Postmodern Spirituality?

"Any premodern spirituality that does not come to terms with both modernity and postmodernity has no chance of survival in today's world."

The quote above is from Ken Wilber's essay From the Great Chain of Being to Postmodernism in Three Easy Steps. If Wilber is, in this instance, using "spirituality" to mean "religion," I disagree with him. It seems to me that premodern religion divorced from modern and postmodern understandings is not only surviving but flourishing and will probably continue to do so indefinitely. However, speaking for myself, I cannot embrace the teachings and practices of any premodern religion cut off from modern and postmodern understandings of self, culture and nature stemming from such varied disciplines as the physical, biological, psychological, and social sciences, linguistics, philosophy, and theology.

Yet, many who claim to agree with this also continue to call themselves Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist or whatever and to adhere faithfully to the teachings and practices of those premodern traditions. I don't know how they do it, and, until I do, I can't do it myself.

But then, what SHOULD I do?

Healthy Skepticism?

Frederick Crews is a Professor of English Emeritus at U.C. Berkeley, has written several books, and is perhaps best known for his controversial essays about Freudian theory and recovered memory. His latest book, Follies of the Wise, is a collection of skeptical essays about everything from psychology to UFO’s to literary theory to religion. In the Introduction to his book, he stresses the importance of “unsparing empirical review, the tools we need to forestall another such outbreak of mass irrationality” in science, religion, and popular culture.

Crews begins his introductory essay by addressing problems with theodicy—the attempt to rationally reconcile God’s alleged omniscience, omnipotence, and omnibenevolence—in order to call attention to a “clash between two intellectual currents.” These conflicting currents are “scientific empiricism” and “traditional authority” of religious and other kinds. Crews comes down strongly in favor of the former and believes that it leads to “metaphysical naturalism,” which Wikipedia explains as the supposition that “the fundamental constituents of reality, from which everything derives and upon which everything depends, is fundamentally mindless. So if any variety of metaphysical naturalism is true, then any mental properties that exist (hence any mental powers or beings) are causally derived from, and ontologically dependent on, systems of nonmental powers, properties, or things.”

I think my own outlook pretty much meets this definition. I know that many people believe in some kind of transcendent Spirit that is the matrix or ground if not also the goal of manifold Reality, but I have not yet been able to understand how any kind of “spiritual” mind, intelligence, agency, or force could arise or exist independently of “systems of nonmental powers, properties, or things” or be the “telos” we are intrinsically motivated to fulfill. When people from traditional religionists to Ken Wilber insist that if there were no universe, there would still be Spirit or God, part of me wants to believe them, but I can’t honestly say that I do, for I just don’t understand how it could be true. What and where would this Spirit be?

Says Crews, “Metaphysical naturalism may be undiplomatic, then, but it is favored by the totality of evidence at hand. Only a secular Darwinian perspective, I believe, can make general sense of humankind and its works. Our species appears to have constituted an adaptive experiment in the partial and imperfect substitution of culture for instinct, with all the liability to self-deception and fanaticism that such an experiment involves. We chronically strain against our animality by inhabiting self-fashioned webs of significance—myths, theologies, theories—that are more likely than not to generate illusory and often murderous “wisdom.” That is the price we pay for the same faculty of abstraction and pattern drawing that enables us to be not mere occupiers of an ecological niche but planners, explorers, and, yes, scientists who can piece together facts about our world and our own emergence and makeup.”

I suppose that philosophers from Bob Godwin to Ken Wilber would contend that our “myths, theologies, [and] theories” and our “faculty of abstraction and pattern drawing” arise from more than a strictly “natural” substratum and aim at more than merely killing time between the maternity ward and the crematorium. If I’m not mistaken, they would argue that these human products and traits can be understood fully only as immanent instantiations of transcendent Spirit seeking to know and harmonize with Itself.

Crews tangentially addresses this when he writes: “Here it may be objected that myths, theologies, and theories themselves, as nonmaterial things that can nevertheless set in motion great social movements and collisions of armies, confound a materialist or metaphysically naturalist perspective. Not at all. We materialists don’t deny the force of ideas; we merely say that the minds precipitating them are wholly situated within brains and that the brain, like everything else about which we possess some fairly dependable information, seems to have emerged without any need for miracles. Although this is not a provable point, it is a necessary aid to clear thought, because, now that scientific rationality has conclusively shown its formidable explanatory power, recourse to the miraculous is always a regressive, obfuscating move.”

By “recourse to the miraculous,” Crews seems to be talking about, among other things, the notion of a transcendent Spirit that philosophers such as Godwin and Wilber would say we cannot know by strict empirical observation or “scientific rationality” but must apprehend by a deeper, more direct, and more intuitive means. But, says Crews, “there is no such thing as deep knowledge, in the sense of insight so compelling that it needs no validation. There is only knowledge, period. It is recognizable not by its air of holiness or its emotional appeal but by its capacity to pass the most demanding scrutiny of well-informed people who have no prior investment in confirming it. And a politics of sorts, neither leftist nor rightist, follows from this understanding. If knowledge can be certified only by a social process of peer review, we ought to do what we can to foster communities of uncompromised experts. That means actively resisting guru-ism, intellectual cliquishness, guilt-assuaging double standards, and, needless to say, disdain for the very concept of objectivity.”

This resonates with me. I’m wary of the alleged certitude of the “deep knowledge” of intuition or mystical insight, even if part of me wants to believe in it. It seems to me as though all proposed truths need to be validated by a community of people qualified to validate them. But how do people who have “no prior investment” in confirming alleged spiritual insights become qualified to confirm them? Don’t most, if not all, who undertake rigorous spiritual discipline to the point where they become “qualified” to validate alleged truths do it with great “investment” in doing so? That is, aren’t they strongly biased in favor of confirming those insights from the very beginning? If so, how reliable are their validations?

Finally, Crews outlines what we should be on the lookout for when we weigh the claims of different “schools of thought”: “The question, of course, is how an outsider can be sure that one school of thought is less entitled to our trust than a rival one. In many instances such confidence would be unwarranted. Certain indicators of bad faith, however, are unmistakable: persistence in claims that have already been exploded; reliance on ill-designed studies, idolized lawgivers, and self-serving anecdotes; evasion of objections and negative instances; indifference to rival theories and to the need for independent replication; and “movement” belligerence. Where several of these traits are found together, even a lay observer can be sure that no sound case could be made for the shielded theory; its uncompetitiveness is precisely what has necessitated these indulgences.”

As I was reading this, I couldn’t help but think of one increasingly controversial “school of thought” that I won’t name. I hope Crews’ cautionary words don’t really apply to it even if, unfortunately, it seems as though they might.

What To Do?

What should one do when one's own moral sense tells him an act is wrong; yet, he believes in levels of moral and spiritual wisdom, and someone he's considered to be at higher levels of moral and spiritual wisdom than himself is the person who committed the act and insists that what he did stemmed from his higher wisdom and was right? Does one abandon one's own moral sense in this instance and accept what the other person says as true and what the other person did as right? Or does one trust one's own moral sense in this instance and reject what the other person says as false and what he did as wrong?

