatever happens is not your fault”
“Unfortunately, even if we are unaware of it we can still sin,” I replied, “There are the sins that we consciously commit. Think of those as acts of human will. Then there are sins we commit simply because of our fallen nature. Our dream content may be included.”
“Bahhh,” said the Devil, “Theology is a waste of fucking time. Theology is a work of human imagination masquerading as a legitimate academic discipline. Give it up.”
“I am not so sure that is true.”
“Sure it is if you stop and think about it. Picture this. You create an imaginary friend…”
“What’s his name?”
“What?”
“What is my friend’s name?”
The Devil sighed deeply.
“Let’s call him Bob,” he said, “So you make up this imaginary friend Bob. You can’t see Bob or really talk to him. But you talk to him anyway as if he was right there. But since you can’t see him you have to imagine his responses. So, even though Bob seems real to you no one else can experience him and they doubt your sanity. So what do you do?”
“Theology?”
“Exactly,” replied the Devil, “Or in this case its Bobology. You attempt to prove the existence of this non existent thing. But since you can’t take something from Bob to prove he existed you have to draw on the things around you and infer his existence from that. It’s abusrd. The whole concept of Bob is subjective. It’s only in your mind.”
This reminds me of a quip from Clarence Darrow.
“I don’t believe in God because I don’t believe in Mother Goose.”
“Hey Rocky watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat,” The Devil said, his imitation of Bullwinkle perfect.
“Again?” I replied chuckling, my Rocky the flying squirrel imitation less than perfect.
“Nothing up my sleeves…”
It seems to me to not be all that disturbed about the content of my dreams. There are no portents of change or mystical things to necessarily be learned. It’s the brain busy at work rewiring itself while you sleep. It shuts down certain neural pathways and strengthens others. It’s an amazing thing, the brain. We still understand so little of its amazing capabilities. There may be some truth to the archetypal wonders that many see in dream imagery, but I am not so sure.
At least I think they are sex dreams. I would love to have them interpreted sometime, but I always stop short because I am afraid of what these dreams might actually say about me and my inner life. I get enough vitriol and spit in the face from Christians as it is.
One dreamtime I spent copulating with a dwarf woman. Not a dwarf as in the Lord of the Rings, but as in a human being afflicted with dwarfism. Her face was that proto-typical standard of post modern beauty. She was super model beautiful but in miniature. She bore an uncanny resemble to former adult film actress, Bridget (a.ka. The Midget) Powers. I once attended a bachelor party where she was featured in one of the obligatory pornos shown that evening. It was very surreal watching this tiny, attractive woman get lanced by a very large and muscular man with an above average cock in both length and width. It makes you wonder how that is even possible, which may account for how she appeared in my dream.
Generally dreams involving sexual penetration for me seem to take place in public. There is always people around which seems odd to me because in my waking life I am loathe to even be naked when I am home alone. My girlfriend likes it when I sleep naked next to her, but I don’t often accommodate her unless I am extremely hot. I usually compromise by staying in shorts but being bare-chested. Oddly, when I was younger I didn’t have this problem. Now, I can’t even look at myself in the mirror when I get out of the shower and I prefer to towel and dress in my darkened bedroom.
But, during my dreamtime sexual encounters I am quite free except the sex is not about love or pleasure; rather, it is about needing to accomplish an important task in order to save myself or someone else. It’s about responding to a threat of danger. Sometimes unseen as in the case of my dwarf partner or, as last night, a seemingly real and observable threat such as the crystallization of the surrounding country side, but needed as it is, I enter into the act mindlessly and unwillingly. I would rather be doing something else.
My encounter with dream Bridget was quite unique in that it felt quite tactile and I remember remarking on how “normal” her vagina felt as if I expected it to feel some other way. I remember Bridget laughing at me as well as an unknown woman who seemed to be my constant companion at the time. It is also interesting to note that the dreams end well before orgasm. Sometimes this is quite disappointing. If you are going to spend your sleeping hours traveling the inner universe having sex with multiple partners it would be nice to finish the job once in awhile.
Interestingly my girlfriend was recently describing a sex dream she had and admitted that she was afraid to have sex in her dreams because it felt like she was cheating on me. How totally fucked up are the both of us? I tried telling her it’s just a dream and she should just enjoy the hell out of it.
Last night I found myself in a broken down old school bus in the middle of some forest. The surrounding trees were becoming entrapped in giant ice and those of us on the bus were in danger of being trapped in ice as well. The next thing I know a bearded man removed his pants and revealed a vagina. But his vagina was made of ice or it was being blocked by a barrier of ice. I immediately mounted the ice mangina and started pushing myself through the ice. It was a bit uncomfortable, but I was able to break through and enter the vagina. During the act neither I nor the owner of the ice mangina could make eye contact. After Ice Mangina I went on to a woman sitting next to us and had to repeat the same act, except this time I could make eye contact.
Perhaps the most disturbing sexual imagery that has ever appeared in my dreams happened in my early twenties. I found myself peering in through the kitchen window of my childhood home. It was deep night and I could feel the scratching of the fir trees that shielded the window from the late afternoon sun against my skin. The pine needles poking through my thin tee shirt like sewing needles. Sitting at the old Formica table was myself and across from me was the notorious Anton Le Vey, high priest of the Church of Satan. Le Vey was dressed in his typical costume. I could not hear what he was saying to me as I watched us from the window. But, I could see that I was listening intently and Le Vey was smiling warmly his teeth big and white surrounded by his goatee. I assumed he was expounding his spiritual philosophy. I felt quite comfortable with the infernal disciple of hell and that scared me.
Suddenly my vision blurred and I found myself outside a building in downtown Seattle. It had been raining and the ground and air were damp. Jesus rounded the corner from seemingly nowhere wearing what I believed were the typical cloak and sandals of his era. He nodded at me and then proceeded to get into the back seat of a parked Buick or Oldsmobile to have sex with the woman who had been with him. She was dressed in modern attire. I remember seeing them going at it from the corner of my eye and I screamed in terror trying to erase the blasphemous imagery from my mind.
I woke up at that point my sheets saturated with my sour sweat. I remember shivering violently in the dark terrified of what had occurred. At this point in my life I was still a marginal Roman Catholic and although I seldom prayed or attended mass the indoctrination of a vengeful God seeking to banish blasphemers to the agony of eternal damnation had me cowering alone in the dark.
