The Limits of Postmodernism

Preface: The Journey that Became a Destination

Coleman College paid for me to take a train to University of Nebraska at Kearney to present a paper titled “Seeking the Postmodern Project.” The conference was “Modernity, Postmodernity, and the Problem of Reception: Nietzsche and the Consequences.” It was put on by the German language department. It became a special experience for me for reasons having nothing to do with the conference. Coleman College allowed me to take a train from Fullerton, California, to Hastings, Nebraska. The train would get me closer to Kearney than a plane would. The train let me off at about 3 AM. It was a wintery morning and the town was asleep. The car I reserved was all alone in the train station parking lot with the keys inside. During the drive to Kearney I saw migrating geese. I got out of the car to watch and listen to them as they passed over high above in the gray sky. During the conference I drove out to a prairie-grass reserve. There I stood and looked upon a remnant of the ancient prairie. A mystical experience? Perhaps.

Seeing the geese and prairie grass meant more to me than the talk about Nietzsche, though I didn’t say that to my boss Dr. Coleman Furr, though I think he would have understood because he had a desert home in Yuma, Arizona. My talk was on Nietzsche and Hemingway. But I rewrote it for its publication in the Platte Valley Review (winter 1995, volume 23, number 1). Nietzsche was still present, but having viewed the Great Plains from the train and in person I replaced Hemingway with the Pawnee Indians, the ancient dwellers of that ancient land. In the words of poet William Cullen Bryant, it was the place where, 

The red man came—

The roaming hunter tribes, warlike and fierce,

And the mound-builders vanished from the earth.

The solitude of centuries untold

Has settled where they dwelt. (“The Prairies”) 

The title of my article became “The Limits of Postmodernism.” A question that came to mind was “Are our lives, more comfortable and less vulnerable to daily hazards, more meaningful than the early lives of the red and white settlers of the prairies?” 

The Limits of Postmodernism 

I want to reflect on the project of postmodernism and pay tribute to this place—the city of Kearney and the state of Nebraska. Also pay tribute to the peoples who have called this place home—Americans and the native peoples, most recently the Pawnee—and indirectly to Nietzsche, who valued perhaps most of all living simply and honestly, who understood life to be a drama of very basic forces, who believed Western culture had created a worldview so cluttered by false notions and meaningless distractions that it had lost sight of the simple yet dramatic realities of living.

Postmodernism is essentially a historical period, not a project. But once people like ourselves become aware of the postmodern condition and begin to explore it, define it, and respond to it, it evolves into a kind of project. Even if the postmodern means that all projects are finished, insofar as they no longer have final legitimacy, then learning to live meaningfully, truthfully, beneficially in such a world becomes our project.

Having a clearly defined project enables individuals and cultures to move confidently into the future by giving them a clear sense of direction. And though many postmodern thinkers suggest certain directions, certainly the postmodern condition is characterized by the lack of a universal project capable of giving definition to society or to the individual. Western society has been characterized by its universal religious and secular projects contained in grand mythic narratives. The postmodern world, on the other hand, offers no clear project that society or the individual can aspire to, no imperatives for living rooted in a general ontology.

The first task is to reconsider whether the worldview of postmodernism or modernism or the Western religious tradition can adequately serve as the basis for a new project. Western culture has taken a good deal of pride in replacing traditional cultures, even those of its own. But now in this post-modern period, when even the final projects of modernism have been called into question, it is time to consider whether or not the culture that evolved out of Western philosophy, religion, science, and technology is really truer, better, more meaningful than even those first cultures that existed before the great civilizations.

Take, for example, the Pawnee who lived in the region. Are our truths more profound and satisfying? Do they more accurately express the reality of the lifeworld? To think that these people whose relationship to the world was one of immediacy did not understand the world seems to me arrogant and misguided. Do we really understand life more clearly? I do not think we do. How can we, isolated as we are from the primordial world, that first and final world, by the clutter of our intellectual, artistic, and technological creations? I believe that we, the critics and philosophers of the postmodern, have created a complex symbolic universe that may provide us with a fascinating dwelling place but does not effectively serve the lives of most people. Do we really need all this? Do the people of this city Kearny—these farmers, merchants, parents, and children–need what we have to offer? Does our talk really get to some important truth that can lead them or anyone to a way of life that is truer and more noble than the one we see about us here on the great plains of Nebraska? Or is what we have to offer simply more of the intellectual clutter that has poured so profusely from the Western tradition?

Note the words of planting from one of the primordials, those people who dwelled in the first world, these the words of the Navaho: 

The sacred blue corn-seed I am planting

In one night it will grow and flourish

In one night the corn increases

In the garden of the House God 

The sacred white corn-seed I am planting,

In one day it will grow and ripen,

In one day the corn increases,

In its beauty it increases.[1] 

Does all of our knowledge enable us to live more truthfully, meaningfully, and appreciatively than this? What do we offer instead? This was once a world where all things and activities were sacred. This was a world where life and language were simple and profound.

Language creates, translates, and reveals reality for human beings, but I ask what greater thing our modern theoretical systems do than are accomplish by the simple expressions of the Navaho. Is our world truer? Is it more noble? Have we greater insight? Or have we created a universe of words that imprison us, that separate us from the world that is truly our flesh, our mother, our origin, and our end? Language can create the illusion of reality; it can become an artificial reality. Moderns are awash in language and yet have, it seems to me, very little experience or understanding of reality. And the postmoderns seem to have lost their way in this complex linguistic universe, and even seem to be cheerful at having become lost.

The Pawnee who once grew their corn and hunted buffalo here, the farmers who still take their living from the earth, they are not lost, and they have little need of what we offer. So what is it we as postmoderns offer? What are we about? If it is we who are the educators, then we must accept the responsibility of leadership, but the direction of that leadership remains unclear to me. Or if there is some direction but we cannot communicate it simply and clearly to ordinary people, to farmers, merchants, students, then what we do is really of little value and we have little to offer. For unlike doctors who help their patients with treatments and medicines, we have only our language to offer to those who seek some direction in the postmodern world. When I offer direction to my students, I do not send them to the texts of the postmoderns, which they cannot comprehend, but to those simple words of the believers, artists, or Native Americans, who I believe lived lives far more simple, truthful, honest, and beautiful than those of moderns or postmoderns. I fear that we have lost our way and are not really interested in finding a direction, which would, as a result, dislocate the self from the center of attention.

Is reality as complex as our philosophical, scientific, aesthetic, and even religious systems would have us believe? Yesterday I drove about the countryside, walked upon a dusty road, and even walked upon a remnant of ancient prairie. What I saw was wonderful yet to very simple. Certainly the individual forms of this vast expanse—the river, sky, land, and the animals and plants—are complex, and wonderful in their complexity, even mystery; but their purpose, their ultimate reason for being, seems to me to be manifest. They simply are. It is the appearance, not its cause, that is the final and important reality.

