Of Masks and Men, III

As a research assistant in grad school, I worked on a project that involved false beliefs.  For your reading pleasure/distress, here are a few more examples of poorly sourced impressions affecting daily life.

1.     The rule that eight glasses of water a day is the “healthy amount” is made up.

2.     The idea that you lose heat from your head chiefly has a poor scientific basis.

3.     Merely being exposed to something makes us view it more positively.

4.     The physical attractiveness of political candidates has been linked to their success in the polls.

5.     Labeling food “healthy” makes it taste worse.

And while you’ve probably made no decisions based upon these impressions, did you know that …

1.     Lemmings don’t actually engage in an annual death march into the sea?

2.     CPR doesn’t usually restart a stopped heart?  (But it can keep blood going to the heart and brain.)

3.     A bullet through the arm or leg is not—as movies usually portray—“just a flesh wound”; your limbs are so tightly packed with muscles that any injury to them will likely put that limb out of commission for the remainder of a fight at minimum.

4.     Vikings probably didn’t wear horned helmets except for religious rituals.

5.     Jell-O was nearly a bust when first marketed; it only became the big success it did after an adman dubbed it “America’s Favorite Desert.”

So if you’ve thought everyone used to love Jell-O, or drawn a Viking with a horned helmet; if you’ve forced down your 64 ounces of the wet stuff during a winter of ill-advised dieting, or found yourself talking about how ugly the opposing political candidate is … there’s a chance that you’ve let your impressions rule your reason.

Mind you, the opposing candidate probably is ugly, and water is certainly good for you, and hey, Jell-O used to be a lot more favorite than it was and, OK, Vikings did wear horns sometimes, we think, probably.  The point is not that these impressions are absolutely false, but rather that they oversimplify, and we human beings tend to rely on them even without realizing that we are doing so.

An Expotition from Social Media, I

One of the lovely things about the Winnie the Pooh books is how remarkably insightful they are about human nature.  A number of grownup adaptations and commentaries exist that play upon this fact—The Tao of Pooh comes to mind—but I have always thought it part of the charm of the books that the characters, despite displaying sometimes grownup foibles, always do so in a child-sized fashion.

 

Only recently did I realize that this remarkable pastiche-like quality of the original Pooh stories, this pint-sized adultness, lends itself admirably (as perhaps the author of the aforementioned Tao book realized before time) to explicating the behavior of an era of gallon-sized childishness.  What better allegory could there be (for example) for a certain mode of grownup discourse marred by childish foibles than the following (taken from the seminal chapter “In Which Christopher Robin Leads an Expotition to the North Pole”) :

 

“Hush!” said Christopher Robin turning round to Pooh, “we're just coming to a Dangerous Place.”

“Hush!” said Pooh turning round quickly to Piglet.

“Hush!” said Piglet to Kanga.

“Hush!” said Kanga to Owl, while Roo said “Hush!” several times to himself, very quietly.

“Hush!” said Owl to Eeyore.

“Hush!” said Eeyore in a terrible voice to all Rabbit's friends-and-relations, and “Hush!” they said hastily to each other all down the line, until it got to the last one of all. And the last and smallest friend-and-relation was so upset to find that the whole Expotition was saying “Hush!” to him, that he buried himself head downwards in a crack in the ground, and stayed there for two days until the danger was over, and then went home in a great hurry, and lived quietly with his Aunt ever-afterwards. His name was Alexander Beetle.

 

And so here we are, n'est-ce pas?

Of Masks and Men, II

Perhaps I need to justify the claim that people decide things based on impressions.  An example may help.

A good many people (including myself, up until a few years ago) associate “vitamin C” with “sour” or “acidic.”  This is probably due to the fact (and it is a fact) that citrus fruits, which contain some of the highest levels of vitamin C per cup/gram, are also acidic to one degree or another.  One cup of orange sections has supposedly about 90 mg of vitamin C in it.

So when the doctor tells us we need more vitamin C, we either pop a pill or—if we want to go the natural way—we pick up the sour fruits in the produce aisle.  Grapefruit?  Definitely.

Watermelon?  Nope.  Bananas?  Nah-ah.  Mangos?  Not a chance.

But a cup of mango has about 60 mg of vitamin C.  That’s not as high as an orange, but it’s still remarkable for a fruit that doesn’t taste—to me, at least—remotely sour.  Other non-sour vitamin C foods that are in the same ballpark as oranges and mangoes include peppers, brassicas (broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, and cauliflower), and papayas.