If one does the former, concluding that his own moral sense in this instance is wrong, when can he ever trust his own moral sense to be right? And if he can't trust his own moral sense, can he trust his sense of what's true in other respects, including his sense that someone else is wiser than he is and offers a "map" of reality that is worth studying in depth and detail? On the other hand, if one does the latter, concluding that the other person's moral sense in this instance is wrong even though he continues to insist that it's right, when can one ever trust the other person's moral sense to be right when it disagrees with one's own? And, once again, when can one ever trust anything else that person says to be true?

Anyone who's been reading this blog lately knows what and who I'm alluding to, but I don't want to mention any particular incidents or names, because I'm talking now about more, much more than just one particular incident or person. I'm talking about general issues of morality and truth. How do we know what is right and wrong? How do we know what is true and false? I've always been inclined to say that we need to listen closely to our "inner voice" that tells us when something is or is likely to be right or true on the one hand or wrong or false on the other. But what is this inner voice, and how reliable is it, especially if there really ARE different lines and levels of cognitive, interpersonal, moral, and spiritual development, and the inner voice of people at higher levels or of those we believe to be at higher levels than ourselves disagree with what our own inner voice says?

I used to ask these kinds of questions all the time and systematically try to reason my way to definitive answers. But I pretty much gave up when I came to the provisional conclusion that no definitive answers were forthcoming. Since then, I've managed to become pretty comfortable with uncertainty while continuing to place considerable trust in my intuition or inner voice to steer me right most of the time. But times like these give me pause and have me wondering, at least for the time being, how much I can trust my own inner voice or anyone else's and how to proceed in the absence of trust.

Walking the Talk?

I'm reading a piece in What is Enlightenment?. In the introduction, Ken Wilber says to the crowd gathered before him:

One of my favorite exercises from Quaker prayer gatherings is: “Let the next sentence out of your mouth be from your very highest self.” Everybody gets quiet at that point! But that’s the kind of attitude we want to bring to these dialogues. New structures in consciousness are being laid down right now—they are just faint footprints on the face of the cosmos. So your behavior, to the extent that you live up to your highest, is actually creating structures that future humanity will inhabit. Therefore, choose your acts very, very carefully. Make sure that the next action you take comes from your highest self. Make sure that the next thing that you say comes from your highest self. Then there’s hope for the future. Those structures are already being laid down. God is laying them down; Spirit is laying them down—through us. So we have to become appropriate vehicles for Spirit to lay down the very structures that humanity is going to inhabit. And if we don’t, that is a guilt we will carry with us for eternity.

These are beautiful words. I agree with them completely. However, I have a simple and sincere question for Ken Wilber and his devoted followers: Does Ken's recent, controversial post to his blog truly come from his "highest self" and truly help to create the kind of structure we want humanity to inhabit?

Not Surprised but Still Disappointed

Ken Wilber says his previous post was a kind of verbal Rorschach test. We are what we see in it. Or, more accurately, the bad things we see in it actually reside in ourselves or our “shadows,” and the good things we see in it are actually in Ken Wilber. If we see bad things, we aren’t ready for Prime Time Integral and can continue wallowing in the “herd mentality” of those stiffly humorless and chokingly well-mannered souls who found the post, whatever its motivations, unacceptably ugly. If we see the good things, we can congratulate Wilber for his amazing cleverness and second or even third tier sagacity and pat ourselves on the back for having the right stuff to come “fly”with Wilber and the other special folks at Integral Institute who have the rarified ability to discriminate between the medium and the message and to know genuine compassion from the “idiot compassion” of those who dare not “ruffle” the “feathers” of even those who richly deserve and desperately need it.

I’m not surprised by Wilber’s explanation. In fact, I think the only thing that would have surprised me would have been no follow-up explanation of precisely the kind he gave us. I guess that, coupled with the fact that I wasn’t outraged or repulsed by his previous post but simply puzzled by it and disappointed with it, means that, by Wilberian Integral reckoning, there may still be a nanosecond’s hope for me after I’ve had a few more years to mature along several key “lines” of consciousness.

But I confess that I still feel disappointed in Wilber and in those, like Stuart Davis, who gleefully praise Wilber for sticking it to those “green shits” and “toxic, petty fuckers” for their low “altitude” and insanely “preposterous attacks” on integral ghosts. Wilber would no doubt say that I should actually be disappointed in myself and in those who, like myself, didn’t “get it.” Perhaps it’s the ultimate measure of my low altitude cluelessness that I continue to believe that HE and those who support his previous post are the ones who may truly not get it.

Is THIS Enlightenment?

“Jesus said succinctly, “By their fruits ye shall know them.” If you want to know how people have progressed on the spiritual path, just watch them in the little interactions of everyday life. Are they patient? Cheerful? Sensitive to the needs of those around them? Are they free from compulsive likes and dislikes? Can they work harmoniously with others? If so, they are evolving, though they may have never had a vision or psychic experience…”
--Eknath Easwaran

“But simply still, I simply cannot stand this criticism of simply anything, let alone “simply,” so simply suck my dick, whaddaya say?…I am long gone, dude, down the road, flying at the speed of thought, looking for yet more yummies to share with readers, and these painfully sluggish critics, dragging their bloated bellies across the ground at a snail’s pace of gray dreariness, can frankly just eat my dust and bite my ass…And even a bald bastard with ambition, I might add, instead of even being able to lay blame where it in fact belongs, which is on its own sorry-ass, first tier, lame-brain case of arrested development, a two-bit, no-fit, nobody-quoting, self-promoting, gas-floating, over-bloating, no-deposit, lame-composite, really lost it, never had it, wanna bees, felled at the knees, first-tier fleas, flick ‘em off his back and never look back…”
--Ken Wilber

Many have criticized Ken Wilber. They’ve criticized his ideas. They’ve criticized his Integral Institute. And they’ve criticized the way he and his followers respond to this criticism. Yesterday, he replied to his critics, and the Integral world is abuzz. Some praise him for “compassionately” “combining the mind of a bodhisattva with the mouth of a gangsta rapper” and for letting his justifiable frustration loose on his clueless critics without putting on false and simpleminded airs of goodness. But most, I suspect, will find his reply mean-spirited, juvenile, petulant, “dismissive, conceited,” lacking in substance, and damaging to the Integral movement.

As for me, I offer no criticisms, only questions. If I were somehow able to scale the heights of integral practice and awareness that Wilber has, would I conduct myself the way Wilber did in his reply? Was THAT an “integrally informed,” psychologically mature, and spiritually advanced response? Did it successfully refute his critics, vindicate his ideas, advance the Integral cause, or truly benefit him or anyone else psychologically, spiritually, or in any other way?

Can anyone explain how it was or accomplished any of these things? If they can’t, does that mean they’re just not evolved enough? How would Jesus respond to criticism? Buddha? The Dalai Lama? Thich Nhat Hanh? Eknath Easwaran? Mother Teresa? Huston Smith? Are we wrong to hold up these people as role models, as spiritual exemplars? If not, how does Wilber’s conduct compare to theirs? What are we to think of his reply? More importantly, what kind of person do we aspire to be, and how should we try to fulfill that aspiration? By becoming more “integrally informed? By practicing the spiritual disciplines that Wilber practices or recommends? By becoming more like Ken Wilber?