“You humans put way to much stock in your dreams,” Satan said to me after I had told him about the dream. “Let’s assume for a moment that God, as you understand him does exist, you have no control over the content of your dreams. It’s all subconscious. So whatever happens is not your fault”
“Unfortunately, even if we are unaware of it we can still sin,” I replied, “There are the sins that we consciously commit. Think of those as acts of human will. Then there are sins we commit simply because of our fallen nature. Our dream content may be included.”
“Bahhh,” said the Devil, “Theology is a waste of fucking time. Theology is a work of human imagination masquerading as a legitimate academic discipline. Give it up.”
“I am not so sure that is true.”
“Sure it is if you stop and think about it. Picture this. You create an imaginary friend…”
“What’s his name?”
“What?”
“What is my friend’s name?”
The Devil sighed deeply.
“Let’s call him Bob,” he said, “So you make up this imaginary friend Bob. You can’t see Bob or really talk to him. But you talk to him anyway as if he was right there. But since you can’t see him you have to imagine his responses. So, even though Bob seems real to you no one else can experience him and they doubt your sanity. So what do you do?”
“Theology?”
“Exactly,” replied the Devil, “Or in this case its Bobology. You attempt to prove the existence of this non existent thing. But since you can’t take something from Bob to prove he existed you have to draw on the things around you and infer his existence from that. It’s abusrd. The whole concept of Bob is subjective. It’s only in your mind.”
This reminds me of a quip from Clarence Darrow.
“I don’t believe in God because I don’t believe in Mother Goose.”
“Hey Rocky watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat,” The Devil said, his imitation of Bullwinkle perfect.
“Again?” I replied chuckling, my Rocky the flying squirrel imitation less than perfect.
“Nothing up my sleeves…”
It seems to me to not be all that disturbed about the content of my dreams. There are no portents of change or mystical things to necessarily be learned. It’s the brain busy at work rewiring itself while you sleep. It shuts down certain neural pathways and strengthens others. It’s an amazing thing, the brain. We still understand so little of its amazing capabilities. There may be some truth to the archetypal wonders that many see in dream imagery, but I am not so sure.
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Son of Pope-On-A-Rope: Breakfast With The Devil
“Delicious.”
The Devil rattled the ice in his empty tumbler and stretched his long legs.
“I love a good Scotch in the morning,” He grinned snapping his fingers loudly. A short red demon in a tux came and refilled his glass.
“Are you sure you don’t want a snoot?”
“No,” I replied, “Recovering alcoholic. I will take a cup of coffee if you have any.”
“Of course we do. It would be truly hell on earth if we didn’t have any coffee.”
I nodded in agreement. The little red demon came back with a silver tray loaded with a carafe of coffee, delicate little china cup and a bowl of sugar. He set it down on the table beside my leather recliner.
“You know since you have given up drinking you are not nearly as fun as you used to be,” said the Devil.
I took the cup proffered by the demon and settled back into my chair.
“You need some vices. Vices are the spice of life, or is it spices are the vices of life? You’ve been around as long as I have you tend to forget some of the smaller details. Well…except vices are my stock in trade. I probably should look that up. But damn if I still don’t look good.”
That’s true. The Devil looked good. That was part of the attraction of the Prince of Lies. Most people have an image of a red skinned maniacal yellow eyed humanoid replete with horns, yellow eyes, cloven hoofs and a goatee. The goat-demon was a lie perpetrated by the medieval church looking to discredit Pan and / or several of his relatives depending on where you lived. The Devil found it amusing and used it to his advantage.
He has owned a small production company since the 1950’s and played a role in the creation of many B-horror movies. Hammer Studios even cast him as Dracula when Christopher Lee had to back out at the last minute due to a severe case of food poisoning. The food poisoning was less than accidental and Lee and the Devil had fought bitterly for years over the incident, but a contract with Hell is often iron clad and it sometimes requires you to endure minor inconveniences such as food poisoning. A Hammer Studio exec once had to endure an embarrassing case of the hiccups that occurred every time he tried to bed his girlfriend. Satan had his eye on her as well.
The Devil’s favorite movie by far was The Exorcist, a wholly exaggerated and hysterical treatment of the subject of demon possession in his opinion. But, it was quite the cash cow for him in the 70’s and 80’s and it did perpetuate the fear of hell, which almost always worked to his advantage.
Pan, for his part, has given up trying to undue the damage to his reputation. The Devil just saw it as the cost of doing business.
“The church was having attendance problems. People aren’t really likely to get up early on Sunday morning after a night of drinking, whoring and dancing by starlight. So I made a deal with the Vatican,” He had told me once.
“What kind of a deal?” I asked.
“I get the souls of 1/10th of their priests.”
“Wow! Tithing to the devil. That is kind of devious.”
“Guilty as charged,” The devil said as he bowed in mock humility. “The deal actually is working out to be quite a bit more than a 10th of their clergy. I manipulated the governments of the world to make pederasty illegal. Once that happened the number of clerical souls tripled. Then along came the Protestant reformation.”
Pope Leo X had reportedly been outraged. He had been infamous for his lavish parties that always culminated in little naked boys leaping from a cake prancing and cavorting about the dining hall to the amusement of the papal court. This seems distasteful and evil to post modern sensibilities but what can you really expect of a mind that conceived of selling indulgences to fill the empty church treasuries. Forgiveness of sin for money was big business and it allowed people to do what ever amoral and indecent thing they could imagine, including fornicating with the Virgin Mary (were it possible) and still be forgiven for it. It was a guaranteed passport to the New Jerusalem.
“Religion is a vehicle for commerce,” The Devil always likes to remind me. “It also lays waste to more souls than I could ever do, even with all the minions at my disposal.”
So you may be asking yourself, what is he doing talking with the Devil? That is a good question. Over the years he and I had enjoyed many long conversations about the meaning of life, the nature of God and the universe. Oddly after all these years I am an atheist. So do I believe in the devil? No! I don’t have to. I can see the devil. Its god that seems to be hiding from me and regardless of what you want to believe about the Prince of Darkness he is a created being just like you and me. He has no magical or supernatural powers. Satan is salesman. His only power is his ability to persuade. So the real question is whether or not he arises out of nature, as we do, or was created by some divine intelligence. I am siding with arising out of nature these days.
