chameleon heir

I began asking about beliefs. What causes us to adopt, retain or discard them? Why does belief in the un-provable seem an essential quality in people? I ask these things because I recognize in myself the quality of a believer and at the same time have observed mutability in my beliefs. That’s of course a long winded way of saying we all live and learn. I’m interested in knowing how and why.

The first writing I took in from Steven Pinker was one that examined cases of young mothers killing their newborns. Not only did he explore several theories on the motives behind such deplorable acts or psychology behind it, but he also explored the ways that our reactions to it may vary across cultures and circumstances. He described it as an immoral act. This got me thinking about morality and how we come to believe something is immoral or not. Religion is part of it and so religion became part of the question about belief. Belief or faith is central to all religions. I began to search out connections between religion and psychology. I found a speech made by Steven Pinker in which he critiques a theory that we humans possess a God gene that predisposes us to succumb to delusions which we call faiths or beliefs. He convincingly argued that it is absurd to think that we evolved the tendency for religion as an adaptation or Darwinian edge in a contest for biological success. One powerful disclaimer is the fact that humor and music are also universal among humans as well as religion and we don’t have any theory that explains them as an adaptation. All three are alike in that many people don’t think that these are essential for survival, so why should they develop and take root in us? To him, our religiosity doesn’t figure neatly into evolutionary theories. It is an accidental in the score of our evolution, an anomaly, a scientific puzzle. He asked questions of how believing in something unseen or un-provable (superstition) would benefit us. He came to the conclusion that it didn’t but that the tendency to do so stemmed from the tendency to apply inductive reasoning and the tendency to trust qualified others which does offer an advantage to its bearers.

After reading Pinker, I looked at an article on the internet by a religious group. They offered a rebuttal of psychology and psychotherapy, claiming that much of psychology is not science but witch doctoring and pseudo-science. They are vehemently opposed to the humanistic theories espoused by psychologists such as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. They claim that such things are inimical to the church’s teaching of self denial and sacrifice. Much of their displeasure with the occupation of psychotherapy and psychological analysis was in the fact that these practitioners oppose faith and spiritual healing in the name of science while at the same time behaving as a new religion intending to supplant theirs. It seemed that they have a good argument as they showed how psychologists may deviate from their high ethical standards of scientific inquiry into the realm of wishful thinking and self aggrandizement.

Next, I read Jonathan Haidt. He offered yet another set of thoughts that I found interesting. He professed to be an atheist and a liberal. He explored the nature of morality in Moral Psychology and the Misunderstanding of Religion. He began with a statement about morality, that we all care so much about it and therefore it is hard for us to look objectively at it. Because most of the academic community looks at things through the same kind of moral lens, he thinks that its members validate each others visions and distortions. He thinks that this is manifested in some of the new scientific writing on religion. He shows that morality is not just about how we should treat one another. Such a simple view excludes the valuation of the group and focuses on the value of the individual. So then there is a duality in the nature of morality in that there are individual values working in concert with group values. He says that there are two ways in which societies can suppress or regulate selfishness.  He calls the two approaches the beehive approach and the contractual approach. Group values are the strength of behives or the world of religion. Individual rights are the strength of contractual societies. He goes so far as to say that every longstanding ideology has some wisdom toward suppressing selfishness and promoting healthy social life. He also warns against a militant form of atheism using science as its cloak of maliciousness. Such activity may subvert true scientific study of religion with its own moralistic dogma.

Jonathan Haidt is an atheist who believes in the conservation of religion because it may hold cures to society’s ills. In his writings he is committed to the scientific method of study. He is not over eager to downplay evidence which might cast his own ideas in unfavorable light. For instance, he speaks of the consistently higher generosity among religious groups verses atheists. This undercuts the argument that atheists are morally superior, if generosity is an indicator of higher moral values. His writing therefore comes across with the kind of ingenuousness you would expect from a scientist. I have imagined how noble it would be to be a scientist, to test hypotheses and bravely accept the outcomes as the ultimate guide to the next step. What is it that makes a scientist noble? Is it that he sets himself aside for the benefit of advancing knowledge, that he is able to rise above the banality of accepted facts and purify out of it the highest knowledge. What makes a holy man noble above the common man? Is it not also self denial in the search for pureness of heart and the fulfillment of the soul to rise above the crowd of banal creatures and escape the slaughter? Let the search continue.

