Harry Potter and the Metaphysical Decompression Chamber

Harry Potter and the Metaphysical Decompression Chamber
I experienced an unusually intense collision of worlds this last weekend. Usually when I read a book, it's a fairly leisurely affair. Of late it’s usually non fiction, philosophy & history, I'll read a few paragraphs, marking lines or paragraphs as I go, and by the end of the page, if not sooner, stop and reflect on what I've just imbibed. I'll often go back to the marked lines, write a comment between the lines or in the margin, and if particularly striking, write something down on a notepad (Paper or PC). Sometimes I'll pick up the pace with a Play, or rereading a section of some previously read fiction, but for the most part the pace is pretty tame.

This weekend however for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the pace went into overdrive. I'd begun revving up by reading the previous book in the series over the course of the week, and had finished it about 20 minutes before the doorbell rang with the delivery of the Deathly Hallows - this was a story that had to be read full immersion speed through to the end. I went out on our deck and dove into it, full immersion from 10:00 am till 2:00 am on Sat, then 10:00 am till 5:00 pm on Sun, all that while I was in the world of Hogwarts(thanks for not making a fuss over my leaving for the weekend Dear!). I was barely aware enough to fold down a couple page corners for particularly striking passages, but for the most part; I was in the book, not just reading the book.

Anyone else have a similar experience when involved in good fiction? When I get involved in a narrative story, I feel as though I'm in the story, similar to a virtual movie running in my head... seeing the characters, the setting, hearing it play out around me. When you bring such a book or series of books into your mind, there is a heightened sensation, a feeling which lingers long after reading the last page - that an entire universe has been created within you, lives within you, has become you ("...once a King or Queen of Narnia, always a King or Queen of Narnia."). In the lingo of the Harry Potter world, we all become a bit of a benign Horcruxe for J.K. Rowling’s imaginative world to live in and through us.

Anyway, minutes after I finished at around 5:00 pm Sunday, I received a desperate call from work "Please, can you come in and help another team on a deadline?!" Here I am sitting on the deck with a beer, the book still in my lap, my head still in the world of Hogwarts, looking back on the story which I had in fact begun years ago reading to my two boys, who have themselves grown up with it (they're still reading - their friends wouldn't give them the weekend off); I was very nearly reminiscing in that world... experiencing the sensation of the qualities of the storybook world being my memories... and then this world butts in and demands equal time.

This really was an unusually intensely felt mixing of worlds. I wonder if whether having not only read the books into my mind, but also having witnessed the movies within theatres and our living room; physically seeing and hearing the characters as they grew up from 11 yr olds to near adulthood, I wonder if that lent an added dimension to the affect? At any rate, it was a very strange sensation, experiencing two worlds at the same time… an odd feeling, having multiple worlds coming into being and colliding with each other ... no billion dollar sub-atomic super neutrino collider required.

I was certainly in no mood for work, but having been in that position myself before, I said I’d come on in, threw on some clothes and dashed off to work.

But what world was I dashing off to? What world was I still contained within? I wasn't in one or the other, I was in an odd transitional space, a Metaphysical decompression chamber. On the one hand there was the world we all know and … love, with its slippery willingness to be seen in shades of grey, and on the other hand the world of clear Right and Wrong, Good and Evil, Metaphysical cause and effect dramatically demonstrated to your conscious awareness - and I was disorientedly wedged between them for several hours while I attempted to navigate between the priorities and features of the two worlds – and did so about as smoothly as a bumper car ride.


Imagination - The Chamber of SecretsMy guess is that something such as a Metaphysical Decompression Chamber is always with you, though rarely as vividly as this. It acts as a go-between for horizontal fact and vertical meaning, a case history and reference library for your Vertical sense, with literature being the most accessible way to see that it's shelves remain well stocked.

When deeply immersed in the poetic imagery of a story, that imagery is especially interweaved into your mind, spider webbing deep links throughout not only along the narrative storyline, but also into your internal references to concepts, feelings, percepts, memories and various other associations, establishing a live link to them all under one imaginative image or another. A crude analogy might be to the ubiquitous Icon button in software programs. They typically displays an image, such as an old memory disc image, and seeing that image, we all know that clicking on it will cause the program to save what you're working on, similarly with the Hero or Villain of a story we all know is good or bad, we don't realize all the behind the scenes actions that image represents. In your computer, clicking that button in your program causes hundreds, even thousands of lines of complex code logic to be executed, items are safe checked, processes are committed to files and databases and saved to disc. In our imaginations, when the image of the hero or villain is skillfully and vividly drawn, it touches or reinforces far too many mental and spiritual associations for us to even begin to enumerate.

In normal situations, the characters, issues and plots of a well told story seem so exceedingly vivid and important, precisely because they associate with all those items in your life which are truly important and foundational to your being. Becoming as deeply involved in a single story for the uninterrupted amount of time such as I had this weekend, I expect activated those many deep ranging links, plus the peripheral items, images of posture, mannerisms, scents, sounds... and on and on and on, bringing the images and their associations to the very edges of normal conscious awareness - it takes a while for that level of excited poetic imagery to decompress and recede to their normal background levels.

Exercising poetic imagery in the normal fashion which imaginative fiction does, I think must help to develop and strengthen a deep warehouse of conceptual, ethical and spiritual experience, such as with which we would all do well to visit often to ensure that its doors remain unlocked and the lights left on for us, day and night. Going to the lengths I did... well... be careful operating heavy machinery afterwards. Or driving winding river bottom roads.

For people such as the reviewer 'Flik' of my previous post, I suspect they that their metaphysical decompression chambers are safely empty, locked down and in mothballs. "How could a broom fly? How could a snake talk? Reality isn't like that, and such things are just silly and escapist!". Imagination and reflection, library cards to the Chamber and your inner Vertical Depths; for people such as Flik who don't use them, no doubt they will find that their cards have lapsed. Those soul piercing and encircling links sunk through you with the permission and aid of imagination, are not activated or exercised, they don't hike the mountains and valleys of their soul, and by neglect, their internal conceptual landscape is eroded into an arid expanse of plains and small hills. Talk about ghost stories... shudder.

One reviewer, who while not reaching very deeply into the story, nevertheless noted about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,

“... true to its roots, it ends not with modernist, “Soprano”-esque equivocation, but with good old-fashioned closure: a big-screen, heart-racing, bone-chilling confrontation and an epilogue that clearly lays out people’s fates.”,

even if that person didn't take note of the Vertical elements deeply woven into J.K. Rowling's stories, I suspect that their own metaphysical decompression chamber is humming along behind the scenes very serviceably.

Flik on the other hand, would probably sympathize with one idiot commenter who actually yearned for more of a 'modernist “Soprano”-esque equivocation' in the last of the series, it opined that the clarity of the story and its ending was "...dissatisfying..." and that the epilogue was "Very disappointing, but probably necessary to avoid the clamors for more sequels.”

They'd prefer something more 'reality based', no doubt.

Such dislike of moral clarity, and a preference for conflicting little 't' truths over the sound resolution of deeper Vertical Truth - marks them as the type of person who while they may move their eyes over the pages of imaginative fiction, does so only for escapist purposes, they run from exploring deeper into Life and Truth, preferring flat, horizontal diversions and the confusion of mimicry instead 'They muddy the waters so that they may appear deep'. They have far much more in common with Flik who disdains the imaginative, than with the reviewer who found the story thrilling and satisfying; I can't help suspecting that they entertain few substantial thoughts on their own, and so have fewer to compress or decompress, their day to day decisions based on little 't' facts and figures - dragging on flat and the hollow; I'd not be surprised to find sports cars, extreme sports and many fashionable leading edge items being stuffed into the empty spaces.

Coming down from the heightsThose first few hours after I finished the book, I was experiencing a palpable sensation that metaphysically, my worlds were strangely intermixed – evil wizards and plots to rule the world were jumbled together with traffic lights and work to be done. One world where Good and Evil is so clearly delineated, and another where the later can still so easily hide behind what seems of no consequence, an easy shortcut, letting things be – not rocking the boat.

A very, very odd sensation, and in coming out of this state, I think that there may also be a danger in thinking (encouraged by our culture) that since most of your day to day actions will not be visibly stamped with labels of Good and Evil, or battles with dark wizards, that it is somehow insignificant. I strongly disagree. To the question of whether imaginative Literature, or the Vertical depths are themselves really real, and are they of any real value? Can fantasy and imagination be of any real worth? As Harry asks of a ghostly apparition,

“Tell me one last thing,” said Harry “Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?”
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

Still, for the next time this happens, I think it might be handy for me to have a checklist to follow for exiting my Metaphysical decompression chamber a little more smoothly. Some things of course are fairly easy to deal with, such as,

1. Reach for your laptop, not your magic wand.

But others may not be quite so obvious. Such as,

2. Just because he no longer has a visible name and form, beware not to lose track of the Villain. Fiction, especially imaginative fiction, clarifies Good and Evil, and you must be careful not to let that clarity fade away with the illusions of fiction. Evil, in all of its shades, is always looking for an easy mark; the ones who are convinced it doesn't exist, being the easiest of targets. For those who don’t keep that thought clear in their mind, a grasp of right and wrong can simply slip away. This exchange from the Deathly Hallows seems relevant here, one professor cajoling another, an evil thug in professorial robes to one who is the very soul of teaching:

"...and we'll say they forced her to press her Mark, and that's why he got a false alarm... He can punish them. Couple of kids more or less, what's the
difference?"