If we feel disillusioned after reading Wilber’s reply, should we not?

Al-Zarqawi's Death

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is dead, and many in the world celebrate. But how should I feel?

I believe that we are all essentially God and that all human life is sacred. So, should I be happy that al-Zarqawi was killed yesterday? I admit that I AM happy, even though my happiness is tempered by the realization that innocent people died in that house with al-Zarqawi and that al-Zarkawi’s death will undoubtedly create a vacuum to be quickly filled by another deranged leader and by vengeful hatred. But should I feel happy at all?

What should one do when one’s emotions contradict one’s principles? What I’m doing today is trying to step back from my emotions—neither embracing nor rejecting them, neither praising nor condemning myself for feeling them—and trying to view mindfully everything that’s happening in the world outside and inside my mind “sub species aeternitas.” This was the great philosopher Spinoza’s phrase for taking the long-term, kosmic perspective of events that is characteristic of deep and abiding wisdom. For what the world needs now is not only love, but also all the profound and genuine wisdom it can muster. And this process must begin with each and every mindful one of us.

I’m happy that al-Zarqawi’s dead, and sad that I’m happy, and happy that I’m sad. Beyond that, I try to see the world more clearly and completely and to extend my circle of unconditional love outward to encompass as many people and other living creatures as I can. “Love and do what you will.”

To Torture or Not to Torture?

I listened to talk radio for a few minutes yesterday in the car. The host discussed the recent case of Muslim extremists arrested in Canada for a terrorist plot to blow up buildings and behead the Prime Minister unless their demands were met. He went on to talk about the Geneva Conventions and ask whether we should follow them in the way we treat people apprehended for terrorist plots and acts.

He explained that the Geneva Conventions rest on the principle that soldiers fighting for nations aren’t necessarily responsible for their actions on the battlefield because, after all, they’re just carrying out the commands of their leaders. They may even disagree with those orders, but they follow them anyway because that’s what good, loyal soldiers do. Thus, they shouldn’t be tortured or killed in captivity for following the orders of their nation’s leaders.

Yet, the host continued, terrorists are a different matter. They aren’t following the orders of leaders of nations; they’re plotting their own acts and carrying them out, often with savage hatred for all who don’t share their fanaticism. Not only that, but they haven’t agreed to follow the Geneva Conventions and most certainly don’t with the captives they torment and behead. Why should we follow the Geneva Conventions with them, especially when we might be able to coerce them into disclosing vital information that would enable us to avert future acts of terrorism?

For instance, said the host, two American citizens were arrested who appeared to have ties to the suspects in Canada. In their possession were encrypted computer files that FBI cryptologists have been unable to crack. It’s believed that those files might well contain information about terrorists and terrorist plots that law enforcement desperately needs. Should we be bound by the Geneva Conventions to abstain from using necessary means to extract from these suspects the information we need to decode those files and learn what’s in them?

I think there are compelling arguments for both sides. I worry about terrorism perpetrated by hateful religious and political extremists. But I also worry about granting our law enforcement and military the corrupting power to torture and kill people for acts they may not have even committed or planned to commit. I also worry about what this does to the psyches of the torturers and to those of an entire citizenry that condone the acts of the torturers. But, in the final analysis, I don’t yet know where I stand on this issue.

Not long ago, I would have denounced torture of any kind for any reason, and I would have blasted the Bush administration for even a hint of a suggestion that torture is ever justified. Now, I’m not so sure. The only thing I’m sure of is that we should always see torture, at best, as an occasionally necessary but nevertheless terrible evil that should be engaged in with extreme reluctance and sorrow.

Does my willingness to at least consider the use of torture under some circumstances mean that I’m letting my fears of terrorism plunge me into a state of moral devolution? Or does it mean that my morality is evolving out of a more realistic view of the world? What do you think?

Gay Marriage Ban

George Bush has been preaching from the presidential pulpit for a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. He argues that without this amendment, “activist judges” will increasingly permit gay marriage which, in turn, will threaten the “institution” of marriage and ultimately America itself.

There has been much discussion in the popular media as well as in the blogosphere about the underlying motives for Bush’s and the Republican Party’s renewed push for this amendment at this particular time. Many argue that it stems more from political considerations than from religious or moral convictions. This may or may not be the case. I won’t speculate on motives because this strikes me as irrelevant to the central issue that I want to address today.

It seems to me that the central issue is the claim that gay marriage threatens the institution of marriage and America itself. If this claim is true, then it seems to me as though the Republican Party’s motives for pushing the amendment now don’t matter. What matters is that we make sure we prohibit gay marriage, and a Constitutional Amendment prohibiting it seems like the surest way to go. On the other hand, if gay marriage doesn’t pose any grave threat, we should reject the amendment.

What I have never understood is how gay marriage threatens the institution of marriage. Is Bush suggesting that if gay couples marry, heterosexual couples won’t marry or married heterosexual couples will split up because of gay marriage? If so, what compelling evidence or reason does he have for this? I’m married to a wonderful woman whom I love with all my heart. If gays could marry, would my wife and I rush out to file divorce papers? This strikes me as preposterous. It strikes me as equally preposterous that if I weren’t already married, I would be any less likely to get married if gays could marry. If I found the right woman and we loved each other deeply, I’m quite certain that we’d be just as inclined to formalize our commitment to love, honor, and serve one another till death do us part if gay couples were also allowed to do this as we would be if they were not. Can any heterosexual person honestly say otherwise? If they can, then it seems to me that they should seriously question their reasons for marrying in the first place.

Of course, the Republican Party seems to have another reason for opposing gay marriage, and one of its most prominent representatives, Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, has expressed it very clearly and concisely in his recent letter to all U.S. senators. Here is an excerpt from that letter:

Attaching the word marriage to the association of same-sex individuals mistakenly presumes that marriage is principally a matter of adult benefits and adult rights. In fact, marriage is principally about the nurturing and development of children. And the successful development of children is critical to the preservation and success of our nation.

I have two questions about this statement. First, is it true, in this age of rising population and overcrowding, that marriage is “principally about the nurturing and development of children?” Or is it about formalizing between two adults a loving commitment that may or may not include children? I don’t understand why two women or two men who have the same feelings for each other and who want to make the same commitment to each other that my wife and I have shouldn’t be able to have society formally recognize and reward that love and commitment the same way that it recognizes and rewards them between my wife and myself. My wife and I don’t have any children and probably never will. Our marriage is about “adult benefits and adult rights,” just as it is for millions of other HETEROSEXUAL couples. If we can enjoy those benefits and rights, why can’t homosexual couples do the same?

But what about homosexual couples who want to participate in the “nurturing and development of children”? Unless a Constitutional banning of gay marriage is to be followed by one of homosexual couples raising children, homosexual couples can still raise children even if they aren’t married. So, do supporters of the proposed ban on gay marriage plan to support a follow-up ban on homosexual couples raising children? If not, why ban gay marriage for the sake of children? If so, what compelling evidence do supporters of such a ban have that children raised by gay couples are any less happy or turn out any less well-adjusted than do children raised by heterosexual couples? Where is the compelling evidence that gay couples endanger, as Romney implies, “the successful development of children” which, in turn, endangers “the preservation and success of our nation"?

