I corresponded with someone recently who lost everything in the flooding that so many folks are experiencing in the Mississippi River Valley and other places out east. Their spirit of acceptance and forward movement impressed me, and got me thinking quite a bit about “lossâ€. Then yesterday evening, my son and I spent some time in the garden of a friend and customer who had just lost her husband. Afterwards my son mentioned that he really hadn’t spent much time around “loss†before, and that he was learning more about how to deal with those around him when they experience loss.
How do we deal with loss that those around us experience? What are we called to do when our neighbor feels the crush of loss?
I like words I wrote down once, attributed to the late Baal Shem Tov. Keep in mind that I wrote this down after hearing it second hand, so I’ve probably messed something up…
In responding to a discussion of “heresyâ€, he said:
“Because when you see a person suffering, you don’t say, ‘G-d runs the universe. G-d will take care. G-d knows what is best.’ You do everything in your power to relieve that suffering as though there is no G-d. You become a heretic in G-d’s name.â€
Fitting wisdom in a world where too many use religion to wrap a veil around their essential humanity. Religion can too easily become and insulating cover that keeps us from feeling the pain of those around us, or from reaching out with pure acts of human kindness and caring.
If I believe that G-d is in everything around me, and that He plays a part in the flight of every sparrow, then do I trust Him enough to leave G-d’s work to G-d? Am I faithful enough to focus wholly and completely on doing my work as a human being? Can I give all of me to feeling the loss my neighbor feels, and offering the help I can offer, or will I hide behind pious grumblings of “god’s will�
Comanche Moon was the fourth book to be written in the Lonesome Dove series, though it is chronologically the second part of the 4-part series.
While Comanche Moon is good, it’s not as good as Lonesome Dove. It could stand alone as a decent (not great) read, the fact that it’s meant to be a prequel to Lonesome Dove is actually a detractor.
First, there are storyline continuity details that don’t match between Comanche Moon and Lonesome Dove. I admit that I’m a bit of a compulsive weanie about this sort of thing, but these inconsistencies are significant enough that I suspect they’ll bother nearly anyone.
Second, while Lonesome Dove develops characters masterfully, Comanche Moon does a slightly less good job. In keeping with the storyline continuity issues mentioned above, the characters that appear in Lonesome Dove don’t always appear to be the matured version of the characters developed in Comanche Moon. In fact, they don’t appear to be EITHER matured versions of the characters developed in Dead Man’s Walk, OR younger versions of the characters developed in Lonesome Dove.
I did enjoy the characters as the author developed them in this book, in particular the interplay between Inish Scull, Famous Shoes, and Kicking Wolf. In fact, the development of the Comanche characters alone makes this a good read for western geeks like me.
As a critique of the entire series, the lack of continuity from one book to the next is truly astonishing to me. As a series, I’d probably have to rank it with 2 stars only. If you tackle this book, do so as a stand-alone novel, and I suspect you’ll be less frustrated and perturbed by how poorly the storyline across the series fits together, and how dramatically different the same character can be from one book to the next.
I’d recommend this book to western geeks like me, especially those fascinated (like me) with stories of the southern plains and the great Comanche nation. However, for the rest of the reading public, it probably doesn’t rise to the level of “highly recommendedâ€.
In my last post I talked about the concept of moral dissonance, relating to our ability to accept the idea of the death penalty, specifically using our assassination of Bin Laden as the center of that discussion.
We all find ourselves faced with decisions we need to make, or positions we need to support or condemn. Sometimes the decisions we make or the positions we support are at odds with our core moral compass. In those cases, we can either recognize, accept, and live with the moral dissonance, or we can justify our decision in some way – building a case that makes it an acceptable exception to our moral compass.
I think the latter is standard human behavior – it’s what we all want to do. There’s a great danger in that path though, because the better we get at building those walls of justification around our deep moral compass, the more likely we (and our society) will devolve into behavior that is increasingly destructive, immoral, and downright pathological.
