Unbecoming a Victim: Or how to stop complaining and make a difference

06 Mar 2017 2 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Life’s not fair!  I never get any breaks! Other people have all the luck!  The world is crap and there is nothing anyone can do about it!  It’s not my fault. Why did he/she get the job and not me? (Listen to the Power of Responsibility as you read my blog today)  Do-You-Have-a-Victim-Mentality-at-Work

If you have ever made any of the above comments, rest assured, you are probably normal. It is called feeling like a victim or wallowing in self-pity. From time to time, we all engage in victim-hood. However, if your entire life is dominated by feelings of regret, remorse and envy, you are not just engaging in a bout of self-pity, you are embracing full-on victim-hood. We all feel like victims from time to time. That is normal. But if you are thoroughly convinced that you are a victim, you need help. The world has too many too many real victims, it does not need pseudo victim. This blog is about how to avoid embracing a victim mentality and the key factors necessary to overcome such a mentality.

First, let’s look at two key questions:

  1. What is a victim?

As I am describing it here, I am not talking about victims of torture, oppression, starvation, crime, disease, pestilence or any phenomenon that is beyond the ability of an individual to evade. I am talking about a mindset that occurs when we fail to take responsibility for our actions and the consequences of our actions and behaviors on others. You probably know some people who you would describe as having this mentality. My wife Karen says she defines a victim as “someone whose problems are always someone else’s fault. They also seem to need problems and will create them if they don’t have them.”  hero versus victim

“Your complaints, your drama, your victim mentality, your whining, your blaming, and all of your excuses have NEVER gotten you even a single step closer to your goals or dreams. Let go of your nonsense. Let go of the delusion that you DESERVE better and go EARN it! Today is a new day!”  ― Steve Maraboli

We see many people who cannot find any good in the world since they are so busy feeling sorry for themselves that they cannot see the blessings that they have. I find many right-wing Christians to be prime exemplars of this victim mentality. They are so convinced that the world is evil and will end any day. The “anti-Christ” is coming and then the world will be destroyed and all the evil in it. Such people seem to revel in the idea of an apocalypse which will wipe the entire world out and only spare the “good” people. Of course, these right-wing fundamentalist Christians are the “good” people who will be spared.

  1. Why do people choose a victim mentality?

I believe the answer to this question is that it absolves the “victim” of responsibility. They can blame God, the world, other people, nature, the weather or DNA for their failures. Never having to take responsibility is a panacea for those with a victim mentality. It is easier to do nothing when any effort is predestined to fail.

“Life is not compassionate towards victims. The trick is not to see yourself as one. It’s never too late! I know I’ve felt like the victim in various situations in my life, but, it’s never too late for me to realize that it’s my responsibility to stand on victorious ground and know that whatever it is I’m experiencing or going through, those are just the clouds rolling by while I stand here on the top of this mountain! This mountain called Victory!” ― C. JoyBell C.

Overcoming the Victim Mentality:

The antidote to a victim mentality consists of four vaccines. They are as follows:

  • Moral Courage
  • Moral Reasoning
  • Moral Universalism
  • Moral Responsibility

Anyone of these four vaccines can keep you from becoming a whining victim. Taking all four together, will help you to become independent and strong. You will be a winner instead of a victim. We need to give our children these vaccines at an early age, but it is seldom done. It seems as though we must find them on our own later in life or else we flounder through life succumbing to the victim mentality until we find one or more of them.

Moral Courage:

moral courageTo dream the impossible dream, to fight the unbeatable foe, to go where no one has gone before is courage. To stand up for what you believe, to right the unrightable wrong, to boldly speak out against injustice. This is courage. There is physical courage as is manifested in a war or sports or extreme athletic challenges. Moral courage is of the heart and soul. Bothe moral courage and physical courage result in action. One of my favorite quotes is as follows:

“The test of courage comes when we are in the minority. The test of tolerance comes when we are in the majority.” – Ralph W. Sockman

Moral courage does not exist by just talking about it or complaining about things. Moral courage is an attempt to make a difference by taking some decisive action. You speak out against prejudice, bigotry, hatred, racism, injustice and stupidity. You do more than read the newspaper and bemoan the sad state of the world. The life of the prophet Mohammed provides many examples of moral courage:

“Before claiming Prophethood, the Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings, was well off and had a respected place among his community. However, he had to confront all kinds of hardships and persecutions after Prophethood and spent for his cause whatever he had. His enemies slandered him, mocked him, beat him, expelled him from his homeland and waged war on him. He bore all such cruel treatments and hostilities without complaint and asked God Almighty for the forgiveness of even his enemies.” – The Way to Truth 

Moral Reasoning:

devil_angelMoral reasoning occurs when you question right and wrong. Moral reasoning is a cognitive action that takes place when you question standards, conventions, group reasoning, and crowd think. Moral reasoning is the questioning of social and cultural standards. Jesus of Nazereth gave many examples of moral reasoning during his life.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel (Matthew 23:23-24).” 

Jesus is making an important distinction here between convention and morality. We often confuse justice with legality. The inability to understand the difference and its moral relevance is a failure of moral reasoning. Throughout his ministry Jesus gave many examples of moral reasoning.

Moral Universalism:

Hans Kung was a Roman Catholic priest who was stripped of his license to teach theology by the Catholic Church for criticizing the concept of papal infallibility.

“In the early 1990s, Küng initiated a project called Weltethos (Global Ethic), which is an attempt at describing what the world’s religions have in common (rather than what separates them) and at drawing up a minimal code of rules of behavior everyone can accept. His vision of a global ethic was embodied in the document for which he wrote the initial draft:, Towards a Global Ethic: An Initial Declaration.” – Wikipedia

responsibilityKung’s life demonstrates a strong moral believe in the universal principles that underlie all religions. My religion is not better than your religion and all of the worlds’ great religions have a core of morality and ethics which are admirable and worth following. When we find one religion fighting with another religion or one advocate maintaining the superiority of their religion over another, we have a counter example of moral universality.

Moral universalism is an important element in overcoming victimhood. One cannot believe that their religion is superior to another religion without eventually succumbing to the rampant persecution complex that seems typical of so many religious people. I was taught when I grew up that I would go to hell if I ever stepped in a Synagogue or Temple.   Karen was taught that as a good Lutheran she should never date a Catholic. Baptists denigrate other Protestants while Muslims and Christians act as though they were worshipping different Gods. Jesus and Mohammed had a deep respect for all religions because they were wise enough to perceive the universality of religion.

Moral Responsibility:

moral responsibilityThe famous poet John Donne is perhaps best known for one of his lines that goes: “Never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.”   Donne well understood the idea that we are all interconnected and we all have an incomprehensible interdependency such that anyone’s death affects us all. The same is true with morality. A key tenet of Buddhism is the moral responsibility that everyone on the earth faces for social and political actions.

 “Today we have become so interdependent and so closely connected with each other that without a sense of universal responsibility, irrespective of different ideologies and faiths, our very existence or survival would be difficult” – (Dalai Lama, 1976)

Of the four vaccines that are critical for overcoming a victim mentality, it is my opinion that a sense of moral responsibility is the most important. If I could only receive one vaccine, I would choose to be vaccinated with moral responsibility. A sense of moral responsibility allows us to help others who are in need. Charity, love, compassion and kindness are all nurtured by a sense of moral responsibility. As they say: “what goes around comes around.” When we do “good” for others, we do good for ourselves. By identifying with the pain and injustices that others suffer, we forget our own problems and we understand that we can make a difference in the world. No one who believes in their ability to make a difference in the world can suffer from a victim mentality.

Time for Questions:

Are you a victim or a hero? How often do you feel hopeless? What do you do about your feelings of hopelessness? How do you overcome feeling like a victim? Do you think people have a choice of how they feel? Why or why not?

Life is just beginning.

“Most things, even the greatest moments on earth, have their beginnings in something small. An earthquake that shatters a city might begin with a tremor, a tremble, a breath. Music begins with a vibration.”  -― Lauren Oliver

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Inadequacy Paradigm

14 Feb 2017 4 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

dreamstime_xs_19665640
Have you ever felt that you were not pretty enough, smart enough, coordinated enough, talented enough, handsome enough, strong enough or fast enough?  If so, you were suffering from the “inadequacy paradigm.”  A paradigm is a model or template for thought or behavior.  Feeling inadequate is one of the major paradigms of American society.  The marketplace wants you to feel inadequate because then they can sell you products and services that will make you feel “ADEQUATE.”

hqdefaultThere are beauty products, breast enhancements, hair implants, plastic surgery, expensive cars, perfume, jewelry, large homes, designer clothes, college degrees and many other products or services designed to help you feel less inadequate and more adequate.  We all want to feel adequate which means we must somehow learn to escape or jettison our inadequacy paradigms.  The marketplace strategy involves spending huge amounts of money on a regular basis to escape the “inadequacy paradigm.”  This strategy is often a failure as money and products cannot provide for real happiness or address some of the cultural biases, prejudices, racism and bigotry that contribute to the “inadequacy paradigm.”

“A fascist is one whose lust for money or power is combined with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions or nations as to make him ruthless in his use of deceit or violence to attain his ends.” — Henry A. Wallace

When I was growing up in New York City during the fifties, many of the popular singers were Italian.  There was Fabian, Frankie Avalon, Connie Francis, Dion, Dean Martin and many others.  Most of the famous male singers had traditional Italian good looks being tall dark and handsome.  My father (6’ 4” tall) fit this model but my mother was Irish.  I (much to my chagrin) took after my mother.  I was short (5’ 8”) light skinned, brown thin hair with very nondescript looks.  No woman ever looked at me twice in high school.  I did inherit a good brain and cannot attest which side it came from.  Nevertheless, brainy nerdy intellectual guys had no more demand among the attractive high school girls in the fifties and sixties than they do now.  Beauty would seem to always trump brains in our society.

Now there are many different aspects or subdivisions of the “inadequacy paradigm.”  There is a division for Blacks, Latinos, women, disabled, intellectuals, old people and of course poor people.  If you belong to any one or more of these categories there are special rules that will be directed to you to help you feel even more inadequate than average. (Racism and Xenophobia create their own paradigms of inadequacy which go well beyond Madison Avenue but are supplemented by Madison Avenue to a large degree).  As a White male growing up in an Italian neighborhood, my complaints will not doubt seem trivial to individuals in these other “inadequacy categories.”  Let’s look at each group and see if we can perhaps walk a mile in their shoes.  What would it be like if you were in one of these other categories.  Now, one caveat must be shared.  If you are White and rich, you will probably be able to escape the most noticeable effects of the “inadequacy paradigm.”  For rich White folks, money provides a means to ameliorate the more consequential effects of inadequacy.  Money can’t buy you love but it can buy you many other things to make you feel better.

maxresdefault

African Americans:

What is it like growing up Black in America in the 21st Century?  Has years of Affirmative Action, Civil Rights and even a Black President mitigated the effects of the “inadequacy paradigm” for our African American citizens?

I decided to approach a Black man who was walking down my street.  I started to walk towards him and I yelled out “Hey, I need to talk to you.”  He immediately threw up his hands, laid on the ground and starting shouting “Hands up, don’t shoot.”  I hollered out “I am not a cop.”  He got to his feet and said “Sorry, just an instinctive reaction.  How can I help you?”  “Well, I said, I just wanted to ask you what it was like being “Black in America today?”

Brian Lipscomb, IT Professional and Web Programmer/Website Designer

“Once I got off a trolley in downtown Philadelphia and accidentally bumped into an older White woman.  She immediately said “Here! Take my purse! Just don’t hurt me!” I was shocked. I couldn’t believe that she thought I was going to rob her.  When walking down the street, if a White woman is walking in my direction, they often cross the street or clutch their purse more tightly as I approach.  I guess I’m numb to it now, because I expect it.  I think that’s the sad part. There is nothing post-racial about our society.  Racism and prejudice have just become more subtle, more nuanced.”

Latinos:

Many Latino people in the USA have been residents since before the Pilgrims arrived.  With the annexation of Mexican Territory after the Mexican American War and the subsequent Gadsden purchase, many former Mexican citizens elected to become American Citizens.  The border between Mexico and the US was porous for many years with much travel back and forth.