Morality and Religion

Moral Psychology and the Misunderstanding of Religion by Jonathan Haidt is interesting reading. While professing to be an atheist liberal, he offers a defense of religion with scientific detachment and intellectual ardor. He examines the nature of morality in an even handed fashion. Instead of dismissing religion as the long standing nemesis of free thinking as seems to be standard fare among atheists, he takes a more neutral approach. He even apologizes for narrow-minded smugness among professing liberals. He says that much study on morality is skewed toward the idea that our morality is driven primarily by reason, but he thinks that the studies don’t look at the real world but rather the academic one in which subjects answer hypothetical situations with conditioned responses. In his opinion he says that our morality is founded more on our emotions. He says that people arrive at an initial judgment through their emotions and then find reasons post hoc to support it. In his analysis he refers to work by L. Kohlberg, Antonio Damasio, Frans de Waal, John Bargh, Michael Gazzaniga, Josh Greene, E. O. Wilson, Emile Durkheim, Richard Dawkins, and many others.

Out of all this erudition he offers his summary of a new synthesis in moral psychology in four principles.

One: we quickly respond emotionally to moral challenges and follow up with reasoning as we search for evidence to justify our gut reaction.

Two: when we have no stake in the outcome or have no gut feeling in a decision we reason coolly and objectively but when our moral base is challenged we grasp for intellectual reasons to support our position. A quote from David Hume is used. “… reason is the servant of the passions.”

Three: Morality builds and binds groups or societies.

Four: Morality is not just about Kohlbergian concepts of harm and care and of justice and fairness. It is also about group belonging and loyalty, authority and respect, and purity and sanctity. The last of these he associates with what he calls the uniquely human emotion of disgust, a learned behavior. What is special about this emotion is that it makes us feel as though some ways of living and acting are better or more noble than others.

He describes morality in terms of five foundations. The first two are about individualization and they are the ones he says most liberal thinkers concentrate on. The other three are concerned with protecting and preserving the group. To illustrate the value of the latter three, he recounts his experience with a tribal society and his observations about moral life there. He said that they were not plagued with anomie as some societies such as many Americans and Europeans. He said that people were very happy in that they understood their place and value in the society. To them the group was more important than self. He says that it made him rethink the modern philosophy of individual rights. It is arrogant for western thinkers to suppose that people can not be happy in a society where individual rights and freedom are not given the pre-emminence over the group as in their own.

He applies his four principles of moral psychology to some liberal thinkers. He shows that it is plausible that atheists such as Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris might not be as objective as they claim to be in their reasoning. He says that many atheists look narrowly on religion and fail to see the possible values because of their prejudiced outlook. He shows how Dawkins demonstrates a departure from scientific detachment in his arguments that resemble religious orthodoxy. The evidence is Dawkins’ reference to the evolutionary theory of group selection as a heresy. He says that Dawkins dismisses other theories without giving a reason. (The reason is because he said so.) This, says Haidt, is a hallmark of standard moral thinking rather than scientific thinking. It appears that the atheist is behaving like a religious fanatic.

In his discussion of Sam Harris’ writings about religion, Haidt points out a flaw in the definition of morality being used. The definition of morality by Berkeley  psychologist, Elliot Turiel, is “ the accepted judgments of justice, rights, and welfare as concern how people ought to interact with each other.”

Haidt says that morality is an interlocking set of values, practices, institutions, and evolved psychological mechanisms that work together to suppress or regulate selfishness and make social life possible.

Haidt’s research and his reasoning recognizes practical value in religion as an integral part of a moral system. For a liberal this seems to be a revolutionary step. What I respect in his work is his willingness to apply the high standard of critical thinking that many liberals profess to one of the deepest and widely held sentiments among atheist liberals. He begins his discourse saying that morality is one of those issues that is difficult to analyze without getting caught up in our own passions. We justify our moral position with intellectual reason after we have adopted it by our emotional response to a situation. He said that in his experience he learned to respect beliefs, religions, and customs different from his own. He shows a cautious reverence for what he doesn’t understand completely but believing there is still much to be learned. Rather than pulling up religion as a weed in the garden of liberal thought, he studies it and accepts its existence as some evidence of success which merits study. He spent time getting to know people and families in a tribal society and the experience altered his views. After reading this piece by Jonathan Haidt, I am willing to read more of his open minded explorations of human behavior. As a believer I find that I can learn from an atheist, believe it or not.

 

Psychology

Science or Religion?*

This is the heading of a piece found on the internet.

The first offering is a 200 year old quote by William Law “Man needs to be saved from his own wisdom as much as from his own righteousness, for they produce one and the same corruption.” The author claims this to be more evident today because, while secular psychological researchers seem to grow less confident in psychological counseling, more professing Christians are pursuing it.

To the author, most of psychology and psychotherapy is on the same level as witch doctors. There is, to him some valid research, but it is not the place of psychology or psychotherapy to determine what is the nature of man, or how he should live, or how to improve him. In summary, he says that psychotherapy and Christianity are incompatible.

He presents four myths concerning psychotherapy as it relates to Christianity.

Number one: Psychotherapy is a science.

Number two: The best kind of counseling uses the bible and psychology.

Number three: People that experience mental – emotional behavior problems are mentally ill, and therefore need the help of psychotherapy rather than the “unqualified” help from Christian ministers.