"Only the difference between truth and lies, courage and cowardice," said Professor McGonagall, who had turned pale, "a difference, in short, which you and your sister seem unable to appreciate."

A quality book allows a name tagging of characters to trace such characteristics to, but just because there is no convenient single character to assign the temptations and hurdles thrown up before you in day to day life to, don't assume that detecting and overcoming them will be anywise less important to the outcome of your story. Seeking shortcuts and easy power lead to inner ruin both here and there.

3. Focus on what's real, but don't let yourself be disillusioned, that too can be fatal. Just because magic doesn’t flow from mixed up Latin phrases, don’t miss the Magic around you, or forget that some of the most magical things in daily life require deliberate steps, and some flair, to produce the correct 'spell'. Remembering to follow not just logical sequence and frequent fact and premise checking in your thinking, but also an artistic eye to the rhythm and context of your surroundings is vital to produce Intelligent results, as opposed to the merely clever, and what is more magical than that? Leaving the Vertical out of your Horizontal actions, can lead to devastating error, even though your truncated, out of context 'logic' may seem sound. See most any wackademic article for an example. And of course, forgetting to delight in your family, forgetting to keep what is truly valuable first in mind, can be every bit as deadly as failing to produce a patronus charm while the dementors swirl down upon you to suck out your soul.

4. Remember that just because Time is not abbreviated as in story, such devices as plot and cause and effect do still operate in your life – visible only if you know to look for them. In this world, you don’t often get that heady sensation of seeing how deeply it matters what is thought, said and done, as you do in story. While your daily life may not be reinforced with suspenseful plotting, don’t be discouraged, remember that while you no longer have a tangible narrative compressing time and place to reveal a clear chain of events, that chain is nevertheless there - and binding upon your fate, and others.

Simple things like speaking up when you hear someone speaking nonsense, or returning the extra change a cashier accidentally gave back to you, can be the strongest magic of all, and may have huge reverberations not only in your life, but in the plots of your children’s (as well as cashiers and other onlookers) lives. At Hogwarts they concentrate on Spells and chasing down and defeating Evil; at work you concentrate on writing good Code, at home, on exhibiting good manners and sound behavior.

It is enough to keep your feet firmly on the ground, your head needn't be down there as well. Don't get lost in illusion, but don't try to rid yourself of it too quickly either; when you come out of a good book, or even a movie, those images that stay with you might be very useful for keeping you focused on what is really important, rather than what is merely practical. Enjoy humming the theme song, walking a little straighter and taller, go ahead and spend a moment to think deeper or even daydream about the Good, the Beautiful and the True, such thoughts range deeper into you and carry you farther forward into time than I think we might imagine - and shaking them off the moment the book or movie is over just might give you a case of the Metaphysical Bends, potentially fatal to a well lived life.

Harry Potter and the Literature for Children vs. the Childish Literati

If you've stuck your head out your door or into the worldwideweb recently, you'll be aware that the final book in the Harry Potter novels is due for release shortly, and there is also a movie of the fifth book in the series, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which has just opened. I enjoyed it, even more so the second time. My only frustration was realizing that each scene was missing 20 minutes of material from the book, but that’s also the explanation why they kept strictly to the core of the story, instead of straying. It was done well, taut from start to finish. Dicentra has a good review & link to another review by Orson Scott Card.

But the latest movie is not what I wanted to talk about here; rather, I’d like to talk about all the talk about them. There has been an enormous amount of commentary about both the movie and the upcoming book, and about the value they do or do not have - whether or not they are another nail in the coffin of the literature of western civilization in general, or its salvation.

Now, there are a number of people who don’t like the Harry Potter books, not due to some dislike of imaginative fiction in general, but because they just find no appeal in the stories, and that is fine, I’ve no quarrel with them.

However a significant number of the commentaries are by sniffy toned folk, seemingly intent on impressing us with their maturity, declaring that they are not going to be sucked into wasting their time on anything which has words such as 'leviosa!' strewn throughout its pages, and not only magic but anything so silly as a school of wizarding and magic!

Oh Pish posh! A fine example of this type of twit is the aptly named 'Frik Els' not knowing what the frick a Frik is, I can honestly say that I've no idea whether it is a he or a she – so I can deliver a nice cheap, yet honest insult, by referring to Frik as in It. Somehow this seems rather appropriate. From its review:

"I'VE BEEN ABLE TO avoid reading one of the 325m of JK Rowling's
escapist novels sold, despite pressure from people I thought were
grown-ups."

Escapist. Ah. I suppose that's because it uses imaginary settings, wizards and fanciful characters? One yearns to hear its take on Dante’s Divine Comedy, or George Orwells ‘Animal Farm’ “dead poets leading people through the rings of hell, or talking pigs running farms – how unrealistic, what escapist foolishness!”.

Yeah.

It continues:

" ...as for Harry Potter getting children to read literature again,
that's like saying SMSing encourages writing skills.”

I’m not so sure you can point to a chain of book types leading to others, such as “Pot leads to Heroin!”, it’s due more to the readers awareness and inclinations. My own bibliohistory began with Tom Swift Jr. books, then pulp westerns, Stephen King, Patricia K. McKillip, Frank Herbert, J.R.R Tolkien, Shakespeare, the Greeks, Montaigne, and so on. It is not so much a case of one leading to another, as one type of book became insufficient to fill me up, and I looked for something more. Once I discovered Literature, lesser ones wouldn’t do, except maybe as occasional minor distractions. I don’t know if readers will seek “higher” literature after reading Harry Potter, but I suspect that after having enjoyed the real thing (more on that below), I am pretty confident in saying they are unlikely to be satisfied going back to something like R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps.

“ I'm just glad that the films take a bit more than two hours, while skimming
through 600 pages of Anapneo!, Carpe Retractum!, Waddiwasi! and Levicorpus!, to
name just a few spells, may just waste a whole afternoon. "

A whole afternoon is its estimate for the time needed to ‘skim’ a 600 page book? Doesn’t sound like the voice of much experience, does it? Skimming through 600 pages in an afternoon may be appropriate for business or computer programming books, but attempting such a thing with literature, good or bad, is a guaranteed inoculation against the possibility of encountering worthwhile thoughts or other such uncomfortable experiences.

Doubtless Frik has enough vaccinations against all forms of reflective thinking to avoid any thoughts outside the workaday world, studiously keeping to 1 + 1 = 2 (though algebra might still give him the shivers) must be so very comforting.

C.S. Lewis, in his excellent “An Experiment in Criticism”, noted that those imagine-ifobic folk that seem intent to show that they alone are focused on the important issues of the day, that they are mature, realistic and deeper than those who indulge in ‘escapist’ fiction and fanciful tales, it is they who are the ones recklessly in flight from the deeper and more important issues.

The truth is that nothing is more escapist than that fiction which strives for the utterly realistic, or that non-fiction fully determined to be serious and above all, humorless. A certain degree of immaturity clings to them with their insistence on limiting their thoughts to only those things which realistic behavior in daily life applies to, the image of a 13 year old sniffing at a toy as “kids stuff” comes to mind.

What they don’t seem to realize is that people are much more easily deceived by those things which ape ‘realism’ and seriousness, it is the simplest of things to mask falsehood as accuracy (truth really doesn’t apply for such folk), it is the simplest thing to concoct a selective set of out-of-context facts and statistics to convince people that their accelerating in the passing lane is actually jeopardizing the world’s very existence (Global Warming anybody?)


They are deaf to what C.S. Lewis, Dante, Aristotle and so many others knew, that the Poetic or as it’s being called here, fantasy, is much better suited to illustrate what is True, by using situations which are obviously not real, in such a way that what is True in them is not encumbered by being associated with simple transitory facts.


It is simple to quote rain fall measurements and random effects of clorofloro carbons and conclude that the end is near, but it is nearly impossible to imagine a plausible lie in opposition to Dumbledore’s ‘The time is coming when we all shall have to choose between what is right and what is easy’, or Harry’s ‘We’ve got something Voldemort doesn’t have – something worth fighting for’. Difficult trying to imagine ‘Remember, what is easy is always the better choice over what is right’, or ‘Voldemort is angry, hateful, friendless, keeps followers only by the threat of destruction – wouldn’t we all prefer that kind of life to one of associating with friends, family and loved ones?” Doesn’t quite work, does it?

It is the fool insisting on the realistic, who is the escapist – desperately seeking to escape consideration of the deeper truths which are the pervue of literature, reflections of the Good, the Beautiful and the True, this is what Literature, whether set in an actual or fantastical landscape, is concerned with weaving its readers into.

Frik goes on to illustrate this odd fetish for ‘realism’ by making a desperate grab at tying the movie to its own flattened view of reality:

"Heavy-handed political analogy also makes its way into The Order of the Phoenix. Written at the time when Britain and the United States were preparing to invade Iraq, Rowling takes swipes at government and media propaganda and the stifling of dissent. I don't know if Rowling included those themes for the sake of her adult readership, but in 2007 it loses all impact."
I can honestly say that that is a ‘thought’ which never occurred to me while reading any of the Harry Potter books, and being a sympathizer of the vast right wing conspiracy, that is something I’m usually on the lookout for. I submit that anyone who takes Harry Potter as some type of allegory for the details of current events, rather than an illustration of what is timelessly true behind the events of any age, is seriously twisted.

