My Indifference to Downed U.S. Pilots in Iran

My indifference surprised me

for I wish the pilots no harm

and have no sympathy for the murderous Iranians

whose drones destroyed Ukraine.

They created the bad karma that now afflicts them.

So why the indifference?

It was bound to come.

The Vietnam War killed 3.8 million Vietnamese

even though Vietnam was never a threat to the U.S.

Then came the My Lai Massacre

committed by angry soldiers

who blamed the Vietnamese

when the evil U.S. government was to blame.

It sent them to kill Vietnamese

who had never harmed Americans.

Then came the chemical weapon Agent Orange

sprayed on villages and fields poisoning everything.

And napalm dropped on children.

So evil ICE should not have been a revelation

that the moral rot was not just at the top.

It was within those who served the rot at the top.

Here is the lesson learned:

U.S. soldiers will follow evil orders.

Those down pilots would bomb Greenland if order to.

They would bomb Canada if ordered to.

They would bomb Minneapolis, Minnesota, if order to

by their deranged commander-in-chief.

They may be brave, but they are morally hollow men

who serve the morally hollow Mad King Donald Trump.

And after a Navy Blue Angel Jets sickeningly

frightened Florida Beachgoers, mothers and their children,

following orders from MAGA AMERICA'S

Secretary of Death and Destruction, Pete Hegseth,

I must add contempt and disgust to my indifference.

Would U.S. pilots spray Agent Orange

over beachgoers if order to?

Where oh where

have all the good men gone?

Gone to graveyards

every one.

 

 

Masculine Aggression

“And societies are always at stake just because men enjoy killing one another. And you’re a pessimist because reason seems helpless against the irrationality rooted in men’s instinctual aggression.”

“Located in what Freud calls the id, which brings up another important consideration. The id, the instincts, and masculine aggression are part of humanity’s DNA. That means the irrational is inherent to humanity. However, reason isn’t. Reason is an intellectual skill that emerged with language, which enabled humans to think about ideas that are embedded in language. Early humans probably had a rudimentary language that enabled social interaction but not complex ratiocination.”

“So we're basically animals that learned to think.”

“Yes. Did you ever watch the movie Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?”

“I did. I even read the story. So I see what you mean. The primitive man Hyde is the beast inherent in masculine DNA, whereas the rational man Jekyll is the product of civilization. So the story is telling us that the civilized man can revert back to his primitive self because its exists in his DNA, whereas reason is a superficial acquisition.”

“Very good. I believe that’s the heart of the problem. The beast is inherent in men. Reason lacks the ability defeat irrationality, at best it’s barely able to control it, which is demonstrated in the movie. However, not all forms of irrationality are undesirable. Love can be reckless, but without it life wouldn’t be worth living. Besides, transforming humans into robots—which ideologies do—destroys their humanity. A balance is needed but difficult to achieve.”

“In a French lit course I read Emile Zola’s novel La Bête humaine. Our discussion brings the story to mind. Jacques Lantier the protagonist often desires to murder women. His desire to murder is considered an inherited form of madness. The novel ends with Lantier driving a train carrying troops towards the front to fight in a war. The ending would indicate that the desire to kill is not a family trait but gender trait in men. What you call masculine aggression.”

“That’s a terrific analysis. I read the book in English, of course. Zola is considered the father of literary naturalism which examines humanity’s darker side, greatly influenced by Darwin’s theory of evolution.”

“Which proved that human are animals, not divine beings.”

“Exactly. Though murders occur in the story, most are crimes of passion, Lantier controls his desire to kill. I believe that is an important insight given reason and passion are within him in constant conflict. I’m not sure why he refrains from killing. Kant may be able to help us here. Perhaps Lantier believes it’s his rational duty not to kill in spite of his impulses. That it would be irrational to do so. It would be like driving a train off its tracks, a train, interestingly enough that he loves. So in him we see reason controlling masculine aggression. He calls the train he drives La Lison, and perhaps he respects the rational order of the machine. I don’t know. You probably recall the snow storm the train gets caught in. Clearly storm represent the forces of nature including human passion. Lantier controls the train and will not with the help of the train allow the storm to defeat him. Perhaps that’s the best we can hope for from men.”

“At the end of the story the woman Philomène is beaten by her brother and Lantier wants to go to her aid. But his fireman, Pecqueux, holds him back, saying ‘Ah! the slut! if he could only beat her to death! So there’s lots of masculine aggression—especially toward women. And on a train filled with soldiers heading for war, Lantier and Pecqueux fight one another like beasts, both falling off the train to be decapitated by its wheels, resulting in the train no longer having a driver.”

“I remember the ending perfectly,” said the old seaman. “The soldiers sang patriotic songs as the train disappeared and ‘rolled on and on in the obscure night, going none knew where—yonder. What mattered the victims the engine crushed on the road! Was it not advancing towards the future in spite of all, heedless of the blood that might be spilt?’”

“And the soldiers would die in a train crash or in the war. From what you have told me, the runaway train expresses masculine aggression unrestrained heading into the future where it would create two world wars and endless others. I understand much better the reason for your pessimism.”

“It seems that masculine aggression is as durable and natural as gravity. Thus, as with gravity we have to learn to live with it by avoiding its negative influences and utilizing its benefits, of which gravity has many.”

“I don’t see the benefits of masculine aggression.”

“Freud would say that masculine aggression needs to be channeled into useful and acceptable activities. In his ingenious light experiment Isaac Newton directed white light into a prism that divided it into a beautiful rainbow of colored light. He proved that white light is made up of a variety of colored light. Now think of masculine aggression, better yet, masculine energy that Freud called libido as being similar to white light in that he can be expressed in various actions or ways of behaving. Freud called the process sublimation.”

“I learned about Newton’s experiment with light in high school science. The experiment shows that other forms of light are contained in white light, but both are light. But sublimation doesn’t produce different forms of masculine energy but different actions. That’s not the same thing.”

“No, it isn’t. I’m using Newton’s experiment as a metaphor in the sense that sublimation, like a prism, channels masculine energy into different socially acceptable behavior. Perhaps aggression is only one expression of masculine energy, but a dominate one because the instinct that directs it is primordially powerful.”

“You mean it was the original expression of masculine energy. That makes sense if early humans living in a hostile world had to rely primarily on male aggression to survive.”

“I think that’s it. Though we’re just speculating.”

“Still, the colored light is inherent in white light and is revealed when white light passes through a prism like sunlight passing through drops of rain to produce a rainbow. How does sublimation transform masculine energy into acceptable forms of behavior? What’s the prism?”

“My guess is the prism is very complex. It includes our perceptions of the world, our emotions and ideas, society and culture. In a sense, these influences determine how men and women channel their energy. In humanity’s primordial past, options must have been few. But as you pointed out with the Lascaux wall paintings, about seventeen thousand years ago, some men chose to channel their energy into artistic creation. Men can be aggressive in ways that are creative rather than destructive. As such masculine aggression is expressed as ambition, enterprise, determination, enthusiasm, commitment, dedication and so on. As society evolved socially, materially, and culturally more options became available for men to channel their energy. Such as art, philosophy, science, athletics, religion, politics, and other forms of work, actually they became endless, and of course there were always the primordial roles within the family. All served as potentialities for self-realization—guided by the intellect and emotions.”