If no such evidence is forthcoming, it seems to me that there’s no good reason for a Constitutional banning of gay marriage. In fact, it seems to me as though this nation should encourage gay marriage. After all, if gay marriage won’t harm children or undermine heterosexual marriage, then by increasing the number of Americans who marry, it should actually strengthen the institution of marriage in this country. After all, the more members an institution has, the stronger it’s likely to be. It may also discourage the spreading of STD’s by encouraging commitment to formally recognized monogamous homosexual relationships in place of homosexual promiscuity.

Maybe I’m being too commonsensical in how I look at this. Maybe I’m being simplistic. Maybe I’m wrong to oppose the Constitutional banning of gay marriage and to actually support gay marriage. But if I am, will somebody please show me why I’m wrong? And don’t just quote the Bible. I’m not talking about religious marriages. Religions can enforce their bans on homosexual marriages among their members to their hearts’ content. I’m talking about CIVIL marriages. Why shouldn’t civil marriage be an option for homosexual couples?

The 40-Year Old Virgin

My wife and I watched The 40-Year-Old Virgin last night. I don’t know why I imposed this on myself and on her. I knew deep down that it would be a complete waste of time. Yet, I wanted to believe the reviews that said it was a genuinely funny and insightful movie. I also wanted to give my wife respite from the serious dramas to which I normally subject her.

But the plot was pedestrian, the dialog mindlessly juvenile, and the message hackneyed and utterly lacking in meaningful substance. The movie was so lousy, in my estimation, that it’s not worth saying any more about it other than the fact that I think the premise could have been turned into something with real heart and insight about shyness, prolonged adolescence, and the importance of finding the courage to open up and be yourself instead of what you think society expects you to be.

As I’ve mentioned previously, my own virginity ended significantly later than did that of most of my peers (although I was nowhere near 40). And, like the character in the film, I felt shy and awkward around women, and fell into the vicious cycle of the longer I went without experience, the more embarrassed I became about it and the more difficult it was for me to overcome that embarrassment and approach women. But, that’s just about where any similarity between the movie’s protagonist and myself or any other real guy is likely to end.

Too bad.

Pleasantville

Last night, my wife and I watched the movie “Pleasantville.” I’d heard of it for a long time but never seen it. I was prompted to watch it by the fact that I recently proofread an essay a friend of mine wrote for her philosophy class on “Pleasantville” and the nature of happiness. For those of you who haven’t seen it, “Pleasantville” is about a teenage boy who loves to watch reruns of an old Mayberryesque TV sitcom called “Pleasantville” to escape the unhappy complexities of his real life until, one night, he and his sister are magically swept into their TV and into the Pleasantville universe. And that is exactly what it is--an entire universe where if you go far enough down Main Street, you end up where you started. In this universe, life is like an old back-and-white TV sitcom. Husbands and wives sleep in separate beds; firemen do nothing more than rescue cats from trees; father comes home from work and says, “Honey, I’m home” and the wife cheerfully greets him with refreshments; teenage boys and girls unfailingly mind their parents, respect authority, and do nothing more together than hold hands after they’ve “gone steady” for a long time; the basketball team never misses a shot; and there aren’t even any toilets in the bathrooms. There are no ups and downs, joys and sorrows, excitement and creativity. There is only a kind of bland contentment from living perfectly predictable lives where nothing serious ever goes wrong and everyone gets pretty much everything he wants (or thinks he wants) without even having to try hard for it.

My friend wrote in her paper:

People in Pleasantville have never experienced art, rain, color, or anything other than a simpleminded parody of perfection and have no awareness of a world or life outside of Pleasantville. They are not strengthened by confrontation with life's hardships because there are none, and they cannot enjoy the real satisfaction of surmounting these hardships and growing in mind and spirit. This “perfect” world does not allow people to experience true happiness. Happiness, as Aristotle suggests, is an enduring condition of living “in accord with perfect virtue”…

But my friend also confessed to me that she didn’t believe what she wrote. She believed that the people of Pleasantville were happy until David and his sister came along from another universe to corrupt the very fabric of their universe and their utopian lives. Is she right? Or, perhaps more to the point, were they better off before things changed?

I confess that I’m not sure. If I’m honest with myself and with you, I have to admit that I’m so concerned with the presence of widespread and terrible human suffering that I may, in my heart of hearts, desire a kind of Pleasantville society that makes life as painless and effortless as possible for everyone. And I think I may secretly long for an emotional and spiritual condition not so far removed from that of the people of Pleasantville in its bland but unwavering peace and contentment. My intellect tells me that this would not be such a good thing. It agrees with my friend who wrote:

He knows deep down that he cannot be happy in a totally comfortable world of instant gratification of all of his desires except the most important desire of all—the desire to fulfill his teleological “virtue” or ultimate nature as a human being.
We all look to find true happiness in our journey through life, but we will not find it until we realize, as David finally did, that we must embrace and celebrate rather than recoil from the complexities and challenges that motivate us to learn, adapt, and grow in the strength and wisdom of our Aristotelian virtue or potential. This is the message I see compellingly conveyed by Pleasantville.

But my heart longs for a serenity and security it seldom experiences in the world as it is or is ever likely to be, and I wonder what kind of world I should strive to engender within and without.

Random Thoughts and Rants

Thursday, my wife and I went to the new Ikea store. I felt almost as out-of-place as I do in Home Depot, only I also get lost in Ikea. I see so many things and haven’t a clue as to how they would look in our home or how I would get them home and install them if I could afford them and we decided that we wanted them. It’s times like those when I feel especially sorry for my wife being stuck with me. And then I recited my mantram to try to dispel such negative thoughts, the way Easwaran recommends. But is that the way to do it? Or is the way out of such thoughts “through” them?

I spent much of Thursday cramming for my coding exam coming up later this month. There’s so much to review and so little time! Actually, there was much more time, but I threw it away with my habitual procrastination, and now I feel almost overwhelmed with how much material I need to cover in three short weeks. Why didn’t I begin studying sooner? Why did I wait until almost the last minute, the way I’ve done for most of my life? More to the point, how can I stop procrastinating? Just obey the Nike ads and “just do it”?

Thursday night I dreamed that I was running. I don’t know where or why. I seldom remember my dreams in any detail if I remember them at all. But I know I was running, and it felt incredibly good, the way it sometimes used to feel when I actually ran. It felt effortless. My feet just glided over the ground, almost off the ground in fact, and I felt completely relaxed, and my breathing remained slow and easy. I don’t usually dream of flying any more. At least I don’t remember doing so. But I do sometimes dream of running the way I did Thursday night, and I always love the feeling of it. How nice it would be to lucid dream and run (or fly) every night. What else would I dream if I could make myself do it?

I also dreamed of happening by a school ground where elementary school age children were doing the softball throw as part of their fitness testing, the way we used to at my school. They stood back and threw toward this big house-like structure, and the teacher stood in front of the house with a bat in his hand trying to hit any softballs that reached him. One black girl threw the ball so far that it bounced high off the house, and the teacher said, “That was an exceptional throw! Just exceptional!”

