TV satirist Stephen Colbert proposed to counter the Glenn Beck rally with one of his own: "Keep Fear Alive!"
University of Iowa researchers are among many who have mounted neuro-biological studies to identify the most powerful human emotions. In the running -- love, lust, anger, and fear. It's entirely possible we could have reached the same conclusion without the cost and effort. At one time it was called common-sense.
This sense provides a compelling argument that fear is not only the most immediately powerful emotion, but that it usually has the most enduring consequences. People react to love, lust and anger; but fear is the primitive experience which not only commands reaction, it demands action. Action easily used and channeled by others.
History is pockmarked with examples. The ancient Greek city-states found fear of Persia the one thing that could unite them....Spartacus and his slave revolt generated enough fear that Rome sent out its best legions...the medieval church found fear the fuel for inquisitions and witch burnings...Hitler and the Nazis mastered the force of fear to mesmerize 60 million civilized Germans into a primal pack of race warriors.
The irony of history is how great empires inevitably grow to fear the loss of their greatness. Like celebrities who struggle to get to the top, then teeter up their clutched by the fear of someone taking it all away from them. It is what happens to great empires whose populations are led to believe this will go on forever. Then awake one terrible morning to realize others hunger for what they have. And now they are coming for it...!
If the American Empire find itself in the gun-sights of others, it is the natural sequence of power. Power not only corrupts, it seduces. Others want it too. And at our expense. Now is the time when this empire is tested to see if it is more enduring than past ones. Does fear -- of any one or thing that seems different than what we are accustomed to -- does fear consume us into paroxysms of retaliations? Or does fear re-kindle that initial passion to overcome our worst fears with our best achievements?
The world waits. We wait. Is there a leader with the answer? Are we part of the answer? There's not a lot of time.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
WHY CAN'T I BURN MY LEAVES???
Intuition...! It's heralded by saints and poets, ridiculed by empiricists and scientists. So what's the deal here?
Intuition is a kind of quick and ready insight. Everyone experiences it at times; some seem to experience it almost all the time. These few folks are called everything from prophets to fools, from extra-sensory to extra-phony. We do know this much -- the US intelligence & military communities continue to probe the promised possibilities of these extraordinary sentient capacities.
However, until that time ESP claims fully materialize, people's intuition will continue to be a catch-as-catch-can phenomenon. And we will continue to find some things "counter-intuitive." At least five come to mind:
* It is counter-intuitive that football & soccer fans in a stadium watch the game rationally; but a few do, as they computer-chart the plays for later gaming
* It is counter-intuitive that adolescents make religion their first priority; but some of our greatest holy ones were youngsters
* It is counter-intuitive that poor people donate more to charity than rich; but they do, donating on average 5.6% of their income vs 2.1% among the wealthy
* It is counter-intuitive that narcissists will give more of themselves; but they do whenever measured in the percolation of creative ideas in group settings
* It is counter-intuitive for an adult to jump into and roll around in a lawn-full of autumn leaves; but if they are among those who grew up before the 1980s, they have this annual urge to do just that every Midwest October
The rest of you must understand something very important here. In those distant days, leaves were for crunching with your silly feet! leaves were for burning so that their pungent smoke could envelop you, body and soul! leaves were part of the mystical landscape to the Chicago Tribune's annual front-page cartoon affectionately titled "Injun' Summer!"
As everyone knows, these behaviors have been properly condemned by our empirical environmentalists. They have done this with all good intentions. Except perhaps their counter-intuitive decision that adults can never again be children.....
Intuition is a kind of quick and ready insight. Everyone experiences it at times; some seem to experience it almost all the time. These few folks are called everything from prophets to fools, from extra-sensory to extra-phony. We do know this much -- the US intelligence & military communities continue to probe the promised possibilities of these extraordinary sentient capacities.
