Taking Offense

Some more random thoughts about how to construe hatred (hot and cold, small and grand) from other people in a way that minimizes harm and maximizes benefit. 

I. Offense must needs come, it seems to me. If I must be offended in order that somebody else may live freer and at greater ease (with herself and the world), then I am willing to be offended (especially when the offense comes through words). I embrace the reality that my psyche is blind and weak, and I seek to temper it, hardening it through manageable adversity to the point where it can encounter hatred and misunderstanding in the world without falling apart.

Serving a foreign LDS mission was eye-opening in this regard, in a very useful way (as was growing up in the Deep South, where my Mormonism made me an automatic outsider among the evangelical Christians who constituted the majority of my neighbors). People hated me--as a foreigner, as an American, as a Mormon. There was nothing I could do. I might smile or snarl, and the result would be the same (with this one difference, that snarling was likely to cause physical confrontations that might easily end much worse than the endless flytings). I learned to grin and bear it. It was hard sometimes, but very worthwhile. If I could listen to the hatred of the Spanish people for me patiently, then I can listen patiently to feedback from people to whom I appear, to my consternation, as an advocate for chauvinism or slavery or some other kind of thuggish behavior.

Nietzsche goes hard on contemporary Christianity for being decadently soft (if I get him right). I think this is what he means, that too many of us project our own weakness onto other people (demanding that they be strong where we are weak) instead of looking inward and steeling ourselves to face our demons however we must (mustering the courage to let others be honest about how threatening and insensitive they find us, even when we come with what we see as peaceful intentions).

II. It seems to me that almost all attempts to define just hierarchy are doomed (historically, when we judge them by their fruits over some arbitrary time period). I don't believe in just hierarchy, personally (except as a fiction in the minds of philosophers like Plato or Hegel). The most we can hope for is more non-fatal volatility in whatever hierarchy (feminist patriarchy) we have got going at the moment. Shift the burden of leadership around more. Let someone else screw the world (and take the blame for that) or save it (and take the credit). Maximize opportunities for the oppressed du jour to recover from their bad luck without being destroyed.

Sometimes, that means that we have to hear things we don't like (no matter who we are). We need to be OK with that. And at some point it is always good to "shut up and listen" (no matter who we are) and even "take our toys and leave" (no matter who we are, again: nobody should hang about somewhere they feel threatened, even if the threat is entirely harmless to somebody else). My sister has Celiac disease. If she eats our mom's whole wheat bread, she starts dying (literally). I don't. My sister shouldn't have to eat bread because I can. Hierarchy (feminist patriarchy) is like food, I think, a necessary poison that all of us must come to grips with individually, subjectively, as we can (not as someone else tells us to).

There is not one -archy to rule them all. There shouldn't be. To the extent that there is, it inevitably becomes hell on earth (no matter who runs it).

III. Any actionable opinion carries inherent the potential to become painfully, dangerously personal. It becomes personal ("about me") when people judge me for looking or speaking a certain way--as though my superficial physical resemblance to rapists made me a rapist, as though my hesitation to lynch every accused rapist meant that I endorse rape.  

People should do whatever they feel a need to do in order to feel safe. If that means they take me for a rapist, I am open to that--provided I have the option of then avoiding (or ending) any relationship with those who have no use for me (for reasons that I absolutely do not invalidate: if my appearance or expression scares people, then I need to know it, preferably before I am lynched).  

Some of your relationships will always be unsalvageable, historically speaking. Nobody should have to live with constant fear (or domination or whatever anyone wants to call it). Sometimes, divorce is necessary (by which I mean separation physical and psychological, separation that might be permanent). If my wife ever reaches a place where her relationship with me is unbearable, where I am the proverbial ball-and-chain, then I will encourage her to dump me (and not feel any remorse about it, at least not any that she doesn't want to feel). 

Nobody owes me a life free from challenge, a life of "privilege" (however anyone wants to define that). And I don't want to be caste in the role of "leader" (which I have never sought, not even when I come to places like this and write advice that some readers might construe as authoritative: my opinion on anything is worth to you precisely what you make of it, which might be nothing or a great deal--your decision, not mine).

For those with kids, I think the best we can do is emphasize the importance of respecting other people as individuals (giving them maximal freedom to be honest and autonomous without regard for their genitalia)--and then let the cards fall. If that means that my kids crash and burn (failing in every way society measures success, e.g. in terms of establishing themselves in stable long-term relationships and living above grinding poverty), then I will still be happy--provided my kids are polite. I care more about how my kids react than what happens to them. As long as they retain the ability to love (themselves and others) authentically, I don't care much about anything else (though of course I won't go out of my way to set them up for failure!).