Number four: Psychotherapy has a high record of success – greater than other forms of help or counseling.

These types of myths are enticing many professing Christians to train to become psychotherapists.

The author challenges the claim that psychotherapy is a science. He gives a brief history of the development of the idea of scientifically studying human behavior, to understand it, to predict it, and to alter it systematically. He says that treating psychotherapy as a true science is an error because it fails the criteria. To back this is a quote by Sigmund Koch to the American Psychological Association who appointed him to plan and direct a study subsidized by the National Science Foundation. “The hope of a psychological science became indistinguishable from the fact of a psychological science. The entire subsequent history of psychology can be seen as a ritualistic endeavor to emulate the forms of science in order to sustain the delusion that it already is a science.” In other words, psychotherapy is a pseudo-science substitute for religious belief.

The effectiveness of psychotherapy is brought into question. A quote from Hans J. Eysenck, an “eminent English scholar” , in 1952 says that about two thirds of a group of neurotic people will recover or improve markedly within two years of the onset of illness, with or without psychotherapy.

The over-use of the label of mental illness is a problem to the author because it relegates people to the world of psychology and psychotherapy and diverts them from other sources of help. Too many problems that people have with their behavior are being attributed to mental disease. If church leaders substitute psychotherapy solutions to spiritual problems, then it undermines their authority. If behavioral problems are pinned on mental disease then solutions are expected to arise from the world of medicine. A research scientist by the name of E. Fuller Torrey says that the term “mental disease” is  a nonsensical, semantic mistake. The two words cannot go together because you can no more have  a mental disease than you can have a purple idea or a wise space. Mental means mind which is not the same as brain. It doesn’t make sense to think of the mind in the same terms as we think of the brain. It would be a mistake to do so because a disease is something you have, but behavior is what you do. Psychological counseling does not deal with the physical brain. It deals with aspects of thinking, feeling and behaving. Then the psychotherapist is not healing diseases but rather teaching. He teaches new ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving. He then is a teacher not a doctor.

It seems then in light of this evidence that the study of psychology and especially the practice of psychotherapy have taken on the role of religion. The psychiatrist Thomas Szasz said that psychotherapy is a religion pretending to be a science; more emphatically that it is a fake religion that seeks to destroy true religion.

I am at this point inclined to believe that psychotherapy and Christian counseling are as the author has argued, incompatible. They appear to be mutually exclusive with no stable middle ground. The tug of war continues.  

* http://www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/Psychology/psych.htm

The internet posting is from the Bible Discernment Ministries – 11/95 

It is an excerpt from Media Spotlight 6/89, a condensation of PsychoHeresy: The Psychological Seduction of Christianity by Martin and Deidre Bobgan, EastGate Publishers and PsychoHeresy Awareness Ministries , Santa Barbara, CA 1987

 

Do we have a God Gene or a God Module in our brain? This is the question presented by Steven Pinker at his reception of the “Emperors New Clothes Award” given by the Freedom From Religion Foundation in Madison Wisconsin, Oct. 29, 2004. He was referring to an article in Time magazine titled “The God Gene: Does Our Deity Compel Us To Seek A Higher Power?” Pinker says that some scientists say yes, ”believe it or not”. He then followed with his evaluations of such claims.

Religion is a phenomenon common to all cultures. His case in point is the contemporary United States of America. 25% of us believe in witches; 50% in ghosts; 50% in the devil; 50% that the book of Genesis is literally true; 69% in angels; 87% that Jesus was raised from the dead; 96% in a god or universal spirit. He quoted H.L.Mencken “The most common of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It’s the chief occupation of humankind.”

The explanation for signs of engineering in the natural world is Darwin’s Natural Selection. It is our best way to explain this illusion of design in terms of natural or spontaneous causes. The next question is how did natural selection drive us toward a universal propensity for irrational beliefs. In evolutionary terms, what is the benefit from believing something that the believer cannot prove to be true? Mr. Pinker discussed at length theories of adaptation. For example, we benefit from binocular vision as it enables us to perceive a three dimensional world with eyes that only can capture two dimensions. Looking at the same object from two separate points and using geometric principles learned in trigonometry we know that we can enable a robot to measure distance like as we are able to sense depth of field. So Mr. Pinker says that binocular vision is an adaptation because there is a direct benefit by having it. Our susceptibility to religion is not in his opinion an adaptation as others claim.

One such claim is that religion gives comfort. But why should the mind find comfort in something that is false? If one is cold will he be comforted if told that it is really warm? We are generally resistant to such delusion. Why should religion be different?

A second hypothesis is that it brings a community together. Although there is some truth to this, the same thing could be said for a variety of other human emotions like trust and loyalty, friendship and solidarity.

