A ‘Civil’ War

My fellow Americans, we are at war.

No, I’m not talking about the ‘War on Drugs’ or the ‘War on Terrorism.’ I’m not talking about another ‘Cold War’ or a war using all the latest technological horrors our ingenuity can devise. What I’m talking about is something far more insidious that is potentially more destructive to our society than all the car bombs in the Middle East. I’m talking about a war on Civility.

As the Baby Boom Generation's Beat Culture slid into the Hippie Culture and the Age of Aquarius, America’s youth began to openly shrug off the cultural trappings of their parents and grandparents. They dismissed the formalities of interaction used by the previous generations as “hollow”, “meaningless”, and even “dishonest”. They believed that ‘finishing school’ etiquette helped prop up a class system that was designed to make the rich richer and keep the poor under heel. Therefore, they embraced a rebellious culture of brutally frank honesty with no regard for the effects of their words.

To this day, many of the self-proclaimed ‘intelligentsia’ wrap themselves in a cloak made from the words of the First Amendment and practice this crassly insensitive form of communication. In daily conversation, they use language so scurrilous it would blister the ears of a merchant marine, no matter the setting or the age of casual bystanders. In many businesses, not only is it acceptable to use language that would have gotten you fired as recently as the 1980s, but often individuals who try to maintain a polite and respectful vocabulary are either viewed as ‘soft’, or are assumed to be mocking the listener. Often, if someone tries to express discomfort with the abusive language used by someone around them, the person using the vulgarities starts screaming “censorship” and that the person complaining is trying to deprive them of their Right to Free Speech.

It gets even worse if a discussion or debate is underway. When the members of this literati caste find themselves hearing views opposing their own, they often launch immediately into a verbal personal attack on that speaker, especially when said speaker has disproved the literati's position. In most cases, they will either attack with outrageous accusations and offensive name-calling, or they simply spew forth a stream of invectives as loud as they can in an attempt to ‘shout down’ the opposition. Often, they use both tactics together. In any case, at no time do these ‘enlightened’ members of the ‘tolerant’ ranks afford the speaker with the courtesy of allowing her or him to present their case, then rebutting it logically with facts and observations.

When their beliefs are questioned, the intelligentsia usually follows up by 'gaslighting' the speaker, loudly and publicly accusing them of doing what they themselves were doing all along. They play an intellectually dishonest game of political brinkmanship in an attempt to gain as much sympathy from the general public as they can, while demonizing the person who had the audacity to disagree with them.

When these bastions of the social conscience try to hide behind their Unalienable Right to Free Speech, they fail to acknowledge the flip side of that coin. For every Right granted by the Creator and enumerated in the Constitution and its Amendments, there are implied Responsibilities and Consequences. The most commonly used example of a limitation to the Free Speech clause in the First Amendment is that one can’t stand up in a crowded theater and shout, “Fire!” if there is no fire. That isn’t exactly true. We actually do have the Right to do so, but we also have the Responsibility to consider the Consequences of our actions and not casually do something that may cause injury to others. If we choose to ignore that responsibility, then we must accept the consequences of our actions, which in this case could mean a fine, jail time, or even civil penalties sought by those injured by the irresponsible act. Basically, it comes down to an old adage I like to use: “Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should do it.”

When the late George Carlin came out with his routine, “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television,” he created an iconic comedy performance…as well as the basis for the Supreme Court ruling that established that the FCC did have the authority to prohibit the broadcast of ‘indecent’ material over the public airwaves during the hours when children were likely to be in the audience. However, his views of profanity totally dismissed the value of what I like to call, “Civilization Lubrication.” As Robert Heinlein once wrote,

“Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untraveled, the naïve, the unsophisticated deplore these formalities as ‘empty,’ ‘meaningless,’ or ‘dishonest,’ and scorn the use of them. No matter how ‘pure’ their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best.” (1)

Of course, considering that Carlin also once stated in one of his routines,

“I have absolutely no sympathy for human beings whatsoever. None. And no matter what kind of problem humans are facing, whether it’s natural or man-made, I always hope it gets worse.” (2)

it’s very possible he was intentionally ‘throwing sand into the machinery.’ This has been going on for several decades, but there are two very good examples of this rampant incivility that occurred in 2009.