However, until that time ESP claims fully materialize, people's intuition will continue to be a catch-as-catch-can phenomenon. And we will continue to find some things "counter-intuitive." At least five come to mind:
* It is counter-intuitive that football & soccer fans in a stadium watch the game rationally; but a few do, as they computer-chart the plays for later gaming
* It is counter-intuitive that adolescents make religion their first priority; but some of our greatest holy ones were youngsters
* It is counter-intuitive that poor people donate more to charity than rich; but they do, donating on average 5.6% of their income vs 2.1% among the wealthy
* It is counter-intuitive that narcissists will give more of themselves; but they do whenever measured in the percolation of creative ideas in group settings
* It is counter-intuitive for an adult to jump into and roll around in a lawn-full of autumn leaves; but if they are among those who grew up before the 1980s, they have this annual urge to do just that every Midwest October
The rest of you must understand something very important here. In those distant days, leaves were for crunching with your silly feet! leaves were for burning so that their pungent smoke could envelop you, body and soul! leaves were part of the mystical landscape to the Chicago Tribune's annual front-page cartoon affectionately titled "Injun' Summer!"
As everyone knows, these behaviors have been properly condemned by our empirical environmentalists. They have done this with all good intentions. Except perhaps their counter-intuitive decision that adults can never again be children.....
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
A YOUTHFUL INDISCRETION
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the late US Congressman Henry Hyde both grew up here in Park Ridge, IL. Both had their share of bare-knuckled political battles. But one of Henry's nastiest was the revelation of his sexual improprieties. He admitted to these with the celebrated phrase: "A youthful indiscretion."
Had he lived longer he might have found this month's report from social psychologist Anne Wilson discomforting. She comments from Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada: "There are reasons why all indiscretions appear youthful ...the brain is particularly prone to backdating when it comes to shameful acts....with the result that we can subconsciously create a personal history that, if not perfect, makes us feel we're getting better and better."
Seen in context, this study is one of hundreds in which neuro-biolgists have begun identifying various individual genes and lobes and circuits in us, in order to better understand us. What we do, and why we do it.
So far so good.
However, what happens when the astronomer can identify every star, but has lost sight of the cosmos...? When the forester can identify every tree, but has forgotten what the forest looks like....? When the sex expert can identify 143 ways of making love, but doesn't know any women...?
The 21st C has seen an explosion of dramatic breakthroughs by our evolutionary biologists. And yet how often is the result to know the parts, but miss the whole...? To fathom the encryptions, but never break the code...? To find ourselves sitting wisely before the arrayed pieces to the human puzzle, but forgetting there is a picture in those pieces...?
I can see Henry's old house a few doors down from ours. Whenever I pass it I wonder. He was a publicly religious man. Was he morally comfortable with his explanation about his behavior? Would he have disputed Dr Wilson's
theory? Or would he have said he had come to terms with his God, and would find scant comfort in coming to terms with his physiological genes and lobes and circuits?
I voted for Henry, but never got the chance to ask him about such matters. I'm guessing he would have felt as do I: In the matters of human behavior, mere matter is not all that matters.
Had he lived longer he might have found this month's report from social psychologist Anne Wilson discomforting. She comments from Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada: "There are reasons why all indiscretions appear youthful ...the brain is particularly prone to backdating when it comes to shameful acts....with the result that we can subconsciously create a personal history that, if not perfect, makes us feel we're getting better and better."
Seen in context, this study is one of hundreds in which neuro-biolgists have begun identifying various individual genes and lobes and circuits in us, in order to better understand us. What we do, and why we do it.
So far so good.
However, what happens when the astronomer can identify every star, but has lost sight of the cosmos...? When the forester can identify every tree, but has forgotten what the forest looks like....? When the sex expert can identify 143 ways of making love, but doesn't know any women...?
The 21st C has seen an explosion of dramatic breakthroughs by our evolutionary biologists. And yet how often is the result to know the parts, but miss the whole...? To fathom the encryptions, but never break the code...? To find ourselves sitting wisely before the arrayed pieces to the human puzzle, but forgetting there is a picture in those pieces...?