I marvel at the red-tailed hawk that sails overhead on giant wings, its ancient head gazing keenly at the world below. If I dissect this beast and master the mechanics of its organism, do I really understand its reality any better? I do not think so. It is what it appears to be, a creature of the world that seeks to continue its being, to stay out of harm’s way, to enjoy the simple pleasures that happen to be associated with its particular form. I believe we have overly complicated our lives, and postmodern theory has simply added to the muddle. As leaders, experts in the present condition of humanity, we must consider carefully what it is we should be conveying to others. Are we leading our students to some place where the vision of life is clear, fine, and satisfying, or are we continuing the long history of complicating life and obfuscating what is real?

The Western tradition began with the complex symbolic universe of ideas created out of ancient religious narratives and Greek philosophy. The tradition has spent 2000 years adding to, understanding, verifying, and more recently, attempting to simplify itself. Postmodernism seems to be the last stage—a realization that we have been investigating a world of our own creation more than the world itself, perhaps as a result never fully living in or understanding the real world. Historically, most people continued to live in the real world in spite of the fact that philosophers, theologians, and scientists told them that they were not living in the real world and that their worldly lives were really not so very real or important.

Priests and philosophers, cloistered from the activities of the earth world, studying scripture or inventing metaphysical systems, told them that reality was hidden and obscured, that it revealed itself only through their contemplative activities, mental inventions that expressed human reality as it truly is. The theologian told them that the true world lay elsewhere and that people’s lives were insignificant because they occurred in a subordinate realm of inferior reality. Native Americans, however, understood that there was nothing other than the act of living. For them the value and reality of every act of living was absolute and self-evident. This attitude is expressed in what Beverly Hungry Wolf says of the life of women among the Blackfeet: 

Let me just say that in the culture of my people the work of the woman was generally respected and honored, for the men knew very well that they could not live without them. The people of the past thought it a great honor that the women should bear and rear the children, ensuring that there would be people in the future. Equally honorable was the woman’s work of creating the lodges that made the homes, putting them up and taking down when camp moved, heating them, and providing the bedding and clothing for the household members. In the social life of my grandmothers, a household was judged not only by the bravery and generosity of the man, but also by the kindness and work habits of the woman. Even the wife of a poor man could find honor among the people by being a good housekeeper.[2] 

Do her words somehow miss the mark? Is there some hidden, essential dimension of reality if overlooked life cannot be fully lived? Is her view of the reality and significance of the lifeworld naive and unsophisticated? Again, I do not think so. Whatever we might add would be at best superfluous, at worst falsify reality. And perhaps the great tragedy of the postmodern condition is to have lost complete sight and experience of the fundamentals of life. What has the modern world invented that gives life greater meaning than the forms of being of the native peoples? In fact, if we look at the monstrous projects of modernism, we find that what continues to matter most to people are the simplest of things—love, work, pleasure, family, friends, community, the forms of nature, and a clear sense of purpose. The modern world remains in spite of its technological wonders a universe in which people still seek most those primordial elements of being human. If anything, modernism has transformed these elements into grotesque mutations. The tragedy of modern projects is that in the process of creating a world of greater comfort and security, sight of the fundamentals of being human has been lost.

Traditional Western man believed that nothing mattered so much as the presence of himself in the world, that he was the sovereign of the earth and its creatures and the object of universal, cosmic concern. On the other hand, modern man, rejecting all anthropomorphic metaphysics knows he means nothing to the universe, so he kills or captures its creatures so that his power at least makes him sovereign of the earth. If there is no God, then man will become God. To the Indian both attitudes would have seemed perverse. The Indian sought to be noticed by the great forces of the world, but did so not from a sense of self-importance but, to the contrary, from a profound sense of insignificance within the great scheme of things. The Indian knew that the universe—the “Wholly Other”[3] that was also home and mother—was the true object of wonder, not its human offspring. The Indian’s attitude was ultimately one of respect and adoration without the narcissistic egoism of the Jew or Christian. The Lakota prayer to the Great Mystery begins, 

Great Mystery, you existed from the first.

The sky, this earth you created;

Great mystery—look upon me, pity me,

that the Nation may live.[4] 

For 2000 years Westerners have suffered from delusion of grandeur and self-infatuation, which have, ironically, stripped the world of meaning for humans. Commencing with the Jewish and Greek worldviews and continued and refined by the Christian worldview, Western culture has embarked upon a process of establishing humanity as the supreme object and purpose of the cosmos. All the world leads to the human doorstep. (The religious traditions have often been critical of secular humanism, but both attitudes are egocentric and self-infatuated.) Yet, we rejected or destroyed the native cultures because their cultures and beliefs were considered nothing more than childish superstition. But it has been we who have been children, continuing to surrender ourselves to a Great Savior or wrap ourselves in ideological security blankets that negate and oppress rather than enhance life, afraid to accept our humble status in the world, misusing our technical prowess like a frustrated child angrily demanding the focus of every attention and the satisfaction of every wish. When we learn to accept the red-tailed hawk as our equal, then we will share in its nobility. But I am afraid that opportunity has already passed; the people who understood most clearly the ways of life and the place of humanity among nature’s other creatures have already existed.

Said Chief Luther Standing Bear f the Lakota, or Sioux, 

[The Lakota] loved the Earth and all things of the Earth, the attachment growing with age. The old people came literally to love the soil. They sat or reclined on the ground with a feeling of being close to a mothering power. 

Their tepees were built upon the Earth and their altars were made of Earth. The birds that flew in the air came to rest upon the Earth and it was the final abiding place of all things that lived and grew. The soil was soothing, strengthening, cleansing, and healing. 

That is why the Indian still sits upon the Earth instead of propping himself up and away from its life-giving forces. For him, to sit or lie upon the ground is to be able to think more deeply and to feel more keenly; he can see more clearly into the mysteries of life and come closer in kinship to other lives about him. 

Kinship with all creatures of the Earth, sky and water was a real and active principle. For the animal and bird world there existed a brotherly feeling that kept the Lakota safe among them and so close did some of the Lakotas come to their feathered and furred friends that in true brotherhood they spoke a common tongue.[5] 

The focus of life for Indians was worldly rather than otherworldly. They were a people at home in the real world, the primordial world of nature. They lived in the midst of its forms and knew them intimately. They were not lords of the earth but merely one form of being among millions of others. In their struggle to survive they knew they participated in that single principle of being—to endure and survive meaningfully. They understood also that all forms of life were of one family bound together in this struggle. It was a worldview that required courage and humility—a sense that the self mattered less than the whole and the greatest virtue was humility expressed through self-sacrifice.

The postmodern, with certain important exceptions such as ecofeminism, which in fact seeks a return to the abandoned organic lifeworld,[6] is not an advancement over the follies of the traditional Western and modern worldviews. At least the older Western worldviews required some sense of humility or before some great human project. But now, with the traditional and modern projects dismantled, we are left only with our self-centeredness. And the center is empty because the periphery of the world has disappeared.  Without the world we are nothing, and modern technological society sacrificed the world long ago.

In this place, Kearney, Nebraska, one can still see the world that was once there for everyone. It is the earth. It humbled us, fed us, gave us work to do, and sustained a sense of wonder for Being—as it still does for these people. Here we can see clearly the horizon of that primordial world that invented us and will one day reclaim each of us, our ideas, and our civilizations. It is the horizon of Being, and it is neither the creation of God or a god. It is simply our home, our mysterious home, mysterious only because of its presence, just as each one of us is mysterious by the very fact that we are. To seek more than that, to seek further justification of our being, to demand a final explanation or purpose, results not only in becoming lost—and I believe that no people have become more lost than we—but also in losing a sense of wonder and mystery for the very act of living—being here and having the opportunity of seeing (as an act of reverent appreciation) the world and its magnificent forms.