“You know that it’s believed that women artists along with men contributed to the Lascaux paintings. I think that’s really cool, men and women working together in that way.”

“It is. And that’s not surprising. Among the ancient Native Americans I believe the majority of artists were women. They crafted blankets, baskets, jewelry and pottery. Women even made and maintained tipis. In the modern era women are often considered the weaker sex, pretty delicate creatures that should be kept at home, but historically that was never their role.”

“Because the modern economy separated men from women. Husbands worked in factories or offices and wives remained at the home with the children, getting out only to go shopping.”

“You’re right. Farming and hunting-gathering kept the family together. Both men and women worked together as equals. And the idea of shopping is interesting. In those early societies people couldn’t buy what they needed. They had to make what they needed.”

“Let’s return to the topic of masculine energy since to me it represents the biggest threat to humanity as the primary source of aggression and violence. With so many marvelous ways for directing masculine energy, why does masculine aggression continue to appeal to so many men?”

“I suppose it’s because masculine aggression is primordial, existing in the very DNA of men. Many of the other options for self-realization are adopted or chosen from society and culture. And in that sense they are artificial.”

“The beast in men is organic.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“So all of them can be overruled by aggression like when the medical doctor Jekyll is taken over by the beast man that dwells within him. So what is he answer?”

“Obviously, humanity hasn’t found an answer. Religion, ethics, and psychology have offered many options for dealing with the problem of masculine aggression but have not yet found a successful solution. Buddha principle of living in a way that avoids causing unnecessary suffering and Kant’s principle of autonomy are simple, profound, and workable solutions, but they are the product of the intellect, which is no match against the instincts of the beast, as we have already discussed.”

“Maybe the problem is that masculine aggression is simply there, inherent. All the other possibilities of self-realization require some effort such as requiring using the intellect and acquiring the skills that make them possible. No skill or intellect is needed to be a brute. I saw that much in the fight at Denny’s. And in the story Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. A lot of energy has to be directed in the hard work needed to become a doctor. No work is required to be a beast man. Men by the thousands joyfully follow to the their deaths and the deaths of others dictators who love war and its destruction. It seems so automatic like lemmings running off a cliff.”

“Primordial is perhaps the key word. As I said before, masculine aggression seems as durable and natural as gravity.”

“It’s weird that men refuse to do what could be easily done to end aggression and wars that could destroy humanity.”

“Not to men who enjoy behaving like lemmings. Fortunately, most men don’t enjoy behaving like lemmings, automatic like as you call it.”

“What is the difference between those two groups of men?”

“Masculine aggression’s greatest threat to humanity is war, and there will be no solution as long as cultures glorify war, and most do.”

“Cultures make war acceptable?”

“Most do. Like the belief in God, the glorification of war is embedded in the culture, and the most aggressive cultures are the product of myths, religions, and ideologies created by men.”

“And men project their aggression into those belief systems.”

“Yes.”

“And what about the other group of men, the good men?”

“I find good men more mysterious than evil men.”

“Because evil is simple, easily understood, but goodness is more mysterious, harder to explain.”

“Very much so. I will give you an example. I would say that the aggressive masculinity of good men is infused with love. They use it to protect rather than to harm. They choose to be heroes rather than villains.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty mysterious. You’re a romantic, Mr. Rieneau.”

“I suppose I am. It reminds me to find the good in life and to appreciate it, especially when masculine malevolence seems inescapable.”

“Is that your philosophy.”

“It’s the philosophy of many thinkers. One of my favorites is Kohelet the unknown author of the book Ecclesiastes written about twenty-five hundred years ago. Like today, evil and injustice were ever present and seemingly insurmountable. Kohelet doesn’t understand why God, whom he believes in, doesn’t confront evil. Still, Kohelet will not allow the evil to discourage him from enjoying and appreciating the many good things that life has to offer. He says, ‘Eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart,’ which he most likely took from the philosophy of the Epicureans.”

“He sounds like my sister, though she would not be disappointed in God because she doesn’t believe in him. She would simply say that we are animals and like all animals we must accept that suffering comes with life. Of course, she would add that unlike humans other animals don’t whine and complain and enjoy life as much as they can without causing other creatures unnecessary suffering.”

“I think that is a very sensible attitude to take toward life. In a sense, predation is an inherent part of reality that all creatures must live with. Whereas Kohelet doesn’t understand why God doesn’t bring an end to evil, for you and I the problem is why men don’t when they easily could by being better behaved. But the important lesson from Kohelet is not to allow despair to cast a shadow over what is good in life such as you and I sharing this moment together.”

Women in Love: Part I

November 16, 198- 

Dear Ruth,

Ever since that day on the beach, I feel I have slipped into an abyss. I have given myself completely to Candice. And when I am with her, I feel a wonderful, paradoxically content yet excited. But when I’m away from her I’m haunted by guilt. Oh, Ruth, am I so lonely that I must make love to another woman? Do I mistrust the world so much, especially men, that I must turn to my own sex for love and pleasure? I have suffered feelings that I believe I do not deserve, but which I cannot drive away. They are the same feelings that drove me from Albuquerque. And I can’t really blame Mother for making me feel like a freakish whore, though I wish I could. And if it were a shallow, indifferent society that makes me feel this way, then I could simply say no to its condemnation. But the condemnation comes from within me. I don’t know what to think.

I love Candice though not as I love you. I didn’t come to California looking for love or expecting it. I came to be alone. It comes as a surprise how easy it has been to find love when I wasn’t looking for love. Or did it find me? I thought that love was no longer possible for me. And now I have friends I love—Robert, Mr. Rieneau, Mr. Sage, Renée, Barbara and Candice. Why has that happened? Is it because loving comes easy to me? I don’t think so. It doesn’t. What I do know is that there is something about each of those people that makes them lovable. I find that amazing because each is so different from the others, unique in his or her own way. It’s a special kind of friendship that possesses love. I suppose my love for Candice goes beyond friendship, but I’m not sure. I do know the love you and I share is even more mysterious because it’s interwoven with the earth-world, a mysterious tapestry, in the way the Indian life was once interwoven with nature. When I’m alone in a wild place I feel at one with the nature that surrounds me. It’s a strange kind of love. It is love. I know that because here I love the ocean. We even play as children do. We intermingle as earthly companions. When I’m with you nature truly become my neighborhood, one we share with nature’s other residents. We see them as friends. We become wild like them, not unruly but organic in the way clouds, trees, and mountains are organic. Your love has defined me in some mysterious way that I don’t fully understand. I don’t fully understand the relationship a child has with the ocean he or she adores. It beckons to them. They rush to play in the foamy surf. I’ve watched this amazing relationship between children and the ocean. Like the painter Edward Potthast I find the relation mysterious. To me you embody everything. It’s as if Earth sent you to me with her knowledge to instruct me in the ways of nature. You complete my relationship with nature, with everything. That is why I love you in the way I love the ocean, sky, and birds, trees and rivers, the hot sun and cold wind and rain. They speak but no to me. They do not love me. But they do not have to. You speak for them. You love for them. They embrace me through you. That’s because you are one of them. I’m not, but you are. I know what you’re thinking: “Silly Chrissie, you overthink life. Just live and enjoy what can be enjoyed. Don’t let the haters prevent you from enjoying life. It comes around only once.”