The first example happened on Wednesday, 20 May 2009. Political pundit and commentator Glenn Beck was invited to appear on a segment of the daytime television chat show, The View. On his radio program on Tuesday, Mr. Beck related a personal anecdote of a chance encounter with two of The View’s stars that happened on an Amtrak train about two weeks earlier under unusual circumstances. When Mr. Beck appeared on the show, he was suffering from a stomach flu and was trying to remain polite and respectful since he was in, as he put it, ‘their house.’ As soon as the segment began, the two individuals he encountered on the train attacked him…obsessing for over seven minutes about who addressed who first on the train. They demanded explanations and apologies for some imagined sleight, then refused to let him reply. They both called him a ‘liar’ multiple times with one of them going so far as to refer to him as, “…a lying sack of dog mess.” The other went so far as to upbraid him for failing to check his facts before reporting a story, even though he had simply been relating a personal anecdote as he remembered it and not reporting a news story, and he has stated numerous times over the years that he is a commentator, not a reporter. All through this baseless attack, Mr. Beck reacted with civility and dignity, refusing to lower himself to the level of his attackers.

The second example happened on Thursday, 21 May 2009. President Barack Obama delivered an address at the National Archives defending his recent decisions on national security. The speaker who immediately followed The President was former Vice-President Dick Cheney who delivered an address that supported the national security policies implemented by the Bush Administration, and criticizing the Obama Administration's reduction of the security measures implemented by his predecessor. Unfortunately, instead of using this as a wonderful opportunity to open up a discussion on the merits of both speeches, a user of the online social network, Facebook, decided to create a page in support of, “Telling Dick Cheney to shut the hell up.” In other words, those Oh So Tolerant individuals who scream ‘censorship’ every time someone asks them to stop using profanity around children have decided that the former Vice-President of the United States no longer has a Right to Free Speech just because he disagrees with the current President.

In fact, my previous post in this blog contains another perfect example of this behavior. In it, I shared an article by respected historian, Victor Davis Hanson, that illustrates just how the the Progressive apologists for the terrorist organization, Hamas, are using these tactics to blame Israel for the atrocities Hamas perpetrated upon them and to convince the public that Israel is the villain, not Hamas. They are going out of their way to project Hamas' inhuman behavior onto Israel and accuse them of doing to Arabs and Muslims what Hamas has in fact been doing to Jews since their inception. Simply stated, the truth doesn't support their political narrative so they have to destroy it.

So, what makes this incivility “potentially more destructive to our society than all the car bombs in the Middle East” you ask? It’s this: the incivility into which American culture has been plunged is a wedge that has divided the country into ‘Us’ and ‘Them,’ ‘Left’ and ‘Right,’ ‘Red States’ and ‘Blue States,’ ‘Originalists’ and ‘Progressives.’ As long as feelings and opinions are regarded as legitimate rebuttle to hard facts and figures; as long as any voices are silenced and prevented from presenting their arguments reasonably, logically, and courteously; we will never be able to span the chasm between us and reunite as One Nation. If we do not heal this divide, the United States will be finished. As the old adage says, "United we stand, Divided we fall."

It is time to heal this country, not separate it further. Put down the donkey and elephant banners; put away your copy of, “Snappy Comebacks to Stupid Questions”; take a deep breath and let the person across from you finish his or her thought before you reply…and occasionally pause to let that other person either ask questions or rebut your points. The important thing is to stop the shouting and name-calling and begin to dialogue with one another. There is nothing wrong with being passionate about your beliefs, just keep in mind that the person on the other side of the argument also has the right to be passionate about their beliefs. Remember that there is a difference between being passionate and being emotional, so leave emotions out of the discussion. Also remember that one can be passionate and still present a logical argument supported by facts. And finally, before you come to the table, triple check your facts to make certain you are not basing your arguments on hearsay, innuendo, opinion, or urban myth. I’m always open to other points of view, but you’d better be able to support your position with cold, hard facts or I reserve the right to point out your errors!

Now, go out there and discuss, debate, and decide. Keep an open mind and end the War on Civility. Just stop all the bickering, gaslighting, name-calling, and shouting!

Until next time, be well, Dear Ones!

(1) Time Enough for Love by Robert A. Heinlein © 1973 Robert A. Heinlein

(2) Life Is Worth Losing by George Carlin © 2005 George Carlin

© 2009, 2023 James P. Rice

Simply Me (continued)

Topic #1 - Philosophy (continued)

Chapter 2

“One man’s theology is another man’s belly laugh.” – Robert A. Heinlein

belief [bih-leef]   Noun:               1.  an opinion or conviction;
                                                             2.  confidence in the truth or existence of something 
                                                                   not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof;

                                                             3.  confidence; faith; trust;

                                                             4.  a religious tenet or tenets; religious creed or faith;

faith [feyth]   Noun:                      1.  confidence or trust in a person or thing;

                                                             2.  belief that is not based on proof;