We may have no ultimate purpose beyond our being here, beyond wanting to endure and to see those whom we love endure for the length of their allotted time, but that does not lessen our value, because our being is the stuff of our purpose and our values. Our eyes enable us to see the beauty of the world; our ears allow us to hear its mystery; our hearts enable thus to love our own; our hearts and minds allow us to know, appreciate, and love all the forms being—living and non-living; our families friends, and neighbors enable us to commit ourselves to others and to endure the suffering that comes with sacrificing for others.

We can still be heroes and saints. Even without God, we can aspire to the divine life of Jesus—who loved all things of the world, whose life was heroic, noble and sacred because it was a life of concern and sacrifice. It was a life of power, but not the power of control, manipulation, and destruction, not the power of accumulation and domination; it was the power of love, the power of transforming oneself into a gift for others. Such a life is needed in a world with or without God.

But this is not the message of the postmodern world. If anything the postmodern world lives in in greater forgetfulness than the traditional or modern. It is a small, claustrophobic world of illuminated mirrors that reflect only one another. The music and dance of life has become a disco of artificiality, a TechNoir,[7] where the rock music and colored strobe-lights become a formless noise that has no connection with the world beyond. Where in the artificial capsule of the technological society is one going to find a place and time to sit upon the earth in order to experience its life-giving forces? Nowhere. Life in the postmodern is completely alienated from the first world, the primordial world.

Whether we rediscover the world before we destroy most of it remains to be seen. If we do not then we will finish our existence like Sartre’s hell—condemned to live alone with one another, in a world from which the beautiful and mysterious forms of Being were driven into extinction, with what is left being displayed in in cages or reserves so curious humans can view remnants of the world they have lost. We have created a prison and then happily became its prisoners, living not even in cages but cells that would be dark were it not for electric lights and television that glimmer like the illuminated shadows that dance upon the walls of Plato’s cave. In creating the modern world we destroyed or at least eclipsed not only an older world but a universe. Certainly, if the postmodern world seeks to create a new universe, it will have to begin by searching through the ruins of the old, for as of yet it has no materials of its own to build with. 

* * * 

This journal article was published in the Platte Valley Review, January 1994. It was based on my presentation “Seeking the Postmodern Project” that I gave at University of Nebraska at Kearney for a conference put on by the German language department: “Modernity, Postmodernity, and the Problem of Reception: Nietzsche and the Consequences” (April 15-17, 1993).

The author wrote Her Quest, a science fiction novel that describes a young teenage girl who embarks on a long, arduous journey to find the wisdom of the Native Americans. She lives in Usatopia, a technological society that is so artificial that birds are tiny robots. That is her world, the one that made her. She knows nothing of the world she seeks. Her quest was inspired by the words of her father, emperor of the Usatopia. Broodingly pacing back and forth and talking to himself unaware of his daughter’s presence, he says that his society lost the wisdom possessed by the ancient people who came before technology took control of the world, eventually destroying global civilization because it was misused by men. Her journey is a return to the old ways of an ancient people.

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[1] John Bierhorst, ed., The Trail of the Wind: American Indian Poems and Ritual Orations (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux,1987) 115. 

[2] Beverly Hungry Wolf, The Ways of My Grandmothers. See “Learning to Camp Like My Grandmothers” (New York: Quill, 1980) 120-129. 

[3] Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy (London University Press, 1969) 25. 

[4] Quoted in Curtis’ Western Indians by Ralph W. Andrews (New York: Bonanza Books, 1962) 93. 

[5] Luther Standing Bear, Touch the Earth: A Self-Portrait of Indian Existence, ed., T.C. McLuhan (New York: Promontory Press, 1971) 6. 

[6] The meaning of organic need not be limited to organisms. For the Native American all of nature was alive—rivers, streams, fire, shooting stars, the waxing and waning of the moon, the sun passing overhead, rain, snow, and clouds, wind, storms, and dust devils, the passing and arriving seasons, and so on. The earth has been an evolving organism since its birth, and it will grow old (if we don’t destroy it) and die. What the Native Americans knew that the Western tradition has forgotten with its religions, philosophies, sciences, and ideologies is that each entity of nature has a life of its own.

Who would have ever expected the beaver to be wiser than humans who killed them to near-extinction for hats and perfumes? They build their homes and care for their families. They are aggressive only toward threatening intruders; otherwise, their philosophy is live and let live. Tortoises also possess greater wisdom than humans. They too are not aggressive creatures by nature. They don’t go out looking for trouble as humans do. They are loners. Like the beaver they will protect their home territory. And like other loners they can moody. However, the greatest wisdom of the tortoise is that he/she doesn’t race though life, as we humans do. He/she seems to realize that goal of life isn’t about winning or reaching an invented destination.

The wisdom of these creatures is that the primordial raison d'être of life is simply being/existing in the world, better yet living life with the appreciative awareness possessed by Native Americans but forgotten by moderns and postmoderns who surrendered their minds and lives to invented fantasies, ideologies, and technologies.  Busily they hurry to this destination or that, often leaving trails of blood, oblivious to the world about them. It’s hardly a sign of wisdom that humans engage in war as ants and chimpanzee do. You would think we would know better. Apparently we’re no smarter than them just better armed. We even go so far as to invent religious and secular ideologies to justify our love of war, but that too is hardly an indication of wisdom but euphemized stupidity.

[7] The name of the discotheque in the film The Terminator.

Renée's Tribute to Life

 Well, I finally got my California citizenship today—in the form of a 1971 Datsun. I don’t really need a car. I don’t even use Robert’s pickup anymore. Work is but a twenty minute walk. Pacific Beach is a good place to live if you don’t have a car, but if you want to do a little exploring, then car is nice to have. Barbara has a friend she used to work with named Renée who has grown tired of California and decided to return to her home in Nebraska and is practically giving the car away—$600—and I have plenty of money saved up, so I thought why not?

It’s strange how many people you find here looking for something. I suppose many find it. I have found something, but I don’t think it has anything to do with what most people expect to find here. Most people, I think, come for the colorful and exciting California lifestyle, the beach, SeaWorld, Disneyland, Hollywood, the glamour and glitter, the sun wearing sunglasses and a straw hat! I don’t know. It’s a Mecca for some new religion, maybe many new religions and gods that are bought and sold.

But this friend of Barbara’s says she is ready to return to Nebraska. Barbara, who is from Lubbock, Texas, told her that she was crazy to leave, but Renée just smiled and said she probably was, since she was crazy to leave Nebraska in the first place. I asked her why she wanted to go back to Nebraska.