A third proposal is that religion is the source of our higher ethical hopes, but if you read the Bible, you’ll find in it a manual for rape, genocide and destruction. Rather than being a source of higher moral values it is a source of stoning, witch burnings, crusades, inquisitions, jihads, suicide bombers and more such like.

Pinker proposed that our propensity for religion is not an adaptation with a Darwinian reward, but rather a by-product of other adaptations. The analogy he used was the color of our blood. Why should it be red? We get no benefit from it being red. It just happens to be red because that’s the color imparted to it by the iron in the hemoglobin. It is the hemoglobin we benefit from. The color just came with it. Therefore by the same analogy, religion itself is not an adaptation but what came with other necessary adaptations.

We often defer to others who demonstrate expertise in a specialty such as a doctor or mechanic or electrician. We often take their expert opinion on faith that they are being truthful. This is how complex societies emerge, through the division of labour. As we become more specialized we must necessarily depend on the expertise of others and trust them implicitly. This is part of the fabric of society. To Pinker, this vulnerability which we acquire has its reward but carries with it a concomitant weakness for religion or superstition.

Although it may be argued that religion did not arise in us because we needed it to survive, it is here and if now there seems to be any benefit, it is here to stay. We don’t need religion any more than we need music or a sense of humor to survive yet it is as universal.

Man’s tendency toward religion is a genuine scientific puzzle to Pinker. There are possible emotional adaptations in our desires and adaptations in our intuitive psychology in combination with our experiences to seem compelling evidence of souls. “The result is belief in a mysterious world of souls to bring about our fondest wishes.”

I think that his arguments are compelling. I don’t think that our religious nature is the result of any Darwinian adaptive pressure. As he examined various theories on the causation of religiousness in man he conceded there were elements of truth in all but that they did not adequately explain the phenomenon because there wasn’t enough evidence to isolate causes. It cannot be said that one thing causes another if some other thing may do so also. Steven Pinker seems to be saying that just because you want to believe a thing causes something doesn’t make it so. That’s not good science. I too applaud Steven Pinker for his strict adherence to the scientific method. I can agree with him that natural selection is not the root cause for man’s religious nature. At the same time I can not imagine there are selective pressures enough to drive it out of us either. Some may see this as a next evolutionary step in man. I do not. there will always be a mystery beyond and therefore, religion has a stronghold, and will also endure as long as we are human.    

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Steven Pinker has opened up another can of controversy in his “Why They Kill Their Newborns.”  His opening line plunges the reader into the chilly water of the unthinkable. He tells us that every year, hundreds of women kill their newborns or simply abandon them. He shocks us again with the news that many times, teenagers frequently commit this terrible act. He mentions two cases involving a couple (both 18 years old) accused of discarding their baby in a dumpster and an 18 year old girl who was accused of murdering her newborn while at a school prom. He offers a premise that such acts do not easily fit into any behavior studies or theories. He adds that many think it could only be the result of pathology, or that something outside of their control made them do it. He counters this ideology by saying that some cultures have practiced this and accepted it throughout history. He says that killing a baby is an immoral act. He also says that we can call such behavior the symptom of a sickness, but if we consider well, we realize that healthy people have motives that aren’t necessarily moral, yet they successfully suppress them. According to Mr. Pinker, it follows that neonaticide isn’t necessarily the product of neurological derangement or dysfunctional upbringing. He cites arguments by other psychologists that neonatacide is within the capacity of normal parental behavior. What this seems to imply is that neonaticide can be thought of in similar terms as any other immoral act that hinges on free will.

 

Pinker also examines some possible correlations between social conditions and the offenders. The main conditions are being young, single(unmarried) , and alone when giving birth. He says that to understand is not necessarily to forgive(and also not forgive.)

What he examines next is how the rest of the world reacts to neonatacide. He compares the relatively light sentences handed to them guilty of neonatacide with the harsher punishment of them who kill their 14month and three year old children. From this he makes an inference that our recognition of the value of a person is not as clear as we imagine. What he shows in the end is that there is the moral debate over what defines personhood with no clear boundary that everyone will agree on. Finally he says that as long as this issue remains unresolved we will likely “muddle through” each case and continue to show mercy toward the young and the inexperienced.

 

Bruce Chapman, in his opening paragraph of “A Modest Proposal: Should We Change Our Minds About Infanticide?” describes an insidious process designed to corrupt a civilization’s moral standards.  The moral standard he is particularly concerned with in this instance is the taboo on infanticide. He suggests that the shock of the news of infanticide soon subsides as people move on to turn their attention to the next sensation. He also says that a defense attorney’s strategy to stall the proceedings of a trial, gives time for shock of the faceless, dead baby to fade while pity for the remaining, living parent grows.