IV. We all give offense, but only the really good people take it well.  I cannot make myself utterly inoffensive, but I can learn to attune myself those around me, trying to see how they perceive me and adjust my persona accordingly (so that I don't hurt them unnecessarily).  I can make the offenses I receive opportunities for growth rather than threats to an imaginary personal security (that I must renounce as a dangerous lie: I am never utterly safe--from other people or to them).

One common cause for offense is the natural desire we have to protect ourselves and those close to us from what we perceive as harm.  If I see my wife or my kids (or my friend or my sibling) in a social circumstance where they appear overwhelmed, I step in and try to help them (by talking other people down, shouting them down if necessary, and even "taking charge" momentarily to defuse the situation: physical confrontation is not off the table as an appropriate response, though it is one that I have been fortunate to avoid most of my adult life, probably because of my lucky childhood, which involved lots of time practicing and thinking about fighting). This is not done because I am a man (or a Mormon or a white supremacist or an American or a liberal or a hero or a scumbag), but because I don't like to see people I love suffering uselessly (some suffering is necessary, useful for growth, helpful--a fact I respect).

I think this "urge to protect" is something that transcends gender (my wife can be very protective of our kids and me in this same way, for example)--but it sometimes becomes gendered (when certain people, for historical reasons, assume that having male anatomy means "being the default protector"). The problem with this "default" position is that it inevitably infantilizes and weakens (psychologically at the very least) the "protected" by placing them in a place of default dependency ("help! save me! I need protection!"). Stepping out of a dependent relationship is always hard (like learning to walk after spending one's entire life crippled--a nice/awful gendered example that comes to mind is the practice of female foot-binding in ancient China). For those who have experience with the Mormon "faith crisis" (or whatever anyone wants to call it), it is very much like "leaving the church"--an experience involving shock and awe, anger, defensiveness, aggression, PTSD, and eventually a new stasis (we hope! I like to think I have found one, anyway).

As you move forward from a personal crisis of identity that involves confronting and removing unhelpful dependency, it is not always possible to salvage relationships whose existence dates to "before the crisis" (certainly not in the same form they had then). Ceasing to be a dependent is not a painless process. It produces a lot of "bad results" (no matter whose perspective one takes: I see bad results of my own faith crisis every day), but that does not mean that it is a fundamentally evil process (one that should be avoided or squelched). The only thing worse than dying free is living an entire life enslaved to some empty shadow of yourself that you loathe. This is true whether one is male or female (Mormon or evangelical, black or white, American or not). If women (or Mormons or Americans or black people or white people) want to rebel or hate men (or Mormons or Americans or black people or white people or me personally) as part of their quest for freedom, I am open to that. I embrace it. Be impotent and angry (from somebody's perspective). Waste your life (from somebody's perspective). At least it will be yours, and for that I personally will respect you (even if we disagree about something important and/or you hate my guts).

Against the Factions

I like this article (and agree with most of it), but there are two things that trouble me (in it and in much of public discourse about -ists practicing -isms, including feminists practicing feminism).

(1) The business of leadership. Much -ist rhetoric falls into the trap (as I see it) of asking the Platonic question, "Who will rule?" (Men or women? Republicans or Democrats? Liberals or conservatives? Mormons or evangelicals? Company men or free spirits? and so on and on). The answer to this question, historically speaking, is always, "An asshole." No matter what regime we set up, some asshole will always be in charge of it eventually. The fact that someone takes issue with a leader (male or female, -ist or non-ist) is not necessarily an indication that that someone wants to oust or replace the leader (with himself). I have no interest in telling people (men, women, or children) what to do with their lives, what they must do, how they must think, etc. But that does not mean that I am following someone else's lead (i.e. that I endorse any leader in society or any "social order," explicit or implicit, that may exist and cause damage).