Case in point: As a country, we’ve allowed our leaders over the past decade to ignore moral taboos against torture, and have joined nations like North Korea and Libya who are happy to use torture if they think it might help them in some way. I doubt that even 1% of the US population believes that inflicting torture and pain and torment on another human being is moral behavior. Yet, a large minority of Americans support our government’s evolution to a torture state, and I would argue that even a majority of Americans tacitly support the idea when we elect any leader not willing to denounce the practice.
Look at the headlines lately, and the vociferous justifiers of torture claiming that the lead to Bin Laden came from a GTMO detainee – presumably tortured. This is strong medicine to help us to take the torture we allow our government to perform in our name, and move that torture into a safe category of “justified†– carefully isolated from the moral compass that tells us it’s not OK. Never mind the rest of the facts – that using torture makes it more likely that our citizens and soldiers will be tortured, and that the vast majority of information derived from torture is less than worthless. We’re willing to ignore all facts except the ones that allow us to justify the immoral behavior.
Am I being clear here? We ALL behave in ways counter to our moral compass – we do it all the time. The issue I’m raising is the difference in how we deal with this internally when it happens.
The lack of tolerance for moral dissonance drives us to justify our actions when they are at odds with our moral compass. Doing this allows us to continue to behave immorally with (internal) impunity, as we’ve build walls of isolation around our moral compass as it relates to our own behavior.
The alternative? Accept the fact that we sometimes choose to behave in ways that are at odds with our stated moral beliefs. Each time this happens, it should force the recognition that the decision we’re making is immoral. I can then take a stand that accepts my behavior AND accepts the moral incongruity, or I can do the hard work of evaluating the moral positions that I’ve taken, to see if I still believe them to be correct.
This is essential work – both as an individual and as a society. I’ve pointed out a couple of places where we – as a society – need to do this hard work. Are there places in your personal life where you need to confront moral dissonance? I know there certainly are in my own.
On the death penalty, I choose to accept the dissonance, and live with it. I accept that I think it’s morally wrong, and I live with the fact that I support it in some cases. Carefully managed and humanely administered, it allows us to eliminate a few of the chronic threats to society.
On the issue of torture, I choose to oppose torture in all cases – I can’t accept it under any circumstance. If there was some evidence that it consistently “worked”, I would probably change my mind. But there isn’t any such evidence, and quite a bit of contrary evidence. The damage it causes far outweighs the gains it brings.
Where are your big moral dissonance issues? How do you deal with them when your moral compass threatens to expose them?
Next, I’ll bring up some questions on this topic as they relate to a real hot-button issue – abortion.
The execution of Osama Bin Laden a week ago caused me to reflect again on the death penalty thoughts I posted just prior to that.
At its most simple, the assassination mission was simply a death penalty carried out. As I said before, I happen to support the death penalty in theory – when it’s used by society to terminate a force that is a significant threat to society.
This was exactly that – Bin laden was the self-professed mastermind of attacks on this country that killed thousands. He had confessed, was delighted with his actions, and was hiding from us to avoid execution. He didn’t seem to believe in “due process†himself, based on the delight he seemed to take in killing innocent people.
There are calls from some that his assassination was wrong, in that it failed to live up to the ideals and beliefs of this society. In denying him “due processâ€, our actions were wrong. The Executive Director of Human Rights Watch made these comments a week ag0.
He’s right of course. A strong moral argument can be made that killing anyone is wrong, and I’d agree with his comments that execution without due process is morally wrong.
This is where we all need to find our level of comfort with the moral dissonance created when we support an action that is immoral. For the good of society in general, I absolutely support the execution of this man who had caused many deaths and who would like to cause many more. There was no doubt of his guilt – he had proudly proclaimed his guilt over past actions and his intent for future action.
At the extremes, there are two reactions a person might have:
A person can take the approach that the Executive Director of Human Rights Watch did, and simply stick by the moral argument, with no consideration of anything else.
A person can justify the actions as “moral†in their mind – check out any of the right-wing blogs for examples of this perspective.
