A Study of Evil

 EVIL AND SOCIETY

 Now we come to the moment of truth. We consider the individual in terms of evil—not a multitude, not a cult, not a religious sect, not an army, not a populace. We see only a person with a soul that permits an act of evil against another person or group of persons. We don’t deal with gradation. Instigating the murder of millions is evil. Remaining silent during the execution of evil is evil. Numbers, as we have noted, only tend to magnify, sanctify, intensify, and vilify evil according to its breadth and scope. It all begins with an individual action.

Let us begin by supposing that the act of evil deprives someone or some group of something which is necessary to enjoy not a grandiose life, but an average and acceptable condition of existence. That includes a long spectrum, ranging from the ability to vote in an election to the ability to breath, with the right to live free from pain and distress somewhere in between.

Within that broad spectrum, it seems reasonable to limit our search further. For example, here are some examples that may rise to the level of sin[i] or illegality,[ii] but not evil:

The procurement of sexual activity between two consenting adults;

Activities relating to dietary laws;

Minor financial deceit;

Violations of religious edicts not otherwise defined as evil;

Victimless crimes;

Failure to conform to societal or military edicts or laws:

Public nudity; or

Public profanity, as defined by someone or something.

Moving up the scale one notch are actions considered acceptable or normal in some sects but defined as evil in others. For example:

The beating of children as a training exercise;

Domination and/or abuse of women by men.

Racial discrimination;

Masturbation;

Sex with minors;

Prostitution;

Polygamy;

Sex or marriage to close relatives;

Public execution of criminals or deviants;

Same-sex love and/or marriage, or homosexuality in general;

Rape;

War or aggression;

Tattoos;

Usery;

Contraception; or

Unnatural sex acts as defined by the sect.

This complicates things further, but wait. Some among these have changed in context due to a sort of civil evolution. For example, polygamy enjoyed approval and participation by Judo-Christian ancestors but fell out of favor somewhere along the line, as did slavery among a large segment of the population. The execution of criminals in America evolved from public spectacles to near extension, now carried out in shameful quietude. Now to lighten this depressing journey up a bit: As the old comedy line suggests, masturbation has moved from an absolute, hell-promising sin guaranteed to produce blindness to the prohibition of, “just until you need glasses.”[iii]

With that, we will close and work on a modest definition.

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[i] Let us use: “Any thought, word, or act considered immoral, selfish, degrading, shameful, detrimental to order, or alienating by a defined religious or societal group."

[ii] As defined by appropriate legal codes.

[iii] From the film Can I Do It Til I Need Glasses? distributed produced by Dauntless Productions and distributed by National American Films, 1977.

Friendship

 Each day I resolve not to be abrasive. Then I see utterances from people I once knew to be kind, generous, educated, and thoughtful. Somewhere, something or someone flipped a switch and a horrible transmogrification took place. I Don’t know how to respond. Let me just say this.

If your cult has convinced you to hate Dr. Anthony Fauci and love Kyle Rittenhouse, your soul needs a greater level of forgiveness than I can provide.

If your cult teaches you that slavery was okay but committed love between two people of the same sex is not, your sense of morality needs a greater level of support than I can provide.

If your cult makes you believe that only white Americans deserve the right to vote, your sense of America needs a greater level of education that I can provide.

If your cult convinces you that women only have the rights conferred upon them by men, your understanding of democracy requires a new meaning of community than I can provide.

In the words of the immortal Woody Guthrie, “So long, it’s been good to know you.”

Daylight Savings Time

 The Old Curmudgeon: I’m a progressive liberal. I believe in the ability of a well-managed government to benefit our lives. I believe in the efficacy of carefully regulated restraints on capitalism. I believe that the U.S. Constitution is wise when it separates church and state. I believe the females of the species are genetically wiser than the male and should be left to decide decisions relative to their bodies. But to allow something as universally despised, palpably ineffective, physically debilitating, and easily scorned as changing the time by an hour twice a year stretches my support structure to the limits. Tell me who is to blame and I’ll know who to castigate.

I've only heard one group in support and that consists of  highway departments. That begs the question: When is the last time you saw your highway department make a decision that benefited the planet as a whole? Why, let them rule and you'd have 12-lane freeways running through residential neighborhoods.

Uh.

Let me get back to you on that one. In the meantime, if half the population of a political party can refuse to wear masks that might save lives, couldn't we refuse to abide by the time change?

Just asking.

Accountability

 Odd thought of the day:

In our state, the group that brays the loudest about how "gubmint" should be run like a "bidness" share a common trait, other than being elected officials of state government. No, the trait is that if government shared the same strictures and liabilities as private corporations, many of those most adamant about how it should be run would be in federal court defending themselves of charges of fraud. 

Actually, taking the dilemma of Covid-19 into account, the charges might be more severe. 

 They were there, had we only looked: bigotry, prejudice, and racism, the monsters of our psyche, writhing and slobbering like a den of 1950s science fiction monsters.