Many Mexican Americans have families and friends still living in Mexico.  There has always been a White bias towards Mexican Americans and others from south of the border but recently this bias seems to have escalated.  Part of the reason for this lies in the drug wars but much of it is rooted in a xenophobia directed to Latinos who do not have traditional Northern European customs.   Latinos have become an increasingly larger segment of the population in many Southwestern cities.

But what is it like being a Latino?  We know that with the election of Donald Trump and his talk of building a border wall and deporting “Latino Rapists” that he has fanned the fears of xenophobia common among many Southwestern Whites.  There is no doubt that numerous Latino people residing in the Southwest and other parts of the USA are now uncertain about their future as US citizens.

Brittany Escalera, College Student

“Being born in the United States, I am automatically a citizen.  I am an American.  But according to society, I’m “too” Mexican to be American.  My complexion is too dark to be American.  My dark hair and dark eyes are too Mexican to be American. I’m Mexican, therefore, I can’t be American…. Yet it’s not always just the language barrier that is a struggle, there are constantly stereotypes and racial slurs being put on us everyday.  Being from the south, I had to work extra hard at breaking this.  No not all Mexican’s are illegal.  Sorry Trump, we are not all the criminals, drug dealers and rapists that you claim us to be.”

Women:

Of course, I cannot speak for being a Woman in America.  But I do not have to be female to see that Women must also suffer from the “inadequacy paradigm.”

“As Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant pointed out in a recent New York Times op-ed, when male executives speak up, they receive 10% higher competence ratings; when female executives do the same, their ratings from their peers are 14% lower.  Similarly, when male employees offer ideas, they receive higher performance evaluations; when women offer the same ideas, managers’ perceptions of their performance remain unchanged.”  — What’s holding women back?

If the bias in the workplace is not bad enough to insult many women, the bias they face in the home is even worse.  The rates of domestic abuse and rape in American society are shameful.  But perhaps the worse indicator of the “inferiority paradigm” for women lies in the number of women who think they deserve such treatment.

“The cultural acceptance of spousal abuse can be so pervasive that in some countries, large majorities of women say it’s acceptable.  In Rwanda, 96 percent of women say the practice can be justified, according to the World Values Survey.  About two-thirds of women in India and South Africa feel the same way.  The attitude is also held by large shares of women in countries across the religious and cultural spectra — China, Egypt, Iraq, Nigeria, Peru, the Philippines and Uzbekistan, to cite a few. 

Even in countries where the vast majority of women don’t approve of spousal abuse, the share that do find it potentially acceptable isn’t exactly tiny.  It’s about 1 in 10 in the U.S. and about 1 in 5 in Germany.”  — Alarming Number Of Women Think Spousal Abuse Is Sometimes OK — NURITH AIZENMAN

Many women are now worried in the USA due to the election of a President who openly bragged about his right to grab a women’s “pussy” because he was rich and privileged.  Many of his supporters were men and women who belong to fundamentalist religions that believe women have no place in politics or in the business world and that their only role is to bear children for men.  Thus, after years of battling to achieve equality with men, women now face the prospect of losing many of the hard-earned rights that they fought for and won.

Disabled:

One of my best friends committed suicide about a year ago.  He was a Cerebral Palsy victim who had dedicated his life to helping fight for more rights for disabled people.  He walked crablike and had to use walking sticks to keep his balance.  His head was always cocked at an odd angle due to his disability.  He was two years younger than I was and died at the age of 67.  Brian took his own life because he could fast see a time approaching when he would no longer be able to live on his own.  Brian was a fiercely independent man who struggled to obtain dignity in a society that does not always respect people who are disabled.

I first saw Brian when he would come into the town bakery to buy donuts or for lunch.  I was usually sitting with a bunch of locals who knew Brian and several had gone to school with Brian.  I was uncomfortable with the way they seemed to greet Brian and their response towards him.  It became disagreeable enough to me that I stopped my morning coffee sessions with this group.  Instead, I found a group of people at the library who met for coffee each day.  Brian was among the group at the library and we became good friends.

Brian told me many stories of how he was treated as though he was mentally disabled rather than physically disabled.  On several occasions that we went out together, it was clear that people wanted to avoid dealing with Brian.  For Brian, it must have felt like being a leper.  I am sure that much of the bias towards Brian was not intentionally hateful.  Nevertheless, it still was difficult for Brian to deal with.  Brian wanted to be treated as a normal person and not someone with a disability.  His strong desire to be normal ultimately led to his ending his life.

The following chart shows the changes in employment for disabled people in the USA since 1991.  Notice the “progress” is backwards.

150724154758-disabled-worker-employment-780x439

Intellectuals:

99632_origIf you have not read Hofstadter’s “Anti-Intellectualism in America Life” I heartily recommend it. I have often joked that the worst discrimination in America seems to be saved for people who think.  Many companies trumpet their desire for “out of the box” thinkers.  This is usually nothing more than a well parroted display of self-deception.  What Human Resources and the company are really looking for is “people who fit in.”  People who are iconoclasts, people who are critical thinkers, people who rock the boat “need not apply here.”

Intellectuals include nerds, free thinkers, geeks and anyone who works with ideas as opposed to building things or throwing things.  Academics are often lumped in with this category since most people assume an academic to be a brilliant thinker.  This is very often a misplaced assumption.  People in the arts including music and theater are often very intellectual but they somehow manage to escape the opprobrium reserved for pure thinkers.

If you think I am exaggerating on the bias that is reserved for intellectuals, you should turn on any right wing talk show like Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity and listen to them for a while. It won’t be long before they are attacking commie pinko faggot intellectuals for all the problems in America.

“There is a great superficiality in today’s evangelical world.  Many Bible-believing Christians share the contemporary case for self-gratification, emotionalism, and anti-intellectualism. Many people who believe in the Bible have never read it.” — Gene Edward Veith Jr.

I must mention one of the dumbest stupid-ass TV shows I have ever seen.  It is the epitome of anti-intellectualism in America today.  It is called the “Big Bang Theory.”  It is supposedly about genius and of course the geniuses in this show have Ph.D.’s but absolutely no common sense or interpersonal skills. They are also geeky with no athletic skills and about zero muscle mass on their puny frames.  This show portrays how much of America views intellectuals.

“Our big mistake in modern intellectualism is first and foremost its lack of nuance.  We have made science synonymous with atheism – a presupposed conception and yet, another means to non-sequiturs – and therefore, to a number of enthusiasts determined to go the further, anti-theism.  Hereby let us observe that science has long served best and should be, if none other, the one discipline, if at all possible, free of potential ideology, religious or anti-religious, and/or biased presupposition in order to maintain the authenticity and the reliability of its nature.” —–  Criss Jami

Elderly:

Every so often, my wife and I like to go to a Pow Wow.  I remember one of the first we went to and they had a free dinner for all attendees.  As we stood in line waiting our turn to get up to the food table, a young man came up and said “Oh Elders go to the front of the line.”  I said “I am not a Native American.”  He said “It did not matter” and escorted my wife and I to the front of the line with the other Elders.  Other Pow Wows that I have attended have had a special line for Elders.  I was pretty much blown away by this deference.  It was totally unexpected but greatly appreciated.

Many venues and shops have discounts for seniors or “Senior Days” where food is cheaper or there are discounts for those over fifty-five or sixty.  I am not impressed by these as you and I know it has nothing to do with “respect” for the elderly.  It has more to do with getting more of our money.  Respect for the elderly seems to be dwindling the older I get.

Both my wife and I have noticed that increasingly when we go to a clinic anymore with a health problem such as a sore hip or sore shoulder, we often get responses like “Oh, it is just part of getting old, you will just have to live with it.”  Instead of investigating to see if some our problem might be amenable to treatment, we are simply told to more of less “suck it up.”

“There is also a lack of recognition of the positive contributions that elderly people make to society.  The amount of unpaid childcare provided runs into the tens of billions.  Without this form of labor, fewer parents could work and gain fulfillment in their jobs.  Indeed, as some local authorities have recognized the 60 plus generation offer a huge reservoir of untapped energy for the voluntary sector.”  — Why do we treat elderly people so badly? — By Paul Donovan

Poor:

The “poor” otherwise known as lazy, drug addicts, stupid, trailer trash, welfare bums, welfare cheats, handout recipients, bag people, curb people and homeless.  The poor in America are thought by many to be poor by choice and not by chance.  This makes it much easier to denigrate them and to blame them for their poverty.  When someone picks their lifestyle, it is much harder to be sympathetic for the choices they have made.

In 1978, I had finished my Master’s Degree in Counseling and I took a position as a Manpower Counselor II with the State of Wisconsin in the Department of Industry Labor and Human Relations or DILHR as it was known then.  My job entailed working with the WIN or Work Incentive Program to help families who were receiving welfare (AFDC or Aid to Families with Dependent Children) find gainful employment so they could get off Welfare.  I also worked with the Indochinese Refugee Assistance Program (IHRAP) and the Labor Education and Advancement Program (LEAP) to help mainly Southeast Asian refugees in the IHRAP program and women and minorities in the LEAP program find jobs.  I worked with several other job training programs as well.  The bottom line of all my programs and effort was to help people find employment by which they would become self-sufficient.

Now there are two interesting points I want to make gleaned from my two years working in these programs with mostly poor and under-privileged people.

  1. None of the programs really went far enough in their benefits or stipends or financial assistance to really help as much as was needed by my clients.

I am not going to say that many benefits were not helpful.  We could offer financial incentives to employers, daycare benefits, transportation help and even some educational benefits.  These were in addition to the monthly welfare checks that many families were receiving.  Nevertheless, the key to getting off welfare was to provide enough education to help the client to break out of the cycle of poverty.  Only education would help those who wanted to climb the proverbial “ladder of opportunity.”  Unfortunately, the ladders that were being provided never seemed to have enough rungs in them.  Whether through stupidity, frugality or simply underestimating what was needed, many people could not get enough help to break out of poverty.

  1. Ninety Percent of my clients wanted to get off Welfare.

There is a pernicious and vicious myth that most people on Welfare like it and want to stay on it.  Nothing, could be further from the truth.  I worked with hundreds of Welfare clients and the clear majority (90 percent or better) wanted to find a good job and become self-sufficient.

Yes, I encountered some Welfare cheats and some Welfare dependent people who had little or no incentive to gain employment and lose their Welfare checks.  However, these were a small minority of the clients that I saw in my two years working with the WIN program.   Even these individuals often had severe handicaps either physically or mentally which would have made holding gainful employment near impossible.  The average person does not realize how many barriers and hardships face some of the poor in this country.

“Saving our planet, lifting people out of poverty, advancing economic growth… these are one and the same fight. We must connect the dots between climate change, water scarcity, energy shortages, global health, food security and women’s empowerment. Solutions to one problem must be solutions for all. — Ban Ki-moon

Conclusions:

inadequacy-cropWe have a pervasive problem that I labeled the “Inadequacy Paradigm.”  Much of it is caused by racism, xenophobia, prejudice, stereotypes and bigotry.  The majority of it is systemic and will need major changes in policies and institutions in this country to eliminate.  However, it is felt on a very personal level.  Feelings of inadequacy may be conveyed by others and cultural mores but they are received by an individual who assimilates these feelings into their psyche.  Thus, inadequacy becomes a personal problem and not simply a social problem.  Inadequacy is not “out there” it is right inside.  The vast numbers of suicides in our society are testament to the inadequacy that many of our fellow citizens feel.   This includes Whites as well as minorities.

  • Suicide is the tenth leading cause of death in the USA
  • 44,000 people die every year by suicide (2015)
  • White males accounted for 7 of 10 suicides in 2015.

What can we do to overcome these problems?  Clearly education and social support systems must be developed and deployed.  If we see the problem of inadequacy as something that is “not my problem” nothing will be done.  We have people who refuse to spend one dime of their taxes to help others because of selfishness and greed.  We have many who want to label America as a Christian nation, but they do not practice Christianity.