An Outrageous Black Lie
Should the Harry Potter books be considered Literature? What is it that marks some work as Literature, and others not? Whether it is Children’s literature or not, is irrelevant, the themes and situations, plot & characters, and to some extent the language used and so forth may themselves indicate whether or not a story is to be considered Adult or Children’s literature - but in either case, if it is literature, it will be worthwhile and worthy of being read by children as well as by Adults.

More relevant, is whether or not the story touch upon a significant number of what Mortimer Adler called the Great Ideas? Does its contents handle thorny implications and dilemmas associated with issues of character and virtue, the complications of living in community and with the law - of what is Right and what is Wrong. How does it approach the question of authority and the questioning of it? Does it treat of the Good life, and do so respectfully, and does it mark the wasted life and do so in a fashion that does not ultimately glamorize it? Does it illustrate the importance of living a life with and in Meaning, does it draw your imagination - either explicitly or implicitly - towards consideration of the Good, the Beautiful and the True? Does it employ Humor, and if so, does it use it in the services of the Good, the Beautiful and the True - or in opposition to them?

In short, does the story deal with the issues of living a life of choices and the importance of striving to choose well?

Is it's story, it's plot, well constructed, or does it pointlessly recite a meaningless stream of images from 'reality'? Does it manage to seem plausible not only within the world it constructs, but also without conflicting violently with the world without, which you must read it from?

Does its language... please? Are its sentences constructed in such a way as to give delight in their reading? Do you wish to savor the language? Does the author succeed in being Eloquent? Perhaps most importantly, does the language successfully affix the stories significant points and thoughts to your soul?

These are the questions which should be in mind when considering whether or not a work of literature is worthy of being considered literature.

Those familiar with the Harry Potter books know that these issues are the very fabric of J.K. Rowling’s plot, setting and characters. They Great Ideas are not delivered as platitudes, such as Polonius’s ‘neither a borrower nor a lender be’ and other disconnected truths strewn out as parting good luck charms to his son in Hamlet (Act 1 scene 3), here they are almost innocently raised in the first of the books, and through succeeding books they are developed along with the maturing of the characters. The Great Ideas and conflicts are more and more seen to clearly stand out in the choices the characters must make, inexorably driving the story forward as these issues and their implications become clearer and clearer.

I literally began reading the stories as bedtime stories to my two boys. That continued through the second book, and by the time third book was released, neither had the patience to wait for bedtime for me to read it to them though occasionally they'd have me read parts of them out loud because they liked my 'voices'(Proud Dad strokes ego, puts back in box). Much as I enjoyed reading them to them, that ceased to be the reason I read the stories by the end of the second installment.

Perhaps above all, the books are thoroughly delightful to read - and they certainly succeed in affixing their major themes and points to your soul. Lines such as "there is coming a time when we will all have to choose between what is Right and what is easy" is shot through with truth and relevance and is memorable in and of itself.

J.K. Rowling was recently quoted in describing her books as “ "profoundly moral", adding: "I think it is a lie to pretend that even children of 11 don't have to make moral decisions. I think it's an outrageous black lie."” I couldn’t agree with her more.

Literature and the difference between children's literature and childish literature

What, one wonders, would the sniffers who denigrate J. K. Rowlings books point to as proper alternatives to them? What do you suppose Frik considers to be worth its time reading?

Books and movies which deal with 'adult' themes? Perhaps stories which deal with the descent of a man's soul into a wasted conflict of alcoholism, drugs and illicit sex, perhaps? Betrayal? Compulsive obsessions, perversions, violence and the pointlessness of life? These are what, more than anything else, you’ll find as the major themes of modern ‘Adult’ literature.

Are these really Adult themes - or settings which, though they are undoubtedly unsuitable for children, are far more childish than adult in nature?

These books, pre and post modern, focus and turn upon issues in which the characters have utterly failed to identify a need for morality or principle in their lives, have failed to choose between Good and Bad in an adult manner. It is safe to say that if these characters of ‘adult’ literature, and probably their authors, had ever been presented with the great ideas, they must have turned away from them, not wishing to exert the effort of mind or soul to properly consider them. They would and did refuse them any place in the forefront of their minds as they crawl through life, preferring instead to do that most childish action of all, choosing to do or not do, because of the immediate gratifications perceived to flow from their present actions.

These so called adult stories are nothing more than the illustration of lives flushed past the issues of the great ideas, and into the sewer of immaturity and pointless animal like existence.

Is that Literature? Not even close. Are those who praise it to be considered literate in any meaningful way? Nah, just childish literati, to whom you are well advised to shout ‘Expelliaramus!”

Tagged!

I've been tagged. This is my first tagging, so I'll give it a shot. The rules are:

1. Let others know who tagged you.
Gagdad Bob at One Cosmos, who was tagged by The Gates of Vienna
2. Players start with 8 random facts about themselves.

3. Those who are tagged should post these rules and their 8 random facts.

4. Players should tag 8 other people and notify them they have been tagged.
I believe most of my list has already been tagged; I'll try extending it to Wit Nit and DeepThought.

1) As a kid, I wanted to be an Architect; I used to build models of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings and of the World Trade Center out of balsa wood and plastic sheeting. Of course my standard teen side then kicked in by lighting them on fire and blowing them up with firecrackers.

2) I pulled out of going to school to be an architect, when after a year of drafting, I realized I'd go insane spending hours drawing detailed sketches of pea gravel and rebar. I sometimes wonder how life might have changed had CAD (computer aided design) been widespread at that time.

3) I went to college at UNLV looking for Prof Kingsfield from The Paper Chase “I’m going to take your skulls full of mush, and teach you how to think… like lawyers”, but found a collection of uninspiring high school teachers with bigger rooms instead. So, still intent on gaining an education, I left college and joined a band full time.

4) Our first real booking was going to be 3 weeks in Lake Havasu, with entry into other circuits. We had friends help pack up all our gear into U-Haul trucks and trailers, drove down there, and the bar people recognizing us from our trial show a month earlier, said "Hey! Good to see you guys - what are you doing here?"

That was not the greeting we were looking for. Seems new ownership took over the week before, chose a new direction for the club & cancelled all bookings. Unfortunately for us, we'd all quit our day jobs the week before as well. Back in Vegas, we tracked down the agent who 'handled' us - large knife handles conspicuously displayed from our pockets (they were actually butter & table knives, but they looked impressive), and managed to get a smattering of scattered bookings for the next few months, but we were in trouble. Scattered bookings in Nevada, can mean driving hundreds of miles to such scenic wonders as Tonopah (200 miles), Ely (400 miles), Reno (400), Kingman Az (100 miles), Winnemucca (500), Needles Ca. (115 miles) & Various desert parties (Kegs, generators & flatbed trucks out in the middle of nowhere), etc.

5) The Drummer and I were splitting a house rental in a less than savory area of North Las Vegas, where we practiced in the living room - we supplemented our 'income' by throwing open the doors to neighborhood friends (roadies & groupies) to watch us practice & hangout - price: food (loosely defined, mostly hot dogs & popcorn) and beer. Ma & Pa Harvey were less than impressed with my plan for upwardly mobility, but were amazingly wise and supportive about it. Course they didn't know about Steve's plan to help supplement our income - he took it upon himself to begin growing a massive pot plant, seemingly crossbreeded with a strain of sequoia.

Luckily after he made a few profitably prunings, some of our neighborhood 'friends' discovered the red leafed sequoia & harvested it while we were out - roots and all. Steve was devastated, I was relieved, and we focused on a new method of income supplementation - wearing our "LiveWire" band trench coats to various all you can eat buffet's on the strip, always walking out several pounds heavier than when walking in. Amazingly capacious pockets in those old ankle length army trench coats.

6) The day job I quit was as a lathe operator at Cardinal Steel, making stainless steel bolts for nuclear power plants. Nothing like having slinky like spirals of steel whipping out at you, showering you with cutting oil for 8 hours a day, to make you eager to quit your day job.

7) I've pan-handled for chicken franks in San Deigo. Another less than effective agent, booked us into a club whose stage wouldn't even hold our drum set, let alone the full band. We fired the agent, and decided to stick it out there, if you're going to be stranded and out of work, on the beaches north of San Deigo (at least as it was 20 years ago) was the place to do it. We did the ol' get out the guitar's & lure the locals to support the new poor starving artists. It worked, and we made that our home for June through December. A very interesting time.

8) I am amazed that, even taking into account all the things my kids don't realize I know about the things they think they've managed to keep secret from me, how they've managed to do much better than I did in general, Academically and even friendship wise. And how strong my parents were, and smart, knowing when not to try to 'save' me from my choices - the area of North Las Vegas I first moved out to was far from the upper middle class world they raised me in - and how effective the most profound lessons they taught me were, simply by living as they did, and being who they were. I was one lucky kid. Hopefully I'll be able to pass those lessons on.

Culture, on The Face of it

On a recent exchange at Webutante's site (you've got to see the comments by Australia’s Prime Minister Howard at the end! Fantastic!), in which she defended Howard, and had some scorn for the Bush administration who had their women scarf-up for a visit to a muslim shrine, a commenter took her to task for 'fearing' to respect (translation: kowtow to) muslim sensibilities. Vienna VA asserted "...Muslims will never be able to impose Sharia law here.”

To which I responded by asking "Why not?"

