Anxiety, an illness looking for our reversal

Anxiety is the illness of our age. We worry about ourselves, our family, our friends, our work, and our state of the world. If we allow worry to fill our hearts, sooner or later we will get sick. (Thich Nhat Hanh*)

So enmeshed are we in anxiety that, for many, unless the weather is either beautiful (as it is today) or threatening, anxiety is often the first thought to come to mind whenever one meets another. And when we think of starting something we have not tried before, we immediately utter anxious thoughts, perceptions, or even stories of others who have tried and failed at our ‘new’ endeavor. We are bombarded with negative news about pandemics, about terror threats (and new apps just released in France), about trade imbalances, unemployment charts, burning forests and cities, be-headings, arrests of drug lords, rapes, assassinations of law enforcement and innocent men....and the cataract pours down over us, into our ears, into our world view that continues, ineffectually, to absorb and adjust to the waves....rendering many desperate, depressed, and even more anxious.

Daily, our conversations either begin or certainly include, if they do not end, with someone expressing anxiety. Whether the emotion is authentic, or whether people in general have come to the point where the conventional conversation must focus on anxiety, perhaps in order to make the ‘other’ feel better. (Isn’t that notion at the root of the commercial success of the television soap opera industry, the presentation of desperate lives of desperate people, in the belief that such drama can and will only provide hope and relief, when they compare their lives to those on the screen?’

There is potentially another dynamic in play, in our social discourse: the false modesty that says, either overtly or implicitly,  to anyone we meet that we do not wish them to think that we think we are ‘better’ than they are. I recall asking a middle-aged woman, while teaching a class, how she would react if, at a house party, she was confronted by a racist joke told by one of the guests. “Well, I would leave the room, but I certainly would not say anything that indicated my displeasure.” When asked “Why?” she responded, “Well I would not want those people to think I thought I was better than they were.”

And that sad, depressing and inappropriate response, demonstrates another of our shared anxieties: the need to be seen to be perfect by the rest of the world. In some quarters, people use the term “politically correct” as a blanket-coverage for restraint, repression, for furthering careers, and for escaping both notice and notoriety. Undoubtedly, such circumspection is appropriate in matters directly relating to how we address specific ethnic minorities; however, political correctness has become a template by which people judge, measure, approve, disapprove, snub, and perhaps even idolize. How many times have we all found someone in our presence wince, or make facial gestures that indicate how disapproving they are of something or some way we have spoken. (And, this observation is not about swearing, or any comment deemed legitimately inappropriate.) We are, it seems, hard wired, to judge, and the occasions of judgement, whether by words, or by gestures, or even more impactfully, by gossip. And those “memories” are stored forever, in our memory bank, for future retrieval when we have grown mature and stable enough to unpack those ‘films’ with a view to how we might respond now, if a similar situation were to present itself.

We are anxious about our work performance, our athletic performance, our performance in bed in our sexual relations, our performance in our social interactions especially if there are people present whose judgements could and would have a serious impact on our lives or careers. So anxious about “performance” are we, that a social research scientist from Mars, upon landing here would be likely to observe that we are so tightly wired that we are prospective candidates for either the cardiac unit or the cancer ward. And, to some extent, some social science researchers already trained and conducting serious research right now, right here, would do well to consider probing the potential relationships between our level of anxiety and our health care requirements and costs. So deeply imbedded in our own performance that it can legitimately be posited that we have succumbed to a transformed definition of what it means to be a human: from a human being to a human “doing”. It is our doings that come to define our public persona, with only rare instances in which others might inquire as to our intent, our motivations, our visions or our rationale for doing something(s) others find puzzling, or more importantly, upsetting.

So not only are we subject to our own and others’ judgements under the political correctness lens, we are also in danger of being cast out if we do not “fit” into a social group’s defined expectations. And herein rests another source of anxiety. Under this anxiety lies a very serious caution: it is not truth-telling that will endear us to others, given a social commitment to whitewash most unpleasant features of our encounters, and another social expectation that truth belongs in the privacy of our kitchen tables. In fact, our culture’s resistance to “tell the whole truth, nothing but the truth,” is so monumental, at the individual level, at the organizational level, the corporate level and even the spiritual level is another of those invisible bindings that separate us from ourselves, from each other, and from God. This is not an argument for viscious truth-telling! Rather, it is a call to learn both verbal language and body language that can and will convey even the most subtle and sophisticated thought, emotion and truth in the most sensitive and compassionate manner. (And, just a note to any male readers: this kind of communication art is accessible; it can be learned; and if men were to take up this invitation, all of our relationships would be enriched!) And so, as we bury the truth of our feelings, our thoughts, our imaginations and our spirits, we, quite naturally, grow increasingly anxious. We are, to use a well-warn phrase, ‘hiding our light (truth) under our bushel (pride).

Another source of our individual anxiety, and our collective anxiety, is our public obsession with making, saving, investing, and spending money. The implications of defining “success” in money and status terms leave millions of worthy, honourable and necessary dreams and ambitions on the sidelines for our children. This dynamic funnels millions of our best brains and our most creative minds into courses, careers and lifestyles that impede their full development, while simultaneously depriving our society of many of the works of art, the inventions and the free rein of the most outlandish characters. For it is inside the “corporate” and the “for-profit” buttoned-down roles that are thrust upon our children, by their ambitious and driven parents, to the rejection of other more organic and more authentic and more ‘giving’ models for our kids to emulate.

And there is no word, and there is no thought here expressed that everyone reading and everyone around the world does not already know. And yet...

We continue to tred familiar roads, well paved roads, roads already taken by millions of “stars” (in our minimal galaxy of our restricted vision of what is possible for us individually and collectively) and pile anxieties of not attaining our highest inherent purpose, in comparison with others (another deep and full fountain of anxieties), even though we do frequently enter moments in which real people see through our mask of drivenness. We all know that through both kindness and thankfulness we find peace, happiness and contentment. We all know that our obsessions with our anxieties, we each deprive the world of the many lights of kindness and gratitude that we could otherwise offer.