                                                             3.  belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of 

                                                                  religion;

                                                             4. belief in anything, as a code of ethics, standards of 

                                                                  merit, etc.;

religion [ri-lij-uh n]   Noun:      1.  a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and 
                                                                  purpose of the universe, especially when 
                                                                  considered as the creation of a superhuman 
                                                                  agency or agencies, usually involving devotional 
                                                                  and ritual observances, and often containing a 
                                                                  moral code governing the conduct of human 
                                                                  affairs;

                                                             2.  a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices 

                                                                   generally agreed upon by a number of persons or 

                                                                   sects;

                                                             3.    the body of persons adhering to a particular set of 

                                                                   beliefs and practices; 

spirituality [spir-i-choo-al-i-tee]  Noun:  

                                                              1.  the quality or fact of relating to, or consisting of 

                                                                   spirit; incorporeal;

                                                              2.  incorporeal or immaterial nature;

                                                              3.  predominantly spiritual character as shown in 

                                                                    thought, life, etc.; spiritual tendency or tone;

theology [thee-ol-uh-jee]   Noun:  

                                                              1.  The field of study and analysis concerned with 
                                                                   God and God’s attributes and relations to the 
                                                                   Universe; the study of divine things or religious 
                                                                   truth; divinity;

When most erudite citizens of a cosmopolitan society of the twenty-first century think of “Religion,” they, are usually considering five inter-woven concepts under that one capital “R”: belief, faith, religion, spirituality, and theology. 

Looking at the dictionary definitions at the beginning of this post, you can see that, while ‘belief’ and ‘faith’ are synonyms, they aren’t exactly the same.  It is possible for one to have belief without faith, but not faith without belief.  In other words, you can have a belief in something whether or not you’ve seen evidence of its veracity; while ‘faith’ is believing in something without any sort of evidence, just because something inside you says, “This I Believe.” 

‘Spirituality,’ on the other hand, can be addressed by either faith or belief, as it is concerned with the concept of the immaterial Spirit or Soul.  It has even been applied to situations where there is an absence of belief or faith, i.e. when atheists use either “The Spirit of Man” or “The Human Spirit” to define one or more of the intangibles of the Human mind, such as: the drive to overcome and survive insurmountable odds, the ability to use intuitive reasoning to come to an accurate conclusion from what appears to be insufficient data, and the ability of the subconscious to complete a puzzle from a few disparate pieces.  Then there is the spirituality aspect of ‘religion,’ with a little “r.”

Small “r” religion is the application and practice of the various systems of belief and faith, once they’ve been codified, chronicled, and consecrated.  It is the collected trappings in which we enshroud our intangible beliefs; the “garment of faith,’ as it was defined by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  It can include something as large, old, and ritualized as the worship services of the Roman Catholic Church, or something as small, recent, and casual as the tradition a collegiate athletic team has of touching a specific item for luck before a game.  But, no matter the age, complexity, or size, many, if not all, religions have some sort of spiritual aspect or consideration, be it the one shot at Salvation of an Immortal Soul, the continued Reincarnation of a Soul in the Search for Enlightenment, or the temporary inhabitation of a ‘meat puppet’ by some Great Celestial Being.  There are, however, four hallmarks shared by all religions: that only certain beliefs and practices are sanctioned; that engaging in anything taboo results in the transgressor being chastened, often severely; that some, if not all, sanctioned practices are ceremonially engaged in at very specific places and times; and that all beliefs and practices, both prescribed and proscribed, are passed down to successive generations in such a way as to enshrine said beliefs and practices as necessary cultural habits, and ensure their accurate and faithful preservation and adherence. 

Finally, theology is a sub-category of Philosophy that is part Ethics and part Metaphysics.  It’s the study of the divinity and truth of religion in general, or of a specific religion.  As such, it can cover the belief and faith of the adherents of religion, any divinely required moral codes and their relationship to the spirit, how the tenets of religion correlate with Truth, how divinity figures into the creation and management of the Universe, and the nature and scope of divine revelation in a faith-based belief system.  As you can see, theology touches on all aspects of capital “R” Religion.

So, I imagine that, by now, if your eyes aren’t starting to glaze over, you’re asking yourself, “Where’s the conflict?  Where’s the heresy?  Where does he start a Jihad?”  Well, reach not for the new Bourne story (Spoiler Alert: David comes out of hiding and is forced to do violence on shadowy types in order to save someone close to him; the movie version will contain lots of car chases and shaky cameras.) nor grab the newest George R. R. Martin novel (Spoiler Alert: he kills off half of the main characters about three fifths of the way through the book.), because here’s where the discussion gets interesting.