Any church that does not practice tolerance for the oppressed, charity for the poor and compassion for the needy, regardless of what religion they belong to, should not call themselves a Christian church.  They should call themselves a HATE church.  Hate leads to prejudice and bigotry and these are the primary factors in the Inadequacy Paradigm.  Destroy prejudice and bigotry and we will create a society with many more well-adjusted people.

Time for Questions:

What makes you feel inadequate?  Why?  What do you do about it?  How do you think you could help others who feel inadequate?

Life is just beginning.

“I have had to experience so much stupidity, so many vices, so much error, so much nausea, disillusionment and sorrow, just in order to become a child again and begin anew.  I had to experience despair, I had to sink to the greatest mental depths, to thoughts of suicide, in order to experience grace.”  — Hermann Hesse

 

 

The Man or the Office?  Which Do We Respect?

06 Feb 2017 8 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , ,

trump

Hardly a day goes by that I don’t wonder whether I should call him Chump, Asshole or Mr. President.  There are many decrying the use of my pejorative adjectives to describe our new president.  They say “Even if you do not respect the man, you must respect the office.”  This rule (I know not where it began) seems to have taken the form of “common knowledge” as though there was some ancient prescription that admonished us to always respect an elected or appointed official.

Ironically, the man in office now gave no respect to his predecessor.  Beginning with the birther conspiracy before Obama even took office and continuing right up until his election, the man now in office took every opportunity to denigrate and insult President Barack Obama.  Nevertheless, I am not using this as an argument to insult our new President.  It fails the test of morality in that we all know “two wrongs do not make a right.”

My dilemma stems from my difficulty with understanding whether we should assign respect to an office regardless of the character of the individual that might be in it.  Perhaps history could shed some light on this issue for us.  What does history tell us about this question?  Is it really a universal law that we must respect the office even if we do not respect the man?  Have people in the past always respected the office even when they disliked the office holder?  Should we respect the office or the office holder?

Let us go back to the time of Israel under the Roman occupation when Herod was king.  What did they say about Herod?

“On an appointed day, Herod put on his royal robes, took his seat upon the throne, and delivered an oration to them.  And the people were shouting, “The voice of a god, and not of a man!”  Immediately an angel of the Lord struck him down, because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and breathed his last. …” — Acts 12:19-24 

king-georgeMarching forward in time to the period of the Revolutionary war when George the III was ruler of the American Colonies, what did they think of King George?  Here is what is written in the Declaration of Independence:

“A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”

Our second President John Adams was called a “hideous hermaphroditical character which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.” By James Callender, a supporter of Thomas Jefferson.

The insults were returned by Adams supporters who called Jefferson a “a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father.”

President Abraham Lincoln who is today revered by many as either the greatest or second greatest president in American history received even more scorn than Jefferson or Adams from his contemporaries:

funny_lincoln_400

“George Templeton Strong, a prominent New York lawyer and diarist, wrote that Lincoln was “a barbarian, Scythian, yahoo, or gorilla.”  Henry Ward Beecher, the Connecticut-born preacher and abolitionist, often ridiculed Lincoln in his newspaper, The Independent (New York), rebuking him for his lack of refinement and calling him “an unshapely man.”  Other Northern newspapers openly called for his assassination long before John Wilkes Booth pulled the trigger. He was called a coward, “an idiot,” and “the original gorilla” by none other than the commanding general of his armies, George McClellan.” —- Knowledge Nuts

I could cite pages of examples such as the above.  History is full of examples of insults levied against Presidents, Kings and many other office holders.  I listed only a few to show that insults against an office are nothing new.  However, does this make it right or are these insults simply a lack of character?  What are our obligations to an “office?”   This question might be posed in one of two ways:

  1. We should respect an office even if the office holder is not worthy of our respect.

Yes!  We should respect an office because it represents an agreed upon authority.  If offices had no authority, institutions would break down and there would be no rule of order.   Democracy is based on the acceptance of authority emanating from the will of the masses.  No one person is above the masses in a democracy.

No!  An office has no intrinsic entitlement to respect.  The respect for an office comes from the office holder and not the other way around.  To simply respect a title because it is a title is both illogical and dangerous.  One can think of the harm that was caused by the respect that the Fuhrer had in Germany because he was the leader even when many disagreed with his policies and his behavior.

quote-the-president-of-the-united-states-whoever-it-is-deserves-a-certain-level-of-reverence-chris-matthews-117-93-79

  1. We should only respect an office when the office holder is worthy of respect.

Yes!  People can only remain free and independent absent of an authority that comes solely from titles, ranks and names.  If we obey or show respect for an office that is in violation of ethics or morality, we give away our free will.  Massacres, murders and other atrocities often arise from a group mentality or an unwarranted willingness to acquiesce to authority.  An office is not entitled to respect unless the office holder imbues the office with respect.

No!  People must show respect to the institution or office regardless of who the office holder is.  We must recognize that in the case of Trump, millions of Americans chose him over Hillary.  To disrespect Trump is to disrespect the millions of citizens in this country who following the laws of the land duly elected him to the office of POTUS.

do-not-respec

Well, there you have it.  I think I have laid out the “two sides of the coin.”   Now it is time for you to weigh in with your opinions.  Do not sit this one out.  Put your opinions in the comments section and let me hear from you.

Time for Questions:

What do you think? How would you answer these questions?

Life is just beginning.

“In a few days, I will lay down my official responsibilities in this office, to take up once more the only title in our democracy superior to that of President: the title of Citizen.” — Farewell Address, President Jimmy Carter.

For another opinion on this issue, see the article by Jonathan Chait.

Must We Respect the Office of the Presidency?

 

 

 

 

 

Moth Superpowers

31 Jan 2017 Leave a comment

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized

Wonderful piece of writing. I hope all will read this and take the time to share it with your friends or relatives.  By Gringa of the Barrio.

Let’s Play “Whack a Mole” with the World

15 Jan 2017 1 Comment

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

whack-a-mole-cartoon

The saying is often noted but just as often ignored that “Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.”  — Santayana.   To this profound advice, I would argue that my following observation is equally true and that it has resulted in an equal number of policy disasters and misadventures.  To wit:  “Those who do not recognize the patterns around them are doomed to failure.”   I came by this observation in the middle of a night while pondering the intricacies of playing the “Whack a Mole” game

There is a game that children play and it is called “Whack a mole.”  Have you ever played this game?  If not, view the game at “Whack a Mole”.  Basically, it involves a series of plastic moles that keep randomly popping out of different holes.  You get points for each mole that you whack before it drops back into its hole.  No sooner do you “Whack” one mole then another one pops up again.  [If you would actually like to play the game, you can play a free fast paced version of the game at “Whack a Mole.”]  They call it Smack and Bash at this site.

As I thought about this game, I began to see how it applied to numerous efforts that we undertake to bring about change.  Understanding the game, I could see how futile many of these efforts are and clearly why they are doomed.  Let me give you four examples that will show you how pervasive the “Whack a Mole” game is in politics and US policy:

  1. Eliminate the Mafia
  2. Win the war on drugs
  3. Defeat terrorism in the Mideast
  4. Stop the arms race

 1.  Eliminate the Mafia:

The Mafia may have begun in the United States in the second half of the 19th Century.  The US law establishment has been waging a war to eliminate the Mafia for well over 100 years.  During that time they have killed or arrested the following Mafia leaders:

large_movie_mobsters

It should be noted that this list includes only the leadership in just one crime family.  There are at least a dozen or more Mafia crime families in the USA.  Each one has a history of crime bosses since the early 1900s.

treeCrime bosses get eliminated or changed in a number of ways. Some die.  Some are murdered.  Some are arrested.  Few if any ever simply retire.  This last fact is good for our law enforcement agencies, since it helps keep them occupied with finding and catching Mafia leaders.

So for over 100 years now, the FBI, the Justice Department and every police department in the USA have been playing the “Whack a Mole” game with the Mafia.  They no sooner whack one Mafia leader down and another pops up in his place.  What fun!  At the taxpayers’ expense of course.

  1. Win the war on drugs:

Drugs starting becoming a major problem in the USA with the competition between cigarettes, alcohol and other substances designed to give someone a feeling of either being up, down or out of it.  We know that in 1920 the US passed the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution making the manufacture, transportation and sale of alcohol illegal.  Few who have studied any history can forget the fiasco that Prohibition entailed.  Alcohol continued to flow while crime, murder and mayhem associated with alcohol increased dramatically.   Did we learn anything from this?  Following is a short list of the major drug laws and “banned” drugs in the USA.  (By the way, alcohol and nicotine and caffeine are all drugs and at one time or another have all been banned someplace in the world)

1906 The Pure Food and Drug Act was passed, forming the Food and Drug Administration and giving it power to regulate foods and drugs, and requiring labeling of contents on foods and drugs. The most important effect on the drug problem was the demise of the patent medicine industry. Drug addiction began a dramatic drop.
1914 The Harrison Tax Act was passed, effectively outlawing the opiates and cocaine.
1915 Utah passed the first state anti-marijuana law. Mormons who had gone to Mexico in 1910 returned smoking marijuana. It was outlawed at a result of the Utah legislature enacting all Mormon religion prohibitions as criminal laws.
1922  Narcotic Drug Import and Export Act – Intended to eliminate use of narcotics except for legitimate medicinal use.
1924  Heroin Act -Makes it illegal to manufacture heroin.
1937  Marijuana Tax Act

1938    Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act

1942    Opium Poppy Control Act

1951    Durham-Humphrey Amendment

Established more specific guidelines for prescription drugs: habit forming, safety, and evaluation of new drugs

1951    Boggs Amendment to the Harrison Narcotic Act

1956    Narcotics Control Act

Intends to impose even more severe penalties for narcotics violations

1965    Drug Abuse Control Amendments (DACA)

Strict controls over amphetamines, barbiturates, LSD, etc.

1966    Narcotic Addict Rehabilitation Act (NARA)

1968    DACA Amendments

Provides that sentence may be suspended and record expunged if no further violations within 1 year

1970    Comprehensive Drug Abuse and Control Act

Replaces and updates all previous laws concerning narcotics and other dangerous drugs. Empasis on law enforcement.

1972    Drug Abuse Office and Treatment Act

1973    Methadone Control Act

1973    Heroin Trafficking Act

1973    Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)

Remodels Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs into DEA

1978    Alcohol and Drug Abuse Education Amendments

Sets up education programs within Department of Education

1984    Drug Offenders Act

Sets up special programs for offenders and organizes treatment

1986    Analogue (Designer Drug) Act

Makes use of substances with similar effects and structure to existing illicit drug illegal

1988    Anti-Drug Abuse Act

Establishes oversight office: National Drug Control Policy

So here we see the efforts of over 100 years of drug policy to stop people from using, enjoying and abusing drugs in the USA.  What has been the result?

“America is at war.  We have been fighting drug abuse for almost a century.  Four Presidents have personally waged war on drugs.  Unfortunately, it is a war that we are losing.  Drug abusers continue to fill our courts, hospitals, and prisons.  The drug trade causes violent crime that ravages our neighborhoods.  Children of drug abusers are neglected, abused, and even abandoned.  The only beneficiaries of this war are organized crime members and drug dealers.” — Stanford University. 

2fc723fa35b08b711797709df3d9235b

For an excellent article on the costs of the drug war in the US, please see:  (“The Hidden Costs of America’s War on Drugs” by Joseph D. McNamara, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University)

As it should be clear, the US Government, the FDA, the FBI and most mainstream churches in America have been playing the “Whack a Mole” game with drugs since the Puritans first landed at Plymouth Rock.   First they “Whack” one drug down.  Then another one pops up.  Then they eliminate one drug lord and then another one pops up.  They defeat one drug cartel and then another one takes its place.  Our drug enforcement agencies are so busy playing “Whack a Mole” that they don’t have any time to deal with the reasons behind the influence and attraction of drugs.  Instead they just keep on “Whacking Moles.”