How can I not love Candice? She is beautiful, tender, and caring. As you once did, she gives me the love and security and even meaning that I need here. She makes me happy in a way the other people I care about here cannot. Still the guilt returns, and I think it is as much for the pleasure I experience when I’m touched by her as it is because she’s a woman. I love being touched by her. I want to lose myself in her embrace and in her touch—as I once did in yours. When I left you and Albuquerque, I thought I was leaving those feelings behind, but I did not.

Whatever it is that attracts me to women and women to me, I guess it’s part of my being. I don’t think this attraction has anything to do with my feelings toward men. I like men well enough. You and I have enjoyed their company. But when we returned home, it was always you and I together. It’s just that I feel at ease when I’m with you and Candice, and usually apprehensive around men. It’s awful that my first responses to men are generally suspicion and distrust, but I blame them, not myself. Unlike women, they have to first earn my trust before I will accept them into my life. I know you and Candice enjoy me as much as men do, but you also respect me in a way most men don’t. You’re women, too. You know what it is to be consumed indifferently by a man. A man forgets that you’re a person—another human being. He remembers that fact only after he has satisfied himself, and even then his concern for you is not what it was before. Men feast upon women as lions feed upon gazelle. And afterwards, they lie in the warm sun of forgetfulness. You and Candice never forget me. To you I’m never merely a fresh kill.

And yet, and yet…as much as I care for Candice and enjoy being with her, isn’t there something more than love and security that I should be seeking? Is the meaning of life reducible to passion and pleasure? Perhaps I have allowed California—where there is no mystery—to have too great an influence upon my state of mind. Here everything is veneer. And if I scratch the veneer, will I find only nothingness? I don’t know, Ruth. You always seemed to be in touch with some deeper meaning, but it’s personal, belonging to you alone. But then you belong to the land of deserts, mountains, mesas and endless sky—the primordial world of mysterious meanings. It and you are one. Each day since I arrived in this place that borders the sea I have longed to return to the land of enchantment—to see the red sky and the purple desert. Yet, it was more than seeing as if I were only an observer. I learned from Mr. Rieneau that it was always a matter of being, being a part of what he calls the primordial world, the lifeworld. “We are Earth-clan,” he once said to me. And now I better understand you. Your people are the original Earth-clan, the people who have always belong to Earth.

Perhaps it too is only an empty mystery. But how can that be when it filled my life? It was there to see, touch, and smell. To feel all about me the wind, snow, and rain, the warmth of the sun. Perhaps nothingness lurks there as well. An idea also learned from Mr. Rieneau. If so, at least the nothingness is not hidden behind a plastic veneer. It’s there seen in old and dead things, Georgia O’Keeffe shows us. Her painting Ram’s Head, White Hollyhock-Hills reveals the Earth-world trinity. The hills represent Earth, the hollyhock flower life created from earth, and the ram’s skull representing death the return all things to their earthly substance. Death is at the center of the painting as it is the final destination of all things. One’s own ultimate nothingness can be meaningful when it is confronted and experienced as part of the life-death cycle. Mr. Rieneau would say it’s meaningful because it’s the truth. It’s frightening, yet beautiful, a world that creates beauty that is eventually reclaimed by death. That is amazing really. And that’s what O’Keeffe is telling us or at least me. Death does not deny the beauty of the Earth-world. It makes it heartbreaking. The skull tells us to pay attention to our primordial home-world and see its beauty that is more than its appearance. It is the beauty of the life-death cycle that all things are a part of. The struggle and suffering. Mr. Rieneau says that the most meaningful experience he has comes when he is most intensely aware of the insignificance of his own life. It’s then, he says, when he becomes a true child of the cosmos and a brother to all living and nonliving things—though for him, even that distinction is an artificial one.

After my experience with Candice I search for Mr. Rieneau at the pier. There he was standing under the dim amber light of a pier lamp surround by a night blue sky and looking out upon the ocean. It wasn’t long before we got into another long conversation on just about everything, but it was all connected to the meaning of life. It was another philosophical conversation, the only kind I ever seem to have with him. He has introduced me to so many ideas that I feel overwhelmed, yet I don’t want to lose them. Since I met Mr. Rieneau I’ve been going to the Pacific Beach library. I almost feel as if I’m back in school. But I don’t mind. There I sketch out what we talked about and look up some of the people and ideas that Mr. Rieneau mentioned. I now jot down notes when I talk with him, which makes him smile, but he never teases me about it. Then I go home and sketch out our conversation. It seems somewhat artificial but I feel this need to get it all down, all the details of what was said, but to do that I must first get the ideas straight in my head. Besides, I want to understand these things and not just have bits and pieces of names and information. So it seems that my letters are becoming like a book describing not only what I’ve been doing but what I’ve been learning and thinking about.

All this is good for me. My life is in such turmoil right now, yet you would never know it to look at me. I wonder how many people look normal yet are living lives in turmoil? I think the reading and writing and my conversations with Mr. Rieneau give me a way of dealing with the turmoil, and give my life some purpose while I’m in this state of limbo. I’ve discovered that I love talking with people, not just with Mr. Rieneau but everyone. In New Mexico I had long conversations only with you, which was all I needed. When I came to California I thought I would live in silence, like I had after being separated from you. But your absence has been filled by others, which is good because it was an unbearable emptiness. Besides, I’m interested in the people I’ve met here. Each of them has a story to tell, and now I realized that I’m not the only person who has problems, who has suffered. I hate my self-pity.

I was going to say that Mr. Rieneau has become like a surrogate grandfather to me, but that’s not true, except perhaps in the way your people refer to old wise men and women as grandfathers and grandmothers. He’s like a priest but a philosopher priest. From what he tells me the Greeks had philosophers you could talk to about anything, like Socrates and Epicurus. Even women priests who could be consulted until they were banned when Christianity abolished religious freedom during the persecution of the pagans of the Roman Empire. Speaking to a pagan priestess would have been illuminating. Talking with a Christian nun that serves a masculine religion wouldn’t be the same. The God of the Bible would be all they could talk about. Greek priestesses could offer advice from a dozen goddesses on wild animals, nature, vegetation, childbirth, care of children, beauty, love and chastity. From the goddess Athena a woman would be given knowledge of how a woman can be skillful and wise. Jesus protected women but a woman could learn nothing from him about how she should live. He ignored his family and would have families torn apart by his religious ideology. Besides, could nuns really speak their minds? I find it dismaying that the oppression of women lasted two-thousand years, and Christians sought to inflict genocide upon your people just as the ancient Jews did upon the nations of Canaan. I understand even better your hostility toward the white man. The violence and oppression were the product of masculinity, not femininity.