Next time, we look at the God of Abraham.  Until then, Be Well...

© James P. Rice 2011, 2016

Simply Me (continued)

Topic #1 - Philosophy (continued)

"Philosophy is a walk on slippery rocks..." - Edie Brickell

      Hello again, friends and family!  As I mentioned last time, the topic of 'Philosophy' is much, much more than an individual’s Core Personal Philosophy.  In fact, it is such a voluminous subject that pretty much everything I plan to discuss about "Simply Me" fits into one of the three traditional branches of Philosophy: Natural Philosophy; Moral Philosophy; or Metaphysical Philosophy (or simply Metaphysics).

Natural Philosophy, or Natural Science, as it’s known these days, is the aggregate of the various sciences that deal with all the objects and processes in the Universe that can be observed, described, predicted, empirically tested, and understood.  The hallmark of these various fields of Natural Science is that accuracy, quality, and validity of the empirical evidence is confirmed by the repeatability of the findings.  This branch of Philosophy is further divided into two principle branches: life sciences and physical sciences; with life sciences comprising the fields that involve the study of living organisms (such as anatomy, botany, genetics, molecular biology, and zoology), and physical sciences comprising the fields that study non-living systems (such as astronomy, chemistry, earth sciences, and physics).  Human history is replete with men and women who applied their Human Reasoning to ascertain bits and pieces of the fundamentals of nature; intellectual heroes such as Leucippus, Pythagoras, Euclid, Aristotle, Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Hypatia of Alexandria, Claudius Ptolemy, Jabir ibn Hayyan, Harun al-Rashid, Abu Nasr Mansur, Hildegard of Bingen, Thomas Aquinas, Galileo Galilei, Maria Winkelmann, Tyco Brahe, Maria Sybilla Merian, John Locke, Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler, Joseph Priestley, Thomas Jefferson, Antoine Lavoisier, Caroline Herschel, Marie Sklodowska-Curie, Maria Mitchell, Arthur Rudolph, Lise Meitner, Otto Hahn, Inge Lehmann, Emmy Noether, Wernher von Braun, Alan Turing, Albert Einstein, Chien-Shiung Wu, Arthur C. Clarke, Tikvah Alper, Isaac Asimov, Marvin Minsky, John McCarthy, Virginia Gerstenfeld Heinlein, Jane Goodall, Steve Wozniak, Robert Metcalf, and Robert Jarvik.  This may seem like a series of ‘begats’ out of the Old Testament, but each of these individuals, and many more like them, should be mentioned, and often, for the contributions they each made to promote the advancement of Human Knowledge; oft times at the expense of their own lives as they shook up the hide-bound beliefs of their respective times. 

The second Branch of Philosophy is Moral Philosophy, more commonly known as Ethics.  It’s the Branch of Philosophy that focuses on codifying, defending, and recommending the concepts of Right and Wrong conduct; seeking to resolve questions of Human Morality by defining such concepts as Good and Evil, Right and Wrong, Virtue and Vice, and Justice and Crime.  The three major fields of Moral Philosophy are Applied Ethics (the study of an individual’s obligated actions in any given situation), Meta Ethics (the theoretical study of the meaning and reference points of a hypothesis of morality, and the relation of said hypothesis to Truth), and Normative Ethics (the study of how a person determines the moral course of action in any given situation encountered in that person’s daily life).  Like Natural Philosophy, Moral Philosophy has had great Human thinkers over the last three millennia: Ptahhotep, Vyasa, Hammurabi, Rishi Narayana, Rishabha Dev, Lao Tzu, Zarathustra, Kanada, Thales, Ezekiel, Siddhartha Gautama, Nahum, Cyrus the Great, Pythagoras, Leucippus, Euclid, Confucius, Plato, Boethius, Diogenes of Sinope, Aristotle, Mo Tzu, Epicurus, Han Fei, Archimedes, Marcus Tullius Cicero, Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Philo of Alexandria, Plutarch, Marcus Aurelius, Augustine of Hippo, al-Kindi, Johannes Eriugena, Ibn Rushd, Ibn Khaldun, Anselm of Canterbury, William of Ockham, Thomas Aquinas, Niccolo Machiavelli, Desiderius Erasmus, Martin Luther, Francis Bacon, Rene` Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, John Locke, Immanuel Kant, Thomas Jefferson, Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ayn Rand, and so many more.  Each of these Philosophers, within their various cultures, have tried to use their Reason to analyze and define the morality of every facet of everyday life, as well as the ethical ramifications of the practical application in the real world of the theoretical research of any of the fields of Natural Philosophy, often finding themselves opposing conventional wisdom.