My relationship with Satan began while I was studying philosophy at Seattle University in the mid 1980’s. My neighbor, Jerry the Evangelist, whom you have met previously believes that my pursuit of philosophy while attending college twisted my mind to the truth. I disagree. I see it as the time of my liberation where I tossed off the fetters of my Roman Catholic mind and wandered naked into the forest of truth.
During this time my eyes were open to possibilities usually kept hidden from mortal eyes. When I wasn’t in class I could be found sipping pungent Turkish coffees outside my favorite coffee shop waxing philosophic with the likes of Albert Camus and Jean Paul Sartre. Occasionally Franz Kafka would stop by, but his insect phobia often forced him indoors even on the hottest and most stifling of days.
We would sit for long hours often until closing or an impatient Simone de Beauvoir, looking for attention, would smother my face between her Parisian Breasts. You wouldn’t think that the women who penned the seminal text on modern feminism would resort to such cheap stripper tactics. But, the French have a more cosmopolitan attitude toward sex and I was in my early twenties. Besides Jean, the hipster French intellectual that he was didn’t mind sharing. These were the years when the innocent boy became the man.
The Devil soon noticed our nearly daily meetings and invited himself to join us. He took an immediate liking to me and we became fast friends following the untimely death of my three compatriots. Sartre – self inflicted gunshot, Camus – car wreck and Kafka…well, Kafka one morning awoke to find that he had been transformed during the night into a giant cockroach. Unfortunately, that same morning his apartment had been scheduled for a routine fumigation. Looking back, I can see that my friend’s deaths seem suspicious. But, at the time bereft of their companionship I ate up the attention Satan lavished on me.
As to what I was doing in the Devil’s parlor this morning? I was not sure. He often called clandestine breakfast meetings. Usually something related to his “master plan.” I supposed today was not to be any different.
“Whatever happened to that first blog you used to write? What was it called? Pope on a Rope.”
He was referring to the very first blog I had several years ago titled Pope-On-A-Rope. It had started out as a tirade against the then, newly elected Joseph Ratzinger to the Holy See. It turned into a chronicle of the misadventures of my rather unique friend Br. Ezra P. Miracle and his associates.
“I had to delete it,” I replied. In a moment of pique I had ranted against the company who had taken over the firm I worked for and had once again screwed up my payroll. Several months later that little indiscretion came to the attention of the big boss who liked to Google™ the company name from time to time. Fortunately, for me big boss has ADD and I was able to delete the incriminating evidence without much further ado. My relationship to the company has improved over the ensuing years.
“That’s too bad. That was truly interesting stuff. I don’t know if you read your current blog, but blah, blah, blah, blahddee, blah blah,” said the Devil.
“So what is exactly is your point?”
“I want you to revive your old blog. Instead of writing about shit no one cares about, I want you to tell my story. You can call it Son of Pope-On-A-Rope.”
“What do you mean your story?”
“My life…my biography.”
“You want me to write a biography about you – the Devil – and you want me to call it Son of Pope-On-A-Rope?” I asked somewhat incredulously.
“Think of the title as a throwback to my Hammer Studio days.”
“Is that all?”
Experience taught me that there are no small favors with the Devil.
“I also want you to spread the news about my master plan as well.”
There it was.
“Yeah, I am sure the world wants to hear all about your ‘master plan’ to save the world.”
“The Christians get their plan and the atheists have theirs. I think it is only fair that I get to promote my ‘gospel’ as it were.”
“I am pretty sure the Christians aren’t going to be too happy with the Gospel According to Satan,” I said.
“Don’t worry about them. Those guys are always bitching about something it seems.”
So there it was. The Devil wanted to use our friendship to have me write his biography and share his plan to save the world. Friends though we were I just didn’t want to be his chief apostle. Unfortunately, Old Scratch seemed to read my mind and he pulled out the contract that I had been persuaded to sign all those years ago.
“There are options of course,” The Devil said, “There is always the hiccups or food poisoning.”
I just stared unblinkingly at him.
“No,” He continued, “How about coming down with compulsive masturbation syndrome.”
That would have been like high school all over again. No thank you very much.
“No. I’ll write your story.”
The Devil smiled his warmest politician cum Republican smile.
“That’s what I love about you. You are so reasonable. If everyone was like you then there would be no need for my master plan.”
“I am not sure the world needs more people like me.”
“Maybe not,” he said, “But look at it this way you get to drive my land yacht. That reminds me. There is one more thing…”
The Devil rattled the ice in his empty tumbler and stretched his long legs.
“I love a good Scotch in the morning,” He grinned snapping his fingers loudly. A short red demon in a tux came and refilled his glass.
“Are you sure you don’t want a snoot?”
“No,” I replied, “Recovering alcoholic. I will take a cup of coffee if you have any.”
“Of course we do. It would be truly hell on earth if we didn’t have any coffee.”
I nodded in agreement. The little red demon came back with a silver tray loaded with a carafe of coffee, delicate little china cup and a bowl of sugar. He set it down on the table beside my leather recliner.
“You know since you have given up drinking you are not nearly as fun as you used to be,” said the Devil.
I took the cup proffered by the demon and settled back into my chair.
“You need some vices. Vices are the spice of life, or is it spices are the vices of life? You’ve been around as long as I have you tend to forget some of the smaller details. Well…except vices are my stock in trade. I probably should look that up. But damn if I still don’t look good.”
That’s true. The Devil looked good. That was part of the attraction of the Prince of Lies. Most people have an image of a red skinned maniacal yellow eyed humanoid replete with horns, yellow eyes, cloven hoofs and a goatee. The goat-demon was a lie perpetrated by the medieval church looking to discredit Pan and / or several of his relatives depending on where you lived. The Devil found it amusing and used it to his advantage.
He has owned a small production company since the 1950’s and played a role in the creation of many B-horror movies. Hammer Studios even cast him as Dracula when Christopher Lee had to back out at the last minute due to a severe case of food poisoning. The food poisoning was less than accidental and Lee and the Devil had fought bitterly for years over the incident, but a contract with Hell is often iron clad and it sometimes requires you to endure minor inconveniences such as food poisoning. A Hammer Studio exec once had to endure an embarrassing case of the hiccups that occurred every time he tried to bed his girlfriend. Satan had his eye on her as well.