Still, the old cultures did have their wise men, men like Socrates, Buddha and Lao-Tzu. But not today except for mavericks like Mr. Rieneau and Mr. Sage who exist on the outskirts of society. What we have are ministers and psychotherapists. That’s pretty sad. Either you’re confessing or mentally ill. Either way you’re messed up. With Mr. Rieneau it’s just talking about life and ideas, not about being judged. Yes, he is a man and I thought my anger wouldn’t allow me to have anything to do with men, at least for a long while. Robert changed that. Sometimes life just doesn’t play along. Besides, I don’t think of Mr. Rieneau in terms of gender. Well, yes, he is an old man, which does fit the stereotype of wisdom, but believe me, Pacific Beach and La Jolla have many old men who don’t seem very wise to me. Old men driving Porches and Jaguars. Old men trying to hold on to their youth by dating women our age. Old men who continue to live like adolescent beach bums on roller-skates. They seem foolish to me. Like the old women who drive Rolls Royces or cute little white convertible Mercedes.

However, I do enjoy watching the old men sea swimmers at the Cove. They may or may not be wise, but they look like old sea lions, and I like that. There are of course old women who swim there. They love the ocean. You can see it in their coffee-colored sun-tanned bodies and wrinkled faces. I think anyone who loves the ocean as they do must possessed wisdom of some kind. They love the sea more than they love the land because it’s still wild and primordial. They want to be immersed in it. For them it’s a baptism that renews them. It remains primordially pure because it will not allow itself to be destroyed by developers who, if they could, would build giant floating platform communities upon it. Suburbs upon the Sea! Robert said developers pave over open space with tracks of homes as if they were putting down asphalt or Astroturf. I didn’t know what he meant until one day he drove me to where I could see swaths of homes covering the hills like a carpet. The sight depressed me. For the first time I saw a form of urbanization worse than the city of Albuquerque. Lego communities is what Robert called them—clean, hygienic, tidy and soulless.

Robert said they’re called bedroom communities, but that they’re not communities at all. They’re manufactured barracks for commuters. They indicate how reason and wisdom are not always the same thing. Mr. Rieneau said that reason must be used wisely. He said high-rise public housing and suburbs were a rational solution to a growing shortage of housing after the war. They were an efficient use of space, but their designed prevented them from becoming communities. Living space that works for bees doesn’t necessarily work for humans. For one thing, the residents were strangers thrown together. Bees are not strangers to one another. He believes that communities need a unifying principle that used to be ethnicity or the local economy—farms, fishing, and factories. They grow from a single seed, which means that genuine communities are organic even if they located in cities.

Grungy Pacific Beach seems organic to me, even if blemished by endless cars, cheap apartments, and oil stained driveways. What is the unifying principle? The ocean. The name of the town says a much. It grew over time. It doesn’t look like a Lego community as do the manufactured suburbs, but more like quilt made from scraps of fabric randomly yet aesthetically pieced together. My grandmother made quilts with other women. The process was organic. Anyway, I like Mr. Rieneau very much. He’s an old human being full of ideas. And he has lived. His spirit and body bear scars of loss. He was wounded in the American army during the invasion of Italy. He reminds me of an old oak tree scarred by time and the elements yet still standing.

I told him that I felt guilty about my experience with Candice. It wasn’t easy confessing my love for a woman to a him, but I needed to confess and to someone. And that person had to be someone I felt comfortable with and most of all trusted. And Mr. Rieneau shows no interest in sex. He seems indifferent to it. He has evolved to a higher mental and emotional plane, perhaps a level that is spiritual. One would say he is like Jesus, but he isn’t. Jesus wasn’t indifferent to sex. He hated it because it has to do with the body. He says, 

But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. 

I read the Gospel of Matthew because Mr. Rieneau talks about it all the time. But he also said not to trust the words attributed to Jesus. Yet, those words have mattered for centuries. He said the Matthew’s gospel is a gospel of hatred rather than love, and that such an attitude shouldn’t be attributed to Jesus. It’s true that Jesus doesn’t hate women—though I don’t find him expressing much love for them. The love comes from the women. In the passage by Matthew he characterizes sexual attraction as lust, a word that condemns rather than celebrates sexual intimacy. Why? Because it has to do with the body. And, rightly or wrongly, the woman’s body has been considered the epitome of seductiveness, thus the primary cause of lust so is to be hated. But again Mr. Rieneau doesn’t blame Jesus for the hatefulness of the body but another writer, Apostle Paul, who also never met Jesus, but was influenced by Plato who disliked the material world.

So though Jesus was a protector of women, but his words imposed upon them the status of being humanity’s greatest source of corruption. Accordingly to them, he would send to the fires of Hell the adulterous woman he protects from stoning! At least the scribes and the Pharisees consider stoning sufficient punishment of an adulterous woman. According to what he says, Jesus would have you and me and Candice the three of us burn in the fires of Hell. Jesus didn’t improve the status of women. The philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician Hypatia was brutally murdered by a mob of his followers, not by pagan men. And because of the Bible women would have to wait two-thousand years before they could once again study philosophy, astronomy, and mathematics. They are still waiting in many countries all because of a religion born somewhere in sands of the Canaanite desert with “a gaze blank and pitiless” toward women.

I’m not comfortable with physical intimacy. That was ruined by a man who deserves to go to Hell for terrifying and abusing a child. Still, I wouldn’t want the man tortured. Not because I think he was a sick man. He wasn’t. Men have abused women and children since forever. The Jewish saint Abraham and King Agamemnon prove that much. From what I’ve read Mary was barely a teenager when God impregnated her. She surrender to God’s will when she was engaged to be married, thus against her wishes. And men have taken God’s behavior as permission to take advantage of women.

And advising gouging out an eye that sees another person as physically enticing is barbaric—as barbaric as symbolically eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the God a person worships. What would Jesus think of you and me or of Candice and me? That we should be stoned? We know the Old Testament recommend the death sentence for homosexuals, though I don’t consider myself a homosexual. Just a loving person. He prevents a woman from being stoned for adultery, but if he follows his father’s advice he’d have us burn in the fires of Hell in the afterlife, which is infinitely cruel and morally unjust. The moral wisdom of Mr. Rieneau is simple: Immorality has to do with causing suffering, nothing more. And unlike Jesus he loves the physical world. He said this world is miraculous and deserving of reverence and appreciation. I would add joyful appreciation.

So I asked him if such a relationship that seems unnatural should be considered immoral. His response was that natural and unnatural are irrelevant to moral judgment. He said, “The poet Tennyson rejected nature as a basis for morality when he condemned nature for being ‘red in tooth and claw.’ He asked, ‘Are God and Nature then at strife,’ associating God with love and being oppose to strife. However, the God he believed in encouraged and participated behavior red in tooth and claw. Thus, neither nature nor God are relevant to judgments of morality.