 

That was the exposition. Next comes the characterization of Steven Pinker ,”soothing”(smoothing). He says that Pinker tells us that neonaticide should be regarded less harshly. Chapman sums up Pinkers words to say that although it seems immoral to kill one’s own newborn, it is also nature’s way of making an optimal choice for childbearing by aborting the process until a more promising set of circumstances presents itself for the child to survive. He also says that Pinker advocates adjusting our morality to fit our evolution. He also says that Pinker compares neonates to mice. He says that Pinker’s argument  for outlawing neonaticide is mostly that they are so similar to older babies, that have more defining human qualities, that allowing neonaticide would coarsen the way people treat all individuals. A neonate is an effigy of older babies and people in general. He says that the facts say otherwise. He looks at Pinker’s references to studies of modern and hunter-gatherer societies in which women have killed their newborns at birth and then later , under more favorable circumstances, gone on to have other babies to whom they became loving mothers.

 

At last, Chapman says that pro-life extremists and fanatics blame unlimited abortion for contributing to the coarsening of the way people treat children and others in general. He says this has paved the way for Pinker’s proposals for neonaticide. He expresses disdain for Pinker, and scientists by saying of the pro-life opinion,“what do they know, they’re not scientists.”

 

Chapman’s last sentences are ad hominem. He says he has, “a genetically-determined,  instinct driven desire to punch Professor Pinker in the nose….Fortunately, I also had some more recent and civilized ancestors, so I’ll confine myself to print.”    

 

Here’s what I say. Chapman only saw part of what Pinker wrote or at least he only showed the parts that justified his tirade. What Pinker was doing was illustrating the difficulty with reconciling law with morality, crime and punishment. He doesn’t come across as advocating neonaticide but rather uses it as a foil for his more encompassing examination of how we evaluate human life. He presents both sides of the table and the validity they possess. He challenges his readers to make a more honest appraisal of their moral compass. He shows us that in spite of what we consider to be morally correct, we are influenced by complex factors within our human capacities that make it difficult for us to follow the law and enforce it to the letter. What he says to me is that the decisions made, come down to the moment, to what is most important to us here and now. There is need for strict guide-lines or rather laws. At the same time, we feel it must be tempered with mercy in order to make it bearable. This particular conflict very poignantly highlights a problem we have faced since more than one person ever had to live together.

 

For the fundamentalists,(and by the way, I might well be called one) I say all you have to do is look in the bible text of Leviticus where the value of human life is illustrated , in the eyes of God. I will sum it up as follows: if a man strikes a woman with child and causes the fruit of her womb to depart, then he shall pay a sum to her husband according to the judgment of the priest. But if he causes the woman to die then he shall be put to death. This implies that the worth of the child differs from the worth of the mother, and that’s bible. What will you do with that. So if you want to go and punch Steven Pinker in the nose but rather stick your nose up in the air because you are morally superior, I say you really have missed the point of contact and haven’t touched the truth. To mention the truth implies requisite honesty which I did not perceive by the cleverly cropped quotations that Mr. Chapman offered as evidence. I wonder if he has any experience as a lawyer in the gerrymandering of the facts. I wonder how many people might be influenced to exact vengeance on the moral turpitude of scientists in general and anyone with a moderate disposition towards their fellow man. I think that abortion clinics are as uncomely as stripper-clubs and the negligent culture that engenders them. At the same time I am horrified by the thought of people exacting their justice, their way, as they see fit. I like the way that one righteous judge saw it. He said, whoever among you is without sin must cast the first stone. Then when their conscience forbade, he, only who was without sin, forgave.        

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Ever since I can remember, I have been fascinated by natural processes. I remember how entranced I was with things like fire, germinating bean seeds, and centripetal acceleration (before I knew what to call it.) I would put a glass marble in one of my mothers ashtrays and make it race around repeatedly with just the right rhythmic jogging by my hands. I imagined speed racer careering around the track. As time progressed I learned of clock arithmetic, the planets, and the Bohr Atom. Heady stuff it was, to realize just how deep and wonderful the world is. There was an encyclopedia set in the living room with a section on human anatomy. It had a series of transparencies that you could peel away and see another deeper layer of detail from the front. I was fascinated with all the systems of organs so discreet and yet integrated with such elegant form more exquisite than a jeweled movement in a Swiss watch. I delighted in knowing that the total length of all the blood vessels in an adult human body amounted to more than twenty-thousand miles, or that the surface area in our lungs is about the size of a football field.

I was about to enter puberty and was curiously intrigued by the endocrine system. How did those small organs from our head to our groin have so much control over a thing like metabolism. The thyroid gland has us all by the throat. As if that weren’t enough, the thyroid has addenda known as Para-thyroids. There are four of them. They control calcium metabolism. Without them we would shake rattle and roll. There are adrenal glands and the sex glands. They get all the publicity but the smallest one, the pituitary is the master gland. It tells us when and where to grow, puts us in a mood, and controls other glands from the ivory tower of our cranium. I’m still mystified by how this body is predestined to respond to times and circumstance, the end being the continuance of its own basic blueprints. How deep and wonderful is this natural world.