The final branch of Philosophy is Metaphysics.  This particular branch of Philosophy is a bit more difficult to define as it deals with intangibles, concerned as it is with explaining the fundamental nature of Being and the various elements in the Universe that influence that Being; e.g., the dimensions of space and time, objects that occupy said space and time, cause and effect, possibility, uncertainty, and even existence itself.  The three principle categories of Metaphysical Philosophy are: Cosmology (the study of the origin, evolution, structure, dynamics, and eventual end of the physical and spiritual Universe); Epistemology (the study of the nature and scope of knowledge and justified belief, sometimes referred to as the “Theory of Knowledge”); and Ontology (the study of all the states and categories of Being and their relations, or, to put it more plainly, it basically deals with the what, how, and where of existence).  Unfortunately, because Metaphysics deals with so much that is intangible, the various metaphysical fields tend to be fraught with charlatans and grifters, preying on the desperate, the gullible, and the ignorant.  But, frauds aside, many of history’s great thinkers have tackled the Metaphysics of the Universe: Anselm of Canterbury, Thomas Aquinas, Bertrand Russell, Aristotle, Plato, Jean-Paul Sartre, Rene’ Descartes, Immanuel Kant, Leucippus, John Locke, Baruch Spinoza, Fyodor Dostoevsky, William of Ockham, Al-Ghazali, Friedrich Nietzsche, Werner Heisenberg, Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Albert Einstein, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Martin Heidegger, just to name a few.

You may have noticed that a number of the Great Philosophers are listed in more than one branch of Philosophy.  It’s because every field of Philosophy is intertwined; each field of study leading to questions in another.  The interdisciplinary overlap had (and still has) Astronomers studying Epistemology, Biologists looking into Ethics, Computer Programmers considering Ontology. 

As you can see from my little summary of the topic, to say, “Let’s talk Philosophy,” can mean just about anything.  Therefore, to help things along, I’m going to break up the subjects I discuss into chew-able bites.  Going forward, most of these subjects will be addressed within their respective sub-categories.  For now, as I continue to delve into ‘Philosophy’, I’ll be discussing two things: my own Core Personal Philosophy, and what, beyond Personal Philosophy, the Average Jane and Joe in our culture thinks of when he, or she, hears the “P” word; namely Belief, Faith, Religion, and Spirituality.  Yep, next time I’m going to jump right in and lay out my positions on the quartet of subjects that has alternately caused both, the greatest comfort, and the greatest misery, in the history of Humanity.

Until then, Be Well...

© James P. Rice 2011, 2016

Simply Me (continued)

In which out hero engages in some serious navel-gazing...

Topic #1 - Philosphy

“I yam what I yam and that’s all that I yam!” – Popeye the Sailor

philosophy [fi-los-uh-fee] Noun:   1.  the rational investigation of the truths 

                                                       and principles of being, knowledge, or 

                                                       conduct;

2.  a particular system of thought based on such study or investigation;

I promised some serious navel-gazing, so what better place to start our journey than in the Land of Navel-Gazing, Philosophy.

When looking at what makes a person what he, or she, is at the moment, this is a good place to start.  There really isn’t anything more personal than an individual’s personal philosophy.  It’s the summary of the Sum of all those myriad physical and metaphysical parts in the calculus statement of the Self that I mentioned in the previous post.

A person’s core philosophy is the foundation on which is built the structure of their Being.  In computer terms, it is to the individual what the Registry is to the Windows operating system: i.e. it contains all the configuration information that tells that person how to behave within certain parameters.  To use a business concept, it is their Mission Statement.  Even before you get into the meat and potatoes of someone’s core philosophy, just it’s general nature and structure can tell you quite a bit about that individual: is their philosophy ambiguous and unfocused, subject to a variety of interpretations or frequent revisions; or is it clear and concise, orderly, succinctly defined, and as difficult to modify as something engraved on a steel plate?  Without knowing any of the details of their personal philosophies, the first person I described would probably be viewed as capricious and flighty, possibly an air-head, and most likely prone to practicing ‘situational ethics’; while the second would most likely be viewed as focused, precise, maybe a little OCD (or CDO: those of us who have it understand), rigid and unyielding, most likely unwilling to compromise.