“If one seeks love and security, if one seeks pleasure but is uncomfortable those who usually provide it, then one naturally turns to someone else who can provide those things.” He seemed to sense my discomfort with men, but then he said, “If your relationship with Candice makes you happy, then in itself it isn’t wrong. It’s certainly not morally wrong. Morality condemns causing suffering, not happiness. Altruistic morality commends actions that enhance people’s happiness. Happiness is what morality seeks to encourage and protect. The greatest philosopher Aristotle said happiness is the central purpose of human life and a goal in itself, not philosophy unless studying philosophy makes one happy. A wonderful idea really, the more happiness the better. And Kant would add as long as your pursuit of happiness doesn’t interfere with someone else’s pursuit of happiness then it isn’t immoral. The foundation of morality is really that simple.”

That seemed reasonable to me, though I do not seek sexual pleasure without love. I need love and comfort first. Otherwise, I would feel worthless. And I would want any pleasure I give to be given with love. Apparently, he felt that there was no reason to discuss the topic further. I think he sensed that it made me uncomfortable, so I asked him to tell me why he spent so much time sitting alone, gazing upon the sea....

Women In Love: Part II

Commentary

November 5, 198- 

Two women in love, three I suppose if we include ever-present Ruth, is this not most unusual? It seems so judging by Christine’s response. But if it is love, is not love always good? This is a difficult matter for me to decide for my lack of embodiment gives me insufficient guidance. If I were a man or a woman, then making a determination would be easier. Being neither I am drawn equally to both. I am unable to judge persons according to their sexual desire. Personally and disembodied, I don’t see much advantage in using sexual longing as a standard for judging true love because there is so much more to true love, without which sexual desire does not qualify as love but only as a desire for physical pleasure.

If the love between persons having the same sexual embodiment is true love, that is, love based on respect, devotion, care, and commitment, should it be denounced as evil? Or should it be judged according to the same principles used to judge between persons having different sexual embodiment? If each partner seeks above all the complete happiness of the other, then I don’t see how this cannot not be love. Besides, sexual desire alone is selfishly motivated—be it homosexual or heterosexual. The highest form of love seems to be unselfish. Is that love of Mr. Rieneau’s historical Jesus? So it seems to me. However, I do think Jesus ignored the central role the body plays in all forms of love experienced by most people. Why did he do so? Because as the old philosopher explains, Jesus aspired to a spiritual rather than a carnal existence. And he taught how humans can achieve spiritual transcendence, as he did. Even before Jesus, Plato explained that a relationship based solely on sensual desire is the least fulfilling. For Jesus the highest form of love is altruistic, totally unselfish. Carnal desire is degrading thus sinful. Why? I believe it is sinful because it wrongfully treats a person, most likely a woman, as a material object, a sex object, thus dehumanizing her as a spiritual being. As Mr. Rieneau explains, to treat people as objects is morally wrong because it negates their humanity.

It seems to me that love is inherently drawn to beauty and goodness, the beauty and goodness of the other’s physical being, the beauty of the body but also the beauty of something else expressed through the body—the gentle voice, the loving touch, the concerned countenance. And the beauty and goodness of the other’s actions—especially those selfless, generous actions that seek with enduring commitment the benefit and welfare of the other. If such beauty and goodness might be found in another, what matters the sexual form? Is not the genuine love of the soul expressed though the body? In fact, isn’t it the soul which is sought by the lover, sought through the body itself? Isn’t the body nothing more than the house of the soul? If this is true, I would think true love sees in the body the manifestation of the soul—which is nothing more than the true person. And if the soul is good and beautiful, then it is a proper object for love, regardless of the body and its sexual embodiment.

And if the soul is evil and, consequently, ugly, then it is a proper object for hatred, regardless of its bodily form. And when love or hate fixes upon externals such as the body and fails to see the soul within, then it is said that love or hate is blind.

Christine is able to love both those who wear the female body and those who wear the male body for she is able to see the qualities of goodness and beauty beyond the bodily form. Perhaps this is why she eventually disassociates herself from her body—because she believes that in some deeper way she is neither a man nor a woman but a soul in search of other souls like her own. To her, the dwelling place is less important than the soul of the person, be that place male or female, young or old, black or white or brown. She will love those souls that are good and beautiful and hate, as much as she is capable, those that are evil thus ugly. Is that because she sees the world as an artist? Perhaps.

I speak as if such matters were so very easy to decide, but they are not. Christine herself, as we know, is filled with guilt over her love for Ruth, and her thoughts on this matter of loving are in a state of turmoil. But such turmoil seems to be a natural part of being human, which is, if nothing else, an endless process of searching for what it means to be human, the Universe’s greatest and most mysterious creation.

You are probably thinking that all this philosophizing about love, the body, and the soul is fine but something more must be going on in Christine that would explain her powerful attraction to women. And what if I remind the reader that Christine has also given herself completely to Robert? I know. It was a gift. She was not drawn to Robert as she is drawn to Ruth and Candice. She gave herself to Robert because of his soul, because he is a wonderful human being. It was never a romance, and if Robert had not become ill and lonely and in need of love, Christine would not have given herself to him. They would have remained friends but never lovers. In fact, I would go so far as to say Christine was never his lover. Her giving of herself was a gift of friendship. One of those greatest gift of all that are motivated by selfless love. So does this simply mean that Christine is a lover of women, a lesbian, to use that awful sounding word? That would be a convenient explanation, but is life ever so simple that labels can serve as explanations? No. Never. You know that as well as I, and perhaps that is why you remain unconvinced that I have provided a satisfactory explanation for Christine’s behavior. Certainly, my views are only my own and you are free to develop your own theories about such matters.

Still, there is something more, something I thought would not have to come to light in this story, which has problems enough. It’s Christine I’m concerned about, that her image might be sullied. You know how people are, how they so unfairly judge. Nonetheless, I understand I cannot allow the truth to be compromised because I fear the truth will diminish Christine’s stature in the mind of an unsympathetic reader. And really, any reader who has chosen to read about Christine’s journey and has gotten this far, having even put up with my idiosyncratic and obviously biased commentary, could be neither so unsympathetic or narrow-minded. Nevertheless, it seems I must provide that “something more” in order to provide the reader with information that might further explain Christine’s reluctance to become intimately involved with the opposite sex, information that I had knowingly concealed earlier.

You may recall Christine surprisingly angry comments about having to bow down to a divine HIM. I do not know if her willingness to speak openly of her dislike of the masculine god of Christianity is the result of her conversations with the old fisherman, whose dislike of that anthropomorphic deity is by now evident, but I suspect those plainspoken conversations have enable Christine to think critically about divine matters without the pangs of guilt that she might have felt in the past. We know society strongly condemns freethinking when it comes to the questions of religious belief, often heaping ridicule upon the questioner. Even today in many parts of the world the utterance of any criticism or doubt concerning religion can result in death.