Biologists have learned of proteins how they are the building blocks of life. Amino acids in a variety of combinations give rise to proteins innumerable. Their primary structure is their order of combination. Their secondary structure is helical. Because of irregularities in the helix there is tertiary structure wherein the helix doubles back against itself like a snake and forming a distinctive shape and resulting function. At first glance a model of a protein may look like a tangled up “SLINKY.” But there is a design and the shape of it is part of its unique identity. Shape is important.

(Tall athletic people are a first pick for a basketball lineup. People that don’t dance or operate their bodies with above average skill either settle for an average life or develop strength in their cognitive activities instead of sitting on the bench.)

 

It seems reasonable to say that children tend to inherit the benefits of their parents genes. Hear people say “he has his father’s eyes, or nose, or chin.”

 

In time I came to embrace a spiritual world. It seems reasonable to say that the children also receive the benefit of inheriting their parents’ lifestyle. This is the story of nurture and nature.

 

What factors shape our values and beliefs? I think they are established on our experiences. Our experiences are shaped by our environment and our actions. Our ability to respond to our environment is contingent on our physical condition. Our physical condition is enhanced by the response of our environment to us. To me the whole process appears to be circular. Nature vs. Nurture or nurture vs. nature tempts me to dismiss it as an amusing conundrum. Which came first the chicken or the egg? Do we see the egg as a template made from the chicken to make another chicken or the chicken as just a jig designed to reproduce the egg. The chicken is outwardly more interesting to me than the egg. Then the egg is just a time capsule to carry the memory of the chicken forward. Its form reappears in time like a wave on the sea rising and falling to give rise to an infinite series of daughters in a continuum that breaks on a distant shore.

 

I think we inherit our beliefs from our parents as though they were genes. Our genes are not carbon copies of our parents but revisions and recombination, some his and some hers. There is a lingering impression, a shadow, or reflection. In our values and beliefs is the memory of our parents, the evidence of their strength. According to a Bible verse, “The memory of the just is blessed; but the name of the wicked shall rot.”  

 

What does this mean? Those people with values and beliefs compatible with society are recognized and embraced and adopted by it and those with incompatible value systems are rejected. Values and beliefs are received by children who perceive that they promote success.

 

Belief is an inductive process. Since none of us is a carbon copy, our lives are unique experiences. Self help gurus may tell you that you need a plan. Others may tell you, you need faith. It has occurred to me(not without outside suggestion) that a plan isn’t effective without faith. Faith without a plan doesn’t produce much. Faith gives a plan its impetus. The mustard seed is small but it becomes magnificent through persistence. A belief system persists through respect for the aged. The oldest belief system I know of today is Judeo-Christian. In the writings are statements asserting eternal truth. The mystery of it all is that it has survived so much change in the world without being changed. Even Christ said he didn’t come to destroy the law but to fulfill it. Instead of responding to environment by conforming itself to the advantages of popular consent it has resisted. The premise of the faith is that in the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth. The creator is eternal and immoveable.  What wisdom lies therein to teach children of the stability of the world about them; that they would conform to a code of behavior with reverence for the one who established it? What wisdom is it to teach children that no one in earth is their legitimate master? What wisdom is it to teach children how to possess their own body with respect and honor? What wisdom is it to teach children to honor their mother and their father? What wisdom is it to teach them that time is too precious to waste on the fulfillment of greedy ambition? What wisdom is it to teach them to forgive and to heal?  

 

Where did this belief system come from? How did it spring up? What sets it apart from others? How has it endured the infamy of the Spanish inquisition, the debacle of the crusades, or being maligned by child molesters? Is it possible that this faith has its origin in natural causes? Did it evolve out of animistic mythos? How amusing it is to read a passage that man in his best state is altogether vanity. That sounds a bit existential and yet it comes from the bible. Another passage of interest is in the New Testament, saying that he who loves life should avoid evil and watch his mouth and listen and obey his parents. It all comes down to the question of life or death. There’s a choice to make everyday.  Only the strong survive.  

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Part I

I believe that people are like hurricanes; you never know where their going to go or what they are going to do but their path may be influenced by external factors.

I believe that society is beyond the absolute control of anyone, and any illusion of having control is only fleeting and deceptive.

I believe that government is established to maintain order for the preservation of the estate of those who institute it, whether for good or for bad.

 I believe that justice is often subjected to relativism and serves to signal the society it serves, the standards of behaviour expected from its members(often relative to their station within that society).

 I believe that knowledge is at times a tool and it can be broken or fall into disrepair or yet through time, obsolete. “whether there be any knowledge, it shall vanish”

 I believe that science is the noble quest for understanding of natural things through examination of relationships between observed parameters without bias or ulterior motive whether political, or commercial.