Vienna VA also found it reassuring to note that "...most Muslims don't even want to live under Sharia law..." That is likely true. Including in those places where it currently rules. And how is that supposed to be reassuring? Again, to the refrain "it couldn't happen here", I ask, why not? Why couldn't it happen here? What would stop it? Politely acquiescing to their eagerly offended sensibilities? Please.

Vienna VA further responded "Uh, I don't know. I'm guessing because the 295 million people who live here and aren't Muslim won't accept it?", and asked for one citation, law, etc of sharia law passed in our history, to justify our being being 'fearful' or I suppose contemptuous of the scarfed Bushies.

Quick recap. No matter the name of the 'War on Terror', it is a war on Islamic Fundamentalism. That our Administration would appear at an Islamic dedication, decked out in deference to its sensibilities - in disregard of our sensibilities as a nation attacked and wounded by those who REQUIRE their females to wear scarfs and potato sacks, is I think INEXCUSABLE, DISGUSTING and all around unacceptable.

Is it likely that our 295 million people are going to bow to sharia law anytime soon? Perhaps not. Frankly, that's so far from the point as to not even make the target range. The point is, that that picture is going to be viewed by numerous gunny sack attire imposing islambies, and they will be heartened by it. That alone is outrageous.

The obvious interpretation of the picture is that we seek their approval, seek their acceptance of us, seek to have them acknowledge that we have pleased them and are perhaps nice people after all.

In a time of War. Asstounding.

But we've got worse problems than the islambies to worry about, we've got ordinary people running around thinking things will never change, and all change is good, just be nice & be happy. Our real problem, is that this viewpoint is the one most prevalent among the cultural media, is the face of our popular culture - and That is something to worry about.

Numbers Don't Mean Squat
What Vienna VA and other members of the culturally clueless don't seem to grasp, is that a culture is not led by the opinions of its majority. A culture is led by those who effectively position themselves as its public face. It doesn't take a majority to impose the rules. It only takes an active, vocal minority to make demands and threaten those who disagree with them, to denigrate them - to put their face forward as THE Face, into your face, and with a majority who will not only let them do so, but will accept the denigration and embarrassment over their disagreements ("Gas guzzling, SUV Driving...", "Energy hogs.", "More concerned with comfort...", etc) in order to just get along, to not make waves, with just that and no more, the vocal minority will easily be able to rule - they will be perceived as the public Face of the Culture.

Webutante said "... to me political correctness and appeasement is generated by a deep and unacknowledged fear not to confront and make waves."

Yep.

What leaders, good and bad, have always understood - and what the rest of us never seem to grasp, is that those who make up the culture, are only a very small slice of the population. Those who appear to be the guiding lights of the culture make up an even smaller slice of them. They are the ones who set the tone, or seem to, which the entire population will then seek to march in step with - even those who fancy themselves as the 'counter-culture' busily take note of the popular beat, in order to be out of step with it - making themselves if anything even more slavish than the simple follower.

For those who take comfort in the reassuring nods of their leaders and the accompanying phrases such as ‘it can never happen here’, just what is it that they think secures the 'culture' they live in? Numerical advantages? How many people are aware that the US Revolutionary war was supported by only a fraction of the populace - a third at best? That Hitler was voted into power by a small percentage of the population - which nevertheless was larger than the opposition groups? It wasn't because the majority of the people agreed and was with them, it was because a majority of the people weren't aware that they were the majority, and so they just went along with those few who they mistakenly took to be the majority.

Something discovered and put into practice by activists (left and right) has been the tactics of abrasively vocal minorities presenting themselves as majorities with a claim to the moral high ground. Ideally, that claim to the moral high ground will be legitimate, as with Samuel Adams when he was a pioneering practitioner, but all they really need to succeed is for there to be a majority who don't want to confront such people, and who will shruggingly accept that square-peg-into-the-round-hole-ifying phrase:"...No, I don't like them either, but still, they do have a point...."

Yep, I'm sure they do... and they're going to poke you in the eye with it.

The proregressives reached positions of power in this country, and successively achieved their agenda's, not because the majority of The People agreed with them... but only because the people either accepted that they had a point, or were willing to accept that they knew better and had "more proper larn'in" than they did, and most of all were afraid to have them appear to the public face as 'square', 'out of touch', 'old fashioned'.

The great sin of the MSM is that they not only allow this Face, this thinness of culture to continue, they propagate and participate in it (yes, there is more, much more to it than that – see some of my earlier posts – but this is how it appears on the face of it). In many ways, the last well balanced debate in this country was over the original adoption of the constitution. The Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers were marvels of principled thought coupled with passionate reasoning. Nothing like that has occurred since. Not the Lincoln vs. Douglas debates, not the civil war or Slavery, not over westward expansion or acquiring territories in Hawaii or the Philippines, not over either of the Roosevelt’s 'Deal's' or the world wars bracketed by them or anything else since.

Since that time we've mostly had to make do with a culture no deeper than its Public Face - an expression, a smirk, scowl or sniff – perhaps with an accompanying sound byte, which substitutes for, and wins all arguments. By talking down, over & shouting down an unamplified opposition.

But what few of the top leaders consider (publicly at least) - yet which I think all secretly fear - is that their power rests entirely upon the populations willingness to accept that their leaders know best, and that they themselves know very little, it rests on their willingness to feel embarrassed that they don't themselves know or have an interest in learning all the claptrap that the leaders profess, and that they will willingly bow to their threats and demands. It rests upon Nock’s & Isaiah’s Remnant not discovering that they are more than they think.

The leaders dread and fear this, because one single well placed refusal, can bring all their posturing and power lunches to a screeching halt. If the population hears one among them say 'No', listens to what's behind that 'No', realizes that there are others who think their same hidden thoughts and who also takes note of those same 'silly' and 'simplistic' facts and pick up on them, then the leaders positions are doomed.

Moral, Immoral or Not Even
On the face of it, you'd think that Westerners in general and Americans in particular are Immoral on the whole, or amoral at the very least "5% of the population but use 25% of the worlds resources!", "SUV Driving, gas guzzling, over concerned with their childrens sports teams", etc. Someone on another site had asked 'What one word would you use to describe America?'

My answer was: Moral.

But embarrassed about it.

And though the will to be moral is deeply ingrained in us, even still today, its verbal understanding is for most of us, exceedingly thin and is easily swayed; we can be led around by anyone who has a sense of conviction, a claim to wider understanding who can sell us that he has already done the research so we don't need to, and has found that 'it is the right thing to do'. The leader who can consistently and sincerely proclaim that, appear confident in that - wins.

It takes a lot of blatantly contrary facts piled up to make us open our eyes and think it through ourselves, and go through the distracting work of determining that he's wrong, and to realize what needs to be done, must be done, after all, we've got families & jobs & hobbies we'd much rather spend our time on. Churchill said Americans are a people who will inevitably do the right thing - but only after exploring every available alternative. He knew us well.

Culture's like ours don't fall by force of arms or decree - they fall by acquiescence, acquiescence to some small set of ideas whose far reaching implications and importance they completely fail to grasp. Usually catch phrases that seem to mean one thing, but are use to smuggle in something quite the opposite. "Got to be able to laugh at yourself", "Don't be Selfish", "Who am I to judge?"

Case in point, the much lamented state of civil discourse.
Most people didn't even realize that manners, civility and respectful behavior had been ejected from the public sensibilities until the late 1960's and early 1970’s, when their children began to curse them out and give them the finger while at the same time demanding that they have their holey jeans or college bills paid for.

As a culture, we were comfortable seeing ourselves as people like the Hardy's of the popular 'Andy Hardy' serials in the early 1930's with Mickey Rooney, where the kids were somewhat mischievous and precocious, but good, civil and respectful and where Dad was the wise Judge Hardy who could be counted on to help put things right in the end.

From there, the Dad's began to become more bumbling, the kids more and more ill-mannered, the elderly and authorities more and more infantile. There can be traced a very gradual, but nevertheless dizzying descent from the Hardy's to 'Ozzie & Harriet', to 'Father Knows Best' to 'I Love Lucy' to 'Andy Griffith' to 'Family Affair', to 'Happy Days', 'M*A*S*H', 'Mork and Mindy', 'Roseanne', 'Married With Children', 'The Simpson’s' and 'The Family Guy', and it happened in an Historical blink of the eye.

It was accomplished largely through one of a small set of Ideas, through the eye-rolling, scowling, admonition "Oh, come on, you've got to be able to laugh at yourself! Don't take yourself so seriously.' With no deeper consideration of what that could mean, the public bought it. It seemed to have a point, sounded ok, ‘what’s the harm in that? and besides, that mocking, eye rolling glare they give me when I object – I don’t like that, and laughter is the best medicine’. But the public didn't realize that they didn't mean laughter in the healthy, uplifting manner they all imagined, but laughter in the derisive, digging, cutting, destructive way of mocking all that you hold above you, that you admire and revere - laughing in that way that secretly says 'I don't have to live up to that, I only need to pull it down and step on it.', and get away with it with a laugh.

People who aren't taught to thoroughly examine their ideas and beliefs - won't. They are open to rule by the facial twitch of those in the fore face of the culture.