We build war machines, and we rationalize their development as security, when we know profoundly and paradoxically, that we become less secure with each machine’s deployment. We build cyber-security apparatus costing billions, “to keep us safe,” when we know that only if and when we all turn our attention to teaching, learning, researching and adopting strategies and tactics of trust, of self-possession, of deep tolerance of the many diversities in our circles, we will begin to walk a different road, with potentially fewer anxieties and less over-weening anxieties.

And that will only be feasible if we acknowledge that we would like different results. We will not fashion those different results in our culture, and in our individual lives,  by continuing to focus on all of those things that cause us anxiety.

No matter how ephemeral hope and dreams may be considered, the hope and dream that we can live purposeful and meaningful lives with fewer anxieties is not ephemeral; it is not beyond our reach! In fact, the change is minimal or marginal, and perhaps that fact alone leaves us wondering why we do not pursue it. We think, perhaps, that a drop in our personal and collective anxieties is outside our own power. Yet, it is only through the exercise of our own unique and individual discipline to confront ourselves with both the cost and the burden of anxiety (those we imagine and those thrust upon us from without), and pursue alternative energies, ideas, creations and dreams.

And, without the courage to discern the differences between the anxieties that really do endanger from those that merely threaten, we will be barred from such a transformation. And yet, such a transformation is not only our opportunity and our challenge, it is the task humanity fervently desires. Regardless of whether your path of choice is theological, spiritual, artistic, political, athletic or scientific....it awaits your footsteps!

* Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh is a global spiritual leader, poet and peace activist, revered around the world for his powerful teachings and bestselling writings on mindfulness and peace. He is the man Martin Luther King called “An Apostle of peace and nonviolence.” His key teaching is that, through mindfulness, we can learn to live happily in the present moment—the only way to truly develop peace, both in one’s self and in the world. (From PlumVillage website)

Boredom is rage spread thin (Paul Tillich)

Boredom is rage spread thin (Paul Tillich)

There are so many opportunities for humans to find life awesome, to find encounters inspiring, to engage in curious and provocative conversations, to listen to music, and/or birds, to watch water falling over rocks, or blowing waves against a dock or a retaining wall, to read a book, to play old fashioned games like solitaire, or elementary card games, to walk in the forest, along a shoreline, up a mountain, to ride a bike, a skateboard, to fly a kite, or simply to sketch on a piece of paper. And yet, there are so many of all generations who express in words that they are bored, and/or whose face shines a faint light that suggests boredom. And, there is clearly no way by which the mountain of tech devices can or will even fill the void that so many experience’ those devices merely express the boredom so much more easily, conveniently and immediately.

And if Tillich is even partly correct, (and there are very good reasons to suggest he is ‘right on’) our contemporary culture is virtually seething with rage, without enough evidence for that rage to rise to the level of a social problem. Keeping it under the mask of boredom, we all learn that so long as we do not “act out” our boredom, no one will pay enough attention to challenge us to take responsibility to fill our own momentary, or even long-standing boredom.

When adolescent students would tell me they were bored, back in another life, I cheekily replied, “I find most bored people also very boring! Are you one who is also boring?” The implication of my retort was always that, of course, they likely did not want to be boring so they might search for their own paths of discovery that would put them on a course leading to engagement, involvement, reflection, or even creating. Today, I would wonder out loud if they might have tried any of the many opportunities, some of which were listed above.

It is our sense of detachment, our sense of  being lonely, alienated, ignored, and even bullied that often dampens our curiosity, our courage and our risk-taking capacity, leaving us somewhat immobilized, indifferent and eventually bored, if not fully enraged.

Not being listened to, “heard” in the vernacular (Tillich also says the first act of love is listening!), while appearing to be fully “connected” to another is frighteningly painful, and when the world is full of dangerous and threatening information pounding our psyches relentlessly 24-7-365, our personal interactions become even more important. And given the negativity of both the conventional flow of information and the prospects for many to climb out of the many ghettos in which they find themselves, especially when compared with the uber wealthy (that old .1% of the population), it is clearly not surprising that so many are “bored” and vulnerable to a conversion moment.

Fundamentalist religions, and their respective proselytes, (salesmen and women, propagandists, evangelists, and charismatic leaders) depend on the boredom and the ennui of others for their work. And, there is clearly no shortage of ‘ripe fruit’ to pick from the low branches of the social and cultural ‘tree’. We are also the object of billions of dollars of advertising and marketing campaigns trying to suck cash from our credit and debit cards for purchases that obviously benefit the producer/seller much more than they do the purchaser. In a society obsessed with the motive of instant gratification, whose every irritant has a product or service to alleviate, and not remove, the need, depending on its return for additional sales. We want and demand to be entertained, to be catered to, to be puffed up and flattered by our politicians, and our marketing machines to the point that we are complicit in our own dependence on outside forces/agents/things/people for our sense of well-being.

While it is true that we are most likely to accomplish commendable goals in the company of others, and the opportunities for volunteering, and for joining various projects of culture, athletics, political activism, abound, there is for many, an impenetrable wall, a gate-keeping wall of resistance to new people joining a circle already established. One woman, a life-time resident of a small community, recently expressed her frustration that “I can’t even volunteer in my own town!” precisely because those already engaged in whatever activity she had wished to join were resistant to new people.

Boredom, that rage spread thin, has so many small and seemingly insignificant root causes, many of them about the attitudes that abound about “how things are done here” and whether or not, at the grassroots level, there is a window of opportunity for entry. We are a culture of both superior and inferior ghettos, resulting in “established” clusters moating themselves off from the ideas of outsiders. Comfort levels are just another way of saying “leave us alone” if a new approach to a shared problem is offered. And walling off and out, simply by the turning of the eyes away from an encounter, leaving the new person painfully conscious of his/her “outsideness” is one of the more painful experiences of a new situation for many.

