Reflections In Smoke

The air in Sacramento is a smoke-filled haze from wildfires ringing the area. The smoke does seem to bring the temperatures down a little, but it also causes a scratchy throat and is even causing worse problems for those with respiratory conditions.

I'm reminded by all this smoke of the recent torching of a local children's playground and of what I wrote and of what others commented about what I wrote recently. In short, I said that a part of me would like to kill the arsonist, but another part of me realized that this would be worse than the arson itself, and I wondered how best to deal with my angry and vengeful thoughts and emotions. Should I express them openly or keep them to myself? Should I accept them as a natural, albeit misguided, response to the arson, or should I try to find a wholesome way to dispel them?

One person, a psychoanalytic, spiritually-oriented clinical psychologist, commented that I should not only not hold back these feelings and my expression of them, but that I should actually "amplify" them. He suggested that these thoughts and feelings were the most "normal" and "noble" part of my otherwise abnormal psychological makeup (and, perhaps, ignoble character). Of course, he added, I shouldn't act out these feelings, but, as long as I didn't, it was good for me to nurture these homicidal thoughts and hate-filled emotions toward evil deeds and evildoers. This would help me to become psychologically healthier and, perhaps, even progress more rapidly and completely along the spiritual path.

But is this person right? Should we cultivate hatred toward those who harm or would harm us and "amplify" our desire to harm or kill them? Is this psychologically wholesome and spiritually uplifting?

I don't understand how it could be. I think I do understand how suppressing anger and violent thoughts toward evildoers could be harmful psychologically and spiritually. I think Ken Wilber and others are correct in pointing out that the insights of modern psychology can combine with those of traditional spirituality to create spiritual paths unobstructed by our "shadows."

Yet, it seems to me that there's a vast and much more wholesome middle ground between forceful suppression or repression of this kind on the one hand and trying to foster these violent reactions on the other. It seems to me that this desirable middle ground involves acknowledging one's reactive anger and hatred and even openly admitting them to others without either feeling ashamed of them or stoking them. One can then seek to understand why someone would or would even want to torch a children's playground or commit any other harmful act and then strive to feel empathy, compassion, and concern for that misguided individual while, at the same time, condemning the act he or she committed or wants to commit.

I suspect that the person who urged me to "amplify" my homicidal thoughts and hateful emotions would be inclined to shake his head at what I've just written and say, "Steve, you may well be a hopeless case."

And maybe I am. At least until someone can cogently explain to me how hating and wanting to kill evildoers stops them or us from doing evil or raises our minds, hearts, and souls to where we want them to be.

Angels and Demons

Yesterday afternoon I saw disturbing videos and pictures of Cho Seung-Hui brandishing weapons, his face and voice contorted with hatred.

Later, as I was driving along a narrow on-ramp to the freeway, a taxi tailgated me and swerved as though he was going to try to pass me on the left. I felt very angry, and as the taxi drove beside me in the next lane, its driver flipped me off and I flipped him off and made mocking faces at him. Then he moved to my lane in front of me, still flipping me off out his window and I returning the compliment from within my car until he took the same exit I normally do to get home. I took that exit too and when he later moved to the same left turn lane I normally take, I decided not to stop at the red light in the left turn lane beside him and risk any kind of confrontation, but to take a different route home. I just waved and smiled sardonically at him as I passed him, and he flipped me off again.

Later that evening my wife and I were walking to the library where we encountered a young black male cursing and threatening someone at the top of his lungs, only there was no one around except the cars driving by and us. At first I thought be might be rapping or otherwise "talking" to someone he knew in the distance, but it soon became apparent that he was simply unhinged. My headstrong wife, who does not allow herself to be intimidated by anyone, kept walking toward him, since he was between us and the library, and I reflexively geared myself to take him apart (or at least give it all I had) if he attacked us. Fortunately, he walked away from us, continuing his vulgar rant.

Last night I watched "wildest" police videos of people trying to evade police in car chases or to kill them, and I hated those criminals and wanted them dead rather than mollycoddled in prison and then released to perpetrate more crime and pose further danger to the public and the police. I felt particular rage in watching one incident where several young black males had invaded a home and shot a crippled young white woman's parents in the head, abducted her, taken her to a store and were caught on video rolling her in her wheelchair to an ATM so that she could withdraw all of the money from her parents' account, then forcing her back into the van and driving away to be pursued by police whom they shot at from the van until they were pit-maneuvered off the road into a ditch, and the young headscarved men tried to scamper away. I wanted the police to Rodney King those worthless pieces of human garbage to bloody, lifeless pulp.

Early this morning I awoke from a nightmare. I do not recall any of the details except that, in my dream, I was overcome by some demonic force of sheer, irrepressible evil. I do not have nightmares very often, but almost every one that I do have is some variation of this theme of being taken over by an evil force from within.

It would seem that this is what happened to Cho Seung-Hui over a long period of time in real life and to horrific effect. His living nightmare became Virginia Tech's and America's nightmare.

I do not believe in supernatural beings of evil malevolence who try to possess our souls and succeed on horrible occasion. I believe that "the evil that men do" stems from natural misalignments of brain, mind, society, culture, and spirit.

But I do believe that each of us has the potential and purpose to minimize hatred and evil in the world by filling it with as much love and goodness as we can and to create more "angels" that nurture and uplift than "demons" that debase and destroy.

The renowned Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh says "be peace" in order to spread peace in the world. Yet how does one become peace without repressing inner strife and turning one's outward peace into a facade that fools no one except, perhaps, the one who wears it?

And how do we minimize hatred and evil in the world without repressing our shadows and strengthening them to the point where they violently erupt in campus massacres or achieve more subtly destructive release in countless ugly manifestations of racial, ethnic, religious, political, and other forms of hatred and intolerance, or in angrily flipping people off who tailgate and flip us off on the highway?

Why Mock?

Bob Godwin allowed one of his alter egos, "Cousin Dupree," to post today's Christmas message in his blog. In that message, he says, "I would like to take this opportunity to thank Bob for taking me in after Katrina and providing me with those three precious things that make anyone's life meaningful: something to do, something to look forward to, and someone to mock."

I believe that Bob's blog is brilliant, even when I disagree with or at least doubt much of what it says. But I've never understood why so much of it revolves around mocking those with whom he disagrees. I give him credit for not conducting most of his mockery in an overtly hateful or hostile manner, even though he's frequently championed the appropriateness of hostility and hatred against various people as well as ideologies and actions.

But why does he feel the need to mock at all, much less as much as he does? Does it elevate those who take pleasure, if not delight, in his mockery, or does it pander to their baser inclinations to make themselves feel better about themselves by degrading, demonizing, and marginalizing others? Does it lead those whom he mocks to see the error of their thinking and conduct, or does it further energize and intensify their predilections?

I believe that Bob is basically a good man. I believe that he genuinely wants to do his part to uplift people and leave the world a better place than it was when he entered it. So, why does he channel so much of his formidable cleverness into mockery, and what does he or anyone else really gain from it?