 I believe that reality is transcendental. It is with or without us. What we do is give it a meaning or purpose. What are we going to do?

I believe that life is short and swift and easy to miss.

I believe that happiness is an illusion. People are sad with apparently no good reason and people are happy unjustly and obscenely and still only momentarily. It is possible that people tend to be happier the longer they live or happier people just live longer.

I believe that goodness is something that should never be outlawed or scorned. Goodness when it is durable is a jewel. Goodness that fades is forgotten as refuse. 

I believe that death is the end of the road until someone mightier than I, says otherwise.

I believe that God is an atheist. He was the first to say or put in writing the words, “beside me there is no god; I know not any” one of his strongest lessons for his children is of self reliance.

Part  II

I believe that happiness is an illusion. If we are not happy, we must be sad, or something between these diametrically opposing poles. There are people who are sad without reason apparent to others while at the same time still others seem obscenely and unjustly happy. Happiness is at best still only a temporal state.

We all go through a roller coaster emotional life that rises and falls with infinite variety of amplitude, period, bias and duration. One dread we all share to some degree is the end of the ride. Our common hope (just my opinion of course) is that by the end of the journey, we are convinced that it was worth all the trouble and expense.

Fortunately, our lives aren’t so one dimensional. Happiness is not just a function of random events in our lives. I believe that it is also possible for one to make himself happy and enjoy one’s good. Understanding, guidance, and vision make it possible.

My dear grandmother once commented on hearing me whistle a melody or sing a song to myself, saying, ” You must have money in the bank.” My reply was, “Huh-what?” Apparently, people with money in the bank have an involuntary compulsion to sing, hum, or whistle cheerfully. I knew I was destined to be heir to many more such wonderful pearls of wisdom, which I hoped might parlay into wealth. It is plausible that people with money in the bank should be happy. Money translates to potential. Dynamite is full of potential; the power to move mountains! (literally!) I believe that knowing the potential to realize my goal enervates me.

Potential itself is not enough to realize happiness. A man is given a pot of money; what will he do with it? Without guidance how can a vision develop? If the pot of gold is consumed and nothing comes of it but want, then where is that happiness? It too is consumed. So it seems that happiness is often equated with money. Our Declaration of Independence carries the familiar phrase, ” the pursuit of happiness” named as one of our three most basic God-given human rights. Further inquiry reveals that this was an idiom of the time or a euphemism for the labour to acquire wealth or money in all its expressions, especially goods and landholdings with all their attendant benefits and priveleges.

Now I come hastily to my undeveloped conclusion that in the end, it is not the wealth itself that makes us happy but the hopeful pursuit of a vision, idea, ideal, or goal. So happiness is the fruit of our labour. If we want to eat, we have to work, and that’s in the Bible – don’t you know!

Part III.  (counterpoint)

It is possible that happiness is something that we can strive to have but never be able to experience because of mental illness or extreme adversity. One could argue that whether we experience happiness or not is a matter of the cards we are dealt in life. Then there’s the problem with how we define happiness. Perhaps there can be no happiness until some basic needs are first met. By this I mean some sort of order of needs as has been proposed by psychologists as a hierarchy. Number one is survival, closely followed by food and shelter which allows us to add more time to the first. Then there is something else like security and reproduction or companionship and we continue in this hierarchy to the more sublime elements like self worth and self realization. The point of all this is that some are more fortunate in the distribution of the elements of happiness. Some unfortunates may require intervention on the part of others who are more fortunate and understanding and compassionate, otherwise they are utterly left out. People that are happy shouldn’t be selfish with their happiness but realize that their gift isn’t theirs by right but they ought to put forth the effort to share. This is what makes the world a better place, when people are willing to help others to be happy.