And there are so many small and seemingly innocent barriers to acceptance in our world. Of course we are welcome as a source of revenue in a commercial transaction; in fact, our welcome and engagement with others has fallen almost exclusively to such transactions. We all have been trained like obedient seals, to buy and to sell, given the plethora of locations and platforms available for both. Needless to say, however, such transactions are not often the foundation of new relationships. And when the number and the size of the various transactions are the primary focus of our waking moments, it is little wonder that we are bored with the mundanity of our encounters. And it is also highly likely that our reduction of our encounters to just another transaction, just another source of revenue, or of networking (that most detested of job-related skills), reduces our concept ourselves to another ‘number’ to fill another empty slot in someone’s or some organization’s organization chart.

We know, everyone knows, that all of management today is engaged in a tsunami of tactics to cut costs, even if the organization is profitable, or even if the organization is saying it is operating on “higher” principles and a higher ‘ethic’. Careers are both built and lost on the recommendations to save money, to have more work accomplished with fewer costs, and obviously with fewer workers. Piling on to already highly productive and resourceful and also competent workers, for the sake of either  making more money, or of saving more money, is a way guaranteed to alienate those very people from themselves, and also from their workplace community. The corporate model of worker as “raw material” to be used even to the point of exhaustion, without collective support from either union membership or worker co-operative, is a guaranteed pathway to short-term results without consideration of long-term needs.

If we are, and likely to remain, mere cogs in the power-structure’s machine, we will generate a universal volcano of boredom that will have no other choice but eventually to erupt. And boredom, while not registering on the social “problem” scales of cities and towns, as well as schools and colleges and universities, is nevertheless, a dynamic to which our collective compliance in surrendering to and succumbing to the “corporate” mentality inevitably leads. And that cultural mind-set reduces us all to the “means of another’s purposes”. We are sacrificing the most important and integral part of our personhood, our own purpose and meaning to make the achievement of the power-elites’ goals a reality.

And, that part of the 99-1 % differential has not, is not, and will not be the topic of political debates, like those offered by Bernie Sanders, when the disparity of incomes and wealth are the subject of inequality. It is the hidden and the psychic and emotional “inequalities” that render millions bored, despairing and despondent. And all of the micro-loans and all of the micro-businesses, and all of the “Pell grants” and the other programs that help to support higher education will not do anything to feelings of boredom that accompany the workplace ethos in millions of organizations.

We are loath to fully integrate others, even highly educated and creative others into our established patterns; we are fully conscious that our communications are fraught with errors of both omission and commission, rendering their accurate and full accomplishment unlikely if not impossible; we are paying consultants millions to study our problems in organizations and then implementing their structural reforms, so that our superiors think and often believe that we have made the changes necessary to make the “place” work much more in tune with the lofty ideals that glisten on our “mission statements”. And yet we ignore the kind of obvious and bread-and-butter concepts that make any group transcend the mere performance objectives that are baked into the cake of organization management, the human interactions that care for, listen to, engage with and especially empathize with those in our circle. Of course we pay lip service to such an approach; we all know about such an approach. Yet if and when such an approach is proferred, especially in real terms by people with real power, it is dismissed as “too costly” or “too unprofessional” or “too messy” and thereby passed over.

We have made workplace “beds” in which no one can or will sleep, and this is not an argument for workers sleeping on the job. We have created a culture in which people are little more than digits to be moved at will to fill empty slots, to be worked more and more efficiently without really caring about their human and emotional and psychic needs, and we wonder why the boredom confronts us everyday everywhere.

Tillich may be more prophetic than he could have imagined when he wrote, “Boredom is rage spread thin!”   

Beware the ubiquitous "shrew"....are they really untameable?...Surely not

The shrew—an unpleasant, ill-tempered woman characterized by scolding, nagging and aggression. As they are alive and to be found everywhere, it is time for men to learn, if not how to tame them, then at least how to avoid entanglements with them. There are reportedly over 400 “shrew” stories in literature from all cultures. And “taming” in these stories takes many forms; in some the male denies his “shrew partner” sexual relations; in others, sweetness and light, including sweet food and flowers are employed in a campaign to tame the shrew.

Regardless of the method, an important aspect of any taming of any shrew is that it must be done immediately upon being first noticed, Of course, when the tale of the shrew implicates a domestic partner, the confines of the story are clear, easily defined and observed. When the shrew, however, in contaminating the culture of an organization, too many men holding positions of responsibility fear any intervention, less they become the object of a sexual harassment complaint.

Some of the observed behaviours of shrews include:

·       obstructing normal protocols for professional deportment, knowing or at least counting on impunity from authorities, defaming the character and reputation of male(s) upon whom the shrew has projected her contempt for men; physical beating of the spouse, or a targetable son

·       defaming the character of male spouse or son

·       undermining the integrity of a person or even an organization

·       temper tantrums at the slightest provocation

·       engaging in gossip especially of the variety that seriously libels, defames and even destroys another

·       protracted periods of silence within the family, or the office, or the organization

·       subverting the authority of and responsibility for an organization

·       re-arranging schedules and appointments whenever and wherever possible to inconvenience those scheduling and those trying to keep those appointments

·       misrepresenting reality to suite their distorted view of who someone is, or what someone’s motives are

·       Finding ingenuous and unexpected stumbling blocks to any perceived successful project

·       gossip that paints another woman as the “boss’s favourite" or even mistress,

·       flipping from unctuous affability and support of a person or project to complete undermining of that person/project, as soon as the shrew discovers she is no longer “compatible with either the philosophy or the modus operandi of the responsible group

All of these behaviours, among other things, are partially calculated to generate as much public attention as possible, without acknowledging that the shrew is, in fact, totally sabotaging herself in the process. Of course, the strangling by the archetype of the ‘shrew’ herself is so complete that sabotaging the self is not even registering on the radar of the ‘shrew.’ The whole world is responsible for all of the injustices the ‘shrew’ believes she has been, continues, and will forever be subjected to. (Churchill reminds us never to end a sentence with a preposition, sorry!) She is the ultimate and the archetypal victim, one assumes never having discovered or permitted her ‘warrior’ to be released.