  1. Defeat terrorism in the Mideast:

The beginning of terrorism in the Mideast can be traced back to the Assassins sect that began in the eleventh century.  Wikipedia notes the following:

“Assassins (Persian|حشاشين}} Hashashin) is a name used to refer to the medieval Nizari Ismailis.  Often described as a secret order led by a mysterious “Old Man of the Mountain”, the Nizari Ismailis were an Islamic sect that formed in the late 11th century from a split within Ismailism – itself a branch of Shia Islam.”

wac-a-terrorist

Modern terrorism is actually a form of asynchronous and asymmetric warfare.  One side being more powerful than the other side (asymmetric) forces the other side to avoid one to one confrontations or pitched battles in favor of random unpredictable strikes (asynchronous).   Terrorism is a means of striking back at a more powerful enemy and avoiding what might be an assured defeat by not confronting your opponent in a pitched battle.  History is full of episodes where fighters and even entire armies engaged in such warfare.  In the US, the Indian Wars often followed such methods of warfare.  The battle against Geronimo being a prime example.

Terrorism in the Mideast since George H.W. Bush and through the Obama administration seems to be following the pattern that I have called “Whack a Mole.”  Using drone attacks, surgical strikes, clean bombing, decapitation strikes, discriminant deterrence, hunter killer teams, kill boxes, and counterinsurgency attacks, the US military attempts to “neutralize” the power of the “terrorists” who have their own panoply of attack methods.

If you look at what has happened over the past twenty years in the Mideast in terms of the War on Terrorism, you can clearly see the “Whack a Mole” game at work.  We eliminate one of their leaders, they destroy some of our soldiers with bombs, IEDs or suicide attacks.  We then strike back at their leaders and then it is their turn again to kill us.  We “Whack” them and then they “Whack” back.

whack-a-moleEach time we kill one of their leaders, another one pops up to take their place.  Each enemy group we defeat seems to be immediately replaced by another enemy group.  Our Army, Navy Air Force, Marines, armament industries and politicians never seem to get tired of playing the “Whack a Mole” game.  Keep in mind, that while the game might be great fun for these groups, there is a cost to the game.   To date the financial and human costs are:

Financial Cost of the War on Terror : 

“A recent Brown University study, for example, pinned the cost of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria at about $3.6 trillion from 2001 to 2016, using the $1.6 trillion operations costs as a baseline but also accounting for counterterrorism costs.

Adding in money appropriated for war spending and on homeland security in 2017, the total reaches $4.79 trillion. This figure also includes future obligations for veterans medical and disability costs ($1 trillion through 2053) as well as interest on borrowing for wars.” — Politifact, Linda Qiu, October 27th, 2016.

Human Costs of the War on Terror:

Afghanistan and Pakistan:  173,000 dead and 183,000 seriously wounded.  (2001 to 2016)

Iraq:  1.9 million killed (1991 to 2003) and 1 million killed (2003 to 2015)

For the figures I used above as well as for other estimates and detailed breakdowns of casualty figures, see the following sources.  The above figures are low compared to some estimates.  None of these figures include the deaths in Libya, Syria, Israel, Turkey, USA or Palestine which should also be considered as deaths from the War on Terrorism.

  1. Stop the arms race:

The final example of a “Whack a Mole” game that we are caught in deals with our oft stated goal to stop creating more dangerous and more expensive weapons of war.  We call this the “arms race” and we have played it with Great Britain, France, Russia and now China.  I will briefly explain how the game works.  You will readily see that it is a version of the “Whack a Mole” game.

arms-race

Step 1, we conceive of a weapon that nobody else has or has even dreamt of having.  It must be dangerous, expensive, frightening and have the potential to kill millions or at least thousands.  Step 2, we spend billions of dollars on R&D to develop the weapon.  Step 3, we then spend billions of dollars to produce the weapon.  Step 4, we then sell the weapon to any military agency in our own country that will buy it.  Step 5, after a sufficient period of time has elapsed (but before the weapon is obsolete), we sell it to other friendly countries that will buy it.  We must start with the highest bidder.  Step 6, after we have sold it to all our allies or potential allies, we wait until they have sold it to any potential enemies.  This might take a year or so.  Finally, after our enemies have now acquired the same weapon potential (even if in a slightly modified form) we then loudly proclaim that:

“Our nation’s security and ability to defend itself is being undermined by the weapons that our enemies have.  We must build new and better weapon systems.  We must increase defense spending.  We risk falling behind in the ability to defend ourselves.”

Then we start the process all over again from Step 1.  

It is the “Whack the Mole” game, albeit a modified version of the game.  We build the weapons to whack our enemies and then they buy the weapons or build similar weapons to whack us back.  Then we build weapons to counter their weapons and then they build or buy weapons to counter our weapons.  We have been engaged in this game since 1776 with every single weapon system that has ever been devised.   Think of the Atom bomb.  How long did it take Russia to develop a similar bomb?  Think of the Hydrogen bomb.  How long did it take the Russians and others to develop a Hydrogen bomb?

Here is a list of rifles that have been used in the USA since the War of 1776.  The following list does not include carbines.  For a full list of weapon systems and their history see:  List of individual weapons of the U.S. Armed Forces – Wikipedia

  • M16A3 (5.56×45mm NATO) (USN SEALs and USN Seabees)
  • M16A2 (5.56×45mm NATO) (USAF, USCG, and US Army)
  • M27 IAR (Infantry Automatic Rifle) (5.56×45mm NATO) (USMC)
  • Mk 16 Mod 0 (5.56×45mm NATO) (USSOCOM)
  • Mk 17 Mod 0 (7.62×51mm NATO) (USSOCOM)
  • M14 SMUD (Stand-off Munition Disruption rifle) (7.62×51mm NATO) (USAF)
  • M39 Enhanced Marksman Rifle (7.62 NATO) (USMC)
  • XM8 (Lightweight Assault Rifle system) (never issued) (5.56×45mm NATO)
  • XM29 (Kinetic Energy and Airburst Launcher System; 5.56×45mm NATO and 20 mm airburst munition (XM1018)(early)/25 mm airburst munition) (experiment canceled)
  • Advanced Combat Rifle entries (concluded 1991)
  • Future Rifle Program entries (canceled)
  • Special Purpose Individual Weapon (SPIW) entries (concluded/canceled)
  • FN FAL (battle rifle, trialled as T48 against the T44 and T47 to replace the M1: lost to the former)
  • Olin/Winchester Salvo Rifle (battle rifle, 5.56mm duplex)
  • M14E1 (Selective Fire Rifle, 7.62×51mm NATO) (never standardized)
  • M16A1 (5.56×45mm NATO)
  • AR-15/Colt Model 601/602 (5.56×45mm NATO rifle) (USAF and SOF use only)
  • XM22/E1 Rifle (Selective Fire Rifle, 5.56×45mm NATO)
  • Mk 4 Mod 0 (Suppressed Rifle, 5.56×45mm NATO)
  • M1 Garand Variants (E1-E6 and E9-E14) (Semi-Automatic Rifle, .30-’06)
  • Mk 2 Mod 0/1/2 (Semi-Automatic Rifle, 7.62×51mm NATO)
  • M1 Garand (Semi-automatic rifle, .30-06)
  • M1941 Johnson rifle (Semi-Automatic Rifle, .30-’06)
  • Model 45A
  • M1946 rifle (never used in active duty)
  • M1947 Johnson auto carbine (Semi-Automatic Rifle, .30-’06)
  • Gyrojet rifle (13 mm) (never issued)
  • Pedersen Rifle (.276) (competed unsuccessfully with M1 Garand to become primary service rifle)
  • Pedersen Device (attachment for Springfield M1903, .30 conversion)
  • M1918 BAR (.30-06)
  • M1903/A1/A3 (Bolt-action rifle; .30-03, .30-06)
  • M1917 Enfield (Bolt-action rifle)
  • Model 1907/15 Berthier rifle (Bolt-action rifle)[14]
  • M1916 Mosin–Nagant (Bolt-action rifle)[15]
  • M1895 Navy (Navy Lee, 6 mm Navy)
  • M1892/M1896/M1898 Rifle (a/k/a Krag Bolt Action Rifle; .30-40 Krag)
  • M1885 Remington-Lee (Bolt-action rifle; .45-70 Gov)
  • M1882 Short Rifle (.45-70 Gov.)
  • M1882 Remington-Lee (Bolt-action rifle; .45-70 Gov.)
  • M1879 Remington-Lee (Bolt-action rifle; .45-70 Gov.)
  • Remington-Keene rifle (Bolt-action rifle; .45-70 Gov.)[16]
  • M1875 Officers’ Rifle (.45-70 Gov.)
  • M1873/M1879/M1880/M1884/M1888/M1889 Springfield (a/k/a Trapdoor Springfield;.45-70 Gov..: .45-55-405 & .45-70-500)
  • M1872 Springfield (a/k/a Rolling Block Springfield; .50-70 Gov.)
  • M1865/M1866/M1868/M1869/M1870 Springfield (a/k/a Trapdoor Springfield; .50-70 Government)
  • Sharps carbine/rifle (Breech-loader; .42-60-410) (.52 caliber issued to Berdan’s 1st and 2nd US Sharpshooters in the US Civil War)
  • Henry rifle (Lever-action; .44-26-200)
  • Spencer rifle (Lever-action; 56-56 (.52-45-350))
  • M1863 Springfield
  • M1861 Springfield (.58)
  • Colt revolving rifle (Colt Model 1855; 6/5-shot revolver rifle;.44/.56)
  • Greene rifle (Bolt-action breech-loader)
  • P53 Enfield (.577 (.58))
  • P51 Enfield Musketoon (“Artillery Carbine”; 24″ barrel, .69)
  • Model 1854 Lorenz rifle (Rifle-musket, .54, .58)
  • M1859 Sharps (‘New model 1859’, breech loader; .52, .56)
  • M1855 Rifle-Musket
  • M1855 Rifle (Percussion muzzle-loader; 58-60-500)
  • M1847 Musketoon (Springfield, .69)
  • M1842 Musket (Percussion musket, .69)
  • M1841 Rifle “Mississippi Rifle” (percussion muzzle-loader;.54, .58)
  • M1840 Musket (flintlock musket;.69)(later percussion)
  • M1835 Springfield (flintlock musket; .67 cal)
  • M1819 Hall rifle (Harper’s Ferry;Breech-loader)
  • Model 1822 Musket (Flintlock Musket) .69 (later percussion)
  • Model 1816 Musket (Flintlock musket; .69) (Later Percussion)
  • Model 1817 Rifle (‘Common rifle’;Derringer, Johnson, North and Starr; Flintlock rifle, .54) (later percussion)
  • Model 1814 Common Rifle (Deringer, Johnson; Flintlock rifle; later percussion; .54)
  • Springfield Model 1812 Musket (Flintlock musket; .69)
  • Model 1808 Contract Musket (Flintlock musket; .69)
  • Harper’s Ferry Model 1803 Rifle (Flintlock rifle; .54)
  • Model 1795 Musket (Flintlock musket; .69)
  • 1792 contract rifle (Flintlock rifle; .49)
  • Charleville musket (Flintlock musket; .69)
  • Brown Bess (Musket; .75)
  • Kentucky Rifle (Flintlock rifle)
  • Ferguson rifle (Flintlock breech-loader; .69)

not-safe-yet

Do we call this progress?  Do you call this progress? 

Conclusions:

I started this blog off with the comment that if we fail to connect the dots and see the patterns in our lives, we are doomed to keep repeating them and failure will never be far away.  It is almost but not quite the same as forgetting the past.  There is indeed a similarity between my comment and Santayana’s famous quote.  However, I see it as a pattern that I have described as “Whack a Mole.”  How long will we go on whacking moles, killing people, spending money that could go to education, health care or eliminating poverty?

Time for Questions:

Do you think that we should be playing “Whack the Mole?”  How do we stop playing this game?  Do you think it is human nature to keep fighting and killing others?  Should we really be trying to ban every substance that people want to take?

Life is just beginning.

Falken:  Did you ever play tic-tac-toe?

Jennifer:  Yeah, of course.

Falken:  But you don’t anymore.

Jennifer:  No.

Falken:  Why?

Jennifer:  Because it’s a boring game. It’s always a tie.

