The importance of babies.

I got an email from an acquaintance who is a professor and a midwife. I wondered in passing about the wisdom of bringing children into the world at this time. She wrote a very long piece about how she finds her work important and satisfying. She said something about babies being the most important thing in the world. This is part of what I wrote back: 

I'm with Robert Heinlein, one of my favorite authors, who wrote women as strong and intelligent characters in his stories and novels. He said that "Any morality not based on 'Women and Children First' is a false morality". His idea of morality is rooted in the principle of survival, from that of the individual and inclusive of all the human race. In fact, on reflection, it's possible to derive every useful and civilizing principle from that one dictum. This is but one idea that enamored me of his literary output, starting with one of his novels for juveniles, which I received a bit earlier than one might expect, but I was an avid reader, somewhat advanced for my age. Interestingly, the first two books my dad gave me to read, also before an age one might expect to read those, were "1984" and "Brave New World". Those three set me on some interesting courses of inquiry. 

Another title was one I came across in high school, called "The Phenomenon of Man". Immediately on seeing that title, my life changed, as it occurred to me that if humankind is a phenomenon, then so was I, and I was a worthy object of impartial study by myself of myself. A remarkable incident not soon after certified for me that any thought one is aware of in a pattern called "self" is artificial and an ad hoc phenomenon relative to geography and levels of culture. It was the most freeing and disturbing thing ever to rudely and involuntarily discover and conclude. Especially for a 17yo who had no support system for such a revelation, given my Catholic background and the less-than-introspective nature of American society even in such a forward-looking region as the Bay Area. It took me a long time, maybe ten years or more to integrate that. In the meantime, I had to function. That's another story. At least whatever it was that happened to me sharpened my ability to do well at school, but it also made me not give a wit. So some of my teachers had that talk with me about why my IQ and percentile scores were so high and why I was nearly failing in anything other than what I enjoyed doing. 

All that, I guess, is a very long way of saying that babies are likely the most important thing we have. Sadly, and the part I'm concerned about, is that while they are bundles of astounding and unimagined potential, they are thrust, in the vast majority of instances, into situations that they will find crippling emotionally and intellectually. This happens as they are forced to adopt beliefs and attitudes they didn't come with and which are tragically required for their survival in a family and society. At least the overall picture for that is somewhat improving worldwide, though we may yet end up in a major Dark Age due to the accumulated trauma manifesting as conservatism, primarily. Not that liberalism doesn't have some drawbacks, but overall, it's far safer, as it tends to be more inclusive, getting back to the survival idea relative to morality.

There was a Hungarian who wrote a book on how to raise genius children. He married and raised genius children. I think his was a good start, but he didn't cover all the bases. There are at least eleven discernable intelligences. A true genius is a polymath in several of those. To be a genius in one is still impressive, but without the buttressing or other intelligences, it can be dangerous and prone to collapse or tipping over.

The support doesn't have to be all internal. I give you as a consideration to support that idea, the movie called "Goodwill Hunting". The Robin Williams and Mini Driver characters were the protagonist's salvation, as they added perspective and nutrition he couldn't garner on his own. But generally speaking, geniuses are lonely people, even sometimes in a crowd of friends. This is, I think, particularly true of those who have what might be called transcendent or enlightened states of awareness. Hence, yet another title, "The Path of the Lonely Ones". They may be isolated, but back to Heinlein, he wrote a few paragraphs on the subject of human thinking ability which I personally found profoundly humbling, and made me much more respectful of my genius betters.

But back to babies: When we see as a society that they have astounding potential in so many ways, and that at last becomes the common knowledge of the stomach of society instead of fear, loathing, and hoarding, then we may at some time in the future enter an actual Golden Age. We will then have the way cleared to build upon a foundation that we now continuously bombard with the fears and prejudices of babies who grew up untrained and inexperienced in the ways of love, inclusiveness, affection, curiosity, and other things we may not yet know exist as our ability.