Without attempting a clinical diagnosis, one has to wonder if at the root of most shrews’ attitudes, behaviours, beliefs and spoken words, lies a profound, immutable and deeply toxic self-loathing. The source of the self-loathing, of course, could be a million influences, many of them combined in a toxic cocktail of self-perceptions that in fact, imprison the ‘shrew’ tragically, and perhaps even permanently. Projecting self-hatred, unconsciously, onto others, by the time the shrew has attained adulthood, has become the established, and therefore preferred attitude to all experiences, for the shrew; consequently, the shrew is deeply experienced in the wrath, the contempt, the ennui, the disgust, the alienation and even the revenge of others. It is the script to which her life gives voice: the reciprocal exchange of ugly, negative, abusive, and contemptuous, as well as contemptible words, deeds, attitudes and perceptions, without, in too many cases, adequate balancing of experiences that affirm, support, encourage, even praise the shrew.

Paradoxically, the shrew is also highly adept at presenting an extremely charming visage, often very attractive to innocent, naive and vulnerable men who, too often, are wrapped into her narrative for decades. And too often those men neither seek nor find support for their agency to “tame” the shrew, or to escape her venomous clutches. It takes an extremely self-possessed, courageous, and mature man to find both the words and the strategy to bring this demon to heel, and perhaps one of the more effective tactics, as it is for taming the anger demon, is, rather than attempting to wrestle or box, or stab or shoot the demon to the mat, one attempts to tickle this demon, play with it, as if it were indeed another character inside of the woman who presents as a shrew. I make this tentative suggestion after decades of living with, writhing under, and even hating the ‘shrew’ who also was my parent. Nothing I or my father ever did was adequate to penetrate the mask of the shrew in our house; so complete was the control of her person was the archetype that she literally never apologized for the torment she inflicted on others, some of whom sought refuge in psychotherapy, so deep was their angst and their powerlessness in coping with that specific shrew.

Is the ‘shrew’ inherited in the genetic code? There is some evidence that a ‘shrew’ tends to at least breed others, whether or not there is a specific gene, or cluster of genetic material that points to this archetype. As a young boy, taking apples from the ground under a tree, a group of us heard loud wailing from the voice peering around the doorway of the back shed. We were unaware of the ‘shrew’ archetype at 10, but we were made aware of our “evil behaviour” by this elderly woman, who took serious offence at our “theft”. And of course, being young boys, and knowing how our behaviour provoked this response, we delighted in repeating our prank, even running up the lane away from the house to the screech of her voice. Did she also carry a broom? Who knows, we did not wait around to find out.

One inevitably encounters other less offensive shrews through such social strategies as blind dates. On one such, I recall barely being able to look into the face of a young woman whom a friend had introduced to me, for the purpose  of a ‘blind date’....so cold and so detached, and so empty were her face, her conversation and her general demeanor. As we both undoubtedly knew, before the date was even half-hour old, we would never see each other again. And then there was the teacher colleague who, in the words of another female colleague, “drove everyone nuts” with her attitude, her behaviour and her attitude, without even just once invoking anything remotely resembling a reprimand. And then there were the church treasurers, all of them seemingly cut from a die cast in the mold of the shrew archetype, so miserly and so tight-fisted, and so obnoxious were there resistances to any suggestion to engage in authentic ministry, using some of the funds so dedicated. It was as if they were holding tight to God’s treasure, as if their pathway to heaven were going to be paved through their parsimony, their coldness and their capacity to disdain all legitimate efforts a ministry.

The ‘shrew’ stalks every organization, every family, and every school and college in North America, and, with the convergence of both political correctness and the feminist movement, increasingly, both men and other women take such a wide berth around these creatures that they are permitted free reign on the playing field of whatever game they are involved in, as paid employee, or even as volunteer. Perhaps, in employment, there are some levers by which Human Resources can modify ‘shrew’ demonstrations. However, in voluntary organizations, there are no such levers, and organizations are left to limp along while attempting to find end-runs around these shrews, all the while knowing that their reputation is so strong and so ubiquitous that it cannot and will not be denied, except by the ‘actress’ herself.

Koch Brothers' Social Engineering of young capitalists....a propaganda machine on steroids*

I was a little miffed when I learned that the University of Western Ontario football stadium took on the name “TD Stadium” under the auspices and cash support of the TD Bank. The Johnny Metras Stadium, funded by private donations, always seemed a more appropriate name. (No doubt the redoubtable coaching legend has his name on smaller edifices on the Western campus.) And then there were the growing, and also growing more apparent contributions from corporations like the pharmaceutical industry, to the biology and chemistry departments of universities across North America, the private funding, and also naming of teaching and research centres like the one at Waterloo, in honor of former Blackberry founder and executive, Jim Basillie, where one can only hope that the bent and preferred trajectory of thinking and research is in no way influenced by the donor(s).

And then there was the candidacy of The Trump, a renegade, loose canon, flailing away at any and all irritant mosquitoes of resistance, championing the free market, as if the free market were in need of his megaphone.

It is the kind of strategic planning and substantive funding that accompanies the many tentacles of the Koch Brothers’ social engineering manifesto, apparently thought out and written as early as the 1970’s, to warp the minds of innocent young children, all the way from kindergarten to graduate school, brain-washing them in the exclusive virtues of libertarian Ayn Randism. According to recent reports, this behemoth has succeeded in funding the economics department of Florida State University, albeit scrupulously avoiding significant public outcries, by sabotaging their cash pipeline under the names of benign think tanks and assorted registered charitable organizations. Of course, dangling from the contract with the university, are clauses that permit, even encourage, the Koch-vetted appointments of preferred professors, (and the obvious corollary the refusal to appoint others), the Koch-vetted curriculum, (as well as the rejection of ‘deviant’ opinions in graduate theses, for example).