“My folks live there. I know that I won’t be perfectly happy back in Arcadia. The winters are long and harsh, and compared with San Diego, there’s not much to do. But there are moments when the earth opens her bosom to you, and time gathers like evening clouds and suddenly you feel yourself standing at the center of the world, at the center of time. And you feel you understand nothing and everything at once. There is no feeling of center here. We never stop. Nothing around us ever stops. There is no world, only city. Here there’s a million little things, some good, some bad, but nothing magnificent like geese migrating, the landscape changing colors in the fall, golden-brown fields beneath a dark cloudy sky, fields of flowers in the summer, a meadowlark singing on a fence post, men and tractors working fields of corn and wheat which become seas of yellow, green, and brown. And windmills, lots of lonely windmills waiting for the wind to pay them a visit. In Nebraska I can accept life—the good and the bad because it seems to be part of something bigger than us. There I can accept all the people into my heart because they aren’t strangers, even if I don’t know them, they aren’t strangers. Everyone, whether they’re farmers or truck drivers or seamstresses or teachers or clerks in stores, everyone seems part of a common way of life, a single great effort that we all participate in equally. Here each is alone in his or her solitary effort. Everyone is a stranger here. In Nebraska life is hard for most everyone; the weather alone ensures that. Here you don’t see the difficulty of life. People hide it behind trendy clothes and cars and silly behavior. People here don’t seem real to me. And I don’t blame them. It’s the way of life here. In Nebraska life leaves its mark on people. You see it in the faces of men and women who work upon the land. It’s the nature of the work and the weather, and people aren’t ashamed of having to work hard or not having a lot of money or not being glamorous. It’s just part of life. People out here live as if life were a TV show. They’re either spectators or playing some role. I never really made any lasting friendships out here except for Barbara, and she’s a Texan whether she likes it or not. People and relationships just seem to come and go.

“But I had to come to California to find out these things. I wasn’t getting along with my parents. I was so full of myself that I never considered them much, their needing me, or if I did I didn’t care. They were always my parents, the ones who treated me like a child when I was no longer a child. But now I understand that they’re like all other people. Having been away from them for almost three years has taught me to see them as human beings who struggle to survive and to be happy and to do the right thing. Perhaps I can see it now because I know what that struggle is. I realize they are not giants of the earth but fragile human beings. My father is a tractor mechanic at a John Deere dealership. My mother works for the supermarket. They live in a small town on the endless prairie beneath a sky the size of an ocean. They seem small to me now, and that is one reason I want to be near them. I want to be a comfort to them. I realize too that one day I’ll no longer have them.”

“Lately, I too have been thinking about the home I left behind and death,” I said.

“Yes, Barbara told me that came here recently from New Mexico. A few months ago, my mother was hospitalized. That made me see my parents in a different light. I went back for few days. It was a mild stroke. She’s fine. She’ll be okay, but it made me realized that that my parents aren’t invincible.” Renée paused a moment, smiled, and then continued. “A brush with death sheds a different light on things. I see everything differently now, Christine, not just my parents. I see the weathered faces of the farmers differently, those toilers of the earth. I see children differently. I want to be close to them, to love them, to watch them play, to enjoy their innocence. I want to say hello to my neighbors and pass the time of day with the old man in overalls who pumps gas at the Mobil station. I want to shop at the market where my mother works, where the floors are dusty and sometimes muddy from the boots of working men. Even the air in the market smells different—old and musty. New air isn’t allowed because it’s either too cold or too hot. But I miss those smells—of people, animals, old rooms, barns, the feed store, the sharp scent of the morning cold, the sweet smell of summer. I even miss the young people who I thought I had to get away from. They’re nice. No matter how wild or rough around the edges, they’ll treat you kindly if you give them the chance, and they have always been decent and respectful to my parents. And many of them weren’t so different from me—wild and aching to get away. They couldn’t wait to be someplace else, someplace bigger and more exciting. What I did many of them would do—leave. It was strange when I was there. I hadn’t been back in three years, yet those people gathered around me as if I had never left. They knew me, cared about me and my family. And here, where I have been living for three years, I’m still a stranger. I will always be a stranger here. But that’s not going to happen because now I’m going back.” Her eyes began to glisten. She turned her head and sighed.

“Your parents don’t think like you, Renée, nor do I for that matter,” interjected Barbara in a tone of maternal exasperation. Yet, right away I knew that Barbara had done what Renée had done but she never went back. Of course Lubbock, Texas, isn’t a country town but an unlovely city like Albuquerque, much worse even because Albuquerque still retains scattered memories of its Spanish and Native American past. I know because I spent a two days in Lubbock with my father who was attending a water-well drilling conference. Mother refused to go, so I did. Dad appreciated that. And I enjoyed the trip. We drove but didn’t take I-40 like I thought we would but the back roads. I enjoyed looking at the countryside. It’s empty and wild, all sky and rolling or flat prairie land. We talked off and on but Dad seemed to enjoy looking at the countryside as much as I did. I think he was remembering the good old days when he was less of a city slicker because every once in a while he’d say his company drilled a water well for so and so near where we were passing through. It’s strange how he and I are alike in some ways.

Anyway, I understand why Barbara never had the desire to return to Lubbock. It reminds me of the ugly dusty towns in Clint Eastwood westerns, but with no imagination or sense of history, perhaps because the Americans who built the city were without traditions, just a practical people who built a city in the same fashion my father would drill for water. But you would expect some sense of beauty today, that the architects would have read at least one book on the history of architecture. Perhaps the early Texans had an excuse when they had to build their towns in rough and ready fashion but not today. And the builders of Albuquerque had no excuse at all since the Indians and the Spanish had provided them with a pueblo-adobe style perfect for the region, but it seems Americans always have to do things their own way, unwilling to learn from the past, or perhaps the builders, who are usually men, believe thinking too much about beauty is unmasculine, especially when a box with a logo will do just fine.

On the way home I mentioned to my father that I thought Lubbock was an ugly city. He smiled. He always liked the fact that I spoke my mind. He agreed but said it didn’t matter because Lubbock was all about growing cotton, not attracting tourists, couldn’t if it wanted to. But what about the people who live there? I asked. They don’t matter, he said, because they don’t know any different. They’re working people, not tourists either. He looked over and smiled. I could see that he was satisfied with that answer, as if he had just given me a precious kernel of truth. I understand now that his view of the world and its people is that of a man who has worked hard all his life, often in rugged terrain and unaccommodating weather. His brother lost an arm doing the same kind of work. Perhaps Dad thought that if you wanted beauty you could always go fishing, which he still does with a couple of the men he works with. When we were younger William and I would go with him, but that was before William went off to college and came back changed. Citified is how Dad once described him to me. And once I started spending summers in Taos I never went fishing with Dad again. The few times he asked Mother she said no way. She was through and through a city slicker. She enjoyed nature when it was presented on a postcard or in painting. Poor Dad must feel like the family has abandoned him. Perhaps me most of all, and I always thought no one loved him as much as I did. The difference between me and Renée is that I’m not sure I can ever go back home. 

In response to Barbara’s comment about Renée’s parents not thinking like her, Renée said bluntly, “No, Barbara, they don’t,” but the expression on her face was full of loving patience for her motherly friend. And who knows, maybe Barbara was a constant reminder of the people she left behind and unknowingly convinced her that those were the people she wanted to be with. Life’s funny that way.

