Ken's Newsletter Volume 9

"A serious life means being fully aware of the alternatives, thinking about them with all the intensity one brings to bear on life-and-death questions, in full recognition that every choice is a great risk with necessary consequences that are hard to bear."
-Allan Bloom

Fact Of The Day from Isaac Asimov's Book Of Facts

King Charles VII, who was assassinated in 1167, was the first Swedish king with the name Charles. Charles I, II, III, IV, V, and VI never existed. No one knows why. And to add to the mystery, almost 300 years went by before there was a Charles VIII.

The Trials Of Morality:

"The most obvious reason for the abdication of personal responsibility in this country, I think, is the great difficulty of the ideals of Christianity and Democracy that are most native to us. These ideals place an extraordinary moral burden on the individual as the result - and the reward - of their extraordinarily high estimate of the individual's worth. The follower of these beliefs finds himself in anxiety and trouble. If he loves his neighbor as himself, he has no reason to expect that he will not be hated in return...His convictions threaten him with the likelihood that he will have to act purely on principle - without certainty that the result of his act will be of practical benefit to him, without even the assurance that it will not be painful or costly to him - and that he will have to measure his life by standards so demanding that he must accept failure as a condition of effort."
-Wendell Berry

Unfortunately, although some may rise above it, the world remains dog-eat-dog. So those who practice such selfless philosophies will undoubtedly be smited. Let's look at Democracy first. I know that if I vote for the fringe candidate, no one else is going to vote for them, so my vote is wasted. If I vote for anyone but the two main contenders my vote will be wasted. But morally I'm obligated to do it anyway, if I feel they're the better candidate. I know that if I act out of concern for my fellow citizens, they'll act out of concern for themselves. And I know that if I vote a fellow citizen into office, they're just going to scramble for more power, and betray the convictions they once held. But you can't be a proper citizen if you don't do these things, so you must soldier on. When you act rightly, and morally, you'll get screwed. That's the world that we live in. But that's not a legitimate reason to stop trying. Not if you want to be a true Democrat.

I think Thoreau embodied the spiritual element of Democracy in Civil Disobedience, when he said "Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison." We live in a system where the People are responsible for the laws and actions of the government. When that government acts unjustly, the moral person cannot continue to support it. The government must be defied, it must be told that it is wrong. The moral person must react to injustice with intolerance. And that means the government will probably imprison them, in Thoreau's case for not paying taxes. If he or she is thrown in prison, the moral person will react with acceptance. Although it may be inconvenient, any just person belongs in prison in an unjust nation.

Of course, we know that we all live in lands that imprison people unjustly. So should all of us that live by our morals be in jail? Yes. When we pay our taxes, and vote, we are supporting a system that abuses its power. We should stop. We should protest. We should refuse to submit. The problem, of course, is that you'll get thrown in jail. Which is a waste, because going to jail isn't going to change anything, it's just going to screw up your life. I can imagine what would happen however if all of us went to jail! That would teach the government a lesson. But the moral quandary of a Democrat is that we know no one else is going to do it. No one else is going to go along with all of the things that you think would improve our country, not enough to make any changes at least. But the fact that you don't have any effect doesn't give you the right to do the wrong thing, or nothing. 'You will have to measure your life with standards so demanding that you must accept failure as a condition of your effort.'

Christianity, however, leads the pack in terms of demanding standards. I don't believe in God, but I do believe that Jesus Christ is the greatest figure in human history. He gives us a model by which to guide our morals. He also gives us an idea of what happens to those who live by such stringent morals. Despite the fact that Christianity now spans the globe, I don't feel that Christ would receive much different of a reception nowadays, even within the Church. We still live in a world very hostile to morality. And just as there are many people who live in democracies but few Democrats; there are many Christians, but few who follow the steps of Christ. Because to do so is to ask for a Crucifixion.

Is there anything greater, or harder, than Jesus's admonition to turn the other cheek? He does not ask you to walk away from those filled with hate and violence. He asks you to stay right there and allow them to strike you again. He outlines the ultimate higher road. You have made a peaceable example for others, but in reality you just get smacked again. And it doesn't teach anyone a lesson, they'll probably just laugh at you. When you love your neighbor, chances are they'll take advantage of you. But that doesn't mean you can stop. How can you ask others to do right to you unless you do the same. So you keep loving the neighbor, even if you keep getting stiffed. It's the only moral thing to do, and it's a pain in the ass.

The moral of Democracy and Christianity is that, though we fail, we do it anyway. We strive for an ideal world where everyone will do the right thing, even as we crash against the real world. We hope that if enough of us make this effort we will make a change. But the truth is, try as we might for a thousand decades the real might not budge an inch. But if we wish to live morally we line up and smash against that wall anyway. And we take away some pride that we did something, that we raged and raged. The truly great among us are those who fail so miserably, while they aim so high.