The Koch’s have undertaken a massive social engineering project of which the Kremlin would be proud; so would Hitler. And presumbably, they have not fired a single weapon, in the military sense. Across the country, curriculum, especially in economics (of course that means free market economics, complete with the appendix that human lives are expendable by profit-centred corporations, in pursuit of those profits).

And, accompanying the Koch prescription for the future of their homeland, is complete control of the education system, along with the abolishing of the federal education department (it is a lot easier and also cheaper to buy off state officials than federal ones, the media scrutiny is so much more lax and irresponsible). So churning out on-line curricula, research papers in various formats, undergraduate and doctoral graduates all of whom comply with the gospel according to Koch....these are the real dangers of this propaganda war, while the Koch contributions to politicians seeking electoral office continues unabated.

Of course, given the adherence to the corporate model of for-profit business, corporations like the New York Times which might be able to shine a laser on such nefarious and even cancerous manipulation of the conventional thinking of the Koch cult, will turn a blind eye, dedicated a few lines of copy, on a back page, fearing, as all other corporations do, the withdrawal of Koch advertising dollars. When Bernie Sanders tells a Time reporter that the media ‘in this country do not cover a campaign’ he is telling a dangerous truth, while at the same time making an important political point. The deck is clearly stacked in favour of the deepest pockets, and the political culture that despises government, despises regulations impeding their access to more profit regardless of the destruction of the environment, that despises any form of gun control regardless of how many children and innocents are murdered, that permits the steroid-infused marketing of opioids to quack pharmacies while 80 people die every day from overdoses on them, that insists on locating head offices offshore to avoid paying federal corporate income tax, in spite of the serious burden of debt and deficit, that champions military conflict as part of the corporate need to manufacture weapons and sell them to the highest bidder, that wants an increase in fracking although the evidence mounts daily that underground water is polluted by the chemicals, and the earth’s propensity for earthquakes grows with every new well.

And, when one thinks about the purchase and dissemination of curricula in support of this corporate ideology, one is reminded of the dangers of a theocracy, the kind of thing propagated by ISIS, Al Shabbab, AlNusra, and others, only in the United States, the ‘God’ on the altar is no deity, only a mere face of the Greek God of Wealth, Plutus, an inordinately toxic surrogate for the diety many American allegedly worship each Sunday.

And, as with all corporate ecclesial bodies, there is inevitably a big cheque-writer, counting on the tax write-offs that accompany that beneficience, only in this case, the same agency writing the cheques is also the earthly representative of Plutus, providing more worshipping of his own narcissistic brand....and all of it for profit.

Little wonder the Republican party is sycophantly bowing down to join the line of Trump supporters.

Little wonder, too, that leaders of the major powers are ‘rattled’ (using Obama’s word) at the pronouncements from Trump, and the cabal he wold bring to Washington.

The United States of for and by Koch would be a more honest rendition of the kind of ‘democracy’ developing in America today.

*Read more in Charles Koch’s Disturbing High School Economics Project Teaches ‘Sacrificing Lives for Profits’ by Alex Kotch, in Truthdig.com, June 2, 2016 first published in Alternet

Preliminary reflections on death

Because of its tremendous solemnity, death is the light in which great passions, both good and bad, become transparent, no longer limited by outward appearances. (Soren Kierkegaard)

There is a gold embossed sculpture of an open orb, a large metallic globe, in the courtyard of the United Nations, created by an Italian sculptor, with an inscription to this effect: We all present a polished face to the world, while inside, the picture is much less perfect. Of course, human nature operates on the premise, as Jesuit John Powell puts it in his little book entitled, “Why I don’t tell you who I am,” I don’t tell you who I am because you might reject me, and that is all I have. So, reflecting on the above quote, death cuts through our pretense in presenting and upholding “appearances” highlighting our best and our worst emotions.

In the palliative care department, and in the hospice, patients/clients are facing death. They know it; their caregivers know it; their families and friends know it. There is no escaping the reality that the end of a life is very near. And while every attempt is made by these specially trained care givers to comfort the patient in his last days and hours, there are no more games. Far from the public main street, where talk of death is so remote and almost never heard, even in a whisper, these cocoons of care remind one of the nursery where the nursing profession cares for our newborn infants. We do definitely pay close attention to our newborns, and to a slightly lesser degree, we pay a different but similarly close attention to our dying. Whereas, those visiting the nursery talk in enthused tones about their hopes and dreams for the new baby, those visiting the hospice or the palliative care floor speak of the current condition of the patient, and often of memories of their experiences with that person. In the former, the talk looks forward; in the latter, the talk and the perspective is into the mirror.

However, considering death a “light” rendering great passions transparent is a perspective infrequently encountered even in discourse among those training for work among the dying. Writers have for centuries attempted to qualify, frame and even minimize the meaning and significance of death. There is such a finality to our demise, and so painful is the notion that many have come to a place where it has to be a passage into an eternity of love and bliss, represented by descriptions in the book of Revelations. When an elderly family member is admitted to hospital without previous notice, family members will ask themselves, “Is this the time I should make my way to the hospital?” Saying “Goodbye” is a ritual  which some people find excruciatingly painful. I recall watching parents walk for hundreds of yards along a railway platform as they said ‘goodbye’ to their departing university-bound child, now a young adult. Their waving hand and arm extended a kind of connection, metaphorically, that words could not and did not. They also conveyed a sense of both hope and apprehension, given the uncertainty of the future for both parent and child.

Death management, grief management and the circumstances in which we each first face the death of a pet, for example....these are significant moments, and even for a little child to be robbed of the experiences of whatever their curiosity requests, is a failure of omission by parents too preoccupied with protecting the child. There is something both memorable and healthy in permitting a child’s hands to prepare a burial site for their deceased hamster. There is also something memorable and healthy in accompanying a young child to say goodbye to a grandparent...for both the child and the grandparent. Recalling the encounter with a widowed husband, immediately following the death of his young wife, when he uttered these words, “I did not say goodbye to her!” is an experience filled with sadness and regret for the husband and for the now-deceased wife.