Both of these actions are the result of a low tolerance for moral dissonance. People who fall into these extremes want to see the world as very black and white, with no space for gray. They want to believe they have the complete and accurate set of universal moral rules programmed into their moral compass, and their way is the one and only way to see the world. If they support an action, it MUST be moral, and if it’s not, they’ll find a way to make it sound moral in their mind. Or they refuse to support it, no matter how “right†the decision is.
Our assassination of Bin Laden simply isn’t moral. Justify all you want. We invaded a sovereign country with our weapons and assassinated him and the people around him, and that’s simply not “moralâ€.
But in my mind, it’s OK. I have no problem with it. It was the right thing to do, as it removed an extremely harmful element of threat from our society – one that would surely cause grief and destruction in the future.
Moral dissonance might not actually be a phrase that’s commonly used – I just made it up because it seems to fit this dilemma. Look inside yourself, and ask yourself how much tolerance you have for moral dissonance. Your reaction to this assassination might be a good clue for you…
Having now gotten through 2 of these, I still have mixed feelings. The story is a really good one, and I love historical fiction and anthropological historical fiction like this, exploring how folks in the distant past may have lived. At the same time, I have to say there are many things about the style so far that are distracting to me.
It may be that the author is a woman, and she writes for a woman’s point of view, but I don’t think that’s all of it. In the second book, you could write an abridged version in about 10 pages or less, and it would be a good story to tell around the campfire. Auel expands that with tremendous detail about what’s happening within the story, but the detail doesn’t always contribute to or enhance the story. In many ways, I feel like she’s speaking in a voice meant for an adolescent girl.
While this is fine if you’re an adolescent girl, it’s distracting when you’re not. I think she could have developed a lot more story, and a lot more meat in the story, for the length of the book.
One disclaimer – there’s a good deal of sex in the story, and at times it’s a bit graphic. Since I’ve never read romance novels or stuff geared toward women, this could be common, but it seemed like quite a lot of emphasis to me, emphasis that didn’t necessarily improve the story (or detract from it). Just another example of something that felt too much like filler to me, and I would have liked more “meat and story”. If you’re the parent of an adolescent girl, you might want to read this before encouraging your daughter to read it. Personally, I have no problem with the way she wrote it as it relates to appropriateness for a 14 year-old daughter, but some parents might not agree with me.
I’ll keep reading these, because I so much like this sort of story. Her writing could mature as she goes through them – I’ll write another opinion after the 4th or 5th book. The bottom line, though, is that the story and the writing is good enough for me to keep reading them, despite the distractions!
Read a post recently that got me wandering down another path of thought. The essence of the article was the author’s belief that we all feel more and more pushed to “have experiences” these days. Katinka’s blog post can be found here, if you’d like to read it.
The idea got me going down that “checkmark” path again. I seem to love that path ever since Dave and I started bouncing ideas about it back and forth.
I agree that there’s a real competitive push in modern cultures today to “do the most and have the most”. The extends into things like vacations, and spiritual experiences.
Let’s start with vacations. When Peggy and Jesse and I were in Vietnam and Cambodia recently, we sometimes encountered throngs of Korean (or other eastern) tourists frantically making their way through a tourist attraction. They had no compunction at all about pushing ahead in a line, which was irritating to me based on my cultural norms, but apparently completely acceptable to their cultural norm.
On the good side of that equation, once they got into a place, they moved quickly, not lingering over anything at all. They were clearly trying to fit as much into the day as they could.
They were “doing” that particular attraction or site. The faster they could “do” it, the more things they could “do” on their vacation. The more checkmarks they could check off their list.
Of course that’s not unique to Koreans – in the west we’re probably even better at it, (or would that be worse?)
We plan our vacations to “do” a thing or group of things. The best vacations are the ones that are tightly planned and allow us to “do” the highest number of things.
Checkmarks.
“Doing” implies activity on my part – I’m putting my stamp on something. I’m happening to something or someone.
In Ha Long Bay, enjoying the company of children laughing and giggling...
Experience is something altogether different, isn’t it? Experience implies something that happens to me, rather than me happening to something. Tiny little shift in words that has a gigantic implication on how we walk along the path of life.