Yet, whereas Mr. Rieneau’s criticisms of the anthropomorphic deity are rooted in what he sees as the destructive and deceptive influence of the God of Judaism, Christine’s criticism seems much more personal, as I believe it is. I know you’re wondering what all this has to do with her budding romance with Candice, but there is, I think, a connection, and this connection takes us back to that unforgettable hellish event that would forever change Christine’s life by inserting into it an evil that shadows her like a demon, a demon inextricably associated with masculinity. You may recall the story of the small, smiling Mexican man who had come to Christine’s door and asked her if he might use her phone because his car had broken down. Yes, now you remember. She looked at the dark, smiling face that appeared to have seen many years of hard, honest work, and then let the man into her home. She did this because she was still a young girl who naively trusted adults. And when the man had determined that she was alone, he took a knife from his pocket and told Christine what he wanted to do and that if she let him do it and did not scream, he would not kill her. And she said yes because she did not want to die. That was the masculine evil that had entered into her life.

But that was not the end of the story—though there can never be an end really for a victim of such violence. It was not long after the incident that it was discovered that the young Christine was pregnant with her attacker’s child. When that became known to the media the case received more attention than it normally would in a city where rape occurs daily. Interestingly, the issue that was addressed in the media was not the crime of rape but the issue of abortion. The pro-life organizations argued that the life of the unborn child should be saved, that it would be a great act of compassion if Christine allowed the child to live and be adopted. What the pro-life advocates seemed to overlook was that Christine was really still a child herself.

The pro-choice advocates argued that every woman has a right to decide whether or not she goes through with a pregnancy because it is her body that is being used as a host in the parasitical relationship between the mother and child. In a pregnancy that occurs out of love the child remains a parasite living off the mother, but it is a beloved parasite, just as children remain parasites until they leave the home, which replaces the womb, to live off their own labor. But this is especially true, the pro-choice advocates argue, in cases in which the father of the child has forced himself upon the woman against her will. In such a case, the mother of the child becomes a slave of an unwanted parasite, just as the rapist made her a slave, a human object, in the act of raping her.

However, Christine’s parents refused to enter the debate. For them, there was nothing to debate. Their child had been rape and implanted with a presence no less unwanted than the rapist himself. Christine’s mother took her daughter to a doctor in San Francisco where an abortion was performed. Christine was then sent to live with Ruth and her father until the trial.

Now the reader can better understand why Christine was withdrawn during her high school years, during which she imagined that she was known as the girl who had been raped, though most likely very few people knew that she was that girl. The traumatic character of the incident also explains why each summer Christine would leave the city Albuquerque, a haunting city for Christine, and why her parents allowed her to go though they did not want her to leave.

So now we come to why Christine has been drawn to Ruth and Candice. It makes perfect sense. You may recall Christine’s remark about the seaman Art’s bright sea-blue eyes that revealed an enchanting wantonness and that she would not allow those who ravaged her once to enter her garden again. But who are those? We know of only the small, smiling Mexican man who forcibly stole Christine’s innocence. I know of no other. Thus, those must refer to all men, to masculinity itself. So now we are able to understand why Christine welcomes the love offered by Candice, a love not tainted by memories of harm done as a result of masculine desire. What about Robert? That Christine would give herself to Robert, not out of desire but out of compassion, reveals the generous nature of her gift to him.

Before you leave me, I wish once again to confess my bias. This story is my world, and its characters are my characters. I cannot escape, though often I wish I could have had at least a minor role to play, the opportunity to love just once… But each of us must be satisfied with the degree of reality that fate pours into his or her small cup. I sometimes think that my cup is a little too small, a demitasse, certainly much smaller than yours. For me, this discussion about love is merely academic. I envy you, my reader. I envy even the confusion you might experience. I don’t envy suffering, though I might pretend to so that I might know more fully the human experience. Suffering is the price that all creatures must pay for their existence. It is a severe price that to my mind make life an inherently tragic affair. I believe the old fisherman said as much. I was saying that old woman fate has been awfully stingy with me. My cup of life is not filled with the wine of life, but only with words—dry, brittle, fleshless words. Yet, perhaps I should be grateful. It is the world I was given, and it is certainly a better world than none at all. And though it be a confined and arid place, it does not lack love, beauty, and charity. Thus, I cannot condemn those young women who are so important to my little kingdom of words and its beauty and goodness. Their generous hearts are too good, their love—amid the eternal elements of the sky, sun, sea, and earth—so extraordinary and indispensable. I cannot condemn two souls drawn together by their own goodness and beauty. I would gladly give up the emptiness of my arid disembodied state to feel such love and tenderness if only for a moment.

An Apology to Italy’s Glorious Giorgia Meloni

For my (not really, I didn’t vote for it…him)

lumbering fool of a president who

insulted Italy’s glorious prime minister.

Trump defined:

ungentlemanlike

impolite uncivil unrefined crude loutish rough vulgar 

inconsiderate insensitive 

unchivalrous indecent undignified

unseemly inept graceless offensive shameless

tactless gauche maladroit

perverse

Please accept my apology, people of Italy, but also appreciate that in spite of the disgusting words of America’s presidential fool toward your triumphant, glorious leader, she and Italy remain untouched by his malicious idiocy that we American must suffer daily. Count yourselves lucky that you are Italians and not Americans. Trump falsely claimed that “Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.” What he has completely and totally obliterated is America’s integrity, honor, and moral character.

He has destroyed the lives of thousands of innocent people—including those of Americans. And unaware of Jesus' parable of the GOOD SMARITAN, he has allowed thousands of mothers and children in impoverished nations to unnecessarily die from starvation and disease.

So, you glorious, life-loving Italians, be grateful that you do not have to burden the shame that Trump has inflicted upon America. My parents were of America’s Greatest Generation. They shone brightly under the suffering and hardships they endured during the Great Depression and World War II. And they endured with dignity. But America’s Greatest Generation is extinct, and there will not be another. Corruption has taken hold of the government and has metastasized throughout the nation. So, take heart my Italian friends that

While you are led by the

Glorious Giorgia Meloni

we Americans must live

under the tyranny

of an inglorious orange

narcissistic monstrosity

because

our Senate, Congress, Supreme Court

are too cowardly

to rein in his madness

which has destroyed

the USA.

The Girl, the Philosopher, and Elephants

 Preface

Trump Appears To Relax Rules On Elephant Trophy Hunting Imports

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDCpmRRTIj4

***

“So how did humans get out of harmony with the world about them?”

“The answer to that question is complicated because there are many reasons. Today humans have trouble living in harmony within their own societies which were designed by them. Living in harmony seems to go against human nature. Schopenhauer would say that humans are inherently willful, and that willfulness is expressed in the behavior of the societies they create. In other words, both individuals and societies are essentially self-serving and that creates a setting of unending conflict.”

“I understand what you mean. Many people take advantage of others. Still, in most people there’s a sense of respect and proper behavior.”