There is a reason that the schools do not teach the Federalist & anti-Federalist papers. As Aristotle says, a Liberal Arts education is best for a people who seek to be free and govern themselves as free people. A different Gov’t, such as an Oligarchy or Tyranny, would require a different people and a different sort of education in order to produce a different type of people, a people better suited to that Gov't's needs ('Hello Dewey, well Hellow Dewey!' – and Peabody, Allcot, Wundter… look them up, you’ll be aghast).

The Catch-22 in the Face of Culture
The still beating heart of American character, together with our incessant self questioning and freedom to do so, are still in a position to change the face of Culture in this land. The guiding lights of Culture are in power only as long as those charged with upholding them - We The People - believe and respect them, defend them over and above the murky and embarrassing alternatives (such as studying the issues for ourselves – yech!)... but when enough suspicion is raised that the majority is actually right in what they secretly suspect... then trouble is a brewing for the leaders.

When the silent majority stirs to an issue, the 'leaders' of that culture quaver and cave in, and the recent amnesty bill is a case in point. The difficulty We The People have, and which those same leaders well know, is that the We The People will go back to sleep once we see that things have been put right, and we will be difficult to stir us up again (or at least it has always been that way… in the past). That’s why they were so surprised that after dropping the issue for a week, We The People were still pissed off when they tried to revive it again the following week.

Still though, we do tend to go back to sleep to things which don’t interest us, and it is difficult to rouse us to their relevance.

Difficult, that is, unless we listen to and discuss things that the Faces in our faces might otherwise have wished that we had. Hence the special anger directed towards Talk Radio and the Blogosphere (on either side). Vocal Minorities, in order to seize and keep a hold on power, require that communication be as limited as possible to a one way conversation - from them on high, to you down low.

Any sign of actual two-way communication, public dialog, is anathema to those who seek and wield power for powers sake.

Talk Radio, the Internet and the Blogosphere flies right in the Face of that. They aren't used to us getting right back into their face. When you see the kowtowing, PC-speaking, West abandoning and America deriding fools peddling their crap with a straight face - stick yours right back in theirs. For the first time in history the remnant doesn't need to wait until after their culture is gone, they can asert themselves in realtime for eachother to see and recognize before it's too late.

Talk Radio, the Internet and the Blogosphere are tailor made for flying right back in their Faces.

Ain't that a shame?

A True Anti-American Viewpoint

You'll need a strong stomach for this, as Michael Yon brings the news we should be seeing, a true view of what our soldiers face in Iraq, with Bless the beasts and children.

Whether or not America can bring about a 'Democracy' in Iraq, this polar opposite of American ideals must be utterly crushed, destroyed, and wiped from the face of the earth. Al Qaeda and its think-alikes can not be allowed to thrive, particularly in a part of the world so vital to our interests.

Celebrate the 4th of July, Support P.E.T.A! (People for the Ethical Treatment of Americans)

231 years ago, the leaders of America agreed upon a declaration of their principles in order to officially recognize and universalize their scattered actions into one common cause. Those scattered actions of Samuel Adams exhortations, the Boston Tea Party, Paul Revere & Lexington/Concord, Patrick Henry's '...but as for me, give me Liberty - or give me death.", Bunker Hill, all of these came together, 'From out of many, One' as a principled stand against tyranny, and for ... what?

What were these scattered words and actions, what were their purposes whose motivating principles unifying could be unified under Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence?

The smart set (meaning self-stupid-ifying ideological proregressives) would have us believe that it was for taxes (ostensibly), but even more so to further line the pockets of rich merchants and slave owners - and to a majority of the Signers, they could point to the facts of their lives and situations as support for their sophistry.

As is the case with most facts stripped from context and principle - they Lie. Most foully, they do lie.

The American colonies were settled by people seeking to live their own lives as they saw fit. I won't say they sought religious freedom, for as with the Puritans (who came later), at best they originally sought the freedom to impose their own religious tyranny. The Virginians (who were here first) came for gold and adventure. All of them found Reality. Stark and unbuffered by established traditions and aristocracies. Here in the wilds of America, they found only primitive savages, wilderness and need.

Those conditions, coupled with the mother country of England being distracted by continental concerns, left the colonists free to discover the razor of reality - what is false and useless, must be discarded. What is Good and True, and that most rare of things in a colony - the Beautiful, must be valued, guarded and promoted. The cream of western civilization was taught to their children, the classics & the Bible, and the new English/Scottish philosophers.

Slowly over the next 150 years, these conditions formed a hardy people. A people one part civilized and one part wild. That one part civilized, was civilized mainly by way of those virtues and ideals which didn't conflict with the one part that was wild. They didn't necessarily know what they knew, but beneath the knowledge they did have, through lessons of daily conduct, they learned the lessons of character formed of realities razor, through which they knew true Freedom.

That knowledge of freedom knew the folly of license, just as the Aesop’s ants knew that the foolish grasshopper would soon become their food. They had the lessons of civilization, knew of the necessity of Law, as only those who are confronted with the spectacle of savages and unvarnished reality can know it. They had distant memories of the best and worst possible in the rumors of civilization far away, and held the best of them as something to aim towards. They had a Goal - to survive and prosper, and they had the clear parameters of savagery or desolation to guide them. The Puritans early experiment with communism taught them all the harsh lessons of the feebleness of collective authority and 'ownership' of property, over the community of Individuals secure in their rights of Property, working individually together in community.

These lessons were learned and known in their spirit and conduct, even if they didn't know it in written understanding. They knew the True Freedom of freedom boundaried by reality and law. And they knew what it meant to stray from them.

Into this world 150 years in the learning and making, the attentions of the mother country, and of Europe, returned to them. They fought the French and Indian war with and for the British. And then the British sought to have them help to pay for it. For the European, insulated from the follies of bad economics and tyranny by millennia of established traditions, they thought nothing of their impositions.

Through the lessons of dealing with the Indians, and the wilderness, the colonists knew in their bones, the folly of forcefully trampling upon the sacred rights of property, of thinking that laws issued against the tide would stop it, immediately had their backs up. They couldn't well say what they didn't like about it, but they knew something was seriously wrong.

Into that void of being able to put into words what they all understood, came James Otis, Samuel Adams, John Adams and Dr. Joseph Warren. And they were soon followed by John Hancock, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine and so many others, all of whom form the body of the Founding Fathers. They put into words and deeds what they all already knew, that proper, civilized men dealt with their fellows ethically, or not at all.

Those who chose to act unethically, to act against Nature and Natures God, against Reality, was either a savage or a tyrant - and both unworthy of respect. Worthy only of defiance, and defying a European Tyrant entailed the use of cold steel and the risking of your life and your sacred honor.

Into that understanding, Thomas Jefferson, at the request of a committee of the best of the Colonists, put that understanding into the immortal words of the Declaration of Independence.

Review the sacred document well, and you will find it to be a declaration of and by Patriots for the Ethical Treatment of Americans, ethics which they knew and understood, learned deeply and well through the school of the Good, the Beautiful and the True - of Reality, and the Spirit which runs through it.

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776.THE UNANIMOUSDECLARATION OF THE
THIRTEEN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776.
THE UNANIMOUS
DECLARATION OF THE THIRTEEN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

WHEN, in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's GOD entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the Causes which impel them to the Separation.

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their CREATOR, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that Governments long established, should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security. Such has been the patient Sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The History of the present King of Great-Britain is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World.

HE has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public Good.

HE has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing Importance, unless suspended in their Operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

HE has refused to pass other Laws for the Accommodation of large Districts of People, unless those People would relinquish the Right of Representation in the Legislature, a Right inestimable to them, and formidable to Tyranny only.

HE has called together Legislative Bodies at Places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the Depository of their public Records, for the sole Purpose of fatiguing them into Compliance with his Measures.

HE has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly Firmness his Invasions on the Rights of the People.

HE has refused for a long Time, after such Dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining, in the mean Time, exposed to all the Dangers of Invasion from without, and Convulsions within.

HE has endeavoured to prevent the Population of these States; for that Purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their Migrations hither, and raising the Conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

HE has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

HE has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the Tenure of their Offices, and the Amount and Payment of their Salaries.

HE has erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harrass our People, and eat out their Substance.

HE has kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies, without the Consent of our Legislatures.

HE has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

HE has combined with others to subject us to a Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

FOR quartering large Bodies of Armed Troops among us:

FOR protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

FOR cutting off our Trade with all Parts of the World:

FOR imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

FOR depriving us, in many Cases, of the Benefits of Trial by Jury:

FOR transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended Offences:

FOR abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an arbitrary Government, and enlarging its Boundaries, so as to render it at once an Example and fit Instrument for introducing the same absolute Rule into these Colonies:

FOR taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

FOR suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with Power to legislate for us in all Cases whatsoever.

HE has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection, and waging War against us.

HE has plundered our Seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our Towns, and destroyed the Lives of our People.

HE is, at this Time, transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the Works of Death, Desolation, and Tyranny, already begun with Circumstances of Cruelty and Perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous Ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized Nation.

HE has constrained our Fellow-Citizens, taken Captive on the high Seas, to bear Arms against their Country, to become the Executioners of their Friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

HE has excited domestic Insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the Inhabitants of our Frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known Rule of Warfare, is an undistinguished Destruction, of all Ages, Sexes, and Conditions.

IN every Stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble Terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated Injury. 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.