I can see Henry's old house a few doors down from ours. Whenever I pass it I wonder. He was a publicly religious man. Was he morally comfortable with his explanation about his behavior? Would he have disputed Dr Wilson's
theory? Or would he have said he had come to terms with his God, and would find scant comfort in coming to terms with his physiological genes and lobes and circuits?
I voted for Henry, but never got the chance to ask him about such matters. I'm guessing he would have felt as do I: In the matters of human behavior, mere matter is not all that matters.
Monday, October 4, 2010
HEY BIG SPENDER, STEP RIGHT IN!
"It's the economy, stupid!"
So sayeth the great prophet James Carville. And most Americans would agree. But Carville forgot to explain how the economy is actually played in that great casino known as history. Where everyone has a different formula for winning at the tables. There's the House, the Players, the High Rollers, and then the Kibitzers. To untangle this taffy of conflicting interests, here's some news from the front...
* The House is whoever is in presidential office at the time. He's the face of the casino, the one with the cash in the vault, the one with the most at stake. Because if he can't show a profit at the end of his term, he's out of job. Oh, not because the players will vote him out; mainly because the casino investors will damn well see to it
* The Players come into this casino in all different shapes, sizes and bankrolls.The little ones -- that's you and me -- place their bets on selected insurance plans, 401Ks, and stocks. The casino promises them a fair shake of the dice and cut of the cards. But nothing more. Especially when the House is owned by investors who define a good year in terms of a good year for them. Where are their names on the marquee? No, you don't understand. They don't look for visibility; they just look for and expect the House to keep providing them a smashing big return on their investments
* The High Rollers have been trying to beat or buy the House right from the beginning. Colonial farmers used to get together donations to their favorite royal governors. Today the art of donations has been perfected, so that now there are roughly 300 really big High Rollers. Just one tiny example is the cool $1 million thrown against Washington DC Mayor Adrian Fenty by the teachers union opposed to his school superintendent's reforms. This $1 million constitutes a drop in a nationwide bucket of other vested interests that tops $1 billion every election
* Finally, the Kibitzers. Otherwise known as economists. As things stand now, it's easy to think economists were invented to make weather forecasters look good. That's because their predictions and plans have had a pretty spotty record. From Alexander Hamilton in the 1780s to Ronald Reagan in the 1980s to the current boss. But when these well-groomed Kibitzers talk about their "science," this hubris has shown to be about as reliable as the players who've been bringing "formulas" to the tables ever since someone invented the words break-the-bank
What's really fun about this casino is that it keeps hooking players who really believe. Believe what...? Well, when you ask them, they're not exactly sure. But get out of their way, they've got hunch...!
So sayeth the great prophet James Carville. And most Americans would agree. But Carville forgot to explain how the economy is actually played in that great casino known as history. Where everyone has a different formula for winning at the tables. There's the House, the Players, the High Rollers, and then the Kibitzers. To untangle this taffy of conflicting interests, here's some news from the front...
* The House is whoever is in presidential office at the time. He's the face of the casino, the one with the cash in the vault, the one with the most at stake. Because if he can't show a profit at the end of his term, he's out of job. Oh, not because the players will vote him out; mainly because the casino investors will damn well see to it
* The Players come into this casino in all different shapes, sizes and bankrolls.The little ones -- that's you and me -- place their bets on selected insurance plans, 401Ks, and stocks. The casino promises them a fair shake of the dice and cut of the cards. But nothing more. Especially when the House is owned by investors who define a good year in terms of a good year for them. Where are their names on the marquee? No, you don't understand. They don't look for visibility; they just look for and expect the House to keep providing them a smashing big return on their investments
* The High Rollers have been trying to beat or buy the House right from the beginning. Colonial farmers used to get together donations to their favorite royal governors. Today the art of donations has been perfected, so that now there are roughly 300 really big High Rollers. Just one tiny example is the cool $1 million thrown against Washington DC Mayor Adrian Fenty by the teachers union opposed to his school superintendent's reforms. This $1 million constitutes a drop in a nationwide bucket of other vested interests that tops $1 billion every election
* Finally, the Kibitzers. Otherwise known as economists. As things stand now, it's easy to think economists were invented to make weather forecasters look good. That's because their predictions and plans have had a pretty spotty record. From Alexander Hamilton in the 1780s to Ronald Reagan in the 1980s to the current boss. But when these well-groomed Kibitzers talk about their "science," this hubris has shown to be about as reliable as the players who've been bringing "formulas" to the tables ever since someone invented the words break-the-bank
What's really fun about this casino is that it keeps hooking players who really believe. Believe what...? Well, when you ask them, they're not exactly sure. But get out of their way, they've got hunch...!