It turns out that the “sour” taste comes mostly from “citric acid” (guess what! citrus fruits contain a lot of that), while vitamin C is actually ascorbic acid.  Vinegar—another “sour” tasting item—gets its slightly different version of “sour” from acetic acid.

I got all of that information from googling, by the way.  I’m pretty sure it’s all true because I got lots and lots of results that agreed, and because this maps on to my vague memories of high school science.  But there’s a small chance that I could be wrong in the details here, and a very, very small chance that the broad outline I have presented here is false—so if you feel like fact checking the example, go for it.

The point, however, is simply that it’s easy to have a false but plausible belief—and one that affects your everyday actions.

Of Masks and Men, I

One of the deplorably entertaining aspects of this whole pandemic has been the masks.  Depending upon whom one asks and when, the reaction of typical member of the public asked about the topic ranges from humor to rage to defiance to sanctimony to resignation.

Set aside for the moment the questions of under what circumstances and for what people masks may be helpful; set aside too the question of to what degree and under what circumstances governments are obliged to issue orders for public safety that infringe upon citizens’ ability to do as they judge best.  Important as they are, there is another question that is in some ways prior even to these.

How do we make our decisions?

Some people lay claim to proceeding rationally to every opinion they possess—and there probably are a few people who do that, at least in important matters.  But for every day affairs, even these rationalists proceed as the rest of us proceed nearly all the time: they start with an impression and then, if the impression is questioned, they produce reasons to justify it.

That is how most of us make most of our decisions, and that is how most people decide whether or not to wearing masks is a good safety choice for themselves.  (Again, leaving aside what it means for others, or politically.)

Negative Positive Semantics, IV

Of course, my example of needing to know Shakespeare in order to love Shakespeare—and appreciate my own prior ignorance of Shakespeare—is not a morally inflected example.  The stakes get much higher when the blindness under discussion is not merely aesthetic or intellectual but also moral.  But by the same token, if someone has a moral blindness, the likelihood of their not lashing out when you confront them with may actually be heightened in proportion to the gravity of that blindness.

How many addicts like being told they have a problem?

I’m not, of course, suggesting that someone with prejudices or problems needs to “hit bottom” on their own, like an addict.  For one thing, they may never hit bottom; for another, their thoughts and words and what they have done and failed to do may, in the meantime, do damage to others.

But I am suggesting an indirect approach.

When one child hits another, there are a few things a parent can do.  Corporal punishment is an age-old option.  Time-outs are another ancient resort.  Verbal remonstrances may have effect on certain tender souls.  But one of my favorite solutions (which can of course be combined with the above) is to direct the offender to reverse their actions.  “You pushed your brother?  You have to do something nice for your brother—give him a hug.”  “You broke your sister’s toy?  Now you have to do something nice for her—build her another one.”

Obviously, you can’t make another adult act.  But you can encourage their good actions, by appealing to principles that they do accept.

And after a certain amount of good habits set in, maybe then you can have the hard conversations in negative positive semantics.  Or perhaps you will find that the conversations are no longer necessary.

Perhaps I should underscore that the point of all this is not to avoid conflict; conflict is unavoidable.  The point is rather to avoid useless conflict—and when it seems that conflict would be useless, then, needless to say, I’m all about avoiding it.

Negative Positive Semantics, III

As much as it may hurt, and seem unjust—sometimes the first thing to do is not to acknowledge the problem.  Sometimes you have to start fixing the problem before you can acknowledge it.

Part of this is simply due to human pride: very few people want to be the bad guy, so if you begin your efforts at persuasion by implying that they are part of the problem, you’re likely to walk into a brick wall.

A personal confession, from a non-morally-inflected situation, may help to illustrate.

Way back in grade school, I found Shakespeare’s history plays boring.  His comedies were delightful; his tragedies were at least interesting; but the histories?  No thanks.

Now I’m dissertating on a group of the history plays and, I promise you, they are very, very interesting.  The details that Shakespeare puts in—the intricate links amid the series I’m working on—the deep philosophical questions—the exploration of human nature—problems, practical and ethical, about how politics works—there’s so much there.  Back when I thought the historical plays were boring, it was simply because I didn’t know enough to appreciate them.

I don’t think, however, that it would have been especially helpful for anyone to tell me to educate myself about them, or to suggest that my inability to appreciate them was indicative of some sort of deficiency on my part.  Those statements would have been true, in the sense that I did need to educate myself on those plays to grasp their beauty and wisdom (I think I can say that without exaggeration), and also in the sense that my inability to understand them was a real deficiency.  But once again, those statements are not the sort that (for most sorry humans like myself) actually motivate change.  They just activate defensiveness.