Once upon a time, when I was in sixth grade, I was being tested in the softball throw. The previous year, I had thrown the ball about 130 feet or so. This time, I threw it way over the backstop. The teacher estimated the throw to be over 200 feet. I couldn’t believe it! I was almost in shock! I went on to win the district softball throw championship that year. I felt on top of the world. I was the fastest 50 and 600-yard runner, the best softball thrower, the best standing broad jumper, and the best basketball player in my school if not the entire district. I felt on top of the world, at least until I went home from school every day to hide in my room. But my superior athleticism was in areas that depended far less on applying intelligence to cultivating skill than on taking advantage of my precocious height and strength. As I grew older and my peers grew up, I no longer had that advantage, and I couldn’t compensate by using intelligence I didn’t have.

Yesterday morning, my wife and I went to the immigration department. It’s now under the Department of Bushland Insecurity. To enter the building, we had to pass through a metal detector. But first was had to take our camera cell phones back to the car, because camera phones are not allowed. It would have been nice if the website where we made our appointment had told us this in advance. Many people carry camera cell phones these days. What would they do if they came on a bus by themselves with a camera phone and were then told that they couldn’t stay in the building with it? You’d think that the security people would be able to hold it for them, but they won’t do that. What are they afraid of with camera phones anyway? That terrorists are going to take pictures that can be used to plan deadly attacks? You mean to say that dedicated terrorists couldn’t draw floor plans of the building’s layout that are just as revealing as lousy pictures taken with a cell phone camera? And how would those terrorists armed with cell phone pictures penetrate security to plant their explosive devices or wreak whatever havoc they were bent on wreaking? I also had to take my tiny pocketknife back to the car, even though I could surely do a lot more damage with my fists or teeth than I could with that flimsy little 1 1/4” blade.

We had an appointment, but it turns out that the appointment was only to take a number to sit in a big room and wait for over an hour while only one counter out of nine was open most of the time and another counter open part of the time to slowly process those in the room ahead of us. What was the point in making an appointment for that? Furthermore, why weren’t those other counters open? Because Bushland Insecurity can’t afford to pay more workers on account of tax cuts going primarily to those who don’t need them? It turns out that my wife needed only two passport photos instead of three, even though the website told us three, and we bought four passport photos yesterday because we thought we needed three and you have to buy them in sets of two. I came away from there wondering why our public servants don’t make more of an effort to actually serve us instead of making life more complicated and expensive than it needs to be.

Last night, I concentrated better, executed better, and scored much better in my bowling league than I did the previous two weeks. It was a good way to end a relatively productive day.

The Greatest Liberal Rock Songs

Inspired by the National Review’s list of the “50 greatest conservative rock songs,” the folks at One Cosmos have been posting and mocking their lists of the “greatest liberal rock songs.” Their lists include “War,” “American Woman,” “Pleasant Valley Sunday,” “Little Boxes,” “Eve of Destruction,” “San Franciscan Nights,” “Woodstock,” “One Tin Soldier,’ and, of course, John Lennon’s immortal “Imagine.” Since I can’t post there, I’d like to offer here another suggestion for their list: Steppenwolf’s “Monster.”

Once the religious, the hunted and weary
Chasing the promise of freedom and hope
Came to this country to build a new vision
Far from the reaches of kingdom and pope.
Like good Christians, some would burn the witches.
Later some got slaves to gather riches.

But still from near and far to seek America
They came by thousands to court the wild.
And she just patiently smiled and bore a child
To be their spirit and guiding light.

And once the ties with the crown had been broken,
Westward in saddle and wagon it went.
And 'til the railroad linked ocean to ocean,
Many the lives which had come to an end.
While we bullied, stole and bought our a homeland.
We began the slaughter of the red man.

But still from near and far to seek America,
They came by thousands to court the wild.
And she just patiently smiled and bore a child
To be their spirit and guiding light.

The blue and grey they stomped it,
They kicked it just like a dog.
And when the war over,
They stuffed it just like a hog.
And though the past has it's share of injustice,
Kind was the spirit in many a way.
But it's protectors and friends have been sleeping.
Now it's a monster and will not obey.

(Suicide)The spirit was freedom and justice,
And it's keepers seem generous and kind.
It's leaders were supposed to serve the country,
But now they won't pay it no mind.
'Cause the people grew fat and got lazy,
And now their vote is a meaningless joke.
They babble about law and order,
But it's all just an echo of what they've been told.

Yeah, there's a monster on the loose.
It's got our heads into a noose.
And it just sits there watchin.'

Our cities have turned into jungles.
And corruption is stranglin' the land.
The police force is watching the people.
And the people just can't understand.
We don't know how to mind our own business.'
Cause the whole worlds got to be just like us.
Now we are fighting a war over there.
No matter who's the winner,
We can't pay the cost.'

Cause there's a monster on the loose.
It's got our heads into a noose.
And it just sits there watching.

(America)America where are you now?
Don't you care about your sons and daughters?
Don't you know we need you now.
We can't fight alone against the monster.

Songs like “Imagine” may be quixotic. Songs like “Monster” may overplay the dark side of this nation’s history and condition. But, say what they will over at OC, I think that these are great songs that tell important truths about the world as it is and the world as we, in our idealistic heart of hearts, would like it to be.

I’m grateful for them.

The Journey Begins Anew

It’s supposed to be close to 90 today. But this morning, it’s pleasantly cool. I’ve opened the doors and windows to let the coolness in and the stale air and stale spirit out.

I meditated this morning for the first time in too long. I don’t know if I did it right. I did it the way Easwaran recommends, but I don’t know if his way is a good way. He says it is. But can I believe him? How do I know that it worked for him? How do I know that even if it did work for him and others, it will work for me? There’s only one way I know to even begin to know. And today was the first step in the proverbial journey of umpteen miles. At least I hope it was the first step in an ongoing journey. A journey to what? I don’t presume to know.

We took my sister-in-law to the airport last night for her return trip to Thailand. It was over two hundred miles to SFO and back. I worked at SFO less than two years ago and have been there several times since, but I got lost driving around there last night. It was almost as though I’d never been there before. This is one of my learning disabilities. I could surrender to despair. But I’m trying to cultivate acceptance of what cannot be changed while, at the same time, working to change the things I can and learning how to tell the difference.

I don’t know who’s going to miss my sister-in-law more. My wife or me? She kept my wife company in a way that I can’t. She graced our home with her sweet presence. She’s one of the sweetest, most gentle, and most wonderful human beings I’ve ever known. Maybe too sweet, too gentle, and too wonderful for this world. I cringe at the thought of the world stealing her beauty over the years with its trials, coarsening her heart and soul with its demands and its ugliness.

I hope she returns some day to live with us again even though I doubt that she will. She came here to study English. I think she left feeling frustrated with her progress. She’s very intelligent and worked very hard, but English is a very difficult language for many people to learn well. I’m glad I don’t have to learn it.

But there is so much that I need to learn. I know so much less than my peers about so many practical things that are vitally important for me to know, and if I don’t learn them, I don’t know what kind of life my wife and I can hope to have. Life has been easy for me in some respects, but I think it’s about to get hard in many respects. The better prepared I am for the difficulty, the better my wife and I can get through it. Or so I hope.

A Noisy Gong?