Renée paused as if expecting me to add something, then seemed to understand my interest in her story. Her smile returned, embracing us both and softening the solemn intensity of her words. In her hazel eyes shone a goodness born and nurtured in the country. It would be worthwhile having Renée as a friend, I thought, better yet as a sister.

“My thinking has been changed by California,” she continued, “by the big city. It has become the thinking of an outsider—the way of the prodigal daughter who had to repudiate everything old and conventional, who had to repudiate all the old values and all the old morality, who had to stand naked before the world, not in shame but defiantly and provocatively. But I have grown weary of it all, Christine. Living here has been like swimming in a fast, treacherous current. It has been exciting but perilous. And as with any river, there are no roots, there is no permanence, there is only current. But now I have a need for roots that only the land and sky and my parents and the people can give me. I want to go back a hundred years, Christine. I have seen and lived the present. I fear the future because it’s unknown and doesn’t seem to offer any more than what I have now. My only home is in the past and with its people, my people.”

“Do you feel that you have given up, that you have been defeated?” I asked.

She laughed. “Oh yeah! But that’s okay. There are so many defeated people who remain. And I don’t want to become like them. I still have a home. Oh, I don’t just mean my parents, but also two sisters and a way of life that I can return to. I feel it’s calling me, and I fear that if I do not return soon, I will never be able to go back. I suppose it is a little like going to church. If you stop going long enough, you’ll never go back. I don’t want to end up unhappy here and no home to return to.”

“Do you go to church, Renée?” I asked.

“No, not since leaving Arcadia.”

“But won’t they expect you to go to church in Arcadia?”

“Not everyone there attends church, but my parents do. And I will probably go. I will take from it what I can use and leave what I can’t. It’s not a huge sacrifice.”

“You don’t think you’re going back to something you really don’t believe in?”

“What else is there to believe, Christine? Anyway, whatever the worship may be, it all means the same thing—the worshipping of life, its mystery, its goodness. It’s appreciating something that is not merely bigger than you are or more powerful, but appreciating that mysterious vital something which is the source of everything. God and I haven’t talked for long time, but I still love his creation and his creatures. And I love the compassionate Virgin. I love her most of all. If Christ is God incarnate, then the Virgin is love incarnate. I suppose I identify with her because I share her sorrow, and who knows, maybe one day I’ll share again the hope that Jesus offers. I was rebellious, Christine, but not in that way. I grew up going to church. Jesus and Mary are like relatives. I don’t spend a lot of time worrying whether or not it’s all make-believe. What’s the good of that? I do want to believe in something, and I’m leaving California because I’ve discovered that what I seek can’t be found here, or at least I haven’t found it. Malls, movies, restaurants, endless freeways... It’s all about getting and spending and going endlessly. That’s no longer what I want. And churches in small towns are about more than Sunday services. They are a caring part of the community, in a way the heart of the community. They help people and organize lots of activities. You know most of what people do to have fun in small towns involves the members of the community, like school sports. Even at the rodeo sixty miles away you find yourself among friends and know even some of the contestants. I once told some friends here about going to the rodeo. They laughed thinking I was making some kind of joke, but I wasn’t. I resented their laughter. In a way I had to come here to realize what I had back home. It’s not like here where people entertain themselves among strangers, hanging out at the mall or at bars or the beach. Friendship here is a revolving door, former friends leave as new ones arrive. In Arcadia you grow up with childhood friends, you are with them when they marry and have children, you watch their children grow up, and you grow old among people you have known and loved all your life. Suddenly the life here has made me sad, perhaps because for the first time in my life I’ve been thinking about the future. I realize now that I had a lot in little Arcadia, including a future among friends and loved ones I’ve known all my life. And when I return I will be welcomed as if I had never left.”

Barbara suddenly spoke up. “You’re pregnant, aren’t you, Renée?”

Renée’s eyes widened and her expression saddened. She didn’t speak for a moment. Then she seemed to regain her spunk and said to Barbara, “I should have known I wouldn’t get away without you finding out. One way or another, you find out everything. That’s okay. You’ve been like a mother to me, and I was going tell you, but later in a letter. Oh well.”

“So that’s the real reason you’re going home?” I asked.

“All that I’ve told you, Christine, are the real reasons I’m going home, but I had to get pregnant to see it. And I definitely don’t want to raise a child out here alone.”

“What about the father?” Barbara asked.

“The father doesn’t know, and wouldn’t be interested if he did. He’s a fun sort of guy, not ready for family life. Why should I burden him with the knowledge that I am pregnant with his child? It wouldn’t help any because he doesn’t make much money and wouldn’t be interested in being a full-time dad, and to be honest, I don’t want a part-time dad who takes the kid out on week-ends. Besides, I never loved him that much. We were just fucking friends, pardon my French, Barbara. And if he did find out, he’d probably insist I stay out here so he could take his child to Chargers and Padres games. In Arcadia my child will have a real family and a real community. I don’t him or her being brought up in la-la land.”

“What about his family?”

“They live in Florida. I don’t want that kind of complication raising my child.”

She smiled, but it was a smile without happiness. She seemed so forlorn. It was strange because from what she just told us I would have thought she would be happy. But then it won’t be easy returning as an unmarried, single mother to live with her parents in a small, conservative Nebraskan town. What will she say when they ask her about the father, that he was a Southern California party animal? I could see she was about to cry so I went to her and held her in my arms. I think I did so I wouldn’t cry!

“Thanks, Christine,” she said. “I’ll be okay. It’s just that all this has happened so fast.”

We talked a while longer. Barbara scolded all youth for their foolishness. But added that she hadn’t been any different, divorced from her first husband at seventeen and from her second husband at twenty-seven. “It wasn’t our fault that we were young and foolish. Foolishness came with the territory, and men took advantage of it.”

I then asked Barbara if she had had any children, regretting the question as soon as it came out of my mouth.

“None that survived,” she said solemnly. There was an uncomfortable pause, but I knew better than to ask another stupid question.

Finally Renée said. “That’s too bad. You would have been a great mom.”

“Yeah I would have, but I did have the guts to go it alone like you, Renée. You’re doing the right thing for you and your baby.” 

As I watched Renée and Barbara I felt I had met two women who, like myself, had left their homes, either to find something better or to escape some unhappiness. Renée had left in search of greater happiness and now was now returning because she didn’t find it. But what she did find was a fuller appreciation of the home she had left. For that all the trouble was worthwhile. I thought it strange how sometimes we don’t see the full value of something until we lose it. Of course, the child made a big difference. I too wouldn’t want to raise a child in Southern California or Albuquerque. From what Renée said, Arcadia seem like a better place than most to raise a child, even without the father.

I wanted to know everything about her. I had forgotten about the car, which I finally bought—it was really more of a gift. I think she just wanted to get rid of it. I asked her why she didn’t drive it back to Nebraska. She said she just wanted to get back home as soon as possible and didn’t want to take a chance of breaking down out in the middle of nowhere. She said her dad would pick her up in Omaha. That would give them plenty of time to talk on the way home. The car wasn’t that important. All that was important she carried within. I ask her if her father would be upset when he hears about the baby. She said he wasn’t that way.