The Devil’s favorite movie by far was The Exorcist, a wholly exaggerated and hysterical treatment of the subject of demon possession in his opinion. But, it was quite the cash cow for him in the 70’s and 80’s and it did perpetuate the fear of hell, which almost always worked to his advantage.
Pan, for his part, has given up trying to undue the damage to his reputation. The Devil just saw it as the cost of doing business.
“The church was having attendance problems. People aren’t really likely to get up early on Sunday morning after a night of drinking, whoring and dancing by starlight. So I made a deal with the Vatican,” He had told me once.
“What kind of a deal?” I asked.
“I get the souls of 1/10th of their priests.”
“Wow! Tithing to the devil. That is kind of devious.”
“Guilty as charged,” The devil said as he bowed in mock humility. “The deal actually is working out to be quite a bit more than a 10th of their clergy. I manipulated the governments of the world to make pederasty illegal. Once that happened the number of clerical souls tripled. Then along came the Protestant reformation.”
Pope Leo X had reportedly been outraged. He had been infamous for his lavish parties that always culminated in little naked boys leaping from a cake prancing and cavorting about the dining hall to the amusement of the papal court. This seems distasteful and evil to post modern sensibilities but what can you really expect of a mind that conceived of selling indulgences to fill the empty church treasuries. Forgiveness of sin for money was big business and it allowed people to do what ever amoral and indecent thing they could imagine, including fornicating with the Virgin Mary (were it possible) and still be forgiven for it. It was a guaranteed passport to the New Jerusalem.
“Religion is a vehicle for commerce,” The Devil always likes to remind me. “It also lays waste to more souls than I could ever do, even with all the minions at my disposal.”
So you may be asking yourself, what is he doing talking with the Devil? That is a good question. Over the years he and I had enjoyed many long conversations about the meaning of life, the nature of God and the universe. Oddly after all these years I am an atheist. So do I believe in the devil? No! I don’t have to. I can see the devil. Its god that seems to be hiding from me and regardless of what you want to believe about the Prince of Darkness he is a created being just like you and me. He has no magical or supernatural powers. Satan is salesman. His only power is his ability to persuade. So the real question is whether or not he arises out of nature, as we do, or was created by some divine intelligence. I am siding with arising out of nature these days.
My relationship with Satan began while I was studying philosophy at Seattle University in the mid 1980’s. My neighbor, Jerry the Evangelist, whom you have met previously believes that my pursuit of philosophy while attending college twisted my mind to the truth. I disagree. I see it as the time of my liberation where I tossed off the fetters of my Roman Catholic mind and wandered naked into the forest of truth.
During this time my eyes were open to possibilities usually kept hidden from mortal eyes. When I wasn’t in class I could be found sipping pungent Turkish coffees outside my favorite coffee shop waxing philosophic with the likes of Albert Camus and Jean Paul Sartre. Occasionally Franz Kafka would stop by, but his insect phobia often forced him indoors even on the hottest and most stifling of days.
We would sit for long hours often until closing or an impatient Simone de Beauvoir, looking for attention, would smother my face between her Parisian Breasts. You wouldn’t think that the women who penned the seminal text on modern feminism would resort to such cheap stripper tactics. But, the French have a more cosmopolitan attitude toward sex and I was in my early twenties. Besides Jean, the hipster French intellectual that he was didn’t mind sharing. These were the years when the innocent boy became the man.
The Devil soon noticed our nearly daily meetings and invited himself to join us. He took an immediate liking to me and we became fast friends following the untimely death of my three compatriots. Sartre – self inflicted gunshot, Camus – car wreck and Kafka…well, Kafka one morning awoke to find that he had been transformed during the night into a giant cockroach. Unfortunately, that same morning his apartment had been scheduled for a routine fumigation. Looking back, I can see that my friend’s deaths seem suspicious. But, at the time bereft of their companionship I ate up the attention Satan lavished on me.
As to what I was doing in the Devil’s parlor this morning? I was not sure. He often called clandestine breakfast meetings. Usually something related to his “master plan.” I supposed today was not to be any different.
“Whatever happened to that first blog you used to write? What was it called? Pope on a Rope.”
He was referring to the very first blog I had several years ago titled Pope-On-A-Rope. It had started out as a tirade against the then, newly elected Joseph Ratzinger to the Holy See. It turned into a chronicle of the misadventures of my rather unique friend Br. Ezra P. Miracle and his associates.
“I had to delete it,” I replied. In a moment of pique I had ranted against the company who had taken over the firm I worked for and had once again screwed up my payroll. Several months later that little indiscretion came to the attention of the big boss who liked to Google™ the company name from time to time. Fortunately, for me big boss has ADD and I was able to delete the incriminating evidence without much further ado. My relationship to the company has improved over the ensuing years.
“That’s too bad. That was truly interesting stuff. I don’t know if you read your current blog, but blah, blah, blah, blahddee, blah blah,” said the Devil.
“So what is exactly is your point?”
“I want you to revive your old blog. Instead of writing about shit no one cares about, I want you to tell my story. You can call it Son of Pope-On-A-Rope.”
“What do you mean your story?”
“My life…my biography.”
“You want me to write a biography about you – the Devil – and you want me to call it Son of Pope-On-A-Rope?” I asked somewhat incredulously.
“Think of the title as a throwback to my Hammer Studio days.”
“Is that all?”
Experience taught me that there are no small favors with the Devil.
“I also want you to spread the news about my master plan as well.”
There it was.
“Yeah, I am sure the world wants to hear all about your ‘master plan’ to save the world.”
“The Christians get their plan and the atheists have theirs. I think it is only fair that I get to promote my ‘gospel’ as it were.”
“I am pretty sure the Christians aren’t going to be too happy with the Gospel According to Satan,” I said.
“Don’t worry about them. Those guys are always bitching about something it seems.”
So there it was. The Devil wanted to use our friendship to have me write his biography and share his plan to save the world. Friends though we were I just didn’t want to be his chief apostle. Unfortunately, Old Scratch seemed to read my mind and he pulled out the contract that I had been persuaded to sign all those years ago.