Today someone posted some comments at One Cosmos that I thought were very perceptive and wise. Here is a condensed version of them:

So it is in reflecting on some of your brilliance that I find it
troubling to read some of your political commentary...You and I can
agree - the radical left in this country has some serious flaws in
their thinking and philosophy. Excessive relativism (i.e. there is no
higher Truth) and materialism blocks vertical growth. But why do you
prop up or implicitly support the equally unhealthy far right wing
philosophy? Is it the enemy of my enemy is my friend?...You talk about
the importance of the language and tie it back to the Word and Christ.
Yet, your tone is divisive, if not hateful...if Wilber and the spiral
dynamic model of vertical growth is correct, then the leftism you hate
is still a dangerous pothole on the vertical road towards growth and
second tier for a large number of people, but your rhetoric makes it
sound like the entire pluralistic\relativistic\green road is not a
road with some potholes, but one complete pothole. How does that help
vertical growth and transcendence and integration that you say you
cherish?...Its not accurate to paint 50% of the left\liberal
population in America with the words and extremism of the most
dysfunctional 10%. No more than its accurate to say that all right
wingers are Christian fundamentalist who hate homosexuals and are
repressive towards woman. So why paint the picture?...I'm not going to
prop up the likes of say George Bush or Rush Limbaugh or Fox News that
has very little interest in transcendence and whose idea of religion
is generally legalistic and translative, not mystical or
transformative...all the major religious traditions, especially the
most noble and contemplative and mystical parts of those religion
emphasize the importance of Love and Compassion...Are you a man with a
great "gift" of "knowledge" and "faith" but ultimately just a "noisy
gong"? Your political writing seems to be a path of intellectual
violence instead of a constructive and encouraging criticism. And, to
borrow the words of the Buddha, seem to ultimately promote "ignorance"
and "delusion" and "hatred". In order to transcend the world and the
bounds of sin and ego, one must clear themselves from these
fetters...In the language of the psychologist, maybe the hatred that
one has for a certain political group is simply a projection of hatred
to a part of themselves that they need to make peace with and
integrate?...It could be major stumbling block for your growth and
those here who read you who seem to mirror your same hostile tone and
pat you on the back non stop. Are they really helping you in your
growth or just reinforcing your ego?"

Here is a condensed version of Bob Godwin’s response:

If you do not see that typical new-age spiritual nonsense isn't loaded down with a leftist political message, then you are terribly naive. I am simply a corrective to that systematic error…You also made so many willfully boneheaded statements in your comment that I don't have time to deconstruct them all…Seriously, you are a nut. Perhaps no one has taken the trouble to tell you that because they do not have the compassion I possess. Accurate diagnosis must precede effective treatment. You are a champion of what Buddhists call "idiot compassion," not to be confused with the real thing.

Is it “idiot compassion” to treat with kindness and respect those with whom we disagree? Can’t we disagree without being disagreeable? Is it not true that when someone habitually responds to another’s arguments with personal insults rather than substantive rebuttals of the arguments, it’s because he’s incapable of substantive rebuttals? Does Mr. Godwin truly believe that his insulting remarks about leftist thought and thinkers is a “corrective” to anything? If so, whom or what does he presume to correct? The choir to whom he’s preaching already sings his tune. The “leftists” he rails against will undoubtedly ignore him. And aren’t people in the middle likely to be put off by his insulting approach?

Bob Godwin says that his spirituality goes hand in hand with his politics. But it seems to me that his politics is terribly one-sided, and his spirituality is little more than a “noisy gong.” However, I commend him for at least not deleting the critical comments I quoted from. At least he hasn’t yet.

Bowling Mindfully

I bowled poorly last night, and I’m not talking only about my lousy scores. If I were talking only about my scores, I wouldn’t feel as unhappy as I do, because I have an excuse for bowling low scores. My right lower leg hurt. It’s been hurting since I strained or pulled my calf muscle shooting baskets several weeks ago. The pain has more or less left my calf and traveled down the back of my lower leg and ankle. It hurts when I walk. I aggravated the injury and the pain last Tuesday when I went bowling with my wife and sister-in-law. I could barely walk for several hours after that. Even though I felt better yesterday, I wouldn’t have bowled last night if it weren’t for the fact that my wife and I are in a league and have to pay every week whether we bowl or not. I figured I might as well get as much of my money’s worth as I could and keep my wife company while she bowled. But not only did I bowl bad scores because my sore leg made me alter my game to avoid stressing my leg and causing it further injury and more pain, I also didn’t concentrate on executing the best I could. I didn’t consistently try to generate as effective a release as possible with consistent ball speed, to play a clearly defined line, to hit my mark, or to just plain bowl mindfully. The poor scores were excusable. The poor effort was not. Well, maybe it was a little. It’s hard to concentrate on your game when your mind is distracted by physical pain and discomfort. But it wasn’t so distracted by these things that it couldn’t have concentrated far better on executing well than it did.

Next time I bowl, I want to concentrate on executing as well as I can with every shot. Then, I’m likely to be happier, no matter how I score. I’m also likely to score better than I did last night.

Psychology vs Free Will

On May 23, Bob posted "Freedom, Truth, and Objectivity." In it he says, "This imaginary "Creator" supposedly endowed us with "liberty,"which is to say free will. But every leftist knows that we don't really have free will. Rather, we are victims of our environment and our genes. For example, poverty causes crime. Unless you happen to be rich. Then greed causes crime. Unless you haven't committed any crime. Then it's just a crime to be rich. But don't be confused--there's no objective right or wrong anyway."

Bob apparently believes in free will. But Bob is also a clinical psychologist. Isn't psychology supposed to be the scientific study of human mental processes and behavior? And isn't science supposed to be the systematic study of cause-and-effect relationships between phenomena? And doesn't this imply that psychologists, in principle, believe that human thoughts, emotions, and behaviors are phenomena that cause and are caused by other phenomena? And doesn't this mean that psychology, in principle, assumes that every thought, emotion, and act is caused by other phenomena, which, in turn, are caused by other phenomena stretching back indefinitely? And doesn't this mean that psychology, in principle, assumes that everything we think, feel, and do is determined by a constellation of interacting causal conditions that makes it anything but free to be other than what it is? And doesn't this mean that, in principle, a psychologist who believes in free will is oxymoronic?

Reply to Bob's Post

Bob Godwin recently posted an entry on his blog making reference to me. He cited comments I made in response to his brief comments on my blog as “sinister piffle” indicative of leftist “ideas that are patently absurd and/or dangerous.” This was what he said as a set up for his “straw man” critique of my perspective:

This came up in our recent drama involving a reader who writes that, “I assumed that because you and the rest of the One Cosmos community were obviously so intelligent and articulate, there would be an openness to discussion to political and religious perspectives differing from your own.” He claims that his perspective “is not readily subject to definitive labels but is fluidly transforming into something that increasingly draws from all aspects of the political spectrum,” and that “whatever one's religion or spiritual path might be, compassion, kindness, and what one famous psychotherapist called ‘unconditional positive regard’ should ideally inform one's every interaction with others, even when we don't like what they believe or have to say.”