We are generally so “accomplished” at beginnings, especially when compared with “endings”. And the gulf between the two demonstrates our courage and willingness to open our hearts, minds and spirits to both. There is a case to be made that our world view is intimately embedded in our relationship to both birth and to death. Some try to prepare for their death by adopting a stringent moral and ethical standard as if they are anticipating God’s will for their lives, as an earned passport to a heavenly afterlife. For others, such “playing God” is not an adequate approach. Living fully, in the here and now, confronting the major threats and challenges forthrightly, (even with help if needed) prepares them for the opportunity to engage in open conversations with others at a time of an untimely death of a loved one.

For survivors, those family members and friends who lose a loved one, there has been considerable work, both formal academic research and also practical and anecdotal story-telling and gathering from bereavement support groups over the last quarter century. Elizabeth Kubler Ross’s five stages of grief have become almost household concepts since she began writing about the subject of grief, mourning loss and death. For those perhaps new to the Kubler Ross concepts, they are: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. Purportedly, these are roughly the five stages through which we all go, (not necessarily in a lock-step, universal manner) following the death of someone significant in our lives.

Poets and writers stake their claim on death: as surcease from life, its warning as the unleashing of one’s zest for living, as the kindest way to lost a loved one,  as the dream prior to another dream....

Kiekegaard’s perspective, as the light in which passions, good and bad, become transparent bears some unpacking. When one faces death, one is no longer under the caution to curb emotions, not longer bound to keep up a positive appearance for a public hungry for the back story of buried conflicts, repressed hates, thwarted loves, and even the most fantasy-like visions that, having been uttered  before death, would have rendered one insane, or unbalanced, or perverted, or worse, evil. One is not longer facing an locked padlock on one’s trunk of confessions, facing, as one is, the final curtain. As Frank Sinatra’s My Way puts it, expressing a similar perception to Kierkegaard:

Yes, there were times, I'm sure you knew
When I bit off more than I could chew
But through it all, when there was doubt
I ate it up and spit it out
I faced it all and I stood tall and did it my way

I've loved, I've laughed and cried
I've had my fill, my share of losing
And now, as tears subside, I find it all so amusing
To think I did all that
And may I say, not in a shy way
Oh, no, oh, no, not me, I did it my way

For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught
To say the things he truly feels and not the words of one who kneels

We all carry a perceived burden of what we consider self-protection, keeping our real feelings to ourselves, so that another will not reject us. Whether we are facing death, or in the presence of another who is, the words that come paint a very different picture from the politically correct discourse of our daily lives.

·       A spouse says tragically, after the divorce, when facing death, “I believed I would have been rejected if I showed up, when really I was rejected for not showing up!”

·       Another spouse utters a more than half-century contempt of her now-deceased partner, a contempt that poured itself all over the walls and the pine floors of their shared home for sixty-plus years, “He was no good, he was never any good!”

·       Another spouse, following the divorce, and immediately prior to death reflects: “I never knew I was in a competition for the affections and attentions of our children with their mother, until after the divorce!”

·       Another spouse, on her death bed, reflects, “It is so hard to say goodbye to all the people,” and drifts into a deep coma and then dies.

·       Another man, facing his own death from leukemia, sits the chaplain down on the floor beside his hospital bed, and pours forth a 90 minute homily on how the chaplain should, or even must, live the rest of his life.

·       A woman dying at fifty, whose sister and friends are holding a vigil in her last hours, utters the scathing indictment of her abusive husband from whom she never divorced, “I gained all this weight so I would never be attractive to that man, so deep was his commitment to pornography!”

·       A young woman, going home for her last time, turns to a friend, on the way to the family car and utters: “I have to go home now and let the family take care of me, not because I want to, but because they need to!” (She returns to hospital in a few days, in a coma, to die.)

·       An elderly man knowing of his impending death, is asked, upon his return from a home visit for his favourite lunch, “Would you like to go back home for lunch again soon?” His quiet, immediate reply, “No!”

·       Another man nearly 100, when fully conscious and facing his own death, utters these words in his hospital room to visiting friends, “I am not good enough to face God; I did not live a life worthy of going to Heaven!”

 

And as we all begin to contemplate our mortality, perhaps we could begin to reflect on our lives, on how distorted our public presentation has been, when compared with our truth and reality. And rather than, as Benjamin Franklin muses, “Most men die at 25 but are not buried until they are 75!”....we might reclaim the full truth of our emotions now, today, with those who claim they care about us, and those we love and begin to life a life worthy of our death.
It was Dr. Martin Luther King who reminded us that until we find the purpose for which we are prepared to die, we will not be fully alive.
Little wonder, then, that some of the wisest people in history have found intimate links between death and birth, that when a death occurs, there is also an accompanying and usually unexpected birth close at hand.

Another muted and likely ineffectual protest of the deeply embedded American war culture

With nearly 1 billion people directly impacted by military conflict, and a world funding of war at $249 per person per year (12 times the amount the world spends on aid), an arms industry centred in the wealth nations, and their deployment in mostly poor nations, and refugees mounting at the rate of one every two seconds, what will it take to shift the monstrous war machine around, and bring it into port, silent, disarmed and museum bound? (Dr. Samantha Nutt, Founder of War Child, a philanthropic dedicated to alleviating the ravages of war on children, recently delivered a public address as one of the Ted Talks, seen on PBS, in the U.S.)