Falken:  Exactly. There’s no way to win. The game itself is pointless! But back at the war room, they believe you can win a nuclear war. That there can be “acceptable losses.”

may_june_2014_cover_of_foreign_policy_magazine

Dear Friends and Family:  Happy Holidays and a Wonderful New Year to Everyone in 2017 in the Whole World

26 Dec 2016 2 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , ,

20161201_2055481Karen says that I should start our annual holiday letter off because I write better than she does.  Well, since it is the holiday season, I will let her slide.  For my part, (Karen will add hers in a short while), I promise not to talk about politics, religion or philosophy.  We are all sick of politics and you are probably only marginally interested in the latter two topics.  What’s left then?  Well, I was thinking that I just turned 70 in September.  I never believed that I would see 30 years of age.  Now here I am 4 decades later pondering the same mysteries of life that I pondered forty years ago.  Feeling a little nostalgic, I got to thinking about the “firsts in my life.”  For instance, my first kiss and my first job.  So how about participating in a little nostalgia here and fire up your memories as well.  I have posted a list of “my firsts” with my responses to each item.  List is on the left with my responses to each one on the right.  Can you remember your answers to my list?   I would love to hear your list of firsts.  Please post your FIRSTS in the comments section if you can remember what they are and don’t mind sharing.

  • First day at school? — I remember just walking to school by myself 
  • First job? — I was a newspaper boy in Woonsocket, Rhode Island
  • First promotion? — Got my first stripe in the USAF after basic training          
  • First car? —  1947 4 door Plymouth, cost 50 dollars in 1960
  • First apartment or house? —  Osceola, Wisconsin in 1967
  • First child or grandchild? —  Christina born in 1968 in University of Minnesota
  • First day you left home? — I joined the USAF in October of 1964 
  • First date? — High school with a friend of mines girlfriend’s cousin                     

20161008_1133251Hi all.  I think I’ll stick with my firsts for the past year.  My first Dulcimer Jamboree in April, 2016 in Mountain View AR where I met the dulcimer 9 years ago.  A fateful meeting it was.  My first chromatic travel dulcimer which I took with me to New York in Nov.  My first raised bed garden this past summer made from old discarded stock tanks.  It produced more food than we could eat and it was so easy to weed and harvest.  My first grandson, Garrick, getting married to Kat this coming spring.  My first viewing of an opera at the Metropolitan Opera in NYC.  My first concert in Carnegie Hall.  My first trip up the Statue of Liberty and out to Ellis Island to look for ancestors.

20161124_1108581It’s been a full, fun and sometimes exhausting year.  We still work part time to support our “snow birds” lifestyle.  I’m working with start-up home care agencies, teaching and consulting, and ICD 10 coding.  John has taught both on-line and residence classes.  We escaped our part time work with trips down to Kentucky for Kentucky Music Week, trips to the ocean in Puerto Penasco, Mexico, and a fall anniversary trip to Bayfield, WI.  And, of course, the trips back and forth from WI to AZ where John tries to find new unspoiled routes each time we go.

20161109_1958091

Juli and Rob remain in Hastings with daughter Logan as a H.S junior this year and son Garrick and fiancé Kat are fixing up a home and planning their wedding.  Susan bought a home in Bloomington and accumulates mileage on her car with Sam (also a junior) in Northfield.  Her eldest son Zach is a college junior at Augsburg.  My son Kevin is still with LinkedIn and living in Silicon Valley, CA with his 3D printer and other tech stuff I don’t understand.  Megan works with AZ Multiple Listing Services and trains realtors on their software.  She writes the company blog and is about half way through her first novel.  She has discovered writing and loves it.

John volunteered this past year with Interfaith Caregivers in WI and spends time with the “Cucumber Guys”—the group who daily solve the world’s problems at the Frederic Library.  My “spare time” is generally spent practicing and playing with my dulcimer friends in both places.

Our good friend, Dar, frequently wears “Life is Good” t-shirts.  It’s a nice saying.  I’m thankful for our many blessings, friends, family and activities.  We wish you a very Happy 2017 and hope to see you all in 2017.

Love, John and Karen

Joy to the World

19 Dec 2016 Leave a comment

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

joy-to-the-world

Tis the season to be jolly, but for many people there might seem little to be jolly about.  In one of the most famous holiday stories of all time, the central character Ebenezer Scrooge gave what has become an iconic line about the holiday season.  Scrooge said:

“What’s Christmas but a time for finding yourself a year older and not a day richer?  There’s nothing merry in that.  If I could work my will, nephew, every idiot who goes about with “Merry Christmas” on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.” — A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Not exactly a fan of Christmas, Scrooge may have echoed sentiments that lie dormant in many of us.  Over the years, it seems the holiday season starts earlier and earlier.  There is more pressure than ever to buy the right gifts and to spend increased amounts of hard earned money on presents for friends and loved ones.  The airwaves and pulpits bemoan the crass commercialism that accompanies so much of the holiday season while at the same time making sure that all commercial breaks are properly inserted between the “holiday messages.”

Our churches are full of giving trees, toy drives and Christmas shoes boxes.  Perhaps giving more at Christmas to some mysteriously perceived needy children in dire need of more toys will make us feel better about ourselves for ignoring the poor and needy for the rest of the year.  Even at church, the message that Jesus meant for us gets diluted with the drive to fill the toy box.  Do we even know any more what message Jesus wanted us to hear?

the-gospelJesus talked about the three classes of good people.  The first class hears his message but has little time to do anything about it.  The second class hears the message and when convenient they try to help others and spread the message of Jesus.  The third class commits their body and soul to sharing Jesus’s message.  The third class of men/women make a commitment to doing this year round and 24/7.  For the third class, it is not a onetime thing or something to be done when they have time or are not busy.  It is a lifetime commitment to share his message with the world.

“The title, Three Classes of Men, stands for three kinds of persons in any walk of life. They might be three classes of religious or priests, husbands or wives, workers or professional men.  However, classified, they represent three levels of volitional disposition to sacrifice whatever is less than God and stands in the way of His more perfect service and love.  Viewed from another aspect, they are three states of spiritual detachment which in ascending degree dispose a man for the reception of divine grace.  Implicit in the meditation is the belief that no matter how entangled in secular pursuits and impeded in the way of perfection, a person can rise above this condition if he takes the trouble to recognize these impediments and is humble enough to pray for help to overcome them.” — Three Classes of Men by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

Most of us will watch at least a few moving holiday stories before December 25th.  From Miracle on 34 Street to the story of the Christmas Truce during the fighting of WWI, we will hear many heartwarming tales of kindness and love.  Most of these stories are similar in theme to the Christmas Carol.  An individual who has utter contempt or callousness for the Christmas message somehow finds redemption through the love and compassion of others.

quote-the-life-of-jesus-christ-is-a-message-of-hope-a-message-of-mercy-a-message-of-life-in-max-lucado-90-79-19The Joy of Christmas is a state of fulfillment, contentment and gratitude.  Through the love of others who give selflessly of themselves, we can all be free to experience a Joy that cannot be bought or traded.  It is one of the reasons that giving and not receiving is said to be the true path to happiness.  During the holidays, we are excited about the chance to give to others.  And nowhere is that feeling of giving more delightful than in watching the face of a young child receive something that we know they really wanted.  However, Joy to the World should mean more than just giving toys to tots.  There are physical gifts which we can give but there are also emotional and spiritual gifts as well.

thank-you-fatherI am frequently critical of all the toy drives that I see going on at Christmastime.  Not just because I think most kids in America have more toys than they know what to do with, but because of the message that this sends.  Why not I ask, have a “books for tots” drive?  Why not give books for a present?  Why is it always about toys?  We become so narrowly focused that we lose sight of the larger picture.

Christmas is about Joy.  But Joy does not just come from toys.  Joy comes from learning.  Joy comes from sharing.  Joy comes from helping others.  Joy comes from being present when needed by others.  Joy is not just a physical phenomenon; it is a spiritual and emotional phenomenon.  The Message of Joy that Jesus wanted to bring into the world was a message about peace and love.

I see a lot of talk these days about putting the Ten Commandments up on scrolls and even billboards.  Here in Arizona City, they have erected a billboard with the Ten Commandments printed on it.  To the best of my knowledge, Jesus said

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.  For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.  Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.  For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” — Matthew 5:17-20

acts-kindness-inspiremoreThus, Jesus did not come to replace the commandments but he did come to go beyond the commandments.  God brought the commandments to Moses but the message that Jesus brought to us is in addition to the commandments.  Jesus extended the Ten Commandments with a list that has come to be known as the Eight Beatitudes.   A beatitude is something that gives one both happiness and blessedness.  Jesus gave these Eight during his famous Sermon on the Mount:

THE EIGHT BEATITUDES OF JESUS

“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they who mourn,
for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek,
for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they shall be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful,
for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the pure of heart,
for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they shall be called children of God.

Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Gospel of St. Matthew 5:3-10

message-to-the-worldI am continually surprised by so-called Christians who seem to revel in the Ten Commandments but treat the Eight Beatitudes as though they were bastard children of Satan.  When was the last time you heard anyone wanting to put up a statue or sculpture or sign with the Eight Beatitudes on it?  The Message of Christmas is the Eight Beatitudes.  The Joy that Jesus wanted to bring to the world can only come by following the Eight Beatitudes.  If you call yourself a Christian but you do not practice these in you daily life, then you are not spreading the Gospel of Jesus.

In this present climate of fear, bigotry and uncertainty engendered by the recent US Presidential race and outcome, the message of Jesus needs to be repeated and spread as never before.  If there was no Joy in Muddville when Casey struck out, there certainly will not be any Joy in the World until all of us, Christian, Buddhist, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Mormon, Baha’i  and others start believing in and following the Eight Beatitudes.  I am not saying this to try to convince anyone to be a Christian.  The kindness-quotes1words of the Beatitudes go beyond any one religion.  They speak to a way of being in the world and a way of treating other human beings.  Just as I have found valuable teachings in other religions, I think more Christians should be willing to share the Message of Jesus in the Eight Beatitudes.  Keep in mind though, that sharing this message will never work unless you also live by the message.  You must be the change you want to see in others.  Do you know what the famous Indian Chief Sitting Bull said when asked what he thought of Christianity?  Chief Sitting Bull replied: “I have read your Bible and the religion seems good but I do not see many White people practicing it.”

Time for Questions: 

  • When we denigrate people on welfare and refuse to support the poor and needy what Beatitude are we ignoring?
  • When we want to wage war on other countries to support our lifestyle, what Beatitude are we breaking?
  • When we have no time for immigrants and refuse to shelter those needing respite from tyranny and injustice, what Beatitude speaks to this?
  • When we practice racism and discrimination towards those who are different from us in thoughts, words or deeds, what Beatitude are we not following?
  • When we fail to speak out against bigotry and hatred, what Beatitude would challenge our behavior?
  • When we fail to treat others with honesty and integrity, what Beatitude are we disdaining?
  • When we fail to give compassion and comfort to those in need, what Beatitude should we be thinking more of?
  • When we practice narcissism and think we are better than others, what Beatitude would Jesus tell us to look at more closely?
  • Which “Class” of people do you belong to?

Life is just beginning.

“The spirit of Christmas is the spirit of love and of generosity and of goodness.  It illuminates the picture window of the soul, and we look out upon the world’s busy life and become more interested in people than in things.” — Thomas S. Monson
happyholidaysbanner1

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Conversation between Satan and God

11 Dec 2016 8 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , ,

god-and-satan

Satan and God were sitting on a rock one day having a discussion about the human race.

Satan said to “God, I need some more souls in hell.  I think we have played this game with humanity for long enough.  Let’s end it and start a new game.”

God said:  “Well, I could be talked into that.  How would you suggest we end it?

Satan:  “We can divide up the human race.  You take the good ones and I will take the bad ones.”

God:  “Who would you include among the ‘bad’ ones?”

Satan:  “I will take all the people who never promoted peace and who sowed the seeds of hate and bigotry among humanity.”

God:  “They are all you want?”

Satan:  “Well, I would also like all the greedy ones who never did anything to help anyone else but who collected as much wealth as they could and would not share it with anyone else.”

God:  “Does this include all the greedy people who were against taxes to help the poor and needy?”