“When I think of my dad I think of country roads. Being a tractor mechanic about once a week he’d have to drive out to a farm to fix a farmer’s tractor or bring it in if it couldn’t be fixed there. He called himself a tractor veterinarian. Summers when I was a little girl I’d often go with him. Sometimes I’d hang out at the farmhouse with the farmer’s wife and kids and dogs. There were always dogs. On the way back we’d sometimes stop at the Dairy Queen for hamburgers or the Colonial Inn Restaurant, my dad’s favorite hangout because it’s the hangout for the farmers, cattlemen, mechanics, crop dusting pilots, anyone who had anything to do with raising crops or livestock. It’s like the hub of the town. It was everything I wanted to get away from, but now want to go back to. Maybe it’s having a kid that makes the difference. My child might never have a father but he will have a grandfather and grandmother and lots of local aunts, uncles, and cousins because that’s the way the town is—one big family.”

It seems I’ve taken Renée’s place. How strange, or maybe not. Maybe it’s just the way life is today, leaving one’s hometown, returning years later, or not. I hope I don’t hurt Robert’s feelings, getting a car now that he’s sick. What am I thinking? Well, right now I need to stop thinking and try to rest a little before going to work. It’s been an interesting but unsettling day—like so many others.

From Frank Kyle’s not yet published novel Christine & the Remarkable Lives of Ordinary People.

Death

 XIV

 July 16, 198- 

Death is easily ignored until it appears like a black sun created by an eclipse, casting a shadowy glow upon the world, chilling body and soul alike. Being young and too full of life, Christine had never thought much about death. When the little Mexican man held a knife to her throat, she was too frightened to contemplate her death, and even when she tried to take her life, she was filled with thoughts of living, not death. Death is ignored until it speaks through the living, whether the living be a human being, a tree, or a rock. It is the shadow of absence that follows unnoticed every being until its time has come. Death speaks through the absence of things once known. It speaks in whispers so can be heard only by those who wish to hear. Ruth is such a person, and of course Mr. Rieneau, who sees life as a dream coming from and returning to nothing. Thus to him life is both a dream and a nightmare. No wonder he wishes to spare Christine his vision of things. Through Robert invisible, whispering death has begun to reveal itself to Christine, and from this time on she will continue to see and hear it in all things. The experience has been an epiphany of sorts, the meaning of which she does not yet fully understand. What is there to understand about death? is a reasonable question. Things are and then cease to be. It all seems very simple. Yet, it isn’t, or at least human beings have been unwilling to accept the simplicity of ceasing to be. Just consider how dramatic the word death is compared to the phrase ceasing to be. And given their stake in process who can blame them? If there isn’t some deeply important meaning to be found in that dark abyss, if dying is nothing more than a natural occurrence, then what would that say about the meaningfulness of human existence? Is it any wonder then that most flee from contemplating death. Some simply do not accept it; others ignore it. Christine will not flee from it, not because she is fascinated by death but because she cares about the living. What I mean of course is that the fascination with death is rooted in love—not indifference, not hate, but love.

Death—the word is forbidding like a strange, mysterious looking hooded man dressed in black standing in a darkened doorway. People fear him because his appearance is menacing. 

“Keep away from him!” children are told.

“Who is he?” they ask.

“He is the one who kidnaps the living.”

“Where does he take them?” asks the child.

“We don’t know but we pray it’s a good place.”

“But if it is a good place, then what is there to fear?”

“You ask too many questions. It’s not good to even think about him. He will come soon enough. That’s all we really know.” 

The mysterious taker of life, death, the one who takes what only God can give. Is it any wonder that people avoid even the thought of death, fearing, I suppose, that just thinking about him will attract his attention. He will come soon enough, yes, so why let him spoil today? And if he doesn’t know you, perhaps he will forget about you for a long while. One day he’ll arrive like an intruder, either as a thief in the night or a party-crasher. So it’s best to avoid his doorway. Avoid even his street and you will forget about him—at least until he pays a visit to someone near you. But death is restless, ever prowling about, unexpectedly showing up where he is not wanted. One hopes he is just passing by, but then he decides to move in the apartment next door and everyday one sees him standing at the door as if contemplating what he will do next.

And isn’t that what has happened to Christine. Death has entered Robert’s apartment, a terrible uninvited guest. His presence is tormenting to Robert and depressing to Christine, yet he is there to neither torment nor depress. He simply is what he is, but now cannot be avoided. So from this moment on when Christine comes home she will see death standing at Robert’s doorway. She hates his presence but is also fascinated by him, and so will begin Christine’s conversations with death. She knows she should ignore him, put him out of her mind, but she cannot. And as the conversation progresses she will feel herself falling, not as if into a dark hole, as Alice in Wonderland does, because it is not she who is falling. It is the old securities and certainties of childhood, or what is left of them, that are falling away from her, leaving her disoriented. Perhaps that is the reason children are kept away from death, because to look upon his face causes one to suddenly become old. And once that happens, there is no going back. In the Book of Genesis isn’t mortality one of the truths Eve learns from the Tree of Knowledge. And once she does there is no returning to Paradise.

Eve was warned not to seek knowledge, to be content with appearance, but hers was an inquisitive and courageous nature, and in that way Eve and Christine are sisters. Christine could never be satisfied just with the appearance of death and leave it at that. It would be unfair to the dead and dying. She is too loyal to abandon Robert, yet she is also a seeker of truth, and for that reason as well will not abandon the conversation with death. It seems as if death has come to speak with Christine, almost in a kindly way because he knows she will listen. And why not speak to Robert? Death will do that as well, but in a different voice. Isn’t it odd that death speaks to everyone in the same voice, but is heard differently. To Christine his voice will be solemn, but terrifying to Robert. It is easier to contemplate the terrifying aspects of life from a distance. The poor man does not want to know the meaning of poverty but to escape from it. The sick man does not want to know the meaning of illness but to recover from his illness. And the lessons of death are of greater value to the living, especially the young, than to the dying. So death will linger a while in hopes of perhaps befriending Christine in exchange for dispossessing Robert of life. Ironically, death is a friend of the living to whom its existence is unavoidable. Death takes forever that which is valued most—existence. It’s a very high price for knowledge, but the price is even higher for ignorance. The old fisherman believes that the Greek gods were incapable of fully appreciating life because they were immortal.

So the conversation has begun and Christine’s journey now includes an excursion into the meaning of death, not just for Robert but for all things. She will not choose to exist in forgetfulness. She will not be false to Robert or to herself, even though the cost to her will be the loss of a happier state of mind. But perhaps happiness is not in every case the greatest good. Can one, for example, ever fully grow up without confronting the significance of death? Much of the happiness of children is based on the false belief that the world is better and kinder than it really is. So if that childlike happiness is to be preserved, one must remain ignorant of life’s painful truths.