NOR have we been wanting in Attentions to our British Brethren. We have warned them, from Time to Time, of Attempts by their Legislature to extend an unwarrantable Jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the Circumstances of our Emigration and Settlement here. We have appealed to their native Justice and Magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the Ties of our common Kindred to disavow these Usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our Connexions and Correspondence. They too have been deaf to the Voice of Justice and of Consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the Necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the Rest of Mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

WE, therefore, the Representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in GENERAL CONGRESS Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the Rectitude of our Intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly Publish and Declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that they are absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political Connexion between them and the State of Great-Britain, is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that as FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which INDEPENDENT STATES may of Right do. And for the Support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of DIVINE PROVIDENCE, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honour.

John Hancock.
GEORGIA, Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, Geo. Walton.
NORTH-CAROLINA, Wm. Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn.
SOUTH-CAROLINA, Edward Rutledge, Thos Heyward, junr. Thomas Lynch, junr. Arthur Middleton.
MARYLAND, Samuel Chase, Wm. Paca, Thos. Stone, Charles Carroll, of Carrollton.
VIRGINIA, George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Ths. Jefferson, Benja. Harrison, Thos. Nelson, jr. Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton.
PENNSYLVANIA, Robt. Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benja. Franklin, John Morton, Geo. Clymer, Jas. Smith, Geo. Taylor, James Wilson, Geo. Ross.
DELAWARE, Caesar Rodney, Geo. Read.
NEW-YORK, Wm. Floyd, Phil. Livingston, Frank Lewis, Lewis Morris.
NEW-JERSEY, Richd. Stockton, Jno. Witherspoon, Fras. Hopkinson, John Hart, Abra. Clark.
NEW-HAMPSHIRE, Josiah Bartlett, Wm. Whipple, Matthew Thornton.
MASSACHUSETTS-BAY, Saml. Adams, John Adams, Robt. Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry.
RHODE-ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE, &c. Step. Hopkins, William Ellery.
CONNECTICUT, Roger Sherman, Saml. Huntington, Wm. Williams, Oliver Wolcott.

IN CONGRESS, JANUARY 18, 1777.

ORDERED,
THAT an authenticated Copy of the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCY, with the Names of the MEMBERS of CONGRESS, subscribing the same, be sent to each of the UNITED STATES, and that they be desired to have the same put on RECORD.
By Order of CONGRESS,

JOHN HANCOCK, President.

The various HE’s and For’s may have changed between then and now, but the principles remain the same, and the necessity of defiance should be apparent to us now, just as it was to us then. Thankfully, today there is no need in this land for the use of cold steel against the tyrants among us and in our capitals, but the need to defy tyrants, to put into words the usurpations and offenses, and the statement of Principled words for what we all know and understand – remains very much the same.

Perhaps the recent amnesty bill will stir us again to defy tyrants, perhaps more is needed – we shall seek to keep the need alive and clarified.

Long live the Spirit of 1776.

Birthdays

19 years ago yesterday, I became a Dad.

It was a little unnerving. I'd just watched two pitocin jockey obgyn's casually slash open my wifes belly, flop out her guts onto her while they discussed fishing - it seemed that I was the only one aware that this was an emergency - more slashes, and then they pulled out a wriggling baby boy. A minute later the nurse handed me the swaddled creature and - though the experts assure me its not possible, just an odd coincidence of muscle spasms - he opened his eyes, looked into mine & reached out one hand and grabbed my nose - then went back to his annoyed wrigglings and whinings.

Yesterday went much better than it did 19 years ago.

Reasons of UnReason and why we'll always have Paris (hilton, that is)

There was a link from Alan at One Cosmos the other day (Here's the link - thanks Alan), to a 'philosopher' named Dan Dennett, who is of the stripe that asserts that 'you don't really exist, consciousness is just an illusion of thousands of cell structures humming at once'. In order to back up his assertion, he trots out numerous optical illusions, and comments to the effect of 'see, it's not really a face, just splotches of color that your brain creates the illusion of a face from, therefore consciousness is just an illusion of little sense impressions'.

Sense impressions. Lots and lots of little sense impressions. That's all that you ('and I use that term loosely', he would surely mock) are.

This is really just a variation on the notion which determinists are in-fatuos-sated with, that of a perpetual motion machine, that with complexity, a sum which is greater than its parts is created and can continue on under its own power.

This is the type of thinking that typifies leftie thought, which has evolved the tactic of seizing upon a word, gutting it of it's meaning, and stuffing it with their pet interpretation, in order to lay claim to the respect and status the word had earned prior to it's being mugged by them; which in this case it is Reason itself that has been sent to the leftist Taxidermist. I should maybe note that by leftie, I don't mean just a political leaning, there are plenty of republicans that fit the bill too, but those whose core method of 'thinking' descends from the core ideas of Descartes, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Pierce, Marx, Dewey... etc.

On one hand, I wonder at the denseness of these misophsophers, that they go through these elaborate optical illusions, why go through all that work? First off, for him to say ‘You’ and ‘Are’, is to admit the existence of consciousness, Existence and Identity all in one fell swoop, to be ignorant of that and call yourself a philosopher, is an astounding feat. Then there is the fact that you are able to discover that an optical illusion is in fact an optical illusion – that itself would seem to invalidate the 'brain mechanics is mind'. But even without that, why go through these elaborate illusory setups, and he goes through a whole slue of elaborate optical illusions, why not just point out that a standard movie is just a bunch of still images flashed rapidly in front of you, which when sped up, make you mistakenly think that the images are moving?

There you have it, Boombadabing, your consciousness is just a bunch of isolated cellular reactions, which fire on perceiving those isolated images, giving you the comforting illusion of a continuous self, but it doesn't really exist. In fact, you didn't just read this. And I didn't just say it. Hey! Stop pretending to read! You can't do it because you don't exist! Existence doesn't exist! Consciousness doesn't exist, so stop pretending it does! Argghh! I said it! Ahh! I said IT again! AAAHHHHHRRRGGGHHH!!!!!

Ne!

To continue, like the perpetual motion cranks before them, these misophsophers think that complexity, by virtue of being complex, will effect some sort of magical incantation transformation which will enable it to continue its internal processes without outside motive force, becoming its own motive force through our inability to follow its workings. But that is the illusion, and for some 'reason', they are enthralled by it.

The terrifying secret, terrifying to them, is that there is a motive force, and it comes from within. By choice. By conscious choice. The truth is, and the greatest mystery of all, the point where all axioms end – is that you, You and the Consciousness you posess, Are, and are self motivating by choice. If there is anything which comes close to perpetual motion, it is life, our consciousness, our soul.

We are creatures who provide our own causation through Free Will. Through Choice. And that Choice requires that it not be infallible, otherwise there would be no purpose for choosing – it would simply be. It is only with Consciousness possessed of free will, that you can have disagreements and error. In fact, you couldn't be fooled if you couldn't make an error.

Find an explanation for error, then I might be willing to listen to such deterministic silliness that we are nothing more than massively integrated cellular computers.

Computers never make mistakes. They always produce the results dictated by the laws of physics which govern electrical discharges, electrical switching, the motive force of computers. Computers always produce the predetermined results which they have no choice but to transmit – to be sure, those results might not be what we programmers and users expected to get, but that is because of some oversight we have made in our logics attempt to foresee and control those laws of physics.

Programmers make errors. Errors can only be made by conscious beings possessing free will. And that consciousness isn't just a series of switches being flipped - its something else and something more, something that only arises through living breathing creatures.

There is a you inside your body, and it isn't explainable by its physical parts, anymore than Vision is explainable by the physical components of the Eye. We can see how it operates, all the cells which are involved in firing & transmitting the data of sight for us to see, but the vision which is served up by the processes of eyesight, is something outside of and above it, a conduit of You.

Programmers make mistakes, because we become focused upon the logic of our code, we fail to take into account the wider world of the User’s concerns and intentions, we become so focused upon the switches and loops in our codified logic, that we forget to take a step back and take in the wider perspective of the application and the world in which the User will use it.

And that is just what our misophsopher does as well. He becomes so focused in on the perceived mechanics of brain operation, that he mistakes the mechanics for the Conscious mind being served by it. He falls into the trap of logic chopping, of thinking that because his logic is seemingly internally consistent, that he forgets to check whether or not it just might be in conflict with the wider context of the world and life, within which it operates.

Forgetting to take in the wider perspective of life within the world (inner and outer), is precisely the mistake which our misophsopher makes, it is also one of the mistakes that a criminal makes when he decides that taking something which doesn’t belong to him will be a benefit – and it may be - for a moment perhaps, but for a lifetime – not so much. It is the mistake that a Paris Hilton makes, thinking that looking good is more important than being good – and for the picture-byte, it may be - perhaps, but for a life worth living? – not so much.

These two are the inevitable consequences of Free Will exercised (particularly under the influence of Descartes, Rousseau, Kant, etc.) without willfully taking into account the wider perspectives of the whole of life, the depths of the whole of life – that which can only be grasped at through consideration of The Good, The Beautiful and The True.

While The Good, The Beautiful and The True are denigrated or dismissed by our logic chopping intellectual e-lite’s, we are guaranteed to be plagued with a steady and continuous flow of these walking embodiments of metaphysical mistakes.

More in the next post...

To Ryan on his Graduation

Graduation.

A mislabeling if there ever was one. Giving the impression that you are done with school.

Hah!

Better to think of this as marking your leaving the pureed & pre-chewed learning environment of school - and stepping into the real learn as you go world, on you own.