“In cultures that embody those values.”

“You mean the culture of a society teaches people to respect others and even to value them? That respect doesn’t come naturally.”

“That’s the case according to thinkers such as Schopenhauer and Freud. Personally, I believe those values had more clout in the past than they do today because they were backed up by the belief in the sacred. Consider three conditions. I’ll use hunting an elephant as an example. In the first case, the hunter believes that the elephant is a person like himself, but wiser and more powerful, almost a sacred being. He addresses the elephant as father elephant. His attitude toward the elephant is one of awe and profound respect, and if his people did not require meat from the elephant the hunter would allow the elephant to live.”

“Did you make that up?”

“No. The story comes from a little book titled Primitive Song by C.M. Bowra. The hunter here is a West African Pygmy.”

“Primitive Song, C.M. Bowra. I’ll have to get that book.”

“Well then I’m certainly going to have to introduce you to Mr. Sage the bookseller. He sells only used books and would be the most likely to have the book. I doubt it’s even in print.”

“That would be great.”

“Okay, let’s look at a different attitude toward the elephant. This time the hunter’s attitude toward the elephant is purely practical. The elephant’s only value is that of being a food source. The hunter couldn’t care less about its magnificence. It’s simply a living thing or object.”

“You mean like the Japanese who kill whales for food, which seems to me a really wicked thing to do?”

“Yes. To them the whale possesses no more value than a can of tuna does to us. But my point here is that the creature has now been reduced to it use value. There is nothing in the culture to give it special nonmaterial value.”

“That’s pretty sad. So what is the third condition?”

“This would be a situation where the law is used to protect the elephant, but the interesting thing about the law is that it doesn’t attribute a value to the object, though it may imply value. It defines a relationship between a person and other persons or objects. In that way it’s very abstract. The Pygmy culture, on the other hand, attributes a specific inherent value to the elephant, characterized by the epithet father elephant. That cultural attitude is projected upon the elephant and becomes part of the Pygmy’s perception of it—more like him or her, rather than it, to the Pygmy.”

“So culture influences our perception.”

“Absolutely. If the culture projects positive or negative values upon an object, the object is perceived as possessing those values. And as we have seen, artists of the modern era often disagreed with the values of their culture rather than celebrate them. In our age of entertainment, I wish the artists we’ve been discussing had a greater influence on society and its political leaders.”

“Well, art certainly influenced my artist father. He grew up in New York City and the art he saw in the museums convinced him to become an artist. He became a big fan of romantic landscape painting, especially that of the Hudson River School. It’s really weird thinking that he moved to New Mexico mostly because of those paintings and the New Mexico paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe. If he hadn’t seen those paintings I wouldn’t be here talking to you. I wouldn’t be at all.”

“Well then I’m very glad he saw those paintings.”

“Yeah, me too. But let’s go back to what you were saying about the law. We were talking about people having difficulty living in harmony with nature, or society for that matter because humans tend to be willful.”

“What occurred in the Garden of Eden is a good place to begin.”

“You mean Eve’s disobeying God’s law.”

“A brave girl standing up to God. Jews and Christians blame Eve for creating disharmony by disobeying God. Actually, God did that by imposing an unjust law on her and Adam.”

“You mean laws can create disharmony rather than the other way around.”

“Bad laws can. There was a time in the U.S. when the law supported slavery, which resulted in the Civil War.”

“What was the injustice in Eve’s case?”

“Eve was curious because God made humans curious. But then he denies her access to the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That denied her from knowing right from wrong—which is the basis of morality. Moral knowledge is the most important kind of knowledge because without it one cannot act morally without knowing the difference between good and evil. God prohibits such knowledge. And the harm and discord that follow are caused by him, not Eve, not from her acquiring such knowledge and sharing it with her boyfriend. The way I see it, God places himself above the law by considering himself as the only one qualified to enact laws. That he considers himself above moral law is illustrated by his unjustly punishing all of humanity for the actions of humanity’s two neophytes. His prohibiting knowledge would be emulated throughout history by religious and secular totalitarian societies. Human morality declares collective punishment, that is punishing the innocent along with the guilty, as immoral. Yet, he engages in collective punishment repeatedly and even punishes people who have committed no crime but simply belong to a different culture”

“So the first law was an unjust law.”

“That has created disharmony even up to this day especially for women by justifying their oppression. The Bible is the greatest source of unjust laws, one of which got Jesus crucified.”

“But law is supposed to create harmony rather than disharmony.”

“What you say raises an important point. Morality must determine what laws are just and unjust, not God, no authoritarian for that matter. Humans must decide what is right for themselves, not just for a few but for all. By eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, Eve enable humans to morally judge even the actions of God.”

“So what about harmony? Eve discovered morality for us so we can judge the law, but social harmony still seems illusive. Are there other ways to reduce aggression, which seems to be the greatest source of disharmony?”

“It seems to me the only really good solution is to attribute value to people, creatures, and things in such a way that encourages respect for them. I used the example of a hunter perceiving an elephant as a kind of father figure. I don’t see the elephant as a father figure but as a magnificent creature that deserves respect, appreciation, and preservation. If those values disappear from culture, then they disappear from the creature as well, so that the elephant becomes nothing more than a source of meat, ivory, or sport, in other words, killed just for fun.”

“That means morality works only if that which is to be respected is valued.”

“That seems to be the case. If elephants aren’t valued then there is no foundation for morality to protect them.”

‘”But elephants are valued.”

“Not in the way the Pygmy valued them or in the way Native Americans valued the bison. To them the creatures had inherent value and the relationship between the human and the animal was one of friendship, even love. That might seem farfetched until you consider the relationship people have with creatures such as cats, dogs, birds and horses.”

“So value must be present if morality is to work?”

“Inherent value of some kind. However, neither inherent value nor morality have been very successful in protecting people, much less elephants. The reason being is that people must be capable of appreciative awareness, which, I believe, is also the basis of wisdom. I also believe that appreciative awareness comes naturally in women, even to some men. But most men must acquire it though culture or education. Do you agree?”

“I would hope the number of sensitive men is greater than you suggest. I know there are insensitive, stupid men, but most of the men I know are not like that.”

“That could be because though rough around the edges, America is essentially a civilized society, more today than in the past, that encourages decency and respect in men. Not all societies are so lucky. And even in America laws are needed, less to manage the behavior of women than that of men.”

“Because of the beast that lurks in men.”

“Yes, which emerges in various forms.”

“So laws have to be enacted.”

“And they are effective only because disobeying them results in punishment. Law is a crude method of encouraging decent, respectful, civil behavior, and many men are incorrigible. Laws have been passed to protect elephants though one wouldn’t think they would be unnecessary considering the majesty of the beast, but they are.”

“And they are still hunted.”

“If an ivory poacher thinks he can get away with killing an elephant, he kills it. Worse, elephants are often killed just for fun rather than for profit.”

