“WHY did this happen?” is a question that seeks reasons and meaning for an event. Some answers to this question include:
“It happened because God/Allah/etc. willed it”
“It happened because that’s the way the stars aligned”
“There is no reason, it just happened”
WHY did Oswald kill Kennedy? WHY did the shooter in Las Vegas kill 60 people? WHY do people support someone like Trump? WHY do we allow Israel to have nuclear weapons but not other nations in the Mideast? WHY did a nice person like that ever marry a real jerk? WHY did the chicken cross the road? From the sublime, to the peculiar to the mundane to the trivial, we are obsessed with knowing WHY? We must have a reason WHY.
The police call it motive. If a crime happens today, someone will scourer Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TicTok, and other social media to find out “WHY?” WHY did they do it? What was their motive? WHY would a 47 year old married woman with three children who was a teacher have sex with a seventeen year old in the back seat of her husbands car?
When we don’t know WHY, we either begin a useless search for the reason or we brush it aside. Your young child asks you WHY and you reply, “Because I told you to.” Your employee asks you WHY and you respond, “Because I am the boss.” You want to know WHY they laid you off or WHY you were fired, and you get a reply like “We had a reduction in force.” You want to know “WHY” you were defriended on Facebook or WHY you did not get the job you applied for or WHY your good friend died so young or a million other WHYs. No one stops to think, there is no sense in asking WHY? In all probability, any WHYs you come up with will be suppositions, hypotheses, conjectures or out and out myths.
We are diseased with asking WHY. We do not want to accept an arbitrary and capricious universe. Even the great Einstein rejected Quantum Theory because it was built on the concept of indeterminacy. Ironic, that so many people initially rejected Einstein’s theory of Relativity because it lacked absoluteness and determinacy. Today, we still have a rebellion going on in morality in terms of whether or not there is any absolute morality or is all morality relative. It is easy to posit a WHY if you have a solid concept of morality that you can refer to. The favorite one among religious people is the concept of sinner. A sinner is anyone who ruptures the boundaries of your own avowed religion.
So I run to the Lord
Please hide me, Lord
Don’t you see me prayin’?
Don’t you see me down here prayin’?
But the Lord said
Go to the Devil, the Lord said
Go to the Devil
He said go to the Devil — Sinner Man by Nina Simone
I told a friend of mine the other day that I did not want to go to heaven. “WHY,” he asked? “Because.” I replied, “What if Adolph Hitler and Donald Trump are both there?” I think the WHYs around such a situation would drive me to hell.
Another friend of mine is always good for theories on WHY people do things. We discuss lots of problems in the world and he loves to seek out facts and evidence that might help to explain WHY. He is driven to make sense of a nonsensical random capricious world that is frustrating. Perhaps most frustrating is that just when we are beginning to realize that there are no answers to the WHYs of the world, suddenly an answer emerges or at least appears to.
The answer all depends on numbers. A WHY can be found if enough people are willing to accept the explanation. WHYs have a democratic aspect that has nothing to do with logic. For instance, the question I raised above about WHY anyone would support Donald Trump has spawned a cottage industry of books purporting to provide WHYs to the Trump sycophancy. From racism, to sexism, to caste, to identities, to religion, to abortion, to greed, to fear, to being rural, to the electoral college, there have been over fifty books dedicated to theories to describe WHY any rational human being would vote for Trump.
I asked ChatGPT “WHY would anyone vote for Donald Trump.” Here is what she/he said:
ChatGPT:
“People vote for political candidates for a variety of reasons, and the decision to vote for Donald Trump in particular can be influenced by a range of factors. Some voters are drawn to his positions on certain issues, such as immigration, trade, or foreign policy. Others appreciate his outsider status and his perceived willingness to challenge the political establishment. Additionally, some voters may feel a strong connection to his personality, viewing him as a strong leader who speaks his mind.”
“It’s also important to consider the broader political and cultural context in which elections take place. Factors like party loyalty, economic conditions, perceptions of the opposing candidate, and regional or demographic influences can all play a role in why someone might choose to vote for a candidate like Donald Trump.”