Christine, however, is one of the inquisitive souls who understand that the price for complete happiness is self-deception, a price most people are more than willing to pay, but one that is too dear to those who value truth. However, there is a danger here because not everyone is ready or capable of enduring the truth, just as a child of six is not ready for the truth that death awaits all things. So it seems that the quest for truth should be a quest for personal enlightenment that respects others’ right to remain ignorant or deceived, as long as their ignorance or self-deception doesn’t interfere with the lives of others. I think that is why Mr. Rieneau is reluctant to be Christine’s mentor—though he is unable to refuse an inquiring mind. He has been a truth seeker most of his life, yet sometime during that quest he came upon what he considers to be a truth more valuable than truth itself, which is to avoid causing suffering because there is already in the world too much unavoidable suffering. As you have already discovered, the old fisherman is a fan of Buddha, who seemed to believe that lessening suffering was more important than acquiring enlightenment. Yet, Buddha came to this understanding as a seeker of truth, and his enlightenment into the nature of things was the foundation of his altruistic moral philosophy. This seems a paradox to me, one that I will let my reader unravel for I have allowed this philosophical rambling to distract me from my main concern, which is not death but the life of Christine, so I shall return to her.

As I have said before, Robert will not be forgotten by Christine. She will not simply continue on her way. Like all romantics she is overly preoccupied with her own feelings and thoughts, but also like them she is drawn to the suffering of others. As she says in the letter, Robert is her friend; she likes him. And yet he has become more. He has become death standing at the door, beckoning Christine to enter, but doing so will require leaving outside the last happiness of her childhood. Christine will enter because life itself seems to be telling her that it is time to seek something more than happiness. It is time to seek wisdom if she is to make sense of a life that is rapidly becoming more confused and enigmatic—her own. It’s time for her to enter the very heart of things, even if it be a dark, lonely place. The journey will not be pleasant. Already she is beginning to feel that she is falling. And what truths will she find? Many, one of which is that God is powerless to protect his creation from death, at least in this world. And perhaps death even waits at God’s door. 

From Frank Kyle's unpublished The Girl and the Philosopher.

Wisdom of Cows

The Old Man in the Moon smiles wryly thinking that the human species was the only one given reason, yet the cows in the meadow show greater wisdom.

The Wisdom of the Cow

The friendly herbivore the cow is among nature’s greatest philosophers.

Some are very quick learners, while others are a little slower.

But he or she, as you will, is a lover of peace,

aggressive not by nature but only when necessary.

Being gregarious cows enjoy company and

tolerate other species who live differently.

They share their meadow with other creatures

birds, goats, sheep, chickens, pigs, donkeys, mules, and horses.

They even welcome deer to their pasture.

Any nonaggressive creature is welcome.

They are massive creatures yet graceful gentle giants.

They are gently curious but not overly so.

Never greedy, they are content wherever grass grows.

They live stoically without complaint

nobly enduring snow, wind, and rain.

Unless one of their fellows dies,

then they lament mooing mournfully.

Buddha-like they enjoy the simple life,

nonaggressive at heart unless aggressed, startled, or stressed.

Unlike humans they don’t make enemies among their own.

Cows have enemies but are not enemies to others.

They even serve as protectors of lesser creatures

such as goats and sheep threatened by hungry predators. 

They enjoy just being in the world

with family and companions

and enough of grass for grazing.

Neither reason nor ideology is needed.

Nor God to create enemies

where none existed before.

William Shayer (1787–1879)

Netanyahu and Bush Jr. and the Ruin of their Countries

Both were made dunces by terrorists. Frank Kyle’s Gringo describes how Osama bin Laden made George W. Bush a dunce. It wasn’t that hard: 

“I think America will become a divided nation. Half the country will be well off and happy enough but the other half will be struggling and very unhappy, and very angry. I will tell you one thing, Osama bin Laden is a fucking genius. He waited until we had a retard in the White House before striking. He must have known that with idiot Bush in office the country would collapse from its own weight, just like the World Trade Towers. Now it’s like worrying about whether or not there are enough lifeboats on board after the ship has struck the iceberg and is half underwater, the skipper still trying to put on his pants and shoes. It’s too late. Too late. Too late. Just like it’s too late for me.”

“You seem to feel that the immigration problem is way out of control. Is that fair to say?”

“Out of control?” For just a moment I thought the good doctor isn’t paying attention. “Hell yes, it’s out of control. Everything is out of control...[1]

---

[1] George Bush was never a match for Osama bin Laden because George Bush is a phony, and Osama bin Laden is the real thing. He is a real soldier, a true believer who lives the life of poverty that we expect of a spiritual leader. He is a man who fights for his people and their homeland rather than for personal gain. He is a man who without a nation, without a military, without great material resources, took on and defeated the United States.*

He will be remembered as one of greatest leaders of 21^st century (thus far, the greatest leader**). George, on the other hand, will stand out as the 21^st century’s greatest incompetent, a man who had the opportunity and the power to accomplish unimaginable good for his people and the world, but instead squandered both for a personal agenda of cultic Christianity, Zionism, oil, wealth, cronyism, and the will to political power.

*If you haven’t noticed that we have been defeated it’s because you have so little imagination. When you think defeat, you imagine only military defeat. Think again. The United States defeated Iraq’s military and now occupies the country, so the Iraqis are defeated and we are the victors. But no, we were defeated when our soldiers first stepped upon Iraqi soil, and we continue to be defeated each day we remain. And who lured the U.S. into Iraq? Osama bin Laden, because he knew that after 9-11 the U.S. would do something irrevocably stupid because he knew that political extremists like himself but not as intelligent occupied the White House and political fools occupied the Senate and House of Representatives.

If you want to see defeat, America, look in the mirror. What you will see is a nation that is disgraced; morally, politically, and financially bankrupt; bogged down in unwinnable wars; invaded by alien hordes; and confused, conflicted, corrupt, despairing, and demoralized. Instead of being a nation of leaders, we’ve become a people led by fools, which makes us fools since we elected them. We have been defeated and will not recover.

In other words, the greatness of Osama bin Laden is that he understood that he didn’t have to defeat America but only create a situation in which America would defeat itself.

**Do the math. 1 George Bush + 1 Tony Blair + 1 John Howard + 1 José Maria Aznar + 1 Silvio Berlusconi + all the other Bushian lap-dog leaders of the Coalition nations who acted against the will of their people = 0. You ask how 1 = 0 is possible. A politician who stands against his people, ignores reason, and acts immorally is nothing. You may recall that evil is nothing in-itself, but only the absence of good, an argument used to get God off the hook of having created or allowing evil to exist in the world. I will let neither God nor these evil men off the hook, but in the case of these evil men, they are nothing, less than the ash of the burnt homes, villages, cities, and bodies they have caused to be destroyed.

Yet, 1 Osama bin Laden = 1. Why? Because he and a handful of followers struck a blow against the monstrous imperialistic dragon that seeks to control and transform the world: America. He is the knight of old who serves not himself but his village and his people. Americans cannot see Osama bin Laden as a hero because they do not see their own villainy. They do not see that America has become like one of the Humvees that drive through the streets of Baghdad shooting up the town and intimidating the people. But like the lone protester who stood before the line of tanks in Tiananmen Square, Osama bin Laden and a handful of his followers stood up to America. Now millions do. Imagine 1 leader x 100 x 1000, x 10,000 followers and you will understand what has occurred under the reign of George W. Bush. And these millions are willing to follow Osama bin Laden to the grave, and will continue to do so long after he is dead. And why? I will say it again, unlike the other so-called leaders, Osama bin Laden is supported by his people because he represents them, he fights for them, and in their eyes he serve the good by fighting against the evil empire. And who follows George Bush? A ragtag crew possessed either by God or Greed.