This is most of what he proceeded to say in response to the above:

This is a fine example of how the Left is always able to play the “compassion card” in order to promulgate ideas that are patently absurd and/or dangerous. For I do not say that I possess objective truth. Rather, I say that objective truth exists, and that I attempt to align myself with it. Now, to even suggest that objective truth exists places you in diametrical opposition to the entire project of the intellectual Left, which is to say that truth is relative, that no culture is better than any other, that “truth” is simply a function of power, that "perception is reality," etc.

I think I can speak for all One Cosmos readers--at least those readers who understand my message--that it is a gross distortion to suggest that we are not open to “a discussion of political and religious perspectives differing from our own.” My book alone disproves such nonsense, as it draws upon virtually every discipline and religion known to man. By comparison, leftist thought is ridiculously hidebound and parochial. What we are absolutely closed to is any discussion that suggests that truth is relative and that all points of view are of equal value… My philosophy is precisely the opposite of this reader, who says that his “is not readily subject to definitive labels but is fluidly transforming into something that increasingly draws from all aspects of the political spectrum.” In other words, his philosophy is not grounded in anything permanent or transcendent, but simply in whatever various people happen to believe at the moment, no matter where they are in the political spectrum: presumably left, right, Marxist, socialist, radical environmentalist, feminist, homosexual activist, whatever.

Our reader is certainly free to believe any and all fashionable political ideas he wishes to believe, but he cannot do so and call himself American (and please, I do not mean this primarily in a patriotic, but a philosophical sense). For our founders most definitely believed in permanent and transcendent values that it was the purpose of government to protect and conserve. In other words, they did not cobble together an ad hoc philosophy based upon whatever ideas were floating around at the time. Rather, they deeply meditated on our human nature and our divine blueprint, and tried to design a political system that accounted for the former but facilitated the latter. They would have been appalled by any philosophy that denied antecedent truth or elevated the relative to the absolute.

But our reader is not in accord with our Founding Fathers. Rather, he holds the deviant postmodern view that “whatever one's religion or spiritual path might be, compassion, kindness, and what one famous psychotherapist called ‘unconditional positive regard’ should ideally inform one's every interaction with others, even when we don't like what they believe or have to say.”

This is leftist thought par excellence. While it sounds generous and compassionate, nothing could be more tyrannical and totalitarian, for this type of pseudo-thinking begins in amorality but inevitably ends in immorality. How can it not? To give “unconditional positive regard” to everyone? Who is worthy of such an attitude except for an infant? Furthermore, to value everything without condition is logically to value nothing, for it obliterates the very hierarchy that informs you of what is worthy of value.

This type of sinister piffle goes directly against the idea of the transcendent unity of mankind. In other words, I believe that because Truth is one, so too is mankind. Take away the notion of transcendent truth, and we are left with a bunch of warring tribes, all with their relative nonsense--as Kimball says, “African knowledge,” “female language,” “Eurocentric science,” or “the idea that history is a ‘myth,’ that the truths of science are merely ‘fictions’ dressed up in forbidding clothes, that reason and language are powerless to discover the truth--more, that truth itself is a deceitful ideological construct: these and other absurdities are now part of the standard intellectual diet of Western intellectuals.” “Whether working in the academy or other cultural institutions, they bring us the same news: there is ‘no such thing’ as intrinsic merit; ‘quality’ is only an ideological construction; aesthetic value is a distillation of social power; etc., etc.”

"Unconditional positive regard" is the Ultimate Value for a person who has none. Does it include respecting “those religious codes which demand that the barren woman be cast out and the adulteress be punished with death? What about those cultures in which the testimony of one man counts for that of two women? In which female circumcision is practiced? In which slavery flourishes? In which mixed marriages are forbidden and polygamy encouraged? Multiculturalism... requires that we respect such practices. To criticize them is to be dismissed as ‘racist’ and ‘ethnocentric.’”

Leftist thought is actually profoundly anti-Enlightenment, for it fosters a spurious freedom: “Enlightenment looks to culture as a repository of values that transcend the self, postmodernism looks to the fleeting desires of the isolated self as the only legitimate source of value. Questions of ‘lifestyle’... come to occupy the place once inhabited by moral convictions and intellectual principles. For the postmodernist, then, ‘culture is no longer seen as a means of emancipation, but as one of the élitist obstacles to this’.... In order to realize the freedom that postmodernism promises--freedom understood as the emancipation from values that transcend the self--culture must be transformed into a field of arbitrary ‘options.’”

So are One Cosmos readers intolerant? You bet--if they agree with me, they are. Intolerant of the totolerantarianism that masquerades as “unconditional positive regard,” the horizontal license that mocks vertical liberty, and the tyrannical absolutism that passes itself off as moral and cultural relativism. The unity of mankind cannot be found in its superficial diversity, only in that unchanging end toward which its diversity is converging. Mankind is one because the transcendent Truth to which human beings have unique access is One. Leftism in any form whatsoever proceeds in the opposite, descending direction: E Unum Pluribus, out of One, many. Gravity takes care of the rest.

I apologize for quoting all of this material instead of condensing it into a summary. However, in this case, I thought it best to let Bob speak for himself before I addressed what he said. This way, no one can accuse me of misrepresenting him. I’ve allowed him to represent himself with his customarily sparkling and learned prose.

It’s reassuring that Bob says he doesn’t claim to “possess objective truth,” because one reading his blog could readily come to just the opposite conclusion—that he and those who are an accepted part of the OC community are absolutely convinced not only that there are absolute truths but also that they know precisely what they are about politics, spirituality, economics, and everything else worth discussing and are rightfully and scornfully “intolerant” of anyone or anything that contradicts them. And, of course, two of the absolute truths that they possess are that I’m a tyrannical and totalitarian,” “pseudo-thinking,” amoral and immoral leftist, and that leftism is one of the great scourges of the Earth. It’s refreshing to hear Bob imply that he’s not absolutely certain that this is true. He IS implying this, is he not? If not, then doesn’t his disclaimer ring hollow?

For the record, I share Bob’s belief in the existence of objective truth and his desire to be aligned with it. Nowhere have I suggested otherwise. He might realize this if he responded to what I’ve actually posted here and on his blog instead of critiquing his simplistic idea of me as a stereotypical leftist and distorting everything I say through that warped interpretation. What I HAVE suggested is that truth is not to be found solely at one pole of the political spectrum but at all across the spectrum—left, right, and center. All bands of the spectrum have true and important things to tell us about ourselves and our society and culture, and we would be remiss or worse if we didn’t take them all into account and weave them all together into the best approximation of absolute truth of which we’re humanly capable.

For instance, socialists are correct in arguing that unadulterated capitalism engenders exploitation and obscenely unjust distributions of wealth and power that create widespread and egregious poverty and suffering. Capitalists are correct in arguing that unadulterated socialism has traditionally resulted in totalitarian states that suppress our spiritual need for transcendence, our psychological need for development and expression of our uniquely individual qualities and capacities, and the economic need for efficient rendering of reliable services and the efficient production of quality goods at affordable prices. The ideological center is correct that we need to somehow optimally meld capitalism with socialism in a manner that provides all of us with the best opportunity to avoid needless suffering and to pursue true happiness.