Negative Positive Semantics, II

There is certainly a positive side “negative positive semantics”—the fact that focus on “privilege” reveals the faults of the privileged and “disadvantage” the faults of the disadvantaged.

That positive side is the fact that people can sometimes be motivated to help the common good when they realize their own sins.  If you realize that you “have a problem” or “are part of the problem” you may be motivated to help solve the problem.  At its best, talk of privilege helps people be better to each other.

But the dark side of all this—the negative side—is that people don’t often like being told what is wrong with them.  It makes them understandably angry.  One catches fewer flies with vinegar than with honey, no?

And so if you really want to make the world a better place, it helps to choose your rhetoric based on your audience.

If this person going to be made angry by the implication that they or their group is doing something wrong?  Forget for the moment—whatever your political orientation—what you think the truth is.  Is this a part of the truth that they are ready to hear right now?

If the answer is “no” then perhaps you should leave words like “disadvantage” and “privilege” at the door.  Perhaps instead of calling up their (perhaps very real) interior demons in a (probably unsuccessful) attempt to exorcise them by naming them, you should be appealing to the (equally real) better angels of their nature.

Instead of telling them what they and theirs are doing wrong, tell them where others need help, and how to give it.

I know this runs against much of the advice for dealing with issues like racism, sexism, etc.  But it seems like common sense to me.

As much as it may hurt, and seem unjust—sometimes the first thing to do is not to acknowledge the problem.  Sometimes you have to start fixing the problem before you can acknowledge it.

Negative Positive Semantics, I

Why “privilege” rather than “disadvantage”?

Part of the reason is surely historical.  “White privilege,” for example, is an old phrase, it turns out—dating at least back to 1965.  When there is already a phrase in use for talking about the disparity between majority and minority backgrounds, there is no need to coin a new one.  Then again, I seem to remember hearing the phrase “disadvantaged communities” coming from the mouths of political actors in the not-too-distant past.  The question remains then, why did “privilege” rise to the top of the public discourse word bank, while “disadvantage” did not?

Once again, some of that may simply be accidental snowballing effects.  But the rhetorical implications of the different phrases are worth considering as well.

“Disadvantage” puts the focus on those who have less, whether they are women, children, ethnic or racial or religious minorities, people with disabilities, the poor … “Privilege” puts the focus on those who have more—men, adults, the majority race and religion, the able-bodied, the well-to-do.

The main difference between “disadvantage” and “privilege” then is that, while both highlight disparities, the focus, the highlight of the highlight, is on a different side of the disparity.

Sometimes it can be helpful to a side have the focus on them.  A focus on disadvantaged communities may lead to better housing laws; a focus on the disabled may lead to more wheelchair ramps; etc.  A focus on the middle-class white male might consider how he is a good tax-payer, and thus a supporter of his community.

But more often—perhaps by an accident of our current discourse, but more likely from a deep-seated human tendency—a laser focus shows what’s wrong with a group.  “No man is a hero to his valet”; and any group can become villainous when one begins to examine their lives too closely.  Thus, people who talk about the disadvantaged sometimes end up speaking as if their plight is pure and simple their fault—because laser focus on any group reveals all the (real) faults of the disadvantaged.  And, mutatis mutandis, laser focus on the privileged reveals all the (real) faults of the privileged, and makes it seem more plausible that their position is at least in part an effect of their misdeeds.

Motte and Bailey, I

I never heard the phrase “motte and bailey” before a few months ago.  Then it cropped up in two distinct contexts almost simultaneously.  It reminds me of the brief time when “kerfuffle” was a fashionable way of describing political … well, kerfuffles.

May I propose a few more terms of potentially widespread significance?  You may look up the definitions yourself, but I include example sentences for your delectation.

Foozle—Health experts have foozled public messaging during this pandemic.

Finagle—The globalists are supposed to be finagling world domination admidst the current confusion.

Featly—The governor’s performance has been anything but featly.

Felicific—Lockdowns are not felicific.

Faineant—Many Americans are, unwillingly, faineants these days.

Fantastico—In the grocery store I am surrounded by masked fanstasticos.

Fracas—Even a fracas sounds like an appealing sort of gathering at this point.

Furbelow—The speech lacked the sort of furbelows with which politicians are wont to adorn their remarks.