Satan:  “Of course.”

God:  “That’s not fair.  There would hardly be anyone left for me.”

Satan:  “Do you remember a long time ago when you gave Lot the deal with finding ten good people and you would save the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah from your wrath.  Your angels could not find even ten people for you to spare.  That was a good day for me.”

God:  “You have had many good days since we started this game.  Do you think perhaps it’s all your fault?  You are constantly sowing greed and hate.”

Satan:  “Guilty as charged but do you remember the Parable of the Seeds?  Some fell on good soil and grew and some fell on bad soil and did not grow.  My efforts would be fruitless were not humans so ripe for plucking and beguiling.”

God:  “Still, sometimes, I think you have been overzealous.  I gave humans free will when I created them and this has come back to bias our game.”

Satan:  “Please, now is not the time for hindsight.  I warned you about this when you created them but you were ever the optimist.”

hell_lavapitSatan:  “Do you want to concede and I will just take them all down to Hell?”

God:  “Do you have no mercy and compassion in you someplace?

Satan:  “You created me and now you extol me to be compassionate and merciful.  Those are traits best left for you and your saints.  I have no heart or soul so how can I care about anything much less human beings.”

God:  “Would you like to start over.  I can always recreate you.”

Satan:  “Thanks, but I am fine.  I like myself just the way I am.  I see no need for pity, love, kindness, or any of the other traits that you gave to humans.  Much good it has done them.”

godGod:  “The interesting thing about humans is not their stupidity and evilness.  It’s the surprising amount of love that they can sometimes show for others.  I am ever the optimist.  That is my role, to be the Eternal Optimist.  I have had hopes since the first cave men and since Moses and Socrates and Jesus and Mohammed and Gandhi and King and Mandela that humans have a spark in them.  A spark that when ignited can change themselves and the world into something beautiful.  Something that is so beautiful, it is even beyond anything I might have created.”

Satan:  “Yes, and then they turn right around and burn it down again.”  Hardly a day goes by on earth, when there is not some riot or war or holocaust or massacre or murder.”

God:  “It seesaws back and forth.  For over 100,000 years now, we have played this game and just when I think, I might win, someone or something evil seems to possess humans that I would never have thought of.”

Satan:  “Right, and you would like to blame me for it, but you gave them free will.”

God:  “The game would have been too predictable without free will.”

Satan:  “You keep hoping they will believe in you someday.  How many times have we had this discussion and yet we keep playing this game.”

God:  “Would you deny me the chance to win.”

chess-for-humanity-1Satan:  “You know I don’t care one way or the other.  I have no feelings to be hurt.  I cannot gloat or feel any satisfaction.  Whenever, a new soul comes down to Hell, it is no sense of pride or satisfaction to me.  These humans seem to mistake my logic and justice for evil.  I am the parent who dispenses the discipline and they see me as the mean and cruel one.”

Satan:  “From a purely logical viewpoint, I do not know why you subject yourself to this.  I see your pain and heartache whenever you lose one to me.  Why go on like this?  It will never be any different.  I get them for a thousand or so years and then I send their cleansed souls back to earth and in a short time they are back down again to Hell.”

God:  “I have no limits to my forgiveness.  They pray to me regularly for forgiveness and I forgive them.”

Satan:  “Yes, but even before they ask for forgiveness, they ask for their daily bread.  It is the only thing they can think about, eating and drinking and sex.”

God:  “You forget the good ones.  The mothers that devote their lives to their children.  The soldiers that forfeit their lives on the battlefields.  The fathers that work two jobs to support their families.  The martyrs who give their lives for their faith.  The blessed who are humble.  The peacemakers who face scorn and ridicule to end war.  The charitable who give the shirt off their backs to help those in need.”

Satan:  “Yes, and for every good one, there are ten evil ones.  That is why I want to end this farce.  How many souls must I take down to Hell, before you concede that humans are hopeless?”

God:  “Perhaps if I send another prophet or messiah to spread my message, we could turn the game around?”

Satan:  “You have sent dozens of prophets and many messiahs and it has made no difference.  They end up scorning or murdering your prophets and messiahs.  They would not follow your message if they could find the tablets that you etched in stone and gave to Moses.”

God:  “I don’t want to win for my sake.  I fight for love and peace and justice and beauty.  These are the things that bring color to the universe.  Without these, you have a bland shade of grey.  You have a sterile meaningless bunch of rocks.  You have never understood this because you see everything through pure logic and no emotions.”

Satan:  “When you created me, you thought that such a being as I am would be superior to one that could be swayed by emotions and feelings.  Now you criticize me for doing my job?”

God:  “I did not realize how monotonous and tedious the universe would be without feelings.”

Satan:  “It does not seem like you can have it both ways.  You want to create a world without evil and based on compassion and love and yet you give humans the ingredients that foment hatred and bigotry.”

God:  “Do you not think we have made any progress since the first humans were created?  I have infinite patience.  We can play the game for eons but I will win someday.”

Satan:  “And is it worth it?  How much pain and misery and suffering must you endure dealing with these humans?”

God:  “True, they have tried my patience at times.  But just when I might be willing to concede to you, I see justice and love blossoming some place and it makes the battle worth winning.  As their creator, I cannot turn my back on these humans.  There is no limit to my forgiveness.  I am not driven by logic as you are.  I am the mother who cannot give up on her children regardless of how many times they make mistakes.”

satan-imageSatan:  “But they never learn. They are shortsighted, petty, vindictive and greedy.  Do you really think they care about your teachings or precious commitment to love and peace?  They would rather fight wars and dominate others.  They even fight wars in your name.  Their religions scream for violence over other religions.  Their leaders preach victory over other nations.  Their minion’s rape and pillage in the name of some esoteric ideology.  They all believe they are superior to each other.  They send their own children to die in wars of so called freedom and liberation.  They abuse and murder their own spouses at alarming rates.  They teach their offspring at an early age to be intolerant of other races.  And they pray in your name for the power to be successful in all of these efforts.  They invoke prayers to you before murdering millions.  How can you listen to these prayers and want to help these hypocrites.”

God:  “Being in charge of Hell does not help you to see any positives in the universe.  You have a very difficult job.”

Satan:  “We make a good team.  You, the everlasting optimist, full of hope and love.  Me, the ultimate logician, ever ready to exact justice for evil done.”

Satan:  “They will destroy themselves anyway and then what.  Did you know that the earth was warming up at an alarming rate?”

God:  “Of course.”

Satan:  “It is not your doing, right?”

God:  “No, I have nothing to do with it.”

Satan:  “And yet they blame you for it.  The last thing in the world they want to admit is that it might be their fault.  That all of their pollution, oil burning, fossil fuel burning and carbon emissions is changing their climate.  They deny any responsibility for it.  I thought they would destroy the world with nuclear weapons, but they somehow avoided doing that.  Now, they are working to destroy it by overheating it.  I don’t think it will be long before the game is over.”

gods-voice-vs-satans-voiceGod:  “You count them out too fast.  The clock was close to 12 with nuclear weapons but as you noted, they carefully avoided destroying themselves.  They are often very shortsighted and many of them will never be long-term thinkers.  However, there are enough who care and who are passionate enough about others to help save humanity.  I can’t help being filled with astonishment at the love that humans frequently have for each other.”

Satan:  “Yes, but it always seems to entail some crisis to bring it out.”

God:  “That is true.  But it shows that there is hope.  And even if there is only 1 human being still alive who cares about others, that is enough for me.  The game will go on.”

Satan:  “Well, how about a cap of another 10,000 years. I am tired of being the gatekeeper of Hell and punishing evil and wrongdoers.  I do not have your patience.”

God:  “Done, we will give humanity another 10,000 years and see how they are doing then.”

Satan:  “I have a feeling we will be having this same conversation in another 10,000 years.”

Time for Questions:

What would you like to tell God if you could?  Do you believe in God?  Why or why not?  Does the concept of God make a difference in the world?  Why? For better or worse?

Life is just beginning.

“Satan, on the contrary, is thin, ascetic and a fanatical devotee of logic.  He reads Machiavelli, Ignatius of Loyola, Marx and Hegel; he is cold and unmerciful to mankind, out of a kind of mathematical mercifulness.  He is damned always to do that which is most repugnant to him: to become a slaughterer, in order to abolish slaughtering, to sacrifice lambs so that no more lambs may be slaughtered, to whip people with knouts so that they may learn not to let themselves be whipped, to strip himself of every scruple in the name of a higher scrupulousness, and to challenge the hatred of mankind because of his love for it–an abstract and geometric love.”
― Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Facts, Data, Evidence and the Search for Truth – Part 5 – Roadblocks to the Truth

04 Dec 2016 5 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , ,

in-search-truth-title

If you have been following my series on searching for the Truth, you will now understand the role of Facts, Data and Evidence in Truth seeking.  Unfortunately, understanding these concepts is not enough.  Regardless of how many Facts or how much Data and Evidence you collect, it is no guarantee that you will find the Truth.  The problem is that there are some substantial roadblocks that often blind us to the Truth.  In the final part of my series on Truth Searching, I will review some of the major roadblocks that hinders or obscures our search for the Truth.

Overview:

A further constraint to Truth searching is that we almost always rely on one of four ways of knowing before we accept the Truth.  I have discussed these in previous blogs, but will briefly touch on them again to demonstrate how they both help and hinder our search for the Truth.

There are four general ways that have been identified which could be called methods or strategies for seeking and accepting the Truth.  Collecting Facts, Data and Evidence are generally indicative of rational thinking, but that strategy is not the only pathway to the Truth.  Many people rely on one or more of these other methods.  The four stratagems to Truth searching are:

  • By Authority (Someone in authority tells you what to believe)
  • By Experience ( Some life experience you had conditioned your thoughts)
  • By Rational Thinking (You have some Facts, Data or Evidence you trust)
  • By Tradition (Your tribe, family, culture etc., has always done it this way)

For a more detailed discussion of these four strategies, please see my blog “How Do I Know What to Believe”

There are strengths and weaknesses to each of these strategies.  By themselves, they are not roadblocks to the Truth but they carry the potential for obscuring the Truth.  These strategies become barriers to the Truth when they are distorted by the numerous biases and roadblocks.  The majority of the ones that I will discuss fall under the following headings:

  1. Denial
  2. Delusion
  3. Heuristics/Cognitive Biases
  4. Fallacies
  5. Ideology
  6. Emotional Biases

Denial:

andre-gide-novelist-quote-believe-those-who-are-seeking-the-truthDenial generally means that we refuse to accept any logic, evidence, experience, data, facts, authority or any other means of Truth finding.  It is an outright refusal to accept anything that will change the deniers mind.  One example of this is the current debate (at least among some) as to the issue of global warming.  Climate deniers argue that there is no change in the overall earth’s temperatures and that the warming is simply consistent with overall weather patterns in the earth’s history.  Those opposed to this view point to a considerable stockpile of evidence, facts and data to show that the weather changes are not part of a historical pattern but are indeed a change in past weather patterns.  Nevertheless, climate deniers refuse to change their minds.

Two questions arise from this issue.  First, why do they so consistently refuse to accept any logic?  Second, how can we change their minds?

The answer to the first question is simple.  People who deny the obvious are protecting their self-image.  For these people to change their minds is to admit that they are wrong.  This is not easy for many people.  An article by The Mojo Company identifies the following five reasons why people will not admit that they are wrong:  “Why is it so hard for people to admit they’re wrong?”

  • Defensiveness
  • Equating identity and actions
  • Pride
  • Experiencing shame instead of guilt
  • Believing apologizing equals absolution for everyone else

 Some other reasons that could be added to this list include:

  • Avoidance of negative emotions
  • Lack of empathy
  • Lifestyle protection

 This brings us to the second question:  “How can we change their minds.”  It should be quite obvious that no amount of rational or cognitive argument is going to be persuasive with such people.  Research into this question has been ongoing.  Here is one answer to the question:

“A comprehensive study published in 2015 in Nature surveyed 6,000 people across 24 countries and found that emphasizing the shared benefits of climate change was an effective way of motivating people to take action—even if they initially identified as deniers. For example, people were more likely to take steps to mitigate climate change if they believe that it will produce economic and scientific development. Most importantly, these results were true across political ideology, age, and gender.”  —- You need to get inside the mind of a climate change denier if you want to change it — Neha Thirani Bagri

What is our “take away” then in terms of dealing with someone who is engaged in Denial?  I think some points might be helpful to remember:

  1. You cannot argue them out of their positions.
  2. Facts, evidence and data are useless.
  3. Empathy for others may be impossible or fruitless.