Dave and I have wrestled with this idea a lot in our conversations. On our long-distance cycling trip last summer across Colorado and Kansas, we talked often of motivation to do this sort of thing, and what we got out of it. Recognizing how common it is to feel the motivation to do things to check them off a list.
I get it. The most vehement anti-smoker is the man who quit smoking. I grew up as a “list” kind ‘a guy, and spent my early adult years focused pretty heavily on the checklists. I easily fall off the wagon, and start seeking the checkmarks.
The only thing that keeps me on the wagon most of the time is selfishness. Really. “Doing” a place is me happening to someone or something else. Once I’ve come to experience magic – to have things happen to me – then my selfishness wants to let more things happen to me. Each sip makes me more thirsty to feel more, to take more in, to surrender to the thing.
The tint of the word “selfishness” feels a little different to me in that light. To you as well?
Extend the idea to spiritual experience… I think I’ll post on that next.
Right up front – I’m OK with capital punishment. Society overall does better, and fewer people are hurt, when we weed out folks who cause heinous harm to members of society. That weeding out can include putting the person to death if we deem that’s the only option to prevent them from causing more damage.
In fact, I’m such a fan of it, that I can’t figure out why we don’t start applying it to corporations. This overtly activist and extreme supreme court of ours has decided that our sacred Bill of Rights applies to corporations, so it’s time they start standing up to the same punishments that real citizens stand up to. If a corporation causes the death of a person, they stand trial for that death. If they are convicted of a capital crime, they are disbanded and liquidated as a corporation, with the assets they leave behind benefiting society as a whole.
But that’s another discussion…
Today I want to talk about a particular death penalty sentence – one that appears to represent systemic excesses and corruption in our criminal justice systems.
In 1991, Troy Davis was convicted of murdering a white police officer in Georgia. While there was no physical evidence connecting Mr. Davis to the crime, there were 9 witnesses – enough to allow the jury to convict him. While it troubles me a little that we’d impose the death penalty without airtight physical evidence, I’m giving the jury the benefit of the doubt, and assuming the circumstantial evidence (9 witnesses) must have been compelling.
The problem is, 7 of those witnesses have since recanted in signed affidavits. Most of them have testified that they bore witness only under the duress of police pressure and coercion. Of the remaining 2 witnesses, there is strong evidence that one of them may be the culprit who actually did commit the crime Mr. Davis was convicted of – multiple witnesses have signed statements that he has claimed responsibility. Apparently this man was the alternative suspect at the time Mr Davis was convicted.
I don’t advocate that Georgia let Mr. Davis go. I advocate that their case doesn’t seem to meet the bar we should be setting to allow us to kill someone. Their case seems to have been weak to begin with, and it has since fallen apart completely. In a trial today with today’s information, it seems unlikely there would be a conviction, let alone an execution.
This is where the corruption of the system becomes deadly. Rather than admitting this case is thin, putting the execution on hold until this new evidence can be evaluated, Georgia appears to be pushing full steam ahead to kill Mr. Davis. This is a case involving the death of a police officer after all, and the state needs to make an example out of somebody.
It doesn’t seem to matter to them whether or not the man they make an example of is guilty or innocent.
I submitted again today. It’s really the only choice you have if you want to travel on the commercial airlines. Like sheep being led to the slaughter, we line up and submit to searches that would make a Stalinist or a Nazi proud.
From TSA Website - The actual pictures they see of you are much bigger and much higher resolution.
We do it without complaining, though my contempt shows clearly on my face as I submit. I suspect it’s only a matter of time before I’m pulled into some room for daring to be contemptuous of this sort of fascist behavior, daring to question the authority of my government to force its will on me in its never-ending crusade to rid our country of any danger.
Well, strike that last line. They don’t seem to mind certain kinds of danger at all. They seem perfectly willing to cast ever greater numbers of the poor and desolate into the streets, happy to cut the last vestige of health care safety net from those without money, delighted to use tax dollars to fund private schools while allowing schools to fail in the poorest and most bleak corners of our nation.
It’s not really safety they’re after. It’s control.