Nobody Able to Die, IV

A bit of context for my remarks about suicide, holding on, letting go, pain vs. suffering, etc.

I was reading Jacques Phillippe recently (“Interior Freedom”) and he distinguished (I forget the precise words) between pain and suffering.  Pain is objective, the latter subjective; the former cannot be removed (except, perhaps, sometimes, by drugs) and is an indicator of injury.  Suffering, however, our perception of pain, admits of considerable variation, depending largely on how we happen to perceive it.

(Newman makes a similar point in talking about the sufferings of Christ, regarding the mind’s ability to attend or not to pain at any given moment.)

When I encountered the passage in Phillippe I felt a little shock of recognition, even though I hadn’t read it before.  It sounded very much like the distinction that natural birthing books make between, well, “pain” during labor and “suffering” during labor.

Things hurt differently depending on how you think about it.  “This is wrong” causes much more suffering than “This is life.”

I think I have some ground for saying that after having had three unmedicated deliveries (the first two by accident, and the third intentionally).  They were painful, but the attitude difference makes all the difference.

This is not, of course, a way of saying that people handle pain differently—whether they have an epidural or whether we’re talking about that poor New York City nurse—are weaker than me.  It’s simply to say that, whatever situation one happens to be in, if pain and suffering are involved, it is helpful to be able, personally, to discern the difference between the two.

But in order for suffering to reduce back to mere pain, there must be some purpose to it.  A baby.  Everlasting life.  The common good.  A spouse.  Parents.  A nice, handmade sweater.  A beautiful garden.  Victory on the sports field.

Keep your eyes on the prize, they used to say.

The problem is not pain, but needless pain.

If there is no obvious purpose for the pain, the Catholic idea of “offering things up” is most helpful here, if one happens to believe it.

“I Paul … now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for his body, which is the church” (Colossians 1:24).

Nobody Able to Die, III

There’s a difference, of course, between Jack letting out the Death Angel and someone committing suicide.

“And I guess you know, that Jack was one of the first ones to go.  But he had lived a long and happy life.”

Jack knew he’d be one of the first to go too, but—

1.     He did not in fact kill himself, or anyone else, but merely removed an impediment to death.  That is, his action was innocent in terms of double effect theory.

2.     The good effect at which Jack aimed was to restore the natural order of things which he had inadvertently disturbed; and this was a good thing.

3.     Natural death is, in fact, part of the natural order of things; it is (normally) a necessary step to the next life.

All three of those statements reflect, of course, a Catholic terminology and worldview.  What does Catholicism and an Appalachian folktale have in common that modernity has lost?

Holding onto life beyond measure and taking it before it is measured are opposite extremes, and have been considered so by many human cultures for many thousands of years.  How particular cultures define “measure” does, of course, admit of variation.  The fact that we now are confused about what the right measure for life might be in our society, and even whether there are measures at all beyond individual tolerance and desire is … interesting.

Nobody Able to Die, II

Assisted suicide hasn’t been in the news much lately.  There have been a couple cases, however, of suicides of despair—one, a nurse in New York City.  And one of my brother’s friends knows two people who, unemployed and frightened, committed suicide.

These cases are presented, when they hit the news, as terrible things.  They are thought to be terrifying, I think, because they are committed in terror and despair.  This seems right enough.

But is it any less terrifying to know that people commit suicide to escape physical suffering?

Perhaps what is terrifying in both cases is that there exists suffering so great, physical or psychic, that ending one’s own life seems like a good choice by comparison to bearing it.

But to me the real tragedy is in the perception, “I can’t bear this.”  Suffering and pain are not the same thing at all.

Nobody Able to Die, I

I grew up listening to recordings of Jackie Torrence, and my kids listen to those same stories now.  For some weeks my son’s favorite was “Soldier Jack,” an Appalachian story with elements from European folklore.  Jack runs away from home, joins the army, leaves the army, wins for himself a house and a bride and, seemingly, immortality—for he won his bride by saving her life when he tied the Death Angel up in a sack.  Here is the conclusion (from memory, as best I can recall).

“And Jack and the king’s daughter got married, and they lived, and they lived—Jack lived to be six hundred years old.  On Jack’s six hundredth birthday he was going down the road, going to a birthday party they was having for him.  He met an old man who was bent half double and his nose was dragging on the ground.  Jack’s always been polite; he spoke to the old man: ‘How yah doing, old man?’

The old man said, ‘Howdy, sonny.’