Another example of truth coming from all bands of the ideological spectrum concerns the understanding of the causes of social problems and their solutions. People on the left tend to blame poverty, crime, and other social problems on “the system” and strive to solve these problems by throwing more tax money at the system. People on the right tend to blame these social problems on individuals and focus on severely punishing crime and removing what they perceive as the “big government” economic and social disincentives to developing personal responsibility and initiative. People in the center intuitively understand that these problems result from interacting systemic AND individual factors and that we need to find ways to foster individual responsibility and initiative AND have a social system in place, supported by federal, state, and local tax dollars as well as by private charities, that encourages and empowers people to grow in this regard.

Thus, when I wrote that my perspective is “fluidly transforming into something that increasingly draws from all aspects of the political spectrum,” I was NOT saying that I don’t believe in objective or transcendent truths. I was saying that I’m more willing to look all over for them and more able to find elements of them everywhere I look, including the political right. As Ken Wilber says, no one is smart enough to be completely right or wrong. Everyone has a piece of the truth, and our task as human beings seeking truth is to open our minds and hearts to finding it everywhere it exists. Contrary to what Bob says, this doesn’t mean that I’m simply latching on to whatever people happen to fashionably believe at the moment, and that as fashion changes, so will my beliefs because they have no grounding in “anything permanent or transcendent.”

These are some of the “transcendent” truths I hold as self-evident:

(1) We are all instantiations or manifestations of a divine Ultimate Reality called different things by different people and different religions.

(2) Our foremost purpose is to be happy in the Aristotelian sense of fulfilling our highest human and personal potential.

(3) Our highest moral potential is to love, honor, and respect everyone as instantiations or manifestations of the divine, and to do our reasonable best to foster their “pursuit of happiness.” We may disagree on the particulars of our “reasonable best,” but we are not fulfilling our moral potential when we mock, ridicule, demean, and devalue, much less hate, those who disagree with us or even do harm to us. As the Bible says, we may hate the sin, but we should endeavor to love and go on loving the sinner. This, aside from what Carl Rogers may have meant, is what I mean by according every human being “unconditional positive regard.”

Frankly I was rather surprised that Bob--a clinical psychologist who says he believes in absolute, objective truths such as the “transcendent unity of mankind,” specializes in “the treatment of psychological barriers to spiritual growth,” and sub-specializes in transpersonal psychology—would condemn my embrace of “unconditional positive regard—with such sneering vehemence, calling it “sinister,” “totalitarian,” and “tyrannical.” But what was really shocking was his insistence that it is perhaps only an infant who is worthy of such regard and that people intrinsically have no value but must earn it, presumably by believing and acting the way Bob thinks they should believe and act and by not, under any circumstances, judging by the obvious contempt for Islam and leftism that pervades his blog, being Muslim or leftist. It’s ironic that Bob, who repeatedly stresses in his blog the importance of sound intellectual discernment and distinctions seems unable to distinguish between human beings, who are intrinsically worthy of our unconditional love and respect, and the things they believe and do, which are not. I agree with Bob that we should emphatically NOT positively regard such actions as casting out “barren” women, executing women for adultery, making the legal testimony of one man equal to that of two women, forcing little girls to undergo ritual circumcision, perpetrating slavery, and suicide bombing, but I disagree with his apparent conviction that should hate the “sinner” along with the “sin.” I’m very surprised that Bob, who appears to be Christian, would disagree.

Yet, at this point, I guess I shouldn’t be terribly surprised at anything Bob says and does, unless he were to suddenly admit that he was wrong about something or that there is actually merit in anything I’ve said. I won’t hold my breath waiting for such a surprise.

Reply to June

June posted a comment last night about the Bob’s blog controversy. Here’s an excerpt from what she wrote:

Bob never aimed the word "banned" at me, he did delete my posts and tell me that I didn't belong there. He did this essentially because I questioned the way that he talked about Islam, saying that my Muslim friends would find it offensive. He had claimed that he was specifically referring to "Islamists"--radical extremists such as those who have beheaded Westerners on video tape, but when I pointed out examples of his condemnation of the entire religion, he decided it was time to delete me.

This is my reply:

June, it seems to me that you’re right that many people hatefully condemn ALL of Islam and not just Islamist terrorism as barbaric and evil. And I’m not surprised that you were able to document this somewhere and were subsequently met with a less than favorable response by the “thought police” of that community.

I confess that I too harbor profound misgivings about Islam. While I acknowledge that only a tiny minority of the world’s Muslim population are engaged in the bloody acts of terroristic violence we roundly and justifiably condemn, I suspect that a far larger percentage condone or even practice the oppression, if not worse, of females, the enforcement of barbaric laws, and other exceedingly dubious things as consistent with their faith, and, sadly, these actions may very well be consistent with a faith rooted in an allegedly word perfect dictation by Allah through Gabriel to the final and greatest prophet Muhammed during an era rife with tribal warfare, and rigidified by built-in resistance to the kinds of self-examination and openness that have enabled other wisdom traditions to evolve in keeping with an ever-evolving world.

But what is the most wholesome and wisest attitude to take and express toward Islam and its people? Surely it isn’t the mocking derision and enmity we see on a certain blog and elsewhere. For surely this won’t help to foster the social and economic conditions that would no doubt progressively decrease the hate-fueled violence of Islamic extremism, nor is it consistent with any religion or spiritual practice that most of us would consider worthy of embrace.

This is not radical leftist “political correctness.” This is just plain human decency and perspicacity.

Go Figure

When Bob asked me to stop posting on his blog the other day, I didn’t stop. I stubbornly continued to post and even went so far as to repost messages that he deleted. It was my childish way of saying, “You have treated me like shit, and I’m going to make you pay for it. I don’t give a damn what you think of me for doing it. My voice will be heard until I decide to leave.”

Well, this morning I finally decided that enough was enough. I was not acting with integrity by continuing to post there, and so I left a message there saying:

“I apologize for overstaying my welcome and posting comments after I've been asked not to. Wherever we are on our journey through life and in our quest to understand and cope with existence, may we all find the light of truth, live accordingly, and be happy.”

To give you some idea of the mentality that prevails over there, this is what someone posted afterward:

“When presented with the truth about himself, nagar folded like a house of cards. Instead of being grateful for the best gift of his life thus far, he picks up his marbles and goes home to remain omnipotent king of his small universe..”

The person who said this was on the forefront of those who had denounced my presence there and demanded that I leave. Then, when I decide to leave, he says that I ran away like a coward to my own blog where I could be the controlling king of my “small universe.”

What would he have had me do, I wonder. Keep posting on Bob’s blog after I had been told to stop and had decided to comply? It seems that one can’t win either way with some of these people. I'm damned if I stay, and damned if I leave. Well, “hoarhey,” I may have gone back to my blog, but I have news for you. You and Bob and the rest of the One Cosmos community are welcome to post comments here to your heart’s content, and I won’t act like an imperious monarch the way some people do and delete them because they disagree with me, and I won’t tell you to leave. Bob and the rest of you seem to pass yourselves off as people in tune with “absolute” spiritual truths, so you are surely aware that the “Golden Rule” is central to all the great wisdom traditions. Too bad you don't live up to it on Bob’s blog. On my blog, I WILL.

So, welcome, my friend, to a new kind of kosmos where all are treated as one.