That, however, would be the epitome of ‘judging a book by its cover’.  Things aren’t always what they seem at first glance.  Look at it this way: the body of the car may have some dents, dings, and scratches in it.  There may even be a few patches of Bondo and primer.  But that doesn’t mean that, when you pop the hood, you won’t find a clean, carefully-maintained beauty of a supercharged V-8 purring like a kitten and ready to chew the rubber off the wheels when the throttle is opened up.  While your first impressions of Personal Philosophy 1 and Personal Philosophy 2 may be correct, the same two philosophies could be described by someone else thusly: the first person is open-minded and willing to embrace new cultures, experiences, and ideas; while the second person is concise, organized, and firm in their convictions.  In other words, the personal philosophy of the Observer often colors the lens through which the personal philosophy of the Observed is viewed.

So, where am I going with this?  Simple.  This is the introduction to me proffering my own personal philosophy for your perusal.  I briefly touched on some of it in the Prologue, but now, I’d like to provide to you my core programming.  So, without further ado, I present to you, dear reader, my Foundational Principles (in no particular order):

1.    I am a Christian in that I believe in YHWH, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Moses; and that the Lord came to Earth in the form of a mortal man; to live among the people and become the Sacrifice to seal a new Covenant with Humanity.  I’ve seen too many Wonders and Miracles in my life to not believe, particularly the two Miracles that were the births of my daughters.  We’ll get more into this later;

2.    I try my hardest to live my life by the Golden Rule: Treat others as you wish them to treat you, not necessarily as they actually treat you.  I don’t always succeed, but I do always try;

3.    I believe that Life is Sacred.  All Life.  Except cockroaches.  And spiders.  And mosquitos.  This may seem odd, even a bit hypocritical (except the creepy-crawly part), to those who know I support the Death Penalty and that I’m an unrepentant carnivore (okay, omnivore with carnivorous leanings).  I’ll also go into more detail in future posts regarding my stances on Life and Death;

4.    I love most people to some extent or another, but I have a completely Unconditional Love for my family and some very select, special friends.  I may not like some of the things they do, I may completely disagree with them politically, and I may even get angry with some of their actions from time to time, but it never diminishes my Unconditional Love for them.  You’ll notice I said “most people.”  This is because there are a handful of people sprinkled throughout my life who have earned my animosity.  This animosity has usually been rooted in feelings of pity and disappointment for that person, rather than hatred.  I have rarely felt true Hatred in my life, even though I have said, “I hate you!” in anger.  I must admit, though, that I have experienced a few times that burning, unbridled Hatred for another Human Being.  Thankfully, though, those instances have been extremely few and far between;

5.    My Loyalty is hard won, but even harder lost.  It’s been pointed out to me that I’m loyal to a fault; that I will often continue to stand by someone or something long past when I should have walked away;

6.    I believe that the primary thing that sets Human Beings apart from, and above, the animals on this planet is the gift of Free Will bestowed upon us by our Creator.  Free Will gives good ol’ H. Sapiens the ability to choose to act against his instinctual nature.  No matter how smart your favorite critter is, with the very few exceptions that prove the rule, animals cannot act against their instincts;

7.    I believe that we each have a Purpose in Life, and that it is our responsibility to discover it, set ourselves upon that path, and kick and scratch and claw to fulfill that Purpose.  As Aristotle put it, “where your talents and the needs of the world cross, there lies your vocation.” 

8.    I do not believe in predestination; that little Free Will thing makes it impossible.  But our Free Will means that we can actually choose to turn our backs upon our “First, Best Destiny,” as Mr. Spock put it, at any time and tread upon a different path;

9.    Again, because of Free Will, I believe that everyone, no matter how low they sink or how far down the path of Evil they go, experiences critical “pivot points” in their lives, to co-opt a term I first heard used in this way by Glenn Beck.  These are moments that present a person with choices they can make to turn their lives around, to grow and make themselves a better person, and to redeem themselves;

10.  I believe that, in addition to Free Will, we have another characteristic that differentiates us from the animals: the ability to Reason.  Our Creator granted us with the acumen to look at the Universe around us and gradually discern its inner workings;

11.  I believe in personal Honor; that an individual is only as good as his word.  I strive every day of my life to uphold this principle, so that those who have dealings with me know that they can count on me to always honor my commitments, even if those commitments leave me holding the short end of the stick.  People of ill will and intent can take away a person’s property, freedom, or even his life, but the only way a person can lose his integrity is to willingly surrender it;

12.  I believe that all people, but especially children, must live with the consequences of their actions; though the consequences can be somewhat mitigated for children.  Even if they apologize and are honestly contrite, everyone must learn that they can’t make the consequences of a poor choice just go away by saying, “I’m sorry”;

13.  I believe that Right is Right and Wrong is Wrong and never the twain shall meet.  Many people today place great stock in the concept of compromise in every situation; the philosophy that everything is shades of gray … that there are no absolutes of Right and Wrong.  There are two old adages that describe how I feel about the via media: “If you sit in the middle of the road, all that’ll happen is you’ll get run over;” and, “Anyone who won’t stand for something will fall for anything.”