(2) The business of class. While I get the idea of "passing" in society (and have been on the business end of "not passing"--a valuable learning experience), I don't like to accept passively my existence as part of a class (or faction). Following Karl Popper (especially his idea of "the open society"), I think class (i.e. faction, no matter how it is defined--i.e. by race or gender or wealth or politico-religious affiliation) is an artificial construct that is in fact unreal.  (At the very least, if class seeks to make itself real, it should be resisted and thwarted at every turn.  People of conscience should always attack it, looking to destroy its claim to offer valuable noumenal insight into reality.  This destruction should not occur as part of a reactive campaign to keep the status quo at all costs.  Instead, it should be part of a deliberate effort to avoid sanctioning the recognition of implicit factions that individuals must belong to because they bear some characteristic that another person has marked as being significant. "You bear the mark of our tribe's totem in your face, and so you must be one of us!"  No.  Not until I do your deeds can anyone make me justly yours.  And even if I do appear to think as you do, I can always repent.  My allegiance is never unconditional or eternal, and I must resist every attempt to make it so.)

I reject my membership in "the male faction" (the same way I reject my membership in "the Mormon faction" and "the conservative faction" and "the white faction" and any other faction that cares to enlist me without my consent and then invoke me as its agent, complicit in all its crimes). I don't think there is inherent sympathy between males (or Mormons, or conservatives, or white people) that is more significant than its concomitant antipathy.

I find a lot of "male things" (conservative things, Mormon things, white things) utterly worthless, and I work actively to dissociate myself from these things (including the persistent classist, racist, factionist idea that I must be a member of some faction, following some leader or set of guiding lights readily available to public discourse, which pretends to know me by collecting statistics about my demographic and then calling the result "social science"). (A man I met in passing in the Book of Faces quoted his wife, a physicist, thus: "Economics is a social science, like astrology." I agree, not because astrology is utterly worthless, but because it becomes dangerous when we take it for simple, generic, objective truth.)

Nothing in this position of mine should be taken by anyone as an endorsement of "the status quo" (that has hurt them). I am not saying one should not resist the enemy. I am not saying what happened to you (or anyone) is right. If I become aware of people giving me undue "privilege" (treating me better than someone else because of perceived class affiliations), then I do my part to fix that. I do not ride the bus that I see refusing a seat to Rosa Parks. I do not send pictures of my disgusting genitalia to other people. I don't like you or anyone more than somebody else because your ugly genitalia look like mine. Melanin count is nowhere on my list of criteria for picking good friends (or culture: my personal disgust for Eminem's music is not at all mitigated by his melanin count). I hate American football. I didn't play with "the guys" in school, and to this day I never presume my perspective is welcome anywhere. I only offer it to people I care about (people I respect enough to engage in civil discourse, be they male or female, black or white, bond or free).

I think the social pressure to "make good kids" who fulfil some external ideal that they have never internalized is fundamentally evil. If you don't want to do something (be a parent, get a job, have long hair, live another day, etc.), then you shouldn't do it--no matter what anyone else says. Even if not doing whatever it is you don't want to do leads to "bad results" (in your own or some external judge's eyes), it is always better to refrain from acting on external values than to embrace them against your will.

Little boys are as impressionable as little girls. Little Mormons are as impressionable as little atheists.  They often wind up acting on values whose goodness they mistrust because, "Mommy (or Daddy or Jesus or Science) said so!" This is evil.

I am willing to be misunderstood. I am open to being hated, too--even by people I respect and aspire to love. But for those who feel as I do (but perhaps lack the tools to express themselves clearly or consistently), I feel obligated to speak out.

[Counterpoint]: Don't say to women [or other oppressed minorities], "Just don't follow that conditioning!" because that is fundamentally blaming the victim, being oblivious to the very real ways that society will punish her [or them] for lacking the privilege that comes with being you [someone whom the totems mark as faction-master].  Don't make it all about you, bringing your faction-master perspective to an issue where history disqualifies you from having an opinion worth sharing.

I don't say, "Just don't follow the conditioning." We cannot help following it. We are primates. Social hierarchy works for us much as for baboons, at least in the beginning (when we are little kids aping Mom, Dad, and the other "big kids"). But we do grow up, eventually, and if we are really lucky (privileged), we get the chance to "check our luck (i.e. privilege)" and realize that it has much less to do with us (as individuals) than we might want. I didn't choose to be what I am today (in every detail). I didn't make all my decisions with full knowledge. I haven't always done the right thing. As a lucky fool, I function by taking in discrete data from my environment and spinning it into narratives (lies) explaining why I am not dead yet, why my food tastes good, why I am talking here instead of writing my syllabus, and so on.