Sunday, October 3, 2010
THERE'S A BIG NEW MOVIE IN TOWN
The new movie in town, "The Social Network," probes this thing called Facebook. This half-billion-user Internet phenomenon that strikes people in sharply different ways. Time wasted on the trivial! Time invested in relationships past, present and future! Time that can be saddled like a stallion leading a herd to where you'd like to take it!
All three takes are true. What's not true yet is any of the prognoses. The doctor known as History has not yet tested this virus. We know its power and capacity to spread is enormous, and we know it's now in 24/7 motion. What we don't know is where it's taking us. Like the Native Americans couldn't possibly have known what was ahead as they watched those strange new Spanish Conquistadors and English Puritans dock their ships, and start spreading farther every day.
Emerson liked to say: "You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late." Right now, there is a wave of kindness spreading throughout us half-billion users. Re-uniting with dear friends and relatives and co-workers and students that you thought were never again to be a part of your life. Also, trawling the globe where you are netting some remarkable new faces and voices and thoughts.
On the other hand....
Looking into this exponentially expanding digital world must be a little like when God looked down on Eden. Such a grand idea. Such astonishing possibilities. Such an ideal Garden. I mean, just think of what could and should have been!
Who might be the snake in this latest Genesis? Plenty of oily candidates. Like the venomous haters who can now infect tens of millions with the click of their Send button. Like the inarticulate who can find some zany story or video to do their silly talking with the click of their Share button. And especially all those pent-up neuroses and psychoses that could never before seep out of their psyches to inundate the innocent.
So then is Facebook pretty much just like previous good/bad communication revolutions? The alphabet? The printing press? Radio and television? It's comforting to convince yourself that it is. To relax into the presumption that it's simply more-of-the-same. But here, my virtual-friends, here's the undeniable difference: Each of those previous revolutions were owned and operated by someone. Somewhere.
This revolution is owned by us. Everywhere. A good prognosticator (Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset) wrote an extraordinary little book in 1931: "The Revolt of the Masses." The year I was born. Now 2010 may be the year he was right!
All three takes are true. What's not true yet is any of the prognoses. The doctor known as History has not yet tested this virus. We know its power and capacity to spread is enormous, and we know it's now in 24/7 motion. What we don't know is where it's taking us. Like the Native Americans couldn't possibly have known what was ahead as they watched those strange new Spanish Conquistadors and English Puritans dock their ships, and start spreading farther every day.
Emerson liked to say: "You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late." Right now, there is a wave of kindness spreading throughout us half-billion users. Re-uniting with dear friends and relatives and co-workers and students that you thought were never again to be a part of your life. Also, trawling the globe where you are netting some remarkable new faces and voices and thoughts.
On the other hand....
Looking into this exponentially expanding digital world must be a little like when God looked down on Eden. Such a grand idea. Such astonishing possibilities. Such an ideal Garden. I mean, just think of what could and should have been!
Who might be the snake in this latest Genesis? Plenty of oily candidates. Like the venomous haters who can now infect tens of millions with the click of their Send button. Like the inarticulate who can find some zany story or video to do their silly talking with the click of their Share button. And especially all those pent-up neuroses and psychoses that could never before seep out of their psyches to inundate the innocent.
So then is Facebook pretty much just like previous good/bad communication revolutions? The alphabet? The printing press? Radio and television? It's comforting to convince yourself that it is. To relax into the presumption that it's simply more-of-the-same. But here, my virtual-friends, here's the undeniable difference: Each of those previous revolutions were owned and operated by someone. Somewhere.