“There are options of course,” The Devil said, “There is always the hiccups or food poisoning.”
I just stared unblinkingly at him.
“No,” He continued, “How about coming down with compulsive masturbation syndrome.”
That would have been like high school all over again. No thank you very much.
“No. I’ll write your story.”
The Devil smiled his warmest politician cum Republican smile.
“That’s what I love about you. You are so reasonable. If everyone was like you then there would be no need for my master plan.”
“I am not sure the world needs more people like me.”
“Maybe not,” he said, “But look at it this way you get to drive my land yacht. That reminds me. There is one more thing…”
Sunday, June 28, 2009
A Libertarian Trapped in A Socialist's Body - Interlude: Uncovering A Problem of Theory
I have noticed that the emerging political philosophy we are attempting to formulate in this essay has some serious flaws. These flaws are the result of two basic and conflicting attitudes I have about the role of government in the lives of the citizenry. The first attitude is that the government that governs best governs least. The second attitude is that the purpose of government is to protect the powerless from the powerful. The first is my ideal; my preference. The later is my reality.
I have always told my friends that I embrace a libertarian philosophy in life and politics. But, my distrust of human nature prevents me from wholeheartedly being a card caring libertarian. I concede a need for a certain level of social insurance. Perhaps, it is not my distrust of human nature, but my trust in it its self-interested outlook that pushes me to question the overall ethics of libertarianism.
I loathe capitalism. This prevents me from being a true libertarian as far as the Libertarian political party. Laissez Faire Capitalism leads to the abuse of the powerless by the owners of capital. However, when I talk of my hatred of capitalism I understand it to be that malignant mega-corporate capitalism of today and the ugly post industrial revolution capitalism that gave rise to the labor movement, Karl Marx and communism. I respect and appreciate the possibilities of free enterprise and its ability to free humanity from the bondage to subsistence living.
Recently we opined that Karl Marx is an example of how a revolutionary thinker can be brilliant and at the same time get it all wrong. Marx was an angry product of the abuses of his time. Marx was deluded. He also distrusted human nature to a certain degree and saw that the proletariat would need to engage in bloody revolution in order to overthrow the oppressors. But, he placed too much faith in human nature that the working class could establish a classless society of equality.
It seems that I have put the clichéd cart before the horse. Before we can discuss the art and practice of enlightened self-interest we need to look more closely at the ideal of society toward which we are working even as we may never realize it. Before we can discuss enlightened self-interest we need to formulate what this enlightenment will look like. We can’t practice something we can’t comprehend.
It is important that this does not make me a socialist although some will fear that it does. Socialism is tyranny through bureaucracy. It is to be avoided at all costs. But, if we are to reduce the role of government then we need to consider the moral zeitgeist under which we are operating. An enlightened person understands that true liberty doesn’t mean that I can do whatever I want, whenever I want. I have a moral obligation to consider the consequences of my use of liberty. I appreciate the need for revolution. But, violence often leads to collective psychosis and inhumanity.
Right livelihood or the meaning of work needs to figure into our inquiries. I believe we are already starting to see this happening in the United States. The recent economic crisis has turned up the heat. Since the 1950’s our economy was based on consumption. Today people are starting to think more in terms of sustainability. We are not talking just about resources and environment but something even more fundamental. The questions that these people are asking is what do I need to sustain my life and my family’s life and how shall I spend my day doing this? What do we truly need in terms of material comforts and how much time shall we spend securing them? And finally what is the good life?
I have always told my friends that I embrace a libertarian philosophy in life and politics. But, my distrust of human nature prevents me from wholeheartedly being a card caring libertarian. I concede a need for a certain level of social insurance. Perhaps, it is not my distrust of human nature, but my trust in it its self-interested outlook that pushes me to question the overall ethics of libertarianism.
I loathe capitalism. This prevents me from being a true libertarian as far as the Libertarian political party. Laissez Faire Capitalism leads to the abuse of the powerless by the owners of capital. However, when I talk of my hatred of capitalism I understand it to be that malignant mega-corporate capitalism of today and the ugly post industrial revolution capitalism that gave rise to the labor movement, Karl Marx and communism. I respect and appreciate the possibilities of free enterprise and its ability to free humanity from the bondage to subsistence living.
Recently we opined that Karl Marx is an example of how a revolutionary thinker can be brilliant and at the same time get it all wrong. Marx was an angry product of the abuses of his time. Marx was deluded. He also distrusted human nature to a certain degree and saw that the proletariat would need to engage in bloody revolution in order to overthrow the oppressors. But, he placed too much faith in human nature that the working class could establish a classless society of equality.
It seems that I have put the clichéd cart before the horse. Before we can discuss the art and practice of enlightened self-interest we need to look more closely at the ideal of society toward which we are working even as we may never realize it. Before we can discuss enlightened self-interest we need to formulate what this enlightenment will look like. We can’t practice something we can’t comprehend.
It is important that this does not make me a socialist although some will fear that it does. Socialism is tyranny through bureaucracy. It is to be avoided at all costs. But, if we are to reduce the role of government then we need to consider the moral zeitgeist under which we are operating. An enlightened person understands that true liberty doesn’t mean that I can do whatever I want, whenever I want. I have a moral obligation to consider the consequences of my use of liberty. I appreciate the need for revolution. But, violence often leads to collective psychosis and inhumanity.
Right livelihood or the meaning of work needs to figure into our inquiries. I believe we are already starting to see this happening in the United States. The recent economic crisis has turned up the heat. Since the 1950’s our economy was based on consumption. Today people are starting to think more in terms of sustainability. We are not talking just about resources and environment but something even more fundamental. The questions that these people are asking is what do I need to sustain my life and my family’s life and how shall I spend my day doing this? What do we truly need in terms of material comforts and how much time shall we spend securing them? And finally what is the good life?