But as it is at the moment, regardless of our great strides forward, I predict that the historians of future days will look back at this time as one of astounding barbarism relative to what we could have had, given our resources and insights. We are so busy with trying to survive emotionally and economically that we have gone eccentric from our centers, continuously whipped and frothed by psychotic commercialism and sociopathic politics. And the churches, the alleged bastions of morality and higher answers all have failed in particular and in general, some to the point that their loyal members hold on to flotsam and jetsam as if they were solid ground. Meanwhile, the sharks and the cold that are their actual and needful points of attention go unnoticed, perhaps hidden by the warmth of their fellowship while hanging on to the same hatch cover bobbing in the waves.

If there is such a thing as reincarnation, then we need a large group to come through as babies who can withstand the perturbations of the inculcations inevitably handed out by family tradition, churches, political parties, and even educational systems for the most part. We can look outward now and see that, like at night and in season in certain areas, there are flashes of wonder, insight, and inspiration like fireflies in the dusk we shadow around in. Those are the sparks that need to be fueled into the kind of campfires that we used to gather around to commune and protect ourselves from the unknown.

Except the biggest unknown is still ourselves, inside, alone and together. It's not the frontier, yet, anyway, of Kirk, Spock, Janeway, and Piccard. The place where no one has gone before, at least in significant and coherent numbers, is inner space, the depths of the human mindsoul. Individuals have thrown torches into those goldmines so we might at least see that they are there as passages to great open fields and forests fertile with Newnes. Many have ventured in and whispered out promises. We need to take courage and each other in hand and go together into Wonder. I'm guessing that the way is fraught with danger and even disaster. But it's what we're here for. We owe it to the babies. 

Our Flag

You know what? I'm kind of fed up with some people using our flag as a symbol of their exceptionalism, as if flying it or pasting it on their Facebook picture made them "special" or "real" Americans. That's the same flag which the people you don't like, or even hate, happen to pledge allegiance to. It's kind of like protesting too much. Or are y'all forgetting that all this is "U.S."? It's OUR flag, together, and you're not going to appropriate it for your particular view as if the rest of us aren't patriots.

Reply to "Our Military Are Saints: Go to the Middle East

What I used as a headline there was a reply to a comment I made to a woman's post exemplifying a few ways common usage could be adjusted to more clearly ascribe responsibility for rape. It included such things as changing "She was raped" to "He raped her", "Protect your daughter" to "Educate your son" and "We can't change society" to "We will fight for our safety until we get it."

My comment was "We have a serious problem with male culture in our society, regardless of other countries or cultures we may wish to "they do it too!" excuse ourselves by. Male culture in this country, however it might be in others, is a damaged, battered, crippled thing, and it's a massive ego problem on steroids, despite a few bright spots. How can it be otherwise, given the general tone of what we expect males to be like, and feel like? Look at so many of the utterly wrecked psyches in our government, regardless of Party. Look at the ignorance of simple facts, never mind humanistic values. It's been said that the growth of civilization is a battle against testosterone. But it's not that simple. We here have NO useful way of initiating males into mature use of force or power. We have no applicable rites of passage for young men, unless we go to the sad possibilities of "his first car" or "first score". How sad. And such things as our wild west gun culture and muscle car thing parlayed into militarism doesn't help. It's too bad, because had it been otherwise, the efforts we have put into defense and fear could have yielded a paradise on Earth for us and others many times over. There are a number of books which I would recommend, or make, everyone read if I was emperor of the world. Thank goodness I'm not--it's just a fantasy. But most of those books are on the ways of mental clarity in perception and cognition. The one book I'd recommend in this matter is Naomi Wolf's "Vagina: A New Biography". We might better ourselves overall if both men and women read it."

Then came a comment: Anton Z Nemeth go to the middle east.our men are saints. 

So I said:

Yes. I know. I made it a policy to hire Vets when I owned a business in Tucson, AZ. That was the Nam era. I did that after two physicals and 3 attempts to join one of the branches failed, so hey, I did the next best thing, in honor of those who did serve when I couldn't. I've seen many documentaries about how our men and women there have done good, and even great good in some cases. And just recently I just heard happy news about a translator who saved 5 American lives who gained his American citizenship. That's all great stuff.