My final answer to the second question based on recent research as well as years of fruitless arguments, is that the primary path to change for someone engaged in Denial is what might be called “Enlightened Self-Interest.”  Self-interest may be the only path to a productive solution.  Meaning that if you want to change someone’s mind, you might as well forget about it.  However, if you want to change someone’s behavior, then the solution is to find a path for them to change based on their own self-interest.  E.g. lower their taxes, create jobs for their children, raise their income levels, or improve their lifestyle.  Sad but true, much change in the world is not based on logic or facts or even empathy.

Delusion:

When we say that someone is delusional, it usually means that we think they are out of their mind or that they are engaging in some fantasy.  We ignore what they are saying because it is too remote from reality to even consider.  It is drastically over the top thinking.  The Google dictionary definition of Delusion is:

“An idiosyncratic belief or impression that is firmly maintained despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality or rational argument, typically a symptom of mental disorder.”

truth-and-liesThus, we typically ignore or give a pass to someone who is “delusional” because we think either they are sick or that they are not in a good state to make decisions.  No sane person would try to talk or argue a person who is delusional out of their Delusions.  However, what if the person is sane and they engage in Delusions?  This seems impossible but it happens all the time.  One example will suffice:  Anderson Cooper was interviewing some Trump supporters on his show.  He asked one young woman what it was she liked about Trump.  Her response was “He is just like us, except he is a billionaire.”  Millions of Americans seemed (if voting was any indication) to agree with this statement.  To any logical person looking at the background, upbringing and behavior of Trump, this statement would seem ludicrous.  It would seem to indicate an extreme case of delusional thinking.  But, by all standards of psychiatric analysis, this woman and her supporters are not insane.

I use the above example to show that delusional thinking is not only the property of insane people, but it is actually a common state for millions of people all over the world.  Here are some other examples:

  • Lottery ticket buyers
  • Gamblers
  • People who think that places like heaven and hell exist
  • People who believe in ghosts and spirits
  • People who love to believe in conspiracy theories
  • People who automatically accept every urban myth on the Internet
  • People who believe implicitly in horoscopes or astrology
  • People who believe implicitly in the power of science to save the world

Looking at my list, you have probably found yourself in one of the above groups.  In fact, most of the human race fits in one or more of the above examples.  But, you answer: “I am not delusional. Your system and concept is all wrong.  Everyone else does the same thing.  The casinos and churches are full of people who think just like I do.”  Yes, you are right.  Millions of people engage in delusions every day.  Delusions are often what helps us get through the day.  Delusions are fed by hope that some reality is going to change.  But if we consider a belief in a horoscope as a fact, we are delusional.  Facts, Evidence and Data all show that Horoscopes are phony, bogus, irrelevant superstitions that have no basis in reality.  My mother loved to read her horoscope and also to occasionally go to a fortune teller.  My mother was convinced that she would be rich some day and leave all her children a million dollars each.  When my mother died, all she left us were bills for her funeral.

“A delusion is a belief that is held with strong conviction despite superior evidence to the contrary. As a pathology, it is distinct from a belief based on false or incomplete information, confabulation, dogma, illusion, or other effects of perception.” — Wikipedia

Based on the above definition, I could argue that anyone who thinks they will win the Lottery is delusional.  If the evidence is a 100,000,000 million to one against you winning and you still buy a ticket, are you being logical or delusional?  If you believe in heaven and hell, but no one in the history of the human race has been there and back, are you being logical or delusional?  I state these points to demonstrate the utter impossibility of changing anyone’s mind who is delusional or who subscribes to some Delusion.  Whether it is you who are sane or your crazy cousin, anyone who is subscribes to some delusion is beyond rational experience and logic.  No amount of arguing will change your mind or your cousin’s mind.

“There is some wisdom in the adage not to attempt to argue a delusion away. By definition, delusions are tenaciously held despite presentation of contrary evidence. How certain are we of anything? How might you respond if someone told you, you are not who you believe yourself to be? Most people are likely to defend their belief about who they are and this is also true for delusions.”  — Responding therapeutically to disturbing beliefs, By Richard Lakeman © 2003

What is the take away then here?  Can we find a way to the Truth through a Delusion?  The simple answer is that we are all going to face people who have one or more delusions in their lives.  Whatever the Delusion they hold, it is the absolute Truth to them.  I do not believe there is any way you are going to talk or argue them out of it.  If anyone can find an antidote to delusional thinking, I hope you will share your solution in my blog comments area.

Heuristics:

In 1984, while I was in my Ph.D. program at the University of Minnesota, I discovered the book Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases by D. Kahneman and A. Tversky.  It was one of the most influential and important books I have ever read.  In 2002, Daniel Kahneman won the Nobel Prize in Economics for his work on decision making.  Kahneman was one of the pioneers in the emerging discipline of Behavioral Economics.  This discipline would go on to show that the concept of rationality in economic decision making was severely flawed.

thomas-edisonThe basic premise of the work by Kahneman and others in his field is that while most of us try to be logical and rational, our decision making is often flawed by biases and heuristics that influence our decisions.  The book Judgment Under Uncertainty catalogs the major types of cognitive errors that we make and gives many examples of each.  One of the most common ones that many people recognize has been called the “Gamblers Fallacy.”  Let us say that you are rolling a dice.  The odds of any one number being rolled are 6 to 1.  So let us say that you roll four three times in a row.  What are the odds that you will roll a 4 on your next toss?  Higher or lower than 6 to 1?  Many if not most people would now assume the odds against rolling another four might be 30 or even 40 to one.  In fact, the odds for rolling a four on the next toss are still 6-1.  This fact would surprise many people.  Mentally, we confuse the odds of an individual toss with the odds of running a series.  The odds of rolling four in a row on a dice are much greater than the odds of rolling any particular number.  What are the odds of rolling a number four times in a row on a dice?  We can calculate it as follows:

There are 6 possible outcomes where the dice are all the same:

1-1-1-1
2-2-2-2
3-3-3-3
4-4-4-4
5-5-5-5
6-6-6-6

There are a total of 1296 outcomes for any four dice –> 6 x 6 x 6 x 6 = 1296.   So the probability is 6/1296 or 1/216.  In other words, the probability is over 200 to 1 against rolling any number four times in a row.  The probability of rolling a number on any particular throw though does not change.  It is still and always will be 6 to 1.

There are too many biases to list in this blog, in fact over a hundred different biases exist and more are being found on a regular basis.  Wikipedia has a list at:  “List of Cognitive Biases.”  This list is broken down into the following three categories of cognitive biases:

1  Decision-making, belief, and behavioral biases

2  Social biases

3  Memory errors and biases

There is a great deal of information on these biases but the key issues and thus questions that concerns us is how do these biases affect our search for the Truth and what can we do to overcome these biases?

The answer to the first question is simple.  They hide and distort the Truth from us.  If we misperceive the possibility or likelihood of anything happening, we fail to make accurate judgements.

The answer to the second question, whether or not we can overcome their biases can be summed up by the following reply: Yes and No.

Yes, we can provide information and education that can help to show the bias or error in their thinking.  Keep in mind that it will be hard for some people to accept what you are telling them.  For instance, in explaining the Gambler’s Fallacy, the more number oriented a person is the easier it will be for them to understand the fallacy.

No, you cannot change anyone’s bias with new information when you are talking about things that are outside their belief system.  They must have a framework in which to incorporate the Data, Evidence and Facts that you try to provide them.  Such frameworks vary in complexity but they can be taught.

Fallacies:

A fallacy is an error in reasoning.  However, so is a faulty heuristic; so how can we tell them apart?  In fact, I don’t know if you always can and I am not sure it really is important.  Looking at the online Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, it states that:

“Researchers disagree about how to define the very term “fallacy.” Focusing just on fallacies in sense (a) above, namely fallacies of argumentation, some researchers define a fallacy as an argument that is deductively invalid or that has very little inductive strength.” 

No doubt many biases can fall in either category as a heuristic or a fallacy.  An error in reasoning or a bias can be due to many causes.  The common denominator to both categories is that we are talking about errors in cognition or cognitive biases rather than emotional biases.  You would think that would make these types of biases more subject to rationale argument but as I have noted above, that does not seem to be the case.  People hold on to their biases whether cognitive or emotional with an iron fisted tenacity.

The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy lists approximately 218 different fallacies.  Many of these, I confess to never having heard of.  It would probably take another Encyclopedia to catalog all of the reasons for the different fallacies.  I am surprised there are no Ph.D. degrees for Fallacy Finding.

quote-finding-the-occasional-straw-of-truth-awash-in-a-great-ocean-of-confusion-and-bamboozle-requires-carl-sagan-293275After even a slight perusal of these fallacies, you might be thinking: “Why bother, we can never find the Truth, there are too many roadblocks out there.”  It probably seems like a hopeless task, something akin to finding the Holy Grail or the Ten Commandments.  I admit that the recent Presidential election and its results would seem to support the invincible nature of stupidity and ignorance.  The world seems overwhelmed with those who would dwell in biases, bigotry and hypocrisy and have little interest in finding the Truth.  The Truth becomes whatever they are told or choose to believe.  The media parrots disinformation, misinformation and outright lies.  How can anyone find the Truth amidst this forest of propaganda and distortion?

Nevertheless, if I succumbed to total despair, I would not be writing this.  As the line goes:

“Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never is, but always to be blest.
The soul, uneasy, and confined from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.”  — Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man

So, I have hopes that if even one person out there reading my blog has a second thought or an insight garnered by my somewhat tedious prose, I will be blest and perhaps have made a slight difference.

Ideology:

An ideology is something you believe in.  Dictionary.com defines an ideology as:

  1. The body of doctrine, myth, belief, etc., that guides an individual, social movement, institution, class, or large group.
  2. Such a body of doctrine, myth, etc., with reference to some political and social plan, as that of fascism, along with the devices for putting it into operation.

truth-next-exitOne of the most unnerving but interesting books I have ever read was the book “True Believer” by Eric Hoffer.  This book explains the thinking or lack of thinking behind zealots, fanatics and what Hoffer calls “True Believers.”  After reading this book, it was clear to me that ideologies, whether left wing, right wing, fascist or even liberal could be dangerous.  The Greek Golden Mean “All things in moderation” kept coming to my mind.  A “True Believer” will not tolerate or listen to dissent or argument.  They are so convinced that their way is the only way that dialogue and discussion with them is fruitless.  In fact, many “True Believers” will happily kill you for their ideology.

Most ideologies seem to revolve around either religion or politics.  Probably one reason why people always say not to discuss these subjects with strangers.  The strong feelings that these subjects evoke have been the cause of much violence throughout history.  Many blame religious ideologies as the main cause for wars in history.  However, there is a dissenting view that says non-religious ideologies bear the blame for the most wars and the most deaths throughout history.

 “The truth is, non-religious motivations and naturalistic philosophies bear the blame for nearly all of humankind’s wars.  Lives lost during religious conflict pales in comparison to those experienced during the regimes who wanted nothing to do with the idea of God – something showcased in R. J. Rummel’s work Lethal Politics and Death by Government.”  — The Myth that Religion is the #1 Cause of War

People steeped in an ideology have natural blinders on to the Truth.  They are convinced that they already have the Truth and they have no interest in Truth seeking.  In the history of wars in the USA, we can see the impact of American ideology on the world.  We seem to be constantly involved in wars to spread Democracy and Free Enterprise.  We are blinded to the downsides of both these ideologies.  In fact, most Americans do not see them as ideologies but as virtues that they want to share with the rest of the world.

dont-keep-searching-for-the-truth-just-let-go-of-your-opinions-quote-1Furthermore, because our ideologies are so good, we cannot believe that anyone has the right to reject them.  We do not care if the rest of the world does not want to share them, we will bomb and kill you until you see how good our ideologies are.  We are totally closed minded in our belief that Democracy and Free Enterprise are truly universal virtues that the rest of the world must adopt.  We have become a nation of True Believers in the “American Dream.”