Friday, June 26, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
A LIbertarian Trapped In A Socialist's Body - Part Two
Part Two: Creating an Ethically Responsible Compassionate Society Using Libertarian Principals
The Problem of Human Nature & Ideologies
How do we change the world? I am addressing liberals and progressives. How do we change the world for the better? The real question may be who asked us to change the world? Not that the world couldn’t use some changing, but often it seems that our progressive meddling is filled with the hubris of the naïve. I am reminded of Reinhold Niebuhr, one of the great voices of 20th century progressivism, who late in his life criticized fellow progressives saying it was time for liberalism to grow up. Niebuhr believed that we were often unrealistic.
Those of us who identify as liberal, progressive or even green tend to view the world in terms of social justice and economic equality. We look out and see what is unfair and launch our derision toward the establishment and conservative voices often mistaking vitriol for passion. Yet, I wonder just how effective we really are. We preach to the choir but, seldom, it seems, make allies of those whose opinions differ. It is these relationships that we need if we are ever going to successfully achieve our agenda.
We often abdicate personal accountability and freedom of choice laying the mantle of guilt at the feet of the state and the wealthy. Not that there isn’t some guilt there. We also recognize that not everyone has the same freedom of choice that we enjoy in the United States. Post modern liberalism in its most extreme form tends toward the idea that the state should control the economy and distribution of resources and still afford us the highest level of civil liberty. It seems to mistake this as liberty. In many ways this extreme liberalism is as authoritarian as the neo-conservative movement we oppose and is equally as dangerous. The danger is in having government direct lives in any capacity. The more responsibility placed at their feet the more restrictions that will be placed on us as individuals. That may not be the intent, but it is often the reality. Bureaucracies are restrictive and controlling. It is in their very nature. They are also very difficult to change. Change is something that takes years and decades of frustrating work.
I have for many years now been convinced that we cannot change the world through politics or religion. These two great machines of human interaction create more division, more anger, more violence then they often ever resolve. The challenge to peace and social equality is human nature. Unless human nature changes, unless we somehow become collectively more enlightened we are going to still be waving our weenies at each other and having pissing contests against the wind.
Human beings are creatures of self-interest. Everything you think is true about morality and fairness has been taught to you through the religious and social zeitgeist of our particular culture. What you believe to be right or wrong are part of your indoctrination and as much as the religious authority protests to the opposite, is not necessarily universal across cultural lines. Religious morals are human laws stamped with divine authority to give them more credibility among the credulous.
We become what we learn. Each of us is a complicated mix of genetic destiny, environmental circumstances and social indoctrination. Then there is our individual temperament, which is more the result of these elements than something that appears on the tabula rasa of our psyches. We are not born defective or tainted. We arise out of nature and to nature we return. In the meantime we look to fulfill our self interest, avoid pain and increase our pleasure within the moral and ethical boundaries approved by the society we live in. Some live constrained lives within these boundaries to a greater or lesser degree of contentment. Others reach out beyond them. Some actually make things better, but many choose to live according to their self interest without regard to others.
Human nature is also gregarious. We tend to gather together in clumps of social units. From this concept we get the root word polis from which we derive such words as politics and metropolis. Aristotle’s famous observation that man is a political animal speaks to this very thing. We are a social animal. As self interested as we are we also need each other. Natural selection might well have favored those human ancestors who were able to override part of their self interest in order to collaborate with others for survival.
This aspect of human nature almost guarantees that unmindful of our condition we will approach the world at large with an us vs. them mentality. The Jew will continue to be God’s handpicked chosen ones, Christians will pit themselves against the non-believer and Muslim will wage jihad against the infidel. Republicans and Democrats, Liberals and Conservatives, and Socialist and Capitalist will butt heads adding their voices to the inescapable din of suffering and toiling humanity. The political landscape in our country is a cacophony of special interests each wanting their agenda to figure somewhere on the list of highest priorities.
This is the problem with ideologies and special agendas. They clash with other ideologies and other agendas. This is perhaps the greatest weakness of any democratic experiment. The larger and more diverse your population the larger and more diverse the agendas will be making it nearly impossible to reach a consensus. Even when a consensus is reached the opposition still attempts to overturn things and force things to their liking, in fact it may even be legitimate to ask if we ever actually reach a true consensus at all. I am not a big fan of democracy. But, then I am not a big fan of authority either and therefore democracy seems the best possible political system conceived of in an attempt to ensure liberty and justice for everyone. Paraphrasing Winston Churchill, the best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with your typical voter…unfortunately every other form of government has been tried.
I am not suggesting that there shouldn’t be ideologies. I am just saying that we can’t put too much trust in their wisdom or efficacy. Ideologies allow us to hope. They allow us to conceive of better ways to live and better ways of doing things. They give us noble goals. But they don’t exist in a vacuum. They must change as new information presents itself.
The founders of our countries conceived of “liberty and justice for all.” They spoke and wrote beautifully that “all men are created equal” yet in the early days of our republic we still had a slave industry and women could not vote or sit on a jury. The ideal was laid out. But, we still had not achieved it. In order to get the Declaration of Independence signed a compromise with the Southern colonies had to be reached. As much as it galled John Adams and Benjamin Franklin to remove the anti-slavery language it was done to keep the South from walking out. We must pick and choose battles appropriately or we will never have a chance of winning the war. It took a civil war and the civil rights movements to help create equality for blacks. It took bold women who were willing to fight and protest for their right of suffrage. Even with all of these progressive steps forward the fight for equality and justice is still not won. The labor movement had similar struggles. But, they had all one thing in common. It took violence to create change. Even if they were not committing acts of violence it was still visited upon them.
This is what makes politics such a tricky game. This is why Obama’s rhetoric of ending “business as usual” in Washington has to be taken with a grain of salt no matter who passionately he may feel. Every career politician becomes seduced by the game and falls prey to this peculiar addiction. I call this the addiction of the will to power. Regardless of how sincere their intentions or how brilliant they are they will have to sleep with the enemy occasionally if they hope to get anything done. Even the most ethical politician becomes corrupted by the game even if they never take a bribe, cover something up or commit adultery. They have to be corrupted or they would never survive it. The will to power can be something as simple as the desire to change and influence the lives of other or the imperial dreams of an Alexander the Great. Human nature will always ensure that the end result stays the same.
It is interesting to read the rhetoric that comes across my desk in the form of emails and newsletters from the various progressive and liberal organizations that I follow. From the outset of the last presidential election I opined that Obama was not the darling of the progressive political element in this country. Judging from what I have been reading the past couple of months it would seem that I am correct.