This revolution is owned by us. Everywhere. A good prognosticator (Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset) wrote an extraordinary little book in 1931: "The Revolt of the Masses." The year I was born. Now 2010 may be the year he was right!
Saturday, October 2, 2010
IF FDR, OBAMA & TONY CURTIS MET FOR BREAKFAST
Lately, Americans have this cable-news fixation about connecting-the-dots. Sounds so smart and pundit-like. Sometimes, though, disparate dots simply don't connect. Unless maybe you force the fit...!
Dot #1:
American cities have been rated by Men's Health Magazine according to the amount of sexual activity (eg. condom sales, sex-toy sales, birth rates, STD rates). Seven of the top 15 cities were in Texas
Dot #2:
According to an ABC News poll, only 50% of Americans still believe in the American Dream that anyone can succeed with enough work and effort. 43% added that the Dream was once true, but no more
Dot #3:
Hollywood legend Tony Curtis dies at age 86.
With a little fudging and forcing, here's how these three fit. One of film-land's sexiest stars. who lived out the American Dream, has left the rest of us -- well, at least me -- to wonder. How different was Tony's America to our own? Having lived in both, my best dot-connecting sense is that we are extraordinarily different.
No surprise there. It's a given that nations and cultures keep changing. However, the question is: Why so extraordinarily? Celebrated anthropologist Margaret Mead answered it this way: "The world has changed more in the 50 years since WWII than it has in the preceding 50 centuries!"
Currently, it's fashionable to express Mead's idea by the way the media continually compare our times with the Depression of the 1930s. Back where Tony grew up dreaming the Dream. If you put 20 scholars in a conference room, they'll come up with 21 versions of why his America and ours are so spellbindingly different. But not to get lost in a thicket of stats, one simple one between his world and ours stands out. He said it himself in an interview when he was asked about how many Americans are today walking away from their mortgages:
"My Old Man could have been on his knees, but still wouldn't pull that crap!" Neither would mine, Tony, neither would mine.
Dot #1:
American cities have been rated by Men's Health Magazine according to the amount of sexual activity (eg. condom sales, sex-toy sales, birth rates, STD rates). Seven of the top 15 cities were in Texas
Dot #2:
According to an ABC News poll, only 50% of Americans still believe in the American Dream that anyone can succeed with enough work and effort. 43% added that the Dream was once true, but no more
Dot #3:
Hollywood legend Tony Curtis dies at age 86.
With a little fudging and forcing, here's how these three fit. One of film-land's sexiest stars. who lived out the American Dream, has left the rest of us -- well, at least me -- to wonder. How different was Tony's America to our own? Having lived in both, my best dot-connecting sense is that we are extraordinarily different.
No surprise there. It's a given that nations and cultures keep changing. However, the question is: Why so extraordinarily? Celebrated anthropologist Margaret Mead answered it this way: "The world has changed more in the 50 years since WWII than it has in the preceding 50 centuries!"
Currently, it's fashionable to express Mead's idea by the way the media continually compare our times with the Depression of the 1930s. Back where Tony grew up dreaming the Dream. If you put 20 scholars in a conference room, they'll come up with 21 versions of why his America and ours are so spellbindingly different. But not to get lost in a thicket of stats, one simple one between his world and ours stands out. He said it himself in an interview when he was asked about how many Americans are today walking away from their mortgages:
"My Old Man could have been on his knees, but still wouldn't pull that crap!" Neither would mine, Tony, neither would mine.
Friday, October 1, 2010
SO YOU WANT TO REFORM EDUCATION...!
There are facts. And then there are fables. Every year about this time, America toys with the fable of a reformed public school system in which kids are wonderfully trained by wonderful teachers in wonderful settings.
The fable is worth chasing, but the facts are worth admitting. Once large city systems grew and bureaucratized, too many variables crowded into the storyline. Clashing, often competing variables that were supposed to fit together, but didn't. Aging buildings...bloated administrations....inadequate budgets ...out-dated curricula...over-tenured teachers...under-concerned parents...over-aggressive ethnicities... ever-present gangs.