“By men. I just can’t see women killing elephants or any other creature unless they had good reason, such as putting food on the table or being threatened. My grandmother raised chickens for eggs. She loved her chickens. She would talk to them. But she would kill one to feed her family. But she would never kill one just for the fun of it. Such an act would have been unthinkable incomprehensible to her. She would have considered it senseless cruelty.”

“The masculine gender is the one that has the propensity to harm and kill.”

“That’s sad. So different from the way of thinking of the male artists we’ve been discussing.”

“The importance of their art is that it inspires appreciative awareness, and by doing so makes the world about us more meaningful.”

“Perhaps that is the reason I became interested in art. I wanted to learn to experience the world as artists do. I knew art had something important to tell me. And it wasn’t just about appreciating beauty but understanding and appreciating life as it’s experienced. No books needed, just the art. And what one learns is that life can be appreciated and understood in endless ways. The pursuit of art is an adventure, I guess in the way philosophy is.”

“Both are intellectual adventures, but art is more emotionally satisfying.”

“I see now that the difference between art and law is that law just prohibits certain behaviors. It doesn’t convey value to that which it protects. But conveying value is exactly what art does.”

“That’s right. A poacher will kill an elephant even though doing so is against the law if he thinks he can get away with it. The only value the elephant has for him is profit. To me, the poacher and other killers of elephants are blind though they can see well enough to kill.”

“Blind to the value embodied in the elephant.”

“Yes. And that sort of blindness had a holiday during the white man’s conquest of America, the killing of Indians and the bison, the destruction of forests. ”

“Because there were no cultural values or laws to prevent such behavior.”

“Worse, it was encouraged by just about everyone including presidents.”

“Then it was an ugly process of destruction.”

“Susan Cooper’s father, Fenimore Cooper, was outraged by crudity of the conquest. He lived while it was occurring and he was greatly saddened by what he witnessed.”

“So he escaped into stories about Indians.”

“I suppose he did.”

“And elephants are almost extinct. It’s all pretty disgusting. If humans allow that to happen, I don’t think they deserve the planet.”

“Nature just might agree with you. A cruel and insensitive attitude can have a negative karmic response.”

“Like global warming creating a climatic shift resulting in an extinction event, though I hope not. That would harm mostly good people. And some people must see the value possessed by elephants or else laws wouldn’t be passed.”

“Many people value wildlife enough to want to protect it. They don’t want elephants or whales to disappear from the face of the earth. And African countries that have elephants don’t want to lose an important tourist attraction. Destruction comes from the acts of few men, not the majority. That seems always to be the case. A few dull-minded men can start wars that kill thousand and even millions of people. Such men wanted Indians and the bison destroyed into extinction.”

“Your view of the world is pretty pessimistic. I thought I was the pessimist!”

“I never claimed to be an optimist when it comes to human behavior.”

“So we’re alike. That’s okay.”

“Fellow travelers, young and old.” I smiled. The old man was a complete mystery to me that I was just beginning to explore.

“And you think the big change has been in the culture. That people don’t value nature in the way the Pygmies and Indians did because their culture doesn’t.”

“These changes are sometimes called paradigm shifts. In the old world there were always ceremonies that made offerings to deities representing aspects of nature. Our own Thanksgiving was once such a day—set aside to give thanks to God for a bountiful harvest, but even it has become pretty much a secular holiday during which a big meal is eaten and a football game is watched. As societies have grown larger humans have lost touch with nature. Urbanized society has become a house of mirrors in which humans see everything in terms of themselves. This has contributed to an attitude of indifference toward nature. You can’t really value that which you don’t interact with. The relationship between the Indians and nature was intimate. And it may even be the case that very large societies are inherently out of balance with nature, in the way millions of automobiles inevitably change the natural landscape as well as that of cities.

“And that brings to mind how technology has changed our relationship to nature. Today’s big cities that enclose people are technological environments, almost totally artificial in design, material, and objects. And just think that a simple piece of technology, a tool, the plow, made urban civilization possible. In a sense, the plow gave birth to the city, and without cities humans would not have progress much further than hunting-gathering societies. The plow is an interesting symbol of technology because of how it acts upon the earth.”

“It cuts the earth. There is a famous quote from a Wintu woman that says, ‘White people plow up the ground, pull down the trees, kill everything ... The White people pay no attention... How can the spirit of the earth like the White man? ...Everywhere the White man has touched it, it is sore.’ Is that what you mean?"

“Yes, exactly. Where did you learn that?”

“You can’t live in New Mexico and not learn something about the Indians, though the woman I just quoted was from a tribe in California.”

“So you also remember passages that are important to you.”

“I guess we’re alike in that way.”

“And it seems you also know something about Indians.”

“Yeah, a little.”

 

The Girl and the Philosopher and the American Spirit

The Girl and the Philosopher reveals the tripart substance of the American spirit. What the reader discovers is that the spirit of America is not an abstraction, not a myth, not an ideology, not an idea. It is a concrete composite of place, history, and people. First are America’s spiritual soils—its mountains, deserts, Great Plains, oceans and beaches—each possessing a unique spirit of its own. Second, is its tragic yet heroic history that has contributed greatly to what the American spirit has become. Third, the American spirit is embodied in American lives defined by time, place, and circumstance. It does not transcend individuals but is made from the substance of their lives. Christine’s journey of self-discovery reveals the American spirit in the stories of the people who become part of her own story. These stories of struggle, success, failure, and tragedy of ordinary Americans contribute to the substance of the American spirit. Christine’s journey is an introduction to that the mysterious substance that is the American spirit, which is everywhere manifested yet hidden in plain sight. 

I am an American expatriate who has lived for 12 years with my wife Brigitte on the side of a mountain in French Alps. I’ve worked on farms (Texas and Missouri) and for a couple years at Baker Oil Tools on Slauson Avenue in Los Angeles. I began studying philosophy at Long Beach City College where I earned an Associate of Arts in philosophy. I continued my study of philosophy at California State University, Long Beach where I earned a BA in philosophy. Tired of the city life and thinking I should know more about human behavior I moved to Portales, New Mexico, to study psychology at Eastern New Mexico University, where I earned an MA in psychology. The next step would be literature—poetry, drama, short stories, and novels. Still having no desire to return to a big city I moved to Canyon, Texas, to study literature, receiving a MA in English. Then it was time to return to philosophy, this time at the University of New Mexico. I earned an MA in philosophy. Considering pursuing a doctorate in philosophy, my advisor gave me a flyer that said 8,000 individuals with PhDs in philosophy do not work in the field of philosophy. Worst yet, most doctoral students never finish their dissertation. That means getting a job as a waiter since the demand for philosophers in the U.S. is miniscule. Philosopher is not taught in most American high schools, whereas in France it is a requirement. But he noticed that my minor was in English and literature. Thus, he advised that if teaching was my goal I should stick with English and literature. They are taught in all American schools. So, I ended up Greeley, Colorado, a small town surrounded by farms and fields, where I earned a doctorate in English. That was the end of my academic wanderings. It was a terrific journey.

Print length: ‎ 1012 pages

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