 They were not dead, as we had hoped and dreamed. They were not even moribund. They were simply submerged, like Godzilla, or a giant spider, just waiting to be freed by a shock of super-seismic proportions. What would it take to release them upon an unsuspecting public?

 It took nothing more than the election of a president of the United States born of a white mother and African father, the very model of a modern African-American.

 That’s all it took. The “monsters from the id,” as they called them in the 1956 film, The Forbidden Planet, took control of the minds of otherwise decent people. Things changed overnight. Old friends began to greet you with, “How do you like our n****r president?” Hatemongers on the internet devised the acronym “SOS” to describe the elected leader of the United States of America. Photoshopped images of watermelon patches on the White House lawn appeared on social media. The man’s family members attracted descriptions as “gorillas” or worse. Sentiments and language that had been shoved to the bottom of our cultural sea and buried were fashionable again. Hate groups flourished and became more emboldened, as did hate media. A sense of shame settled over us.

 Campaigning against candidates of the Democratic Party in our state became simple. All one had to do was request it from East Coast PACs and they would deliver boatloads of brochures, simple ones with just a photo of their opponent facing a photo of President Obama. The stated message would be, “he/she is with him.” The hidden message would be “the n****rs are coming for your women and he/she is going to help them.”

 It worked like magic, even among citizens of our state who are alive today because of the Barack Obama’s efforts toward universal health care. The illogic of that could make a healthy person nauseated. Our state will suffer for decades.

 Now don’t get me wrong. I strongly support the rights of Americans to vote for the candidates of their choice. My only wish is that we would all vote for candidates on the basis of the principles of good government, as we see it, and not the principles of the KKK.

 Meanwhile, can’t we work toward eliminating the monster born of bigotry and racism? Unchallenged, it will destroy us as a unified nation as surely as a giant lizard could destroy a city. The Galilean’s admonition for us to “love one another” might be that best hope for us. As they used to say in the aforementioned films of the 1950s: “It just might work!”

 It becomes more obvious every day that such healing will not come from the highest offices of government. It must begin at the citizen level.

 I’ll try. That’s what I think on July 4, 2017.

Takeaways and reflections:

I hate to say it, but I fear this terrorist rebellion will prove far more inclusive that we now imagine. I hope I'm wrong. I think I'm not. When I heard that the assault had begun, I imagined lines of motorized vehicles and broad phalanxes of police and soldiers roaring into action. Instead I saw a largely unimpeded flow of terrorists charging almost unopposed into the most important building in America like crowds entering stores on Black Friday.

Yes, I expected the National Guard. I had heard they would be on hand, since anyone who had observed a legitimate news source in a month knew the assault was coming. Then I learned that the Guard’s mission was "traffic control” and could not be changed except through the chain of command, a chain of command controlled by the person who instigated the assault.

This mad me think of something with which I am familiar. I imagined a U.S. Naval vessel encountering a sister ship under attack or a modern-day Titanic with her bow sliding beneath the waves and our Captain saying, “Nope, can’t stop. Our mission is to proceed to home port.” Maybe the National Guard is different. I don’t know. I hope not.

How many times have I heard, “Oh, Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley must be smart. They graduated from Ivy League law schools." Folks, I've known Ivy League graduates. They are well educated, fitting one of Plato’s requirements for a good life. Many show spirit in the use of their education, completing a second layer. But it is in the “appetitive” layer, the rational element in our gut that builds moderation, and distinguishes the restraint-guided human soul, that many, including the likes of Cruz and Hawley, lack entirely.

In fact, of three people I’ve known in my life who best fit the prime example of a smart, well ordered life, one graduated from the Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, one from what is now the University of Central Arkansas at Conway, and one from Arkansas Technical University in Russellville. Cruz and Hawley smart? No, they are devious, cunning, and resourceful. Morally, they most resemble the type of people from whom our state suffers, ones who have never worked a day at a job but somehow keep a steady supply of cigarettes and beer on hand for their survival. They squander their health and abilities like Cruz and Hawley squander their educations. We Americans suffer equally from both.

Finally, I haven’t resolved how I can approach what I once considered good, decent people who still support the American president who certainly incited, perhaps took a hand in planning, the terrorist assault on our nation’s Capitol and Constitution. I can’t take them seriously, but my standing orders, both from the Galilean and the military oath I took, require that I offer them the same care and concern as those who would seek a more meaningful life. The hardest to love will be those who spew societal treason from the pulpit of a church. They seem to believe that that the problem of two men, or two women, loving one another outweighs the sight of terroristic thugs ravaging the hallowed halls of Congress.

I’ve much thinking to do. Won’t you join me? Our country needs us.

Equity

 Sundays I think of the Galilean, not from religious fervor, but because I was trained to do so as a youth and things stick. Lately, I’ve been concerned, since I don’t have to worry constantly about paying bills, with the theoretical aspects of urban planning. Now what would He (with a capital “h”) have to say about urban planning? I don’t know.