More recently, in our area, I had a Vet break down in my car about things he did in Fallujah. He was in really bad shape. I listened and consoled him for over half an hour, till he got it back together. There were tear stains on my car seat when he got out. I have also done counseling in the past. Some of it was for Vets. So you might imagine that I have heard some stories? PTSD is rampant, and our military people suicide at about twice the rate of combat deaths. That is utterly tragic. And we hear about our women in the military being raped by our own. So while I have great respect and compassion for those who serve, now am glad I didn't. While we can claim, often legitimately, some military glory, there are accompanying horrors as well. It's what happens in war. And apparently, in the relative peace of our own land. I have relatives who lived through war zones in Europe as well. I have very great reasons to be grateful for our American military. But I'm also not blind to the humanity of men under stress.

And it's difficult to paint our military with the broad brush of sainthood, unless you are being sarcastic, Levi, or Jason. I don't think you are, especially if you have served and are talking about your brothers, and, I hope, your sisters in the service. You, personally, may indeed be saints, and is why you see the military made up of them. And for sure there must be many, or most, I don't doubt. We're just talking numbers here. The rape of American servicewomen by their own is and has been a rampant problem. I'm including one article, but you can find any number of articles from both military and civilian sources on the issue. If the perps who did this stuff to our women--and men, btw--are considered "saints", well, we just might have a moral and a morale problem to deal with. In the meantime, I am sure, also from the stories I was privileged to hear, that our servicemen are honorable and in some cases heroic. There is plenty of testament to that. Thanks for your comments.

https://www.nytimes.com/.../us/military-sexual-assault.html

Damn That Welfare Fraud!

 Did you know that no matter what we do, those people who are committing welfare fraud are going to be there pretty much no matter what we do? Should we try to educate or inspire them? Yes, of course. Or if there are useful sanctions that would stimulate them to not be leeches, then we could do that, too, provided we don't harm others in the process. Would it take taxes to support such programs? I'm guessing "yes". Did you know that just over 10% of social safety net payments are either improper or to fraudulent recipients? Did you know that as well there are fraudulent payments to schools and police departments? A friend of mine exposed such a scheme at a high school he taught at in a CA city and he and his family were targeted for physical harm, including assault and attempted murder. He and his wife discovered that up to 22 police "substations" were merely retired officers getting checks as if they were actual brick and mortar LE locations.

And what about the astounding tax breaks that corporations and some individuals get, or all that untaxed money overseas? Or the advantageous tax rates on investments as distinct from labor? How's that for not getting up off your ass and earning a living when you make your money on paper? So do you have a legit gripe? Yes, of course you do, as do we all.

But somehow, it seems to always come down on a class of people because of inflated perceptions of how much they are a part of the problem. You know, I'm sure, unless you are rather young, of the Reagan era witch-hunt, in part legitimate, fro "welfare queens". Well, what if the *real* welfare queens are those who avoid enough taxes or make enough money through leveraged pricing structures* to pay for several entire social safety nets? Why are we not going after them? Could it be, do you think, because they have the money by those and other means to have a voice and legal protection? Or better, could it be that they have money to pay for influence to have more laws passed in their favor?

So you see, Josh, I do agree with you. But I also see that the usual focus of such outrage as you seem to have is way too narrowly focused on a comparatively insignificant subset of those defrauding our government, i.e., ultimately, you and me. In the meantime, we can also remember that indications are that money given in SNAP programs generates $3 for every $1 "handed out". Also, it's been demonstrated that such programs indeed help some not only survive, but to actually get out of poverty. Now, isn't that an advantage? So while some of that money is obtained fraudulently, in the wash, it's a net financial advantage.

So if some bunch of damaged goods loafers are where you want to put your attention and energy, I guess that's a small help. But the big fish of fraud are ultimately elsewhere, and they have schools of barracuda lawyers to protect them while they sharpen their teeth to the point that you perhaps don't feel that they are the ones actually biting you. And they can make you look at their chum while sneaking up behind you.