14.  Further, I believe that it is just as important to do the Right Thing when no one is looking as it is to do it when being observed, maybe even more so;

15.  I also believe in the dichotomy of Good and Evil.  The Universe abhors a vacuum; for Good to exist, it must be balanced by Evil, and vice-versa.  The problem is that this is another area where our modern society has blurred the boundaries; painting every conflict in the gray shades of compromise, if not completely reversing the roles of these ancient adversaries.  Ayn Rand expressed it best when she wrote in Atlas Shrugged, “In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win.  In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit.”

16.  I believe that most people are born with an equal propensity for Good and Evil, and that, with the exception of an extremely rare few, the environment in which a child is raised is what ultimately determines how Good or how Evil that child will become;

17.  I firmly believe in Soul Mates.  I should, I married mine.  I believe that, somewhere out there, in the big, wide world, there is a special someone for everyone.  A partner with whom you will create a special synergistic spark that, without your specific pairing, the world will lack; 

18.  I do not believe that marriage is a 50-50 endeavor.  I believe that it is a 100-100 endeavor.  Both parties in the marriage must give 100% to their partner.  Any marriage where both people are only half-way trying is doomed to failure;

19.  I also believe that, in addition to your Soul Mate, there are several people out there that I like to call, “Soul Buddies.”  These are people you meet with whom you have a special connection … people with whom, for no known reason, you just hit it off from the start.  After meeting, you may not even see your Soul Buddy for years at a time, but when you do, it’s as if no time at all has passed;

20.  I do not believe that the end ever justifies the means.  If something is morally or ethically wrong in one situation, then it is wrong in all situations.  Claiming a noble motive for ignoble actions is just an attempt to legitimize bad, lazy behavior;

21.  I believe that the United States of America, warts and all, is the best thing to ever happen to the Human Race.  We may have hit some bumps and taken some wrong turns along the way, but our Constitutional Republic has provided more Freedom and created more general prosperity than any other system of government in Human History.  I’ll get into how I came by this conviction in future posts;

      So, there you have it: me, in a very large nut shell.  Or is it?  We actually have quite a bit more to cover; this is just the Foundation of the Structure-That-is-Me.  Why, in the subject of Philosophy alone, we’ve barely scratched the surface.  It is much, much more than an individual’s Core Personal Philosophy.

      Next time, we'll start looking at the three traditional branches of Philosophy: Natural Philosophy; Moral Philosophy; or Metaphysical Philosophy (or simply Metaphysics).  Until then, Be Well...

© James P. Rice 2011, 2016

Sacrifice No More

“We all make little sacrifices.”
“That’s just one of the little sacrifices we have to make.”
“Do you know what I sacrificed for you?”
“He sacrificed his life for his country.”

I’m sure you’ve all heard these little phrases, or other phrases just like them. You’ve all probably even used them. But how many of people actually understand just what it is they are saying?

According to the dictionary, there are two primary definitions for the word, ‘sacrifice.’ The first definition, the religious one, defines a sacrifice as tribute, usually an animal or person, that is destroyed to demonstrate devotion to a deity. The second definition, the secular one, defines a sacrifice as a loss entailed by giving up or selling something at less than its actual value. I’ll focus on the secular definition since I’m not certain I want to know if any of you are practicing ritual sacrifice.

Basically, the secular definition means that, when you sacrifice, you are giving up something of importance to you in favor of something of lesser value. I can see that many of you are wondering how I came to that conclusion. Look at it this way…if the something you gained were naturally of greater value to you than the something you gave up, then the effort to obtain it wouldn’t have been a sacrifice to you, would it? Unfortunately, we have become a society of victims, with many people judging their personal worth not only by what they can accumulate, but also by what they gave up to obtain it. They wear their losses like badges of honor, pulling them out and parading them at society functions in a bizarre game of ‘loss one-upmanship’. This is often referred to as the Martyr Mentality.

In an attempt to establish themselves as martyrs, people have stopped accepting responsibility for their actions and choices. For some reason, they expect to be able to eat their cake and still have it, to paraphrase Marie Antoinette. If they find themselves in a situation where they can’t have it all…one that requires them to choose between one something and another, they view themselves as having been forced by events beyond their control into situations where they must choose the lesser evil. A good example of this is in the way our society speaks of the men and women in our armed forces.