“Jack said, ‘What’s wrong with you?’

“The old man said, ‘I’m old, can’t you see?’

“Jack said [in an embarrassed voice], ‘I, Iknow that you’re old, but how old are you?’

“‘Last count, I’s nine hundred years old.’

“‘Nine hundred?!  How’d you get to be nine huindred?’

“The old man said, ‘I lived to be nine hundred.’

“Jack said, ‘I know that you lived, but why didn’t you die before you got to be nine hundred?’

“The old man said, ‘Son, ain’t you heard?  Ain’t nobody ever told you?  Years and years ago, some dumbbell took the death angel and tied him up in a sack, and ain’t nobody been able to die.’

“Jack said, ‘Do you reckon that was me?’

“Well Jack took a shotgun,  and he went into the woods, and he found the tree where he had hung the sack.  And he shot three times.  And one of the shots hit the string on that sack.

“And I guess you know, that Jack was one of the first ones to go.  But he had lived a long and happy life.”

I’ve thought a fair bit about that ending since the corona virus crisis started.  I don’t intend to present the tale as an argument for recklessness, either with one’s own life or another’s.  But I do find it an interesting counterpoint to the way some in the modern world tend to approach life, even outside of pandemics.

Ain’t nobody been able to die.

That’s a problem too, isn’t it?  And not just because you happen to be bent half double with your nose dragging on the ground.

Wise as Serpents, Guileless as Doves

The blog is back, though the dissertation and other interruptions remain.  I will try to post frequently, but expect posts to be brief--perhaps two or three hundred words.  One day's thoughts will be continued later.  I'll try to title things accordingly, so that readers can follow a given thread of thought, even if I interrupt to post about more immediate news and chews.

There are a variety of reasons for reopening the blog now.  The short and sweet principle, however, which encompasses most of the specifics one way or another, is to practice rational discourse.

That's odd, isn't it?  A blog, after all, is the unfiltered, unchecked commentary of a single individual.  No friends, no followers, no editors.  What sort of place is this for rational discourse?

But of course, if one looks at Facebook, Twitter, or just about any news and editorial outlet these days, it becomes apparent that friends, followers, and editors are not always, or even, now, often, conducive to rational discourse.

"Rational discourse" is, in the sense in which I mean it, compatible with if not exactly identical to the attitude described in this post's titular quote: "Be ye therefore wise as serpents and simple as doves."  It's advice that Christ gave to his disciples when sending them out to preach.  The line stands on its own, but the context matters (Matthew, ch.10):

[16] Behold I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be ye therefore wise as serpents and simple as doves. [17] But beware of men. For they will deliver you up in councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues. [18] And you shall be brought before governors, and before kings for my sake, for a testimony to them and to the Gentiles: [19] But when they shall deliver you up, take no thought how or what to speak: for it shall be given you in that hour what to speak. [20] For it is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you.

[21] The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the son: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and shall put them to death. [22] And you shall be hated by all men for my name's sake: but he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved. [23] And when they shall persecute you in this city, flee into another. Amen I say to you, you shall not finish all the cities of Israel, till the Son of man come. [24] The disciple is not above the master, nor the servant above his lord. [25] It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the goodman of the house Beelzebub, how much more them of his household?

[26] Therefore fear them not. For nothing is covered that shall not be revealed: nor hid, that shall not be known. [27] That which I tell you in the dark, speak ye in the light: and that which you hear in the ear, preach ye upon the housetops. [28] And fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell. [29] Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and not one of them shall fall on the ground without your Father. [30] But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.

[31] Fear not therefore: better are you than many sparrows. [32] Every one therefore that shall confess me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven. [33] But he that shall deny me before men, I will also deny him before my Father who is in heaven. [34] Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword. [35] For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

[36] And a man's enemies shall be they of his own household. [37] He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me. [38] And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth me, is not worthy of me. [39] He that findeth his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for me, shall find it. [40] He that receiveth you, receiveth me: and he that receiveth me, receiveth him that sent me.

[41] He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet, shall receive the reward of a prophet: and he that receiveth a just man in the name of a just man, shall receive the reward of a just man. [42] And whosoever shall give to drink to one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, amen I say to you, he shall not lose his reward.

I'm not going to try to unpack all of that or, indeed, any of it.  But it informs my notion of even secular rational discourse quite heavily; and since that is what this blog will be aiming to offer over the next weeks and months, it seemed fair to put it up front.

Caveat lector.