What I seek from human interaction is honest conversation from people who see my environment (the human condition) from an angle different from mine. We are all limited. We are all broken. We all hurt ourselves and other people. I don't think we can reach back into the past and erase that, or even into the future to make sure nothing like the past ever happens again. But I do believe we can exist more pleasantly, compassionately, honestly, and openly in the present. I value the women in my life. I value the men there, too. I value my friends. I value my enemies (differently, sometimes, but they are still valuable). I seek to love everyone, even the greatest criminal I know--myself. My discourse is about me, not because I don't value other people, but because I do value them. I value them too much to pretend that I understand them.  

[Counterpoint]: How do we deal with inequality?  Is it fundamentally intractable?  How are you anything but a hopeless fatalist?

When dealing with equality, I like to focus on process (how do I treat people, how are people treated in a particular environment) rather than results (particular success or failure in terms of getting a job, marriage, making a friend, acquiring goods and services). Life is inherently unequal in terms of results. Lucky people win and win more. Unlucky people lose. But we can do things to mitigate the process, constructing it so that losing doesn't mean being destroyed (so that it is as easy as possible for the loser to pick him-/herself up and try again). I don't want to win all the time, or for everyone always to have the same rewards from life (an impossibility). But I do want to be able to survive my inevitable failure. I do want to avoid being kicked while down, and I want to avoid kicking others who are down. 

Keeping Appearances

In response to this survey about the murder trial of George Zimmerman, I composed some thoughts on managing threat-perception and response.

If we all got what we deserved, life as we know it would not exist. I am not personally eager to alter the decision of the court (which I support as an institution even when it renders individual decisions that I or others might dislike).

I don't say that Zimmerman had no right to be where he was, doing as he did (even). But to Marc's point, I think he might have done better (either by checking himself before he exited the truck or by being better prepared to defend himself with appropriate force: he relied on the gun too much, I think, and too little on the body manipulating it).

What interests me here is thinking about how my behavior will play out in future, as I seek to avoid being either Zimmerman (the man who can only defend himself by killing people) or Martin (the man who tempts fate by putting a coward's back to the wall: in calling Zimmerman a coward here, I am not saying he is a bad person). There will always be people who see me as threatening and have occasion to overreact to my threat (even if it is entirely imaginary, as I am not sure it was in this case). How do I "play it smart" so as to minimize the likelihood of my (1) sending threat-signals and (2) overreacting to what I perceive as someone else's threat-signals.

(2) Zimmerman was on alert because of recent burglaries. He was understandably anxious to make sure none occurred uncontested on his watch. His mistake was being poorly trained in effective violence. I personally believe that violence is sometimes necessary, and that every able-bodied person who accepts the responsibility of carrying weapons simultaneously takes up the responsibility of learning to use them appropriately (i.e. only when they are really needed). Zimmerman should have been "good enough" at fighting hand-to-hand not to kill Martin, I think. This does not make his killing illegal--or deny that it was most unfortunate. For me it means that we (i.e. ordinary citizens with weapons, not lawmakers or the legal system) need to do some work dispelling the myth that merely carrying a weapon makes anybody safer. The best weapon is a fully engaged human CNS.

(1) The media played the racist card here, but I confess I see that as a red herring. Racism is one of those issues (like gender) that is undoubtedly important at the level of communities: I don't deny that. Its role in individual encounters, however, is hard to define: in this case, all the evidence I see points away from its being significant. (And I admit I am biased by my own experience here, experience which tells me that I always prefer my friends--black, brown, yellow, red, or white--over people I don't know, especially in charged situations where I fear crime. Zimmerman was afraid of Martin because he was an unknown dude loitering in a neighborhood plagued by recent burglaries, not because American society as a whole has issues with racism. This appears clear when you consider Zimmerman's own history of peaceful engagement with black folk.)

The real issue is how to avoid sending threat-signals. First, it is necessary to notice that you cannot turn them off entirely. People will always feel threatened by you at some point, not always because you are really dangerous to them. Martin's mistake appears (to me) to have been escalating a bad situation. When I see a Zimmerman lurking in my rearview mirror, I will remember Martin and refrain from jumping him (since he might have a gun and not know how to avoid using it). Looking over Martin's life-history (imperfectly summarized in the link above, among other places), it seems he had an unrealistic idea of what fighting means. For him, fighting was something males do to show dominance (e.g. the dude he mentions roughing up after school). He didn't pause to consider that not every man out there is always going to "duke it out" in the manner of rams in rut (boxers in the ring, wrestlers on the mat). He misread Zimmerman (