On Monday, the United States Memorial Day, major baseball teams wore military fatigue material in their caps, with some emblazoning their logos with the same material, a public and ubiquitous way of paying respect to the military personnel who have fought and died in wars in which America was a participant. Traditionally, the honour bestowed on veterans went something like this: “They paid the ultimate sacrifice so that we could be free!’ The implications of that hymn are that freedom was effectively purchased through the fighting, the wounding and the dying of soldiers, airmen and women, sailors, marines and peripherally the coast guard. It is a deeply religious and Christian motif: Jesus, remember, is said to have died to ‘purchase forgiveness’ for the sins of humans, thereby providing a freedom from shame and guilt, through his death, resurrection and ascension. For the American culture, military personnel, whether deceased, wounded, maimed with PTSD or any of several other psychological and emotional impairments, are still heroes. And the culture is deeply ingrained with an inordinate consciousness of and public celebration of anyone the community considers a hero. There is an aura of majesty and mystery in the various uniforms; there is a kind of idealism that accompanies most recruits’ enlistment, given their age and their careful inculcation into a culture that holds the military veterans almost in awe. Even university graduation, also a highly valued public celebration, dotting the American landscape in Spring, does not have the same universal application, given the large proportion of graduates come from the middle and upper class, with fewer from the poor neighbourhoods. There is a case that can be made that, for many in the ghettos, enlistment, boot camp, bright, clean, crisply pressed uniforms and highly polished boots that accompany a commitment of 3-5 years serve as a passport into the middle class, even though many of the parents of current enlistees  admit they would prefer their young adult children not to enlist at a time when the nation is at war. And, at war, is where the Americans have  been, at least since 2001, and previously, in Viet Nam, Korea, and in both World Wars. The current generation of recruits grew up while the nation was at war, even though they also grew up without a conscious awareness or even memory of the implications of the Cold War.

Fighting fascism, communism, the Viet Cong, seemed, at least to some in my generation, to have a level of importance and also of honour  because those forces, while toxic and dangerous, had a veil of ‘state’ engagement, support and parameters. Today, in a time of asymmetrical war, the military is engaged with what are literally a band of thugs recruited from various countries, without a specific allegiance to a nation state, except the Islamic State they seek to create, at the expense of other failed states. People continue to shoot, bomb, ambush and kill the ‘enemy’ as the terrorists seek to reciprocate on their enemies. However, there is no predictable and national boundaried locus, although much of the current fighting occurs in Iraq, Syria, Lybia, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Somalia. Cities not formally at war are, nevertheless, still potential locations for terrorist violence, as are aircraft filled with civilian passengers and crew.

 Underneath this ‘war motif’ and motivation, lies a monster, the private sector, profit-driven arms industry, as well as a “charitable trust” known as the National Rifle Association. Linked to both are a plethora of American elected officials whose political and retirement careers depend on their continued support of both. In fact, the political incest that infects the American political culture is heavily “armed” if you will pardon the pun. So “baked into the cake” of the American cake is the notion that guns are a solution even to the violence they generate and support. Of course, the NRA argues that “guns don’t kill...people with guns kill”. And they then go on to advocate for students to be able to carry guns to class, for the secret carrying of guns as an “American freedom” on which the country was founded. Unfortunately, the Second Amendment supports only the arming of a militia, should that be required in case of government over-step. The “armed” nature of the culture is also clearly and proudly (not ashamedly) evident in the rhetoric that pours from the mouths of faux political candidates like Trump. Anyone who even modestly disagrees with Trump is attacked, and the “army” of his followers are so hungry for this sugar-and-salt-laden diet of political rhetoric that they “eat it up”.

Obesity, whether of the ‘body’ kind based on the over-consumption of toxic foods, or of the national kind based on the voracious appetite and uber-consumption of toxic, irrational, dangerous and “war-based-and war-engendering” vocabulary is still obesity. For the former, there are pale, and often only short-term public programs to which most pay little to no attention. They will continue to eat the kind of diet which they bodies now crave, regardless of the level of their blood pressure, the risk of their cardiac arrest, or the effort it takes to breathe. Similarly, in a stubborn and seemingly frozen manner, the appetite for “battle”, (another example is the American media’s obsession with the horse race, while completely disregarding the substantive policy issues and debates) is not only allowed to dominate, it is absolute.

There is no prospect of weaning the American culture off war so long as the instruments that support and sustain the belief in its sanctity are the beneficiaries of so much financial largesse, based primarily on the emotion of fear/hubris, a two-headed monster that rules. Fear of a lowered reputation among world powers, fear our losing some dominance among the major powers, fear that another major power like China or Russia, even for some perhaps ever the European Union (although that prospect is highly unlikely) might increase in prominence, dominance and believing that the can and will only happen if the United States “isn’t great” again, the keepers of the nation’s good name, honourable status among world powers and leaders, have fallen into the trap set for them by other world powers, and also the terrorists. Both of the latter groups have set some of their sights on tarnishing the American “heroic” image, the one the Pentagon, the CIA, the FBI and HSA are all programmed to not only uphold but enhance, if possible. China is engaged in a major initiative not only to increase its influence in the South China Sea, but also to engage in a vigorous cyber war against the U.S. while ISIS is, one can only ‘guestimate,’ is continually scheming to derail U.S. security apparatus, as well as hack into significant computer sites.

Hubris, not merely healthy national pride, stokes the fires of the United States political apparatus, as well as the fires of individual family pride in the legacy of their respective members who have already served in the military and have since retired, those currently serving, and those in junior ROTC programs nationwide. Also undergirding this hubris is the American determination to elevate competition, rugged individualism and winning at all costs, all of them marching at high school and college athletic events, at Memorial Day parades, for homecoming parades for returning war veterans, and for any other occasion deemed relevant to enhancing the citizens’ feeling of superiority, being special and continuing to exert an inordinate and highly valued influence around the world. Today, there are some 150,000 American troops serving in some 90 countries around the world, and that fact alone could serve, inadvertently, as a magnet to attract recruits to any proposal from any quarter that might seek to do American harm. Just think, for only a few brief seconds, of the enormous purchasing power that attends those 150,000 troops, their military bases, their intellectual, political, cultural and psychological tentacles stretching deeply into the regions where they are located. And back home, just imagine the impact of the thousands of new military recruits, both in boot camps, and also in military universities and colleges, returning home after even a single semester, to a hero’s welcome and another proud “party”, parade or celebration, as another favourite sons demonstrates his national pride, all the while puffing up the already well-established pride among the residents of those towns and cities.