Thus I predict that by the end of this century, Osama bin Laden will be worshipped by hundreds of millions of followers because he stood up to the New Rome. I will even venture that he will rival Jesus, who was unwilling to stand up against Rome (“Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s” [Mark 12:17]), who chose to surrender rather than fight.^† The present-day American politicians and their motley crews of foreign sycophants will be remembered, like a bad dream that cannot be forgotten, as the self-serving fools who led America and the West to their ruin during the final years of their decline, just as the corrupt Catholic priests will have struck the deathblow against a decrepit Catholic Church.

^†Of course, in the hands of Apostle Paul Jesus would become the sword that would destroy the Roman Empire. The strategies of Paul and bin Laden have similarities. Both men relied on psychology as their main weapon. Neither believed the enemy could be destroyed militarily. Bin Laden has always known that the Muslim freedom fighters can’t defeat the U.S. military, but he knew he could cause it to defeat America by turning it against America. That sounds paradoxical. But the American military has helped destroy America in various ways. Money spent on it and its wars abroad is money that financially drains American taxpayers but does nothing to improve the functionality of their nation. And by focusing on the so-called threat abroad, Americans have neglected various threats under their noses, such as a growing hostile Hispanic Nation that is taking over America communities and acquiring greater political clout to accomplish its own mission to take control of much of America, especially the territories America stole from Mexico (the Aztlán Movement). But Americans’ militaristic mindset has also resulted in the continuing deterioration of the nation’s infrastructure, cities, primary and secondary education, social services such as care for the elderly and public transportation, and economy.

In addition, America’s reckless use of the military has destroyed even among its allies its reputation as a nation motivated by ethical ideals. But there is something else about America that is unhealthy and frightening. Because of the 9-11 attacks Americans have come to celebrate militarism, so much so that it has deeply changed the culture. We have become like the ancient Spartans. The military defines our values and self-image. Culturally Sparta had nothing to offer the ancient world except its fighting prowess. It was Athens that was the intellectual and artistic center of the ancient world. It, not Sparta, represented a culture that could inspire future civilizations. America has become a nation of consumption, gadgets, entertainment, and militarism. In that sense, we are much more like Rome than ancient Athens, but at least Rome had inherited Greek culture, which inspired it until the Christians and barbarians cast the empire into darkness. So what is missing? That’s not a trivial question because I’m not sure how things should be. But I believe whatever that way of life is, and perhaps it does take many forms, it should, in essence, be about living beautifully, that is without causing unnecessary ugliness, harm, and suffering. And living with a deep intellectual appreciation of the being of beings and of Being itself, to use Heidegger’s phrasing. I don’t believe one needs special training to do this.

I have an older cousin who lives on a very isolated farm in the Oklahoma Panhandle. On a road trip Anne, Kelly, and I had been camping in Colorado and on the way to visit my mother we stopped by his place to say hello but he insisted that we spend the night. So we did. It turned out to be a big adventure for Kelly because that evening we sat outside and could hear coyotes yipping in the distance. My cousin said that he loves where he lives because though the region has been tamed by farmers and ranchers it remains quite wild. “I live in a wild, untamed world,” he said.

I asked him why he thought that. He said the idea that human beings have tamed nature is an illusion. He then pointed to the sky which had become a canopy of stars. He said, “Anytime a person thinks humans have nature under control he needs only to look to the sky. There is very little of nature that humans have control over. Farmers know better than most people just how untamable and unpredictable nature can be. We struggle with unpredictable cycles of weather and conduct an endless war against weeds and insects. Now there’s talk of climate change. Well, the climate has always been changing, and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

Then I asked him if he thought humans might be part of the problem.

He said, “No doubt about that. Most anything they do creates problems for other creatures and for themselves. I try to be a good farmer, but I use chemicals to increase production. I try to use them wisely. If I didn’t use them I’d lose half my yield. And I rely on irrigation, which means I draw water from the Ogallala Aquifer, which provides water to about a quarter of the irrigated farmland in the U.S. Most farmers know it’s a limited and declining resource so we try to use the water wisely. But one day, perhaps in the next century, it will be depleted. That will be a big problem for all Americans because it will reduce crop production in the country. Lots of jobs will be lost and food will be more expensive. But it will be a bigger problem for people living in areas that depend on water from the aquifer, for all uses not just irrigation, like drinking water. That will be a lot of people because the aquifer supplies water parts of South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma. When the water’s gone the agricultural economy will collapse. There will still be some dry farming and grazing, but nothing like today. Young people will go elsewhere for jobs. That’s already happening in lots of places. And then the land will become even wilder than it is today.”

“So what we do have a big impact,” I said.

“Can’t be otherwise. The earth is a resource that all living creatures live off of. Humans are unique because we depend heavily upon nonrenewable resources or overuse the ones that are renewable, like water. Before the white man showed up the Apache Indians lived in these parts. They lived off what nature provided each year—plants and animals. Couldn’t have been an easy life, but it could have continued for thousands of years because they didn’t depend on nonrenewable resources or overuse the renewable ones. It’s not that way anymore. Too many people taking too much from nature can’t go on forever.”

“That sounds pessimistic.”

“It shouldn’t. Everything comes to an end. That’s another part of nature that humans have little control over.”

“But Christians believe life will continue after death.”

“Let’s hope they’re right. But that’s not nature.” I then asked if he believed human life will continue after death.

“Nature says no. The Good Book says it does. I hope the Good Book is right, but I guess we won’t know for sure until the time comes.”

I asked him if he ever went hunting. He said no. He didn’t see any reason for it.

“Mostly what people hunt out here are wild turkeys, geese, and pheasants. I’d rather buy my meat at the market. Cleaning birds is a lot of work. Growing up it was different. We raised most of our food because it seemed foolish to spend money on what we could grow and raise ourselves. Now it seems foolish to do otherwise. A lot of the hunters we get out here come from Amarillo and Oklahoma City. They just want to be outdoors for a while. I’m outdoors all day long. Besides I like farming better than hunting or fishing. But I don’t blame the hunters for wanting to get away from the cities. I don’t care much for them myself.” I asked him if he allowed hunting on his land.

“No I don’t. I get mostly pheasant hunters wanting to shoot on my property. They come in droves during the season. I post no-hunting signs. I don’t like having men with guns on my property. Some farmers have had their equipment shot up, though not by hunters. Still it sours them on people being on their property with guns. But that’s not really my reason. I just figure the land provides for my family and by allowing animals to live on it without being hunted is my way of returning the favor.”

Though my cousin calls himself a Christian, it seems to me that his relationship to the land is pagan. But I’m not sure Christian or pagan really describes his thinking about life and how he relates to the natural world. Somewhere during the conversation he said that living and thinking can become a routine that causes us to take world around us for granted. He explained that as we grow out of childhood the world becomes familiar to us and by so doing loses the mystery it had when we were children. To children the world is a very mysterious place. The simplest creatures—such as insects—are objects of amazement. He said that never happened to him, that as he grew older the world and its inhabitants became even more mysterious.