He did say, we are told, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.” According to another source, he just said, "Blessed are the poor." I sort of like the first since I've know some pretty rich people who were awfully poor in spirit, even people who have buildings named after them.

This hit home to me a number of years ago while working on a project involving a working-class neighborhood in decline. I had attended a workshop by the then current “guru of planning” who had assured the crowd that the type planning pioneered by him and his wife would cure everything from ugly neighborhoods to socio-economic inequity to the “low-down blues.” He was an engaging speaker, much in demand, and charismatic. He enthralled the crowd with his speech and all the slides, pictures, and pronouncements.

I was still hyped when an activist introduced me to a woman who lived in the neighborhood in question. She was talkative. That encouraged me. I just had to ask her about interaction with her neighbors. (The guru had assured us that was a sign of the righteousness of his planning model).

She turned stone cold when I asked. “Mr.,” she said, “I’m a single-mother of two boys whose father ran off with another woman and doesn’t provide a penny for support. I hold down two jobs so I can feed them and provide a place to live. When I’m at my second job, I lock my boys in the house so they don’t get killed by stray bullets. I don’t know who my neighbors are and, quite frankly, don’t care.”

Since then, I’ve not been so sure that streetscapes, bike paths, and inspired urban design are the answers to what our cities face.

Fear

 These words stand before you written by a man who is far from perfect. On my decent side, I love reading, studying ideas, from science to history to woodworking. On the negative, I’m “not eaten up” as my Sainted Mother would say, with the desire to do manual labor. I’m prone to be mercurial at times. A close friend once said that I “don’t have 24-hour a day attitude about anything." I’m a bit selfish and known, I think, as a nice person except when I’m not.

 I do have a consistent attitude about some things. I eschew, for example, blind bigotry and prejudice aimed at those who don’t deserve it. This includes people of color, people whose genes have produced different sexual makeups, women in power, and immigrants fleeing death and persecution. I abhor violence toward others, crime, deceit, physical and mental abuse, disrespect for the physically challenged, gratuitous lying, the use of inherited wealth (really any wealth but particularly the “lucky sperm” kind) to mistreat or take advantage of others.

 I’m ambivalent about most religions but hostile to any that espouses hatred, violence, or bigotry. I’m very suspicious (a condition taught me by aforementioned Sainted Mother) of religious fanatics and hypocrites. I especially steer clear of those who use religion for financial or political reasons.

 I’ve paid taxes each year since 1961, served my country for four years, one in a war zone, and have managed to convince a remarkable woman to keep me for over 48 years. The only financial handouts I’ve received were via the G.I. Bill and my portion of stock values of companies that are heavily subsidized by local, state, and federal taxes, (which is almost all of them).

 A typical 2020 version of J. Alfred Prufrock you say? I’ll accept that. But just imagine, only imagine, the shock I’ve felt during the last four years as I’ve learned that close friends, some of whom I’ve used as role models, have succumbed to the trumpet call of a group ruled by a man whose every action stands in direct opposition to everything I love and respect, who preaches and supports all the elements of life and history that scare me into a primal fear and dread of living. Now, it seems

 Bad is good,

Good is bad,

Beauty is ugly,

Ugly is beautiful,

Facts are stupid things.

The U.S. Constitution sucks.

Greed is the highest order of things,

Altruism is for fools and liberal fantasizers,

Science is a foolish fantasy of progressives, and

The function of politics is to make your enemies weep.

 I weep, but not for myself. I’m old and everything I write is “from a warm room on a full stomach.”

 I weep for the grandchildren of my friends and pray, “to whatever gods may be," that they are never born poor or different.

Stinkin' Logic. Who Needs It?

Strange day yesterday as the remnants of Hurricane Laura rolled through the state. Our electricity was off for only a few minutes, but TV reception was sporadic. Outdoors it was nasty. I cuddled with the latest edition of The Politics of The Administrative Process by Donald Kettl. In the preface, he warns us. From the Flint water crisis to the BP oil spill to Hurricane Katrina, thoughtful people know that “Black Swans” are not only possible, but inevitable. (See: Covid-19.)

Thoughtful people think about those things.

Thoughtful people know we need to elect thoughtful, caring leaders who support thoughtful, accomplished public administrators. But we don’t. We elect people who think government is a joke at best and a mechanism for revenge at worst and who appoint cronies—who despise Americans who aren't like them—to run our agencies. “Why?” I was asking myself that when the TV returned with a newscaster energetically reporting on the “tropical storm.”

I assumed she needed at least a high-school education to be a weather reporter. But she warned us that, after an inch of rain, (despite a month-long dry spell) the ground was now “saturated” to the failing tree roots and we should seek cover. Then she breathlessly reported that her camera-person, who was from Little Rock, had just told her that the Arkansas river normally flowed toward the sea but that “the winds were now forcing it to flow in the opposite direction.” Yes, that Arkansas River. Look out Oklahoma.

The clouds outside remained, but the ones in my head rolled away. Things became clear. If we don’t start thinking, we’re gonna keep sinking.