And, while Bernie Sanders, and his pitch on behalf of ‘democratic socialism,’ an argument for which he would have been scoffed, if not arrested in the middle of the cold war, gather strength in many states, particularly on the shoulders of millions of millenials, the vast majority of American people are still strongly in support of an enhanced military machine, increased funding for the Pentagon, and the continued sanctity of the need for American veterans to have access to the best medical, social and employment opportunites the country has to offer. Yet, would all of those services be needed, or would that money have been and continue to be spent on foreign aid, on educating those military officers, not so heavily in global marketing and securing an inordinate financial future, and not so disproportionately on military training, (there is no single college or university in the United States for peace, reconciliation and global disarmament!)....perhaps the pshyche of the country would not be so bent in favour of guns, of war, of domination, of inculcating a culture of mutual interdependence, sufficient at least to leaven the fatuous cake being cooked and served with impunity to successive generations of American youth.

Schools are falling apart, neighbourhoods are decaying, drug lords control many streets in neighbourhoods where after school programs are begun to prevent those kids from being killed or maimed by street gun violence. Social programs are being cut, tuition fees are strangling millions of university students and especially graduates, while the costs of war continue unabated, and unmolested either by the media (incestuously sucking on the same power trip opportunities as the politicians) or by the majority of the public. In fact, for a single American citizen to public declare his or her open and outright support for restraining the combat impulse (and to call it anything less toxic would be dishonest) of the nation, he or she would be in danger, not only of serious internet maligning and likely libel, but also perhaps even physical violence, so deeply held are the convictions that drive the military culture.

Eisenhower is defeated; the forces advocating for a major shift in America’s way of being in the world toward peace, reconciliation, negotiation and especially to disarmament are relegated to the sidelines, gagged and stifled, in a much more violent and sustained manner than Archie Bunker attempted to “stifle” Edith.

And this national mind-set is not only deeply rooted in America; it is also a model for other nations seeking to grow their influence on the world stage. “If these approaches are appropriate for the world’s superpower, then why would they not benefit our little country!” you can hear tin-pot dictators muttering in capitals on every continent. We have all heard the same chorus from Vladimir Putin, as he emulates the American military conflicts to enhance his and his country’s status and reputation, at least in his own mind and for the benefit of his controlled public opinion polls. And, of course, those very dictators, along with the terrorists, are all able to have easy and too often not so expensive access to American guns, missiles bombs, and vehicles discarded from some foreign war already fought and lost (very few have been won in the last half century, but American political voices seem not to notice).

And in the rest of the world we watch, and utter mute cries for change, without a hope of having our words, our thoughts or our hopes considered

The remarks of Donovan Livingston*, Ed.M.'16, student speaker at HGSE's 2016 Convocation exercises.

“Education then, beyond all other devices of human origin,
Is a great equalizer of the conditions of men.” – Horace Mann, 1848.
At the time of his remarks I couldn’t read — couldn’t write.
Any attempt to do so, punishable by death.
For generations we have known of knowledge’s infinite power.
Yet somehow, we’ve never questioned the keeper of the keys —
The guardians of information.
Unfortunately, I’ve seen more dividing and conquering
In this order of operations — a heinous miscalculation of reality.
For some, the only difference between a classroom and a plantation is time.
How many times must we be made to feel like quotas —
Like tokens in coined phrases? —
“Diversity. Inclusion”
There are days I feel like one, like only —
A lonely blossom in a briar patch of broken promises.
But I’ve always been a thorn in the side of injustice.
Disruptive. Talkative. A distraction.
With a passion that transcends the confines of my consciousness —
Beyond your curriculum, beyond your standards.
I stand here, a manifestation of love and pain,
With veins pumping revolution.
I am the strange fruit that grew too ripe for the poplar tree.
I am a DREAM Act, Dream Deferred incarnate.
I am a movement – an amalgam of memories America would care to forget
My past, alone won’t allow me to sit still.
So my body, like the mind
Cannot be contained.
As educators, rather than raising your voices
Over the rustling of our chains,
Take them off. Un-cuff us.
Unencumbered by the lumbering weight
Of poverty and privilege,
Policy and ignorance.
I was in the 7th grade, when Ms. Parker told me,
“Donovan, we can put your excess energy to good use!”
And she introduced me to the sound of my own voice.
She gave me a stage. A platform.
She told me that our stories are ladders
That make it easier for us to touch the stars.
So climb and grab them.
Keep climbing. Grab them.
Spill your emotions in the big dipper and pour out your soul.
Light up the world with your luminous allure.
To educate requires Galileo-like patience.
Today, when I look my students in the eyes, all I see are constellations.
If you take the time to connect the dots,
You can plot the true shape of their genius —
Shining in their darkest hour.
I look each of my students in the eyes,
And see the same light that aligned Orion’s Belt
And the pyramids of Giza.
I see the same twinkle
That guided Harriet to freedom.
I see them. Beneath their masks and mischief,
Exists an authentic frustration;
An enslavement to your standardized assessments.
At the core, none of us were meant to be common.
We were born to be comets,
Darting across space and time —
Leaving our mark as we crash into everything.
A crater is a reminder that something amazing happened here —
An indelible impact that shook up the world.
Are we not astronomers — looking for the next shooting star?
I teach in hopes of turning content, into rocket ships —
Tribulations into telescopes,
So a child can see their potential from right where they stand.
An injustice is telling them they are stars
Without acknowledging night that surrounds them.
Injustice is telling them education is the key
While you continue to change the locks.
Education is no equalizer —
Rather, it is the sleep that precedes the American Dream.
So wake up — wake up! Lift your voices
Until you’ve patched every hole in a child’s broken sky.
Wake up every child so they know of their celestial potential.
I’ve been a Black hole in the classroom for far too long;
Absorbing everything, without allowing my light escape.
But those days are done. I belong among the stars.
And so do you. And so do they.
Together, we can inspire galaxies of greatness
For generations to come.
No, sky is not the limit. It is only the beginning.
Lift off.

*Donovan Livingston is a Black Graduate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education
His address, delivered on May 25, 2016 is found on the Harvard Graduate School of Education website