Don't get the idea that all you've learned up to this point, has taught you all you need. It's taught you enough, hopefully, to be able to perceive the coming lessons you will find your self in, and equip you with the ability to learn from them.

That will help you to Educate yourself in the school of life. Pay attention and you will learn much, become much and much more - first within, then without. Learn the wealth of inner education, 'education' : 'to set free', to be able to discern and evaluate life with your own mind. With that, you can learn any lesson, apply them, relate them, learn what you should and want to achieve - and set about achieving it for yourself, for your life.

To make your life. That's what you're graduating for, and into. Pay attention in class, do your homework...

and Enjoy!

A Nation of Immigrants vs A Nation of Laws?

The problem we find coming from the immigration situation is not from immigration itself, but from the related corruptions to our fed & state gov't's which feed it. Thomas Sowell or Frederich Bastiat or Walter E. Williams, and more, have given reams of examples and information on how one 'isolated' instance of tampering with the free market, ripples disruptions outward, which prompt compensatory actions which themselves cause more compensatory ripples to spread chaos even further.

To lift a few instances out of the mix at random, minimum wage law, health care rules, public schooling, social services... and on and on. These cause enough problems and conflicts within the regular citizenry, market & gov't interplay all of it's own. But worse, they also cause what should be a highly valued result of America being America - immigration, to be twisted into a visible focal point for each of these corruptions of our political structure to be displayed for us in harsh flashing neon.

There is nothing more valuable than people (the "Ultimate Resource") - qualified as people who do understand the value of liberty and freedom, seeking to come here and practice it in their lives. A non nanny state gov't, such as America predominantly was prior to the 20th century, was it's own immune system, drawing in only those willing to take a risk on their own skills and abilities to earn a livelihood and better the lives of their families. On the whole, immigration, on the melting pot plan - learn the language, learn the founders political philosophy, adopt the culture, work hard & get ahead - this was America's secret weapon from the founders time on, and on the basic principles, even from the 1600's and Jamestown, on.

All of the Nanny state, regulatory, gov't mandated policies and services that have been implemented, to mark a fuzzy line, from Teddy Roosevelt, from that time on, and amplified with the Warren Court decisions, have served to undermine and corrupt that lifeblood little by little, until now what should still be a supreme value for us, is a raging infection.

My personal view on immigration, in an uncorrupted gov't, would be to open the doors and welcome them in, only being sure to take their names, make sure they are not spreading disease, are not felon's, track and ensure that they are becoming good Americans, and on to the next issue. 911 modifies that to put a tighter, more in depth focus on the taking of names, background and tracking, finger printing, reporting in, etc, but the rest still holds.

It even holds for those from Mexico or Canada who want to come temporarily to earn some money and return home, again, with emphasis on the tracking and law abiding parts. There is only benefit for us and them - as long as the qualifiers are in place.

Anyone who flouts our laws should be unceremoniously given the boot, and never allowed back in. Period.

The difficulty we have now, is separating those coming here to take a risk on their own skills and abilities to earn a livelihood and better the lives of their families and so on, from those coming to take advantage of public schools, 'public' health care, welfare, etc.

The problem isn't immigration, that is only where the real problem is too visible to turn away from. The problem is that we have allowed progressive, socialist, postmodern, multiculturist 'ideas' to corrupt our system, and ourselves - until they are taken care of, neither the immigration or other problems are going to be taken care of.

Until we again have a free market, and a gov't governing within its proper bounds, we will not have an uncorrupted populace. To dream otherwise, is but to dream.

For the moment, I think that all we can hope for (probably vainly given the mushiness of our congress on the issue) is an effective background checking, identification and tracking system for immigrants. An insistence that they show proficiency in the language within x number of months, and that law abiding behavior be absolutely required, violation of which results in permanent expulsion. And as strict a monitoring of the borders as is feasible, and with unquestioned shoot to kill force being authorized for those patrolling it feel is necessary to their own protection, and jobs.

***

In short, if we see the issue with immigration being in conflict with our laws; when we are at root A Nation of Immigrants, and A Nation of Laws, then we need to look at the rippling set of laws that have prompted that split. If you do, I think you'll find that a great deal of the laws which were passed in the 20th century, are laws that must be passed away. Soon.

Can Vice be Taught?

Socrates was concerned with the question of whether or not Virtue can be taught. Another good question that should be asked, is whether Vice can be taught? I think the answer is Yes. And taught far easier, at that.

Why? Because Vice is usually more directly connected to physical responses of immediate gratification. It doesn’t need to be mediated with thought and consideration, it taps directly into the reward center endorphins just act like food pellets with lab rats, but laced with designer drugs. That being so, thoughts can be, are, dangerous things. It seems to me, that one of the thoughts that should and MUST be taught, is that some thoughts, some ideas, some desires, are not to be approached - especially by an ill equipped mind.

Just as a student pugilist doesn't walk into a ring with Mike Tyson (or whoever the hell is considered tough nowadays), a youth, a student, should not 'get into the ring' with evil – full blown or one of it’s many henchmen - pornography, intoxicants, marxist & postmodernist thoughts. It is too dangerous.

This has always been the case, the biggest difference with us ‘moderns’, is that we’ve forgotten how to deal with dangerous thoughts. Does this mean that if thoughts are dangerous, that they should be regulated? Monitored?

Thank you Mr. Leftie Answer-Man (and not a few of you Rightie ones as well), but no. No it doesn’t mean that at all. What it does mean, is that way back when, when the wise wanted to keep dangerous thoughts out of the hands of those who weren’t ready to handle them, they did the only sensible thing that can be done with potentially dangerous medicines – they hid them away from the grasp of immature and otherwise unprepared minds. They put warning labels on them. They also made sure to show the evil (the term may be controversial for pomofo’s but not for sensible educated peoples) to be clearly baaad. The easy will always be available as an option – unless it’s already too late. There is no avoiding the possibility – your only hope is of making it seem a less desirable choice to make.

How? Well, before answering that, let’s first lets conduct a little housekeeping concerning a few common prejudices many of us moderns have against those who lived way back when.

First off, that those who lived way back when dressed in a fashion we consider to be goofy doesn’t mean they were incredulous, naïve or otherwise stupid. For those of you not so sure (probably those in their twenties (mentally and or chronogically) or less), wait until you get a load of your fashion… ten or twenty years from now. Fashion doesn't necessarily imply foolishness.

Next, think of what you mean when you refer to someone as being Wise. Would such a person be likely to believe in fairy tales, the tooth fairy, talking animals, etc.? No? What makes you think that a wise person living two or three thousand years ago would have either?

And technology. It's fine and all to have it, I rather like the internet, but it doesn't make you any wiser. Would they think You wise because you could turn on a light switch? Wisdom is not deepened with stuff – extended perhaps, but not deepened.

They weren't, they didn't and they wouldn’t. Something else, tamper proof caps and child resistant packaging were not invented after the Tylenol scare, they were invented long before that, way back when, with “A long time ago, in a land (or galaxy) far, far away….”

Here it is that we approach the deep well, the knotty packaging of Myth. Intended and innate to Myths, at their central core, is Truth with a capital “T”. There are deeper mines of meaning in our folk tales, our Myths, our Religions, than are visible upon the surface of their narratives. And something truly magical about them, is that there not only may be, but almost certainly does exist, more Truth within them, than those who wrote them down were aware of at the time of their writing them.

The remarkable thing about Truth, is that it integrates into and throughout all of what is True. Truth is Whole, it is One. There is no – and I do mean NO truth, that exists separate and isolated, from all else that is true. Lies and falsehood can be random, contradictory and completely unrelated to each other, but Truth is a different species altogether.

The truth of a tale told, contains that truth intended by the authors, but it also contains others perhaps unplanned, unforeseen, by the authors, but because of the nature of Truth, all others are unavoidably there all the same. In Myth, in story, the tale reveals only so much meaning as the reader is willing and able to comprehend, and so long as they are restrained from going off half cocked in applying it in some literal fashion (again, that's where teachers and parents come in), they are given only that amount of knowledge that they are ready to receive. But the levels of Truth contained in even one True Tale, go down to unforeseeable depths – and expand outwards in concentric circles & spheres to the very boundaries of the universe.

Consider Adam and Eve. For those viewing the story on the 1st level, there is of course the near literal interpretation of the Serpent tempting Eve, and she of Adam – essentially if you listen to the devil, you’d better be prepared to pay the consequences. Loss of paradise, poor clothing and fratricidal children are only some of the obvious payback sure to follow.

(BTW, If you believe that a literal snake spoke to, and tempted Eve... well consult the previous houskeeping measures concerning the Wise. But also don't be fooled into thinking that it doesn't have true meaning to it. Thinking is required, at whatever depth and speed as you can manage. The tales will patiently wait for you to catch up. )

By looking just a little deeper, there can be found more to the tale than just talking sssnake stories. For one thing, I don't think it takes a lot of thought, really just a little consultation with your friendly neighborhood teenager, to figure out that the fruit lately translated as 'apple' might be referring to… something else.