We are constantly bombarded by comments that the members of our armed forces…whether they be regular active duty, Reservists, or National Guard…have ‘sacrificed’ their personal, professional, or family lives in order to serve our nation. So far, none of the soldiers, sailors, marines, or airmen with whom I’ve spoken has ever used the word ‘sacrifice’ when discussing their service. They use words like ‘duty’, ‘honor’, and ‘choice’. They do not view their service as giving up something of value for something of less value. Quite the contrary, they view their choice to defend liberty as one of the greatest gifts they could ever give their families and neighbors. They are proud, and rightly so, that they ‘choose’ and do not ‘sacrifice’ when they serve. This is especially true of the service men and women who are wounded or killed performing their duty. Time and again, wounded soldiers ask when they can go back and rejoin their unit. Even amputees, when asked, have stated that their greatest regret is that they cannot return to their posts. And can you imagine any service man or woman who gave the last, full measure would ever consider their choice to lay down their life defending the Constitution to be a ‘sacrifice’?

On September 11th, 2001, the world saw what it meant to be an American who chose to be of service to his or her neighbors. The firefighters and police officers of New York City did not consider it a ‘sacrifice’ when they put themselves in harm’s way in order to evacuate the damaged Twin Towers as quickly and as safely as possible. These men and women chose their professions knowing that they may be injured or killed helping a stranger. Yet even off-duty officers and firefighters raced to the World Trade Center, pausing not to consider the risk, but to grab what equipment they could, and thought only of saving as many strangers as possible. The firefighters charged up nearly a hundred flights of stairs with a hundred pounds of equipment strapped to their bodies, encouraging evacuees as they went to remain calm yet speedy in their downward flight. Yet, even after the first tower collapsed and they were ordered to evacuate the second tower, they didn’t panic. Instead, they continued to search each floor as they traveled back down the stairways, making certain they rescued all they could, and even stopped to help civilians who had collapsed on the stairs on the way out. Outside, police officers ran…not away from the towers…but toward them in an effort to help the wounded and crippled out of the danger zone. Once again, even after the first tower collapsed, police and EMS continued helping evacuees away from the second tower. All of these heroes would be offended if anyone suggested they gave up something of greater value to save all those lives on that dark Tuesday. They definitely had no intention of becoming martyrs.

But, the most heinous example of this mentality in our modern society is within families.

I can’t tell you the number of times I have heard people talking about “the sacrifices they made for their children.” Don’t raise your hands, but how many of you heard that from your parents, or may have even said it to your own children? I don’t know about you, but it makes me sick every time I hear it. Children are not the lesser of two evils. Quite the opposite! Children are the most valuable commodity in existence. I challenge anyone who’s ever seen my children to tell me it looks like I settled for something of lesser value! As Robert Heinlein once wrote, “If the universe has any purpose more important than topping the woman you love and making a baby with her hearty help, I’ve never heard of it!”

Every time a parent refers to the ‘sacrifices’ made on behalf of their children, they diminish the value of those children. When parents make those comments in front of or to the children, the child’s self-image suffers. The parents are implying that they bartered away something they viewed to be of greater value than their children just so the children would have the honor of existing. What it actually demonstrates is the fact that the parents have not yet grown up…that they in fact have the moral maturity of a seven year-old. They often treat parenthood, not as the honor and duty that it is, but as a prison sentence. Quite frankly, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if these ‘poor’, ‘deprived’ parents could tell me that it is only 6,574 days from birth to their child’s 18th birthday.

It is time people stopped trying to prove how noble they were in allowing their children to come into existence. Instead, it is time to rejoice in the miracle that is childbirth…rejoice in their part in bringing another life into being. It is also time to recognize that children are the result of life choices, not of sacrifices, and that the child’s existence is a sacred honor for the parent, not the child.

Quite frankly, it is time to view all of our choices in that light and not as sacrifices. It is time to wake up, stop making excuses, and lose the “Martyr Mentality”! Be responsible adults…accept the consequences of your choices with no regrets. This is easy if you root all your choices in principles. If you make a bad choice, learn from it and make choices that correct that mistake…but accept the responsibility for that choice. Besides, good results often come from bad choices. Remember, you chose to place your foot upon the path you now tread…no one forced you there. Every choice in your life is a fork in that path. And like a network of paths that thread through a forest, you can usually find your way back onto your original course simply by making corrective choices at each fork.

Right now, I want to challenge each and every one of you. I challenge you to pledge to yourself:

* to stop being a victim

* to accept the consequences of your actions

* to take responsibility for the results of your choices

* to root all of your choices in principles and not in convenienceand above all, to vow to sacrifice no more!