Progressives see him as a sell out on issues such as health care or see him not doing enough to promote rights for gays. Still other progressive voices (and conservative ones for that matter) criticize his relative silence on the social unrest in Iran (We’ll have more to say on this at a later time). This is the downside to ideologies. The unrelenting gadfly nature of the morally outraged that cannot see past their limited vision of things whose constant haranguing undermines as much as it benefits.
This is that old bugaboo of self-interest coming in to play. On one hand these voices keep us aware of the deficiencies of society and its injustice. They are the clarion call forward for positive change and moral advancement. These voices raise our conscious awareness. But, in their self-interest they often are uncompromising. It’s all or nothing and they are often unwilling and even unable to build bridges.
A great example today is the struggle in the gay community to be given the legal rights and benefits of civil unions and the Christian conservative groups that vehemently oppose it often to the point of passing legislation banning same sex unions. The Evangelicals see homosexuality as a grave sin. Indeed it is recorded in their bible which they take as the inerrant word of God. Therefore it is as if God was speaking to them directly. Their fear of hell and God’s wrath makes it impossible for the gay community and their supporters to erect any bridges.
Gay marriage and transgender rights are seen by the Evangelical community as an assault on the culture and a threat to the nature of gender and procreation. It is an unassailable position of which there is no way to breach the wall erected by conservatives. Even the findings of medical science and psychology cannot override what they hear as the voice of God speaking to them. We see it as ignorance. But they see it as truth. Evangelicals mistake themselves as guardians of morality and decency. But, if you believe that your god will punish you for the sins of someone else, which is what they are saying whether they realize it or not, you will not reach them.
This is a great example of the downside of ideology. This example illustrates how closely held notions of right and wrong and good vs. evil actually create animosity, hatred and often times violence. While I would acknowledge the right of evangelicals to believe as they do, I also see that those who would run afoul of their moral machinations should have some basic protections against them. Here is another drawback to democracy. The consensus opinion is not always just (not that Evangelicals have a consensus necessarily). It is possible even in a democratic republic to use the legislative process to oppress others who may not be in the majority.
So in wrapping up this section of our essay we have really raised question and pointed out problems. The question that remains to be answered is can we, despite human nature and our differing ideological opinions, create a morally competent society that is just and compassionate? At the outset we mentioned that politics and religions create more harm and that they are often barriers to change.
Knowing what we do about human nature it is unlikely that we can overcome our need to gather in clumps and express ourselves through ideologies. So we must attempt to change human nature. Can it be done? If so can it be done ethically? Is it even possible to change human nature? Not in en masse. This change is going to require the vision and commitment of brave individuals.
The history of human civilization is the history of empire. It is the history of the strong and powerful exerting their will over the weak. It is also the history of the weak attempting to resist and throw off the yoke of oppression. If human nature doesn’t change then this situation will not change either. This is where we will turn our focus to.
To be continued…
Part Two: Creating an Ethically Responsible Compassionate Society Using Libertarian Principals
The Art and Practice of Enlightened Self Interest
The Problem of Human Nature & Ideologies
How do we change the world? I am addressing liberals and progressives. How do we change the world for the better? The real question may be who asked us to change the world? Not that the world couldn’t use some changing, but often it seems that our progressive meddling is filled with the hubris of the naïve. I am reminded of Reinhold Niebuhr, one of the great voices of 20th century progressivism, who late in his life criticized fellow progressives saying it was time for liberalism to grow up. Niebuhr believed that we were often unrealistic.
Those of us who identify as liberal, progressive or even green tend to view the world in terms of social justice and economic equality. We look out and see what is unfair and launch our derision toward the establishment and conservative voices often mistaking vitriol for passion. Yet, I wonder just how effective we really are. We preach to the choir but, seldom, it seems, make allies of those whose opinions differ. It is these relationships that we need if we are ever going to successfully achieve our agenda.
We often abdicate personal accountability and freedom of choice laying the mantle of guilt at the feet of the state and the wealthy. Not that there isn’t some guilt there. We also recognize that not everyone has the same freedom of choice that we enjoy in the United States. Post modern liberalism in its most extreme form tends toward the idea that the state should control the economy and distribution of resources and still afford us the highest level of civil liberty. It seems to mistake this as liberty. In many ways this extreme liberalism is as authoritarian as the neo-conservative movement we oppose and is equally as dangerous. The danger is in having government direct lives in any capacity. The more responsibility placed at their feet the more restrictions that will be placed on us as individuals. That may not be the intent, but it is often the reality. Bureaucracies are restrictive and controlling. It is in their very nature. They are also very difficult to change. Change is something that takes years and decades of frustrating work.
I have for many years now been convinced that we cannot change the world through politics or religion. These two great machines of human interaction create more division, more anger, more violence then they often ever resolve. The challenge to peace and social equality is human nature. Unless human nature changes, unless we somehow become collectively more enlightened we are going to still be waving our weenies at each other and having pissing contests against the wind.
Human beings are creatures of self-interest. Everything you think is true about morality and fairness has been taught to you through the religious and social zeitgeist of our particular culture. What you believe to be right or wrong are part of your indoctrination and as much as the religious authority protests to the opposite, is not necessarily universal across cultural lines. Religious morals are human laws stamped with divine authority to give them more credibility among the credulous.
We become what we learn. Each of us is a complicated mix of genetic destiny, environmental circumstances and social indoctrination. Then there is our individual temperament, which is more the result of these elements than something that appears on the tabula rasa of our psyches. We are not born defective or tainted. We arise out of nature and to nature we return. In the meantime we look to fulfill our self interest, avoid pain and increase our pleasure within the moral and ethical boundaries approved by the society we live in. Some live constrained lives within these boundaries to a greater or lesser degree of contentment. Others reach out beyond them. Some actually make things better, but many choose to live according to their self interest without regard to others.
Human nature is also gregarious. We tend to gather together in clumps of social units. From this concept we get the root word polis from which we derive such words as politics and metropolis. Aristotle’s famous observation that man is a political animal speaks to this very thing. We are a social animal. As self interested as we are we also need each other. Natural selection might well have favored those human ancestors who were able to override part of their self interest in order to collaborate with others for survival.