I think this is a very good answer, but somehow it lacks a definitive characteristic. I don’t want a hodgepodge of reasons WHY. I want to know “THE WHY.” All of the mitigating factors above are mere hypotheses. If your neighbor has a Trump Flag flying outside his/her house or your cousin says that “I am going to vote for Trump no matter what he does”, the above reasons given by ChatGPT are not going to do much for you. The problem with finding an answer to WHY is that it is like the Russian dolls. One WHY is embedded in another WHY. We want the bottom WHY but then the dolls become more like an onion. You can peel the onion all day long and eventually there is nothing there. If you are looking for a core seed or a core reason to explain all the other WHYs, you will soon be grasping nothing but air. For instance:
“WHY did you vote for Donald Trump?”
“Because he is a Republican.”
“So, you voted for Trump because he is a Republican and you support the Republican party?”
“YES.”
“WHY do you support the Republican party?”
“I have always supported it.”
“WHY”?
“Well, my mother and father were both Republicans.”
“WHY”?
“I don’t know, they always were so I am too.”
“What if Trump decided to become a Democrat again, would you still vote for him?”
“Yes, I would.”
“So, it really has nothing to do with his party affiliation?”
“I guess not.”
“Thank you for your cogent explanation.”
Where oh where can I find the real reason WHY the world is so screwed up? And what if it is not? What does that mean for the universe?
“Excerpt from ‘Suzie Bitner Was Afraid of the Drain’ by Barbara Vance.”
PS:
WHY are poems so confusing?
This years election is going to force people to decide between the lesser of two evils. Trump is undoubtedly the winner in being the most evil person to ever run for president in the USA. His former Chief of Staff said that Trump was the most vile man he had ever met. Kelly declared:
This past Thursday I attended a meeting for a new Veterans group that had recently formed in our town. There were three people at a table in front of the group (two men and a woman) and about 20 or so people in chairs facing the table. The two men whom I assumed were leaders mentioned that the key-note speakers, someone from the Arizona Posse and someone from the Pinal Country Sheriffs department may or may not make the meeting. Apparently there had been a few recent killings in area and both groups were lending support to the Casa Grande Police department. The woman in front was the spouse of one of the men leading the group. She was also the club secretary.
Now in America today, we have five political perspectives arranged along a continuum. On the extreme right, we have the “extreme conservatives” as they may think of themselves. However, they are fascists and anti-democratic in symbols, outlook and beliefs. On the extreme left we have a smaller group who might think of themselves as progressives or socialists but in the minds of many on the right they are “card carrying communists.” Indeed, some of the extreme left-wing do fit this perspective. Slightly to the right of center we have the true conservatives and slightly to the left of center the true liberals. In the middle we have people who support some social programs but are fiscally conservative. We also have people in the middle who support some government but are against too much government.
One characteristic of both the extreme right and the extreme left is the inability to see perspectives different than their own. To the extremists, the world is black and white. Good and bad. Each extreme entirely rejects the perspectives of the other extreme. Each extreme feels that they are not allowed to speak but that the other extreme is. Newspapers and zealots take sides with the extremists and promote narratives designed to appeal to the extreme views exposed by each side. The ability to condone or support multiple perspectives becomes more and more difficult as a greater and greater polarization ensues. People bemoan the death of compromise but each side ladens itself with oaths and pledges guaranteed to insure that they will not try to see the world from the other side.
The result is a form of warfare between each side. The middle groups become more and more polarized as they find that they must take sides to survive. Liberals talk about the importance of listening to understand what the other side says and thinks as though this will solve the problem. It will not. Unless someone listens with an OPEN MIND, no amount of listening will make a difference. I was once approached by an employee who asked me to speak to his boss on his behalf. I asked him why he did not do it himself. I pointed out that his boss had “an open door policy.” The employee looked at me and replied: “Open door but closed mind.”