What is the antidote to Ideological Thinking?  Can we talk someone into seeing a new gestalt or world view?  I would never want to say it is impossible, but it is damn difficult.  Nevertheless, examples abound throughout history of people who have changed their mind.  Some examples in America include:

  • Abraham Lincoln (Believed that slavery was evil but changed his mind about what to do about it)
  • Malcolm X (Who once believed that all White people were devils)
  • George Wallace (Who believed in racial segregation)
  • Robert McNamara (Who believed in the value of the Vietnam War)
  • Barack Obama (Changed his position on Gay marriage

Jeff Bezos founder of Amazon believes that consistency of thought is not particularly a positive trait. It is better, even healthier in fact, to have an idea that contradicts one you had before.  Smart people constantly revise their understandings of a matter. They reconsider problems they thought they had solved. They are open to new points of view, new information, and challenges to their own ways of thinking.  — The Smart People Change Their Minds

Emotional Biases:

We have come to the last category in my list of obstacles to Truth seeking.  In many respects, this is the largest category in terms of biases and also encompasses the biases that are the most difficult to change.  Someone who has an emotional bias is usually beyond the pall of argument and rational dialogue.  To understand this, let us take the following example.  We have Chloe who is in love with Michael.  Chloe plans to marry Michael and her parents are dead against it.  Michael in their view is unreliable, untrustworthy and prone to anger and unpredictable acts.  They can see no reason why Chloe loves Michael.  Question:  What arguments or logic, or Facts, or Data or Evidence do you think they could bring forth to change Chloe’s mind?   If you answered NONE, you are in sync with my thoughts.  You have all heard themes similar to this:  “Love is blind despite the world’s attempt to give it eyes.”
― Matshona Dhliwayo

marcus-quoteEmotional biases are formed by experiences or ideas derived from each of the four categories of knowing and believing that I briefly discussed earlier. We can derive an emotional bias from a strong attachment to anything and it does not matter whether we have Facts, Data, and Evidence.  An emotional bias comes from the heart as opposed to a cognitive bias which comes from the brain.  Of course, in practice both sets of biases tend to overlap and support each other. Someone with a strong cognitive bias can become very emotional about their beliefs and someone with a strong emotional bias may tend to only accept Facts which support their bias.  In either case, we face the same difficulties with trying to get the individual to seek the Truth.  Notice, I did not say see the Truth.  Perhaps, some or more of what they already believe is the Truth or at least part of the Truth.

For instance, to return to Chloe and Michael.  Michael may indeed be all the things that Chloe’s parents believe about him but he may also be all the things that Chloe loves about him.  He may often be kind, thoughtful, generous and fun loving.  The Truth is seldom single faceted and is much more analogous to a multi-faceted diamond.  Think of Truth as having hundreds of shimmering glittering surfaces.  You turn it one way and you see some facets.  You turn it another way and you see other facets.  Some facets shine more than others.  Some are larger and more apparent than others.  You cannot see the Truth without seeing all of the facets.  That is what makes Truth seeking so challenging.  The number of facets in a diamond may be difficult to count but the number of facets in the Truth may be close to infinite.  Furthermore, unlike a diamond, the Truth keeps changing.  The Truth you may be seeking now will be a great deal different then the Truth you might find ten or twenty years from now.

In Conclusion:  Some final thoughts to share:

“A desire to know the truth does not endow one with the ability to understand or accept the truth.”  — Joseph Crosby Mecham

“Walk with those seeking truth… Run from those who think they have found it.” — Deepak Chopra

This has been a very long blog. Thank you for reading it.  I hope it has helped you to think about ways to seek and search for the Truth.  I was more certain when I started this blog that I could help describe a concrete definitive path to the Truth.  Writing this blog has made me realize how difficult the search is and the near impossibility of ever finding an absolute Truth about anything much less a concrete path to the Truth.

I have found one Truth for now though that I can accept and that is that we must try our best to keep an open mind and an open heart in our search for the Truth.  Perhaps I will change my mind about this in ten or twenty years. 🙂

Time for Questions:

When was the last time you searched for the Truth?  Did you find it?  If so, what helped you to find the Truth?  What roadblocks did you have to overcome?  What do you think would help more people to find the Truth?

Life is just beginning.

“We awaken by asking the right questions. We awaken when we see knowledge being spread that goes against our own personal experiences. We awaken when we see popular opinion being wrong but accepted as being right, and what is right being pushed as being wrong. We awaken by seeking answers in corners that are not popular.  And we awaken by turning on the light inside when everything outside feels dark.” — Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“I may be wrong in regard to any or all of them; but holding it a sound maxim, that it is better to be only sometimes right, than at all times wrong, so soon as I discover my opinions to be erroneous, I shall be ready to renounce them.” — Abraham Lincoln, Speeches and Writings, 1832-1858

 

Facts, Data, Evidence and the Search for Truth – Part 4 – What is Evidence?

28 Nov 2016 Leave a comment

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , ,

In Part 3, I tried to explain the second pillar of Truth finding and look at what Data is and what it is not.  We also looked at the difficulties with collecting objective and valid Data.

In Part 4, I want to discuss the role of the third pillar (Evidence) in Truth finding.  Let us start with a standard definition of Evidence from Dictionary.com.

  1. That which tends to prove or disprove something; ground for belief; proof.
  2. Something that makes plain or clear; an indication or sign: His flushed look was visible Evidence of his fever.
  3. Data presented to a court or jury in proof of the Facts in issue and which may include the testimony of witnesses, records, documents, or objects.

If your look at the third definition, you might be excused for finding it somewhat circular.  Evidence is data in support of facts?  I don’t think I have a clue what this means.  The first definition can be easily mistaken for what we called Data in Part 2 and possibly even hard to distinguish from a Fact.  The second definition is so subjective that I am amazed they even listed it.  So what is Evidence then?  Here is my definition.

Evidence is relevant Facts and Data.  There are lots of Facts and Data out there but not all are relevant to our proposition, case, theory, hypothesis or concepts.  Evidence must have relevance to the issue we are studying.  What do I mean by relevance?  Let me give you an example.

crime-scene-evidenceI am working to prepare for a chess match with my neighbor.  I happen to note in the paper the Fact that tomorrow will be a quarter moon.   Does this Fact have any relevance to my playing chess?  I don’t think so.  Thus, I don’t really care that there will be a quarter moon.  As far as my limited cognition or perception, I can see no relevance between the Fact of a quarter moon and my preparing for my chess match.  I could be wrong. We can always mis-perceive the relevance of some information to an issue. This is often done in science and in police work.  We don’t see the connection between two issues and we misjudge the outcomes.  This provides one good reason for diversity and numbers in problem solving.  You have less chance of being blindsided if you have a variety of opinions rather than just your own.

listen-to-all-the-evidenceLet us look at another example where the issue of relevance is more salient.  I am planning to go on a trip to England in 2017.  I want to plan my trip for the best possible time of the year.  I hypothesize that two Facts or Data points are very important to my planning.  The first is the temperatures at various times of the year in England.  The second is the rain fall.  I found the ranges for this data on a weather site and used the information to plan my trip.  Of course, some of the decisions anyone makes will depend on their own weather preferences.  I wanted to minimize rainfall and also keep the temperature in a moderate range.  What I call sweater weather.  Thus, both these set of factors were relevant and important to my planning.  I would call them Evidence to support the time of year that I decided to go.

science-does-not-give-a-shit-what-you-believeOn the other hand, if you like rain, you might have picked a different time of the year than I did.  There were other mitigating factors which played a role in my decision making.  These factors included costs for lodging during the year and transportation costs during the year.  In general, off season times have better rates but are somewhat the worse for weather.  Another factor was the value of the pound to the dollar.  I considered the value of the dollar to the pound post Brexit but concluded that I did not have enough information to effectively evaluate the impact of this data on my decision.  I am assuming that with the volatility involved in the situation, the value of the dollar might go either way against the pound.  My best guess is that I will benefit if I go as soon as possible.  The news has recently noted that after Brexit the value of the pound fell 14 percent against the dollar.  This would mean I could get a significant cost advantage if I purchase anything in England.  I am hoping this situation will continue until after my trip but there are too many variables at play here for me to use this information.  I can only hope.

chain-of-custodyA more common example of relevance can be found by looking at police work.  We are all familiar these days with what is called Forensic science.  I am sure most of you reading this have watched some police show.  As soon as a crime is discovered, the Crime Scene Unit (CSI) is brought in to collect Evidence.  Keep in mind that everything at a crime scene is not Evidence.  Only what may have a possible relationship to the crime.  This can be a real problem.  The CSI unit is going to be limited by their assumptions concerning what might be relevant.  For instance, I doubt any Crime Scene Investigator will care whether or not the light bulbs are “bright” or “soft white” in the kitchen or bathroom.  It is impossible to collect all the “Evidence” of stuff that might be related to the crime.  Thus, relying on experience and training, the police investigators do their best to collect Facts and Data that appear to be relevant to the crime.  The relevant Data and Facts are not just interesting, they are Evidence.  The more they relate to the crime, the stronger the Evidence will be.

bag-labeled-evidence-with-gun-and-handcuffsAn eyewitness can provide Evidence via his/her testimony as to the events of a crime.  The relevance of any eyewitness is high but the reliability of an eyewitness can be much lower.  Second hand testimony is not as relevant as first hand testimony and is thus weaker Evidence.  Testimony that might be compromised by some factors such as police record, bias, discrimination, physical disabilities might be relevant but will be weaker Evidence because the validity of the Evidence is suspect.  That is why lab procedures and chain of custody is so important to police work.  They may have the most relevant Evidence imaginable but if the validity of the Evidence can be comprimised because of sloppy police work, the Evidence will be useless.

The same is true of scientific Evidence.  It must be valid and reliable.  One example of how a Fact was exposed as a lie was in the work on so called “cold fusion.”  Here is an excerpt from a paper on the dubious development of cold fusion in a laboratory:

“One year after the press conference that had garnered Pons and Fleischmann so much attention, the scientific process had finally been able to sort through the evidence regarding cold fusion.  Few groups had found support for the hypothesis, and those few had inconsistent results and could not reliably reproduce their findings.  This lack of replicable evidence was a major blow for cold fusion. The laws of nature don’t play favorites.  If cold fusion works in one laboratory under a certain set of conditions, we’d expect it to work in other laboratories at other times under the same conditions. Hence, lack of reproducibility is a serious problem for any scientific finding, casting doubt on the validity of the original result and suggesting that there’s been a misinterpretation of what’s going on.”  — http://undsci.berkeley.edu/lessons/pdfs/cold_fusion.pdf

evidence-root-cause-acneIt is seldom that findings of Evidence in police work or business are subjected to as much scrutiny as occurred in the so called development of cold fusion.  Perhaps, since this was a finding of great scientific importance, it was held to a more rigorous standard than would occur in many other scientific studies.  I am thinking in particular of findings in the health field, nutrition field and drug field.  In each of these fields we often have much less rigor before results are posted or accepted.   Business is even worse with advertisers spouting outright lies and fabrications.  Little known phenomenon are routinely heralded as being highly reliable Evidence of the benefit of some product or service that someone wants to sell you.   All kinds of spurious Facts and Data are then marshaled as Evidence to support the phony claims by Madison Avenue advertisers.

Next week in Part 5, the final part of this series on Truth, we will look at how one can put the three pillars of Facts, Data and Evidence together to find the Truth.    

Time for Questions:

Can you tell me how you know a true Fact from a false Fact?  How do you decide what to believe?  How much credibility do you put in the news that you hear?  How do you choose the news that you want to hear?  How do you decide who is telling the Truth?

Life is just beginning.

“I am a firm believer in the people. If given the Truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real Facts.”  —  Abraham Lincoln

Previous Older Entries Next Newer Entries