This aspect of human nature almost guarantees that unmindful of our condition we will approach the world at large with an us vs. them mentality. The Jew will continue to be God’s handpicked chosen ones, Christians will pit themselves against the non-believer and Muslim will wage jihad against the infidel. Republicans and Democrats, Liberals and Conservatives, and Socialist and Capitalist will butt heads adding their voices to the inescapable din of suffering and toiling humanity. The political landscape in our country is a cacophony of special interests each wanting their agenda to figure somewhere on the list of highest priorities.
This is the problem with ideologies and special agendas. They clash with other ideologies and other agendas. This is perhaps the greatest weakness of any democratic experiment. The larger and more diverse your population the larger and more diverse the agendas will be making it nearly impossible to reach a consensus. Even when a consensus is reached the opposition still attempts to overturn things and force things to their liking, in fact it may even be legitimate to ask if we ever actually reach a true consensus at all. I am not a big fan of democracy. But, then I am not a big fan of authority either and therefore democracy seems the best possible political system conceived of in an attempt to ensure liberty and justice for everyone. Paraphrasing Winston Churchill, the best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with your typical voter…unfortunately every other form of government has been tried.
I am not suggesting that there shouldn’t be ideologies. I am just saying that we can’t put too much trust in their wisdom or efficacy. Ideologies allow us to hope. They allow us to conceive of better ways to live and better ways of doing things. They give us noble goals. But they don’t exist in a vacuum. They must change as new information presents itself.
The founders of our countries conceived of “liberty and justice for all.” They spoke and wrote beautifully that “all men are created equal” yet in the early days of our republic we still had a slave industry and women could not vote or sit on a jury. The ideal was laid out. But, we still had not achieved it. In order to get the Declaration of Independence signed a compromise with the Southern colonies had to be reached. As much as it galled John Adams and Benjamin Franklin to remove the anti-slavery language it was done to keep the South from walking out. We must pick and choose battles appropriately or we will never have a chance of winning the war. It took a civil war and the civil rights movements to help create equality for blacks. It took bold women who were willing to fight and protest for their right of suffrage. Even with all of these progressive steps forward the fight for equality and justice is still not won. The labor movement had similar struggles. But, they had all one thing in common. It took violence to create change. Even if they were not committing acts of violence it was still visited upon them.
This is what makes politics such a tricky game. This is why Obama’s rhetoric of ending “business as usual” in Washington has to be taken with a grain of salt no matter who passionately he may feel. Every career politician becomes seduced by the game and falls prey to this peculiar addiction. I call this the addiction of the will to power. Regardless of how sincere their intentions or how brilliant they are they will have to sleep with the enemy occasionally if they hope to get anything done. Even the most ethical politician becomes corrupted by the game even if they never take a bribe, cover something up or commit adultery. They have to be corrupted or they would never survive it. The will to power can be something as simple as the desire to change and influence the lives of other or the imperial dreams of an Alexander the Great. Human nature will always ensure that the end result stays the same.
It is interesting to read the rhetoric that comes across my desk in the form of emails and newsletters from the various progressive and liberal organizations that I follow. From the outset of the last presidential election I opined that Obama was not the darling of the progressive political element in this country. Judging from what I have been reading the past couple of months it would seem that I am correct.
Progressives see him as a sell out on issues such as health care or see him not doing enough to promote rights for gays. Still other progressive voices (and conservative ones for that matter) criticize his relative silence on the social unrest in Iran (We’ll have more to say on this at a later time). This is the downside to ideologies. The unrelenting gadfly nature of the morally outraged that cannot see past their limited vision of things whose constant haranguing undermines as much as it benefits.
This is that old bugaboo of self-interest coming in to play. On one hand these voices keep us aware of the deficiencies of society and its injustice. They are the clarion call forward for positive change and moral advancement. These voices raise our conscious awareness. But, in their self-interest they often are uncompromising. It’s all or nothing and they are often unwilling and even unable to build bridges.
A great example today is the struggle in the gay community to be given the legal rights and benefits of civil unions and the Christian conservative groups that vehemently oppose it often to the point of passing legislation banning same sex unions. The Evangelicals see homosexuality as a grave sin. Indeed it is recorded in their bible which they take as the inerrant word of God. Therefore it is as if God was speaking to them directly. Their fear of hell and God’s wrath makes it impossible for the gay community and their supporters to erect any bridges.
Gay marriage and transgender rights are seen by the Evangelical community as an assault on the culture and a threat to the nature of gender and procreation. It is an unassailable position of which there is no way to breach the wall erected by conservatives. Even the findings of medical science and psychology cannot override what they hear as the voice of God speaking to them. We see it as ignorance. But they see it as truth. Evangelicals mistake themselves as guardians of morality and decency. But, if you believe that your god will punish you for the sins of someone else, which is what they are saying whether they realize it or not, you will not reach them.
This is a great example of the downside of ideology. This example illustrates how closely held notions of right and wrong and good vs. evil actually create animosity, hatred and often times violence. While I would acknowledge the right of evangelicals to believe as they do, I also see that those who would run afoul of their moral machinations should have some basic protections against them. Here is another drawback to democracy. The consensus opinion is not always just (not that Evangelicals have a consensus necessarily). It is possible even in a democratic republic to use the legislative process to oppress others who may not be in the majority.
So in wrapping up this section of our essay we have really raised question and pointed out problems. The question that remains to be answered is can we, despite human nature and our differing ideological opinions, create a morally competent society that is just and compassionate? At the outset we mentioned that politics and religions create more harm and that they are often barriers to change.
Knowing what we do about human nature it is unlikely that we can overcome our need to gather in clumps and express ourselves through ideologies. So we must attempt to change human nature. Can it be done? If so can it be done ethically? Is it even possible to change human nature? Not in en masse. This change is going to require the vision and commitment of brave individuals.
The history of human civilization is the history of empire. It is the history of the strong and powerful exerting their will over the weak. It is also the history of the weak attempting to resist and throw off the yoke of oppression. If human nature doesn’t change then this situation will not change either. This is where we will turn our focus to.
To be continued…
Part Two: Creating an Ethically Responsible Compassionate Society Using Libertarian Principals
The Art and Practice of Enlightened Self Interest
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