I understand how, following 9/11, we had an administration and a congress bent on stirring fear in us, so we’d allow them to impose ever-increasing authoritarian controls over us, and get us to allow them to trounce all over our sacred Bill of Rights. In that soup of fear and growing authoritarianism, we gleefully allowed them to create the TSA – a gang of thugs who search and probe every crevice of our privacy whenever we enter an airport.
I endured the probing and ever increasing authoritarianism. My slightest whimpers at the offenses brought lighthearted comments from my fellow travelers. “I’m just happy they’re protecting us from terroristsâ€, or “I don’t have anything to hide – I’m glad their searching us allâ€. I could only hope that we would evolve past these thugs we’d elected, and get back to a sane respect for our Bill of Rights. Surely, We The People would revolt against this destruction of our Freedoms and Rights, right?
We don’t seem to care.
Today, as I made my way through the lines of gestapo and the strip-search machines, I watched a wretched site. I shouldn’t have watched, but I did.
A young woman – maybe 30 or 35 – had apparently failed the strip-search machine. In my case, I’d been frisked because I left a dollar bill in my pocket. Really, their machine could see the dollar bill in my pocket, and after I took it out, I was manhandled and searched to make sure I didn’t have any other offending dollar bills in my pocket.
But back to this young woman. Attractive and innocent, she’d worn a nice dress. A bit clingy – you could very clearly see the contours beneath the dress. Having failed the strip-search machine, she was going to be humiliated in front of all to see. Helga, (the interrogator or searcher – that probably wasn’t her name but could have been…), was having the young woman strike different poses over the yellow foot marks on the pad, while she ran her hands all over looking for the offending dollar bill (or whatever her offense was).
This was the part I shouldn’t have watched. If you wanted to know what was beneath her dress, all you had to do was look at her – she wasn’t hiding anything. If there was a dollar bill tucked into her panties I could have told Helga right where it was – I could see the lines of her panties, and I’m sure I could have seen the outline of a dollar tucked in there.
The poor girl was humiliated. Helga was feeling her up in public, and she was supposed to feel grateful that we were somehow more secure from bad guys as a result.
I was ashamed. I couldn’t continue to watch, and made sounds of disapproval and disgust as I passed Helga. Fortunately for me, Helga had her hands full, and couldn’t call gestapo buddies to haul me to the interrogation room.
Fellow Americans, when will we all begin to express our disgust at this behavior, rather than continuing to condone it with our silence? We have a budget crisis. How about this – abolish the TSA to save a few hundred billion?
Look, I have no doubt our Nazi style searches at airports make it harder for hijackers to steal airplanes and kill people. But let’s face it, our government loves to cozy up to terrorists like the tobacco industry and big pharma, and big tobacco and big pharma are absolutely killing tens of thousands of Americans each year with the legislation they buy in Congress, yet we do nothing to protect Americans from them. Somehow though, we’re happy to let these idiots in congress spend hundreds of billions and piss our liberty down the toilet in the name of eliminating some risk to airline traffic.
In our sacred Bill of Rights is the 4th Amendment – protecting us from unreasonable search by our government. It was meant to check and stop the power of government to use “security” as a cover for total control. It was meant to force the government to prove that they have some reason to believe that you’re committing a crime or doing something illegal before they’re able to search you in any way.
Really – look it up – it’s one of the founding principles of our nation. When we created the TSA, the federal government slapped the Bill of Rights in the face, threw it in the gutter, then turned to We The People and dared us to say anything about it or do anything to stop them.
When will we say something?
Life is dangerous. Bad guys exist, and do bad things. Hitler did a great job of making his country safer from outside terrorists, but the price was high. I’m one American who’s not willing to pay for a little security with the liberty that so many good Americans have died to preserve.
I corresponded with someone recently who lost everything in the flooding that so many folks are experiencing in the Mississippi River Valley and other places out east. Their spirit of acceptance and forward movement impressed me, and got me thinking quite a bit about “lossâ€. Then yesterday evening, my son and I spent some time in the garden of a friend and customer who had just lost her husband. Afterwards my son mentioned that he really hadn’t spent much time around “loss†before, and that he was learning more about how to deal with those around him when they experience loss.