Pomegranates have been floated, sure, strawberries, berries, however, not to be vulgar, but try consider perhaps another red morsel, one that doesn't necessarily grow upon a tree would be more to this point – the Cherry. Not the cherry which grows on the tree in the garden, but the cherry that springs from the tree of life. Ask you're friendly neighborhood teenage boy, if the word 'Cherry', spoken in relation to girls, doesn't bring up some ideas - and fears, and rules. Rules not to be broken, lest you be pushed from your safe and secure home, suddenly a father burdened with responsibilities, a responsible bread-winner, no longer a child, and soon to be blessed with children of his own who must be carefully raised and taught right from wrong, or evil is sure to follow.

Even so – you can be pretty much guaranteed that evil will be sure to follow. Not because of an apple bitten into, but because of the nature of the human mind, of intelligence, of freewill – freewill to have meaning, must include the possibility of making errors. And errors unrecognized, or unheeded, will lead to many black thoughts and deeds.

That aspect of Myth brings to mind very relevant admonitions about maturing adolescents. There are other such ‘Myth’s’ as well; Pandora's box was originally Pandora's urn or goblet, another standin or allusion to the womb, and the release of 'evils', responsibilities that can overcome the unprepared. Persephone, carried off to Hades, couldn't be released by Zeuss scott free, because she had eaten a pomegranate. She had eaten of the fruit of earthly desire and pleasure, and was tied to it, no longer the innocent and free child, but one bound to the soil.

Are these inferences anachronistic? Modern concerns that perhaps didn't exist, or in the same way 400 or 500 b.c.? Certainly. Did they derive other lessons from them then? Of course. That's the point. A story, a myth, because it distills a Truth in action, a psychological and philosophical truth, it is able to refract truth, no matter the quality or intensity of light shone into it. That is one of the ways you know that you are dealing with eternal and transcendent truth.

Perhaps the root meaning, original in the Judaic and the Greek myths, was that in a very definite sense, that bringing forth children, the responsibilities it incurs, the temptations it can foster - the urges to provide for them, posture for them, that from the womb can issue immortality through the father son line of the Tree of Life, but evil can follow as well.

And that is but one level deeper than the narrative. There are many levels beyond that, such as where the snake, his crafty speech, so wriggling manner of moving, so close to the ground, to things, to the physical, horizontal reality, can seduce you away from what is good and proper, with a simple "what can it hurt to try? It's tasssty!" Gagdad Bob has done several excellent explorations of what the Serpent in the garden represents. The twisting manner, the slickly smooth hissing of the snakes words as Intelligence shorn of Wisdom – “Spin” perhaps captures it ."Eat of the apple, and you will know of eternal life"

With women, Eve (or Pandora, or...) representing your worldly desires, dreams, values, can easily sway you - not even by her direct actions, but merely by her existence, into seeking shortcuts to God-like abilities. And before you realize it, you are grabbing for knowledge over wisdom, nudging you into the valuing of quantity over quality, horizontal over vertical, death over life. In an instant, with a word, a temptation, you are banished by your own actions, from the cool garden of wisdom, barred from returning to it by the sharp blade of your own burning desires, forced by your own choices and decisions (de-cision, to cut away from), to endure the sense of nakedness inherent in knowing that there is a schism between what you affirm, and how you act. You are guilty of falling.

There is much to that interpretation. There is much that can be argued. There are thoughts to be thought, and wisdom to be found in the process – and very little of it will be able to be found in memorization, or bubble tests, only in exploration and contemplation. And most likely that will only happen, under the tutelage of a teacher, one wiser than yourself, one who has a grasp of what he'd like to show you of the Good, the Beautiful and the True.

Myths and story also have another beneficial feature. They reflect the Good, the Beautiful and the True at each and every layer of their existence. Whether it be through wonder or adventure or heart ache or even horror – they are enjoyable to be with, to read and to tell. They are open to be explored deeper, and deeper, and deeper. ‘Tests’ can even be exciting in the hands of a skilled teacher, asking if the student is able to see more within aspects of the story that seem to be puzzling, and they will often be initiated by the student;

Student “Didn’t people ever wonder what Atlas was supposed to be standing upon when he held the world upon his shoulders?”,

Teacher “Perhaps some did, as did you, but the clever ones knew that those were clues to deeper meaning, do you suppose it might mean something more?” perhaps even posing it as a riddle to be solved.

Not so with a textbook. And more still, there is a value in story, in engaging with the story, in drawing the story into you with imagination, that leaves some portion of its value behind within you. As C.S. Lewis says in his Narnia books “Once a King or Queen of Narnia, Always a King or Queen of Narnia”. The valorous deeds and truths discovered and defended, create mental integrations – thin perhaps, on their own, but reinforced through other tales, and lessons of manners, they are potentially powerful and deep. Never discount the power of engaging illustrations of a life worthy of emulation; it can prompt the student to choose to try to emulate them. And in that choice, there resides true power.

The problem is, you are most unlikely to be taught anything of the sort in school, or even college. If you are taught to look deeper, it will be in Literature, in imaginative fiction, and there it will be taught as 'what else could the author mean?', not 'what deeper Truth may be revealed here?'. Which is closely related to the other problem with Lit Professors, and Philosophy Professors as well, is that they tend to present anything that is 'well crafted' as being worthy of consideration and discussion. Proust is well crafted, 'deep', many allusions, 'what is he thinking about his mother?... the other child visitor?' What is he thinking that is worth considering, might be a better first question.

As I mentioned at the top, this may be especially needed, because error, vice, and flat out Evil are inherently easier to teach or convey - unintentionally or intentionally, than is Wisdom and Goodness. The Good, the Beautiful and the True, require a focus of spiritual effort upon the Vertical. A sort of spiritual calisthenics is involved in looking at a painting of St. George slaying the dragon, and grasping the balance of layout, the grace of action, the composure of his features, the virtue of the maiden - that takes some effort to See.

On the other hand, it is exceedingly easy to thrill to the action of killing the dragon and carrying off the maiden for purposes her features make obvious. The Crude and Evil come with direct electrified input to satisfied, short term, perceptual - horizontal and flat, desires, thrills, valued for themselves directly and exclusively. Virtue, Goodness, Beauty, only get in the way and impede the physical rewards of the senses.

So how do you approach an Education, that for one thing provides education on an understanding worth having, and two, does so in a way that is least likely to mis-educate? There is no guarantee - the most you can do is show that evil is bad, but in the end it is the student who will choose.

Should the people be protected from dangerous thoughts? Many have concluded so, but only because they didn't first consider what is necessary for any attempt at education to be successful - the student’s exercise of their freewill. No matter how dangerous a foul thought, the attempt to force it either upon, or away, from it's target - is far worse. Worse because that action prevents the mind from operating, processes begun are not only not completed, but are barred from completion, and that leaves a gnawing, festering gap in the mind, a plot for weeds of desire and fear to sprout and spread. Not only for the one 'protected' from it, but for those doing the protecting as well.

The lure of securing a desired end without the proper and necessary natural processes and productions - for the easy satisfaction of desire - for the appearance of the satisfaction of desire... that is the whissspering of the sssnake in the garden. As Gandalf says in LOTR "Don't tempt me! I dare not touch that Ring!"

The Lure of having the Power to satisfy your desires, even your good and proper desires, at the expense of unnatural means - that is the Ring of Power that corrupts all that would be good, to the blackest evil. But the thought needn't be so huge as what we might imagine to be Sauron's Ring of Power; uncorrected mistaken impressions are fertile ground in themselves.

Letting a corrupt thought into your mind, unawares of it's hunting patterns, it's trick contortions and convolutions, it's final hidden ends, the always present something-for-nothing lure of easy gain, is to let some shade of evil in at the controls of your brain, your habits, your directional desires, your character, and your soul. It is foolish and destructive.

And here's a note that seems to be needed - When you are thinking 'bad' thoughts, it won't be in an accent! It won't be accompanied by a narrator warning you "These are bad thoughts!" It'll be you, in your voice, and unless you take care to evaluate and shun wrong headed thoughts, they will become you, and you will become them.

It is for those reasons, and more, that thoughts, deep and wide ranging, which require much consideration and application to be understood, let alone applied, and so easily misapplied if not understood - should also not be taught to those un-ready for them - not forcibly withdrawn, just putting them where you would have to become learned enough to find them, and might also have made you wise enough to manage them.

The process of becoming learned enough to find them, should be arranged similarly to how a fighter is brought up to the skills needed to proceed up the ranks from feather-weight to heavy-weight. What maybe we need instead, or at least in addition to the standard lot of Professors, is a good old fashioned 'Defense Against the Dark Arts' professor.

A professor who will say,

Prof: "What must you be sure to do when approaching dark thoughts?"
Class: "Keep in touch with reality"
Prof:"How is that done?"
Class:"Don't venture past terms you don't understand"
Prof:"How else... Mr. Wease-ly?"
Weasely:"err..."
Prof:"Mr. Pot-ter!"
Potter:"Beware equivocations"
Professor rounding on Potter:"What does that mean Mr.
Paht-ter?"
Potter:"Using the same or similar words which have different meanings... or, uh... in different contexts..."
Prof:"Such as...!"
Potter - silence
Prof rising and turning away in disgust:"yesss ... miss Granger..."
Miss Granger:"Answering a question about what the mind perceives in reality, with a description of the process the mind allegedly uses to filter reality, there by giving the mistaken impression that we don't really perceive reality, but only our process of perceiving it. This drives a wedge between what we know, and how we know it by substituting the How of knowing, for the What of knowin-"
Prof:"That is enough Misss Granger! I asked for an answer Not a lecture!"


Well... Professors will be Professors....