Into this academic chaos ride the occasional reformers with dreams. Some dreams come in the form of system-wide restructuring programs. Others arrive in the form of visionary gunslingers who personally embody the dream. The first tend to replace one orthodoxy with another; the second usually work only with and where the gunslinger is able to draw. However, it's not long before both the reforms and reformers fail to fulfill the fable.
Mark Twain used to say, "Everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it." In a cruel sort of way, education in our large city systems is like the weather. A force unto itself. Something you can see, but always just beyond your reach. And surely beyond your control.
So here's the deal.
With a little reflection, each of us can confirm this fact -- the best education is a gifted teacher passionately engaged with kids whose curiosity he or she has just ignited. Buildings, budgets, books -- not really that important in the final measure. This engagement can take place in a multi-million-dollar campus or in a warehouse. It can happen in a small class or a large one. It all comes down to that head-to-heart dynamic in which the teacher begins stirring something dormant inside. Something the kid never even knew lived there.
Not enough such mentors? Not enough such moments? You're right. Which in the long run all comes down to this un-deniable, un-fabled fact. Systems change, but only slowly. Students, on the other hand, can start to change on a dime. When even they least expect it. Just when society desperately needs such adults-in-the-making.
How...? Lets face it, how did it happen to us...? Very often only if and when the capricious lottery of life hit our way. That certain teacher was teaching that certain class when you just happened to be in that certain room. You know, something like how you met that certain someone in your life!
Not very scientific. Not very replicable. And certainly not anything you can put a proper reform's name to. Frankly, it's life's que-sera-sera by which one generation sorta passes the torch to the next. It doesn't mean we throw up our arms in total surrender to the gods of chance; reformers and reforms will always be indispensable. But until indispensable becomes inevitable, it's good to know this lottery of life is still in play.
The fable is worth chasing, but the facts are worth admitting. Once large city systems grew and bureaucratized, too many variables crowded into the storyline. Clashing, often competing variables that were supposed to fit together, but didn't. Aging buildings...bloated administrations....inadequate budgets ...out-dated curricula...over-tenured teachers...under-concerned parents...over-aggressive ethnicities... ever-present gangs.
Into this academic chaos ride the occasional reformers with dreams. Some dreams come in the form of system-wide restructuring programs. Others arrive in the form of visionary gunslingers who personally embody the dream. The first tend to replace one orthodoxy with another; the second usually work only with and where the gunslinger is able to draw. However, it's not long before both the reforms and reformers fail to fulfill the fable.
Mark Twain used to say, "Everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it." In a cruel sort of way, education in our large city systems is like the weather. A force unto itself. Something you can see, but always just beyond your reach. And surely beyond your control.
So here's the deal.
With a little reflection, each of us can confirm this fact -- the best education is a gifted teacher passionately engaged with kids whose curiosity he or she has just ignited. Buildings, budgets, books -- not really that important in the final measure. This engagement can take place in a multi-million-dollar campus or in a warehouse. It can happen in a small class or a large one. It all comes down to that head-to-heart dynamic in which the teacher begins stirring something dormant inside. Something the kid never even knew lived there.
Not enough such mentors? Not enough such moments? You're right. Which in the long run all comes down to this un-deniable, un-fabled fact. Systems change, but only slowly. Students, on the other hand, can start to change on a dime. When even they least expect it. Just when society desperately needs such adults-in-the-making.
How...? Lets face it, how did it happen to us...? Very often only if and when the capricious lottery of life hit our way. That certain teacher was teaching that certain class when you just happened to be in that certain room. You know, something like how you met that certain someone in your life!
Not very scientific. Not very replicable. And certainly not anything you can put a proper reform's name to. Frankly, it's life's que-sera-sera by which one generation sorta passes the torch to the next. It doesn't mean we throw up our arms in total surrender to the gods of chance; reformers and reforms will always be indispensable. But until indispensable becomes inevitable, it's good to know this lottery of life is still in play.
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