The temptation of the Moral Person is to lower our standards. To say that we understand that the majority of people live basely, and we have to work with that fact. But Christianity/Democracy isn't about lowering expectations or being practical. It's about holding the highest expectations possible; it's about expecting the best, not just from ourselves, but from the world. When we expect our neighbor to live as the holiest man, we give him the chance. When we guard against him, we've stolen that chance. Maybe expecting less from the human race is a realistic intention, but it's certainly not a noble one. And in a world where so much can go wrong, and so little works, maybe our intentions are what count the most.

Epilogue

Having said all that, I also believe that living rightly will open up a whole new world where people do the right thing. If we live to the highest expectations, I think we start to see the many people around us who do the same. Morality isn't glittering, it's hard to find. Immorality makes more of a show. So I think we fail to notice how many people are trying to do the right thing. And though our highest hopes may have no chance of coming true, people are still able to achieve some amazing things.

The Death of the Ego:

I think graveyards are sad. Not only boo-hoo sad, but pathetic. Why is it that even after death we humans can't let go of our egos. When you die, you're gone. At least here on earth. All that lives on is the legacy of your deeds, and the memories people have of you. But we apparently can't accept that, we need our name to live on as well. So we etch it in stone and stick it in the earth.

It all seems silly to me. Anybody that cares about you will know where you're buried. If they want to visit your grave they can. And I'm sure the cemetery keeps track of where their clients are buried. Who needs the names? Anyone who doesn't know your name isn't going to care about your grave anyway. What purpose do they serve? Now I can walk through a graveyard, and read the name of someone I never heard of. Is that what we all want? Does that qualify as keeping your memory alive?

What's more pathetic is that we still feel the need to aggrandize ourselves, and to make class distinctions after death. I would be embarrassed to have one of those huge monuments for a grave stone. Who cares if you had more money than anyone else in the graveyard; you're dead now. Is that supposed to prove something? Am I supposed to walk by, and say 'That must have been a great man, look how large his grave marker is'? Maybe it means you died with the most toys.

Then there are families that feel the need to put a little wall around their graves. How wonderful of them. I guess they don't want to mingle with the commoners. People just don't get it, do they? They're dead! They're all dead there. It doesn't matter anymore! Apparently the ego lives on. Those who had the most money in life want to make sure no one forgets it after they're gone. Those who couldn't stand their neighbors in life, most certainly don't want to be seen with them in death. Our graveyards are memorials to the follies and prejudices of our lives. One would've hoped that at least in death we could all accept that we are part of one human race, and go back to the earth together. But instead we vainly try to hold on to our identity: our name, our wealth, our family, our class. I guess we hope we'll live on forever that way.

The final kicker is the way we seal ourselves in concrete boxes. If this isn't ridiculous, I don't know what is. I guess it's one more way to preserve our identity, by keeping our bodies from decomposing. But what's that supposed to accomplish? I guess even though people can't see us, they can rest assure that we're still down there, in a somewhat recognizable form. I'm surprised people don't put windows in!

I'll tell you how I want to be buried, acknowledging that I stole part of it from someone else. I want to be buried straight into the ground, no box, no nothing. I want to know that I'll go back to the earth that I came from, and help to provide for the living things around my grave. Give me a couple hundred years and I'll have distributed these molecules around the globe; there'll be parts of me in a million living things. That's the grandest monument I can think of.

Rather than a gravestone, how about something more useful. I want to be buried at a beautiful spot, and above my body they can put a stone bench. Now my loved ones can find my grave easily, and all of humanity can benefit from it. I'll have to find some words to be carved on it, a quote of some sort. Something for people to ponder over as they sit in this beautiful spot, unaware of its dual purpose. Eventually, in the distant future, the bench may crumble away. But by then there will be a piece of me in everyone, so who needs a bench.

Musings...

I was just thinking that delivering mail in England must be easy, because you're already sitting in the other seat. But then I remembered that you're also driving on the other side of the road. So we're right back where we started. They can't make anything simple in this world can they?!

It took them a hundred years or so to come up with the idea of self-adhesive stamps. I don't understand that at all. They had stickers, didn't it seem obvious to use sticker-stamps rather than licker-stamps? Anyway, now that they've figured it out, I say we keep going. Let's make regular envelopes with sticker flaps, rather than licker flaps. That would be an improvement.

"I had hoped, as a [Nazi] broadcaster, to be merely ludicrous, but this is a hard world to be ludicrous in, with so many human beings so reluctant to laugh, so incapable of thought, so eager to believe and snarl and hate..."
-Kurt Vonnegut