I was chagrined to find the girl of my dream swept off her feet by the church trumpeter. I was forlorn and naked as a plucked chicken before my disappointment. I was cold. I was out of breath like emphysema looking up into an infinite stairway. I was caught in the snare I helped set. I hornswoggled myself into a broken heart. I cried for many days when no one was looking. I watered the ground till hope would spring anew. I hoped again. I was chagrined again by the guitar player and singer. I sulked and ruminated over this till the fecund earth made me hope again. I was chagrined again. The next time it was the drummer who took the prize. I licked my wounds. I did the math. The answer was music. I knew what to do. I didn’t have charisma, the element of mercury that flows when rivers of water are frozen. I had no lettered jacket. I knew that maintenance men didn’t make them swoon with their wrenches and ratchets. I knew that no matter how much panache I had wielding a plunger, it would not make my star shine break through the clouds of obscurity. I couldn’t expect to tilt at toilet dragons with plunger in hand to lead away the beautiful captive in the tower. I needed a plan. I knew my time was running out. I was behind by more than six points in the last minutes of the fourth quarter. I found my Deus ex Machina in the water-closet. I found my brother’s trombone in the company of the plunger; the three of us had secret meetings there. I was a maintenance man by day and a budding trombonist by night. I said this thing I can do. I hung my belief on the faith of my ears. I heard before I spoke so I listened before I played. I filled my ears with music, my long lost childhood friend. I also got a little help from my friends. I learned to read notes on a staff. I learned to count with a metronome. I learned to leap over a wall. I readied myself to reclaim my heritage like a Dickens protagonist. I reclaimed the right to dream. I learned to make music. I would radiate my song across the universe. I would look for signs of life on a distant planet where the air is thin and the sky full of stars. I blast through the oppresion of silence to forget loneliness and wait for a lively echo. I play because the world is old. I play to be the apple in a Magritte painting. I play a saxophone because I’m not a pugilist. I play the saxophone because it’s sexier than a trombone. I don’t have long here and each moment is more precious than the last. I play the saxophone because it sounds better than the voice of my doleful words. I am more familiar with the saxophone now so I just call him sax. I play the sax because he’s cool and he covers my awkwardness. I play the sax because it’s a gold mine. I will play it for it’s worth. I digged up a silver flute. It sounds like platinum to me. Next I found an old wooden clarinet. It sounds like old money. I found an oboe disguised as a clarinet in a pawn shop. It sounds like an old scholar and the underscore in a pensive moment. I put them all up in a room as my guests one by one. I have light and laughter in my house. Sorrow flees because music is my companion. I live to learn a new trick and so surprise her. 

Isn’t it amazing that we need oxygen to live, yet it is the primary agent of destruction or degradation of our many manufactured treasures such as steel cars or custom paint. Peel an apple and you can see how quickly the white flesh of the fruit is attacked and turns yellow then brown. If we immerse ourselves in an atmosphere of pure oxygen we will, in several days, be distressed as our respiratory system becomes inflammed by excess oxygen. In time this would kill us with the same certainty as unmitigated exposure to chlorine gas. If you don’t want to take my word for it, read  OXYGEN The Molecule that made the World  by Nick Lane  (Oxford 2002). 

We live in a world where we recognize the value of integrating society. Racial purity is an agenda that many of us have relegated to the lunatic fringe since history has given us tutors like Hitler and the KKK.  when we implement integration we must needs face the uncomfortable reality of others who are different. We must suffer separation from the familiar.

Black teachers and students may be able to relate to one another very well(comfortably well). At the same time do they well to encourage tolerance among themselves toward others who are different?

This may seem out of the blue, but what i have to ask is, where did we get the icons of black genius in the g. w. carvers and the b.t. washingtons and the fellow who pioneered heart surgery? Their genius arose in spite of racism and prejudice.

I think our learning is enhanced by exposure to people that are different from us.

Consider the popularity of superman. he is a white guy from krypton. my background is different from his. I’m placental in origin engendered by my mother. Superman is paper and ink engendered by two jewish boys. I have admired him no more than millions of other boys (black, white, catholic, or jewish.) I’m drawing an inference here based on my own contacts. Our vision and aspiration to be a superman transcends our skin color. How many people came out of a Bruce Lee movie imagining themselves as kung fu warriors? It transcended color.

For the most part i think the same thing essentially applies to teaching. In math i don’t care what color your skin is when i ask how much that basket of apples costs. what color is a pound. I might be interested in the color of the money. I might be interested in color if we are talking about wavelengths of visible light. Incidentally, the visible spectrum accounts for a very thin sliver of most of the light energy in the universe. Most light is invisible to us and therefore again transcends the question of color.

If you are reading you are reaching out beyond yourself to the world beyond. This is essential to learning. It’s true that we have ourself as a reference point or place of beginning. We always have this as a prime standard to measure our progress.

If we are writing, we try to reach others who are not us, and if we want to be an effective writer we want to reach a diverse audience. This means we must be more open to all and at the same time diminish our own self or identity to gain universal appeal. The less self involved our work is the more universal the appeal it will have (i believe.) In this way our conscience is integrated with that of others.

If we are only surrounded by those like us or with similar experience we may be more comfortable. But the double edged sword is such that we may be then in peril of becoming more polarized as a society.

I’m not for forced integration, as it is foolish to pull an infant from its mothers breast, but at the same time i don’t endorse (as though my name were much set by) classrooms that are monochromatic, especially if it is in the midst of an integrated society.

At the same time i would not think anything amiss if a class in black history or black literature were populated exclusively by blacks at any given moment in time any more than if a women’s studies class were populated by women only. 

Teaching and learning will always be about overcoming barriers and therefore if someone doesn’t like the population distribution in classrooms i liken such parameters to the weather. If you don’t like it; cheer up. It will inevitably change. Teachers are affected by the students as much as the other way around. Whose ready for change?