Our schools have failed us because they teach right answers and not right questions. They teach closed minds and not open minds. We have a generation who are now increasingly anti-education. We have a war against our schools by people who do not believe that schools exist to teach right thinking but only right answers. Liberal schools are boycotting right-wing fanatics and not allowing them to speak. Fox News prints daily rants against schools portraying the worst aspects of what once was a liberal education. The right wing increasingly wants a technocratic education which will result in a job that pays well. Any focus on mindfulness, morality, ethics, and integrity plays little or no role in the education system desired by the right. Those on the left believe that public education should be for the masses but ignore the needs of many rural and poor people to get a job that pays a living wage.
Years ago, religions enforced what I would call a pseudo moral code through the power of the state to enact laws desired by the most powerful religions. This of course reflected the power that religions had in society back when you could go to hell for missing mass on Sunday. Gambling was verboten. There was legalized horse race betting in only a few states, and a few states had some other sports such as greyhound racing or Jai Alai which you could bet on. Legally, you could only place bets at the venue. Of course, organized crime found it very lucrative to offer “off track” betting. Every street corner where I grew up had a bookie some place or other. And of course, the numbers game was a very popular way for fools to lose their money. Sports betting was done privately, and casino gambling did not start in Las Vegas until 1931. It had been legal earlier but was outlawed in 1910 and not legalized until 1931. The only lottery I ever heard of when I was growing up had to do with the Irish Sweepstakes. There must have been some way to buy these tickets, but I never investigated it.
Whiskey can now be purchased almost 24/7 in many states. You can buy it in grocery stores, gas stations, bars, and convenience stores. Perhaps no substance has been more abhorred by religions than whiskey. Benjamin Franklin said that “Beer is proof that God loved man and wanted him to be happy.” However, this was not the attitude of most religious organizations. Temperance movements motivated by so called moral considerations did their best to ban alcohol in the US. It is illegal in thirteen countries in the world. Several of the world’s major religions ban the use of alcohol. There are seventy-five scripture (Bible) warnings against the drinking of alcohol. Is it any wonder that so many religions have prohibited the drinking of alcohol.
Now there may be some of you reading my blog and expecting a fire and brimstone sermon regarding the sins of humanity and the temptations of the devil. Nothing could be further from my mind. I am not advocating going back to the religious sanctions or beliefs that fueled so much of our political system. In the first place, they were misguided and in the second place they penalized those who could practice moral virtues along with those most reluctant. I could never understand why I could not buy liquor on Sunday or after 10 PM on weekdays or in a grocery store. I have never received a DUI or even a warning for driving drunk.
The government has always been in the marketing business. They would market “SIN” if they could find a way to sell it or allow it to be sold. In some respects, they are already doing that with the legalization of gambling and their promotion of bigger and bigger lotteries. The poor buy more and more tickets when the odds go ever higher against anyone winning. Powerball’s odds are 1 in 292 million, and the combined populations in the states where tickets are sold equal nearly 320 million. What would anyone do with 2 billion dollars? (As I write this, the lottery of 2.0 billion has been won by a single person in California)
Thus, the uncoupling of Church and State in the constitution of the United States set the stage for a catastrophic imbalance between Moral Policy and Economic Policy. Over the years, the lack of influence in organized religions at the political level was abetted by the horrendous influence and power of Economic Policy. If Moral Policy was once the heart of a religion, it was supplanted by an Economic Policy which has become the main religion in America. This policy states that more is better and that you can never be too rich or have too much stuff.
What we once believed was a great political innovation to separate Church and State has led to this imbalance. There was no place in the state for religion and no place in religion for politics. America’s dominant dream for peace, justice and equality was replaced with a dream for more money, more power and more fame. The push by the State for this dream dwarfed any efforts by religion to provide a moral balance and the State had no legitimacy for morality. People are cast adrift amidst a chaotic and vicious ocean of competition for more and more stuff. No moral anchors exist that are powerful enough to counterbalance the tide of greed that this has brought to our shores. Guns have replaced morality as citizens arm themselves to prevent imagined attacks at taking away their STUFF.
When we get back to normal, two parent families will again reign supreme. Mom will stay home to cook, while dad goes to work. There will be no trans-people. Girls will stick to cheerleading and let the boys play the sports. Contraceptives will be banned, and no one will dream of getting an abortion. Priests and ministers will be male, and gay people will disappear. Everyone in America will go back to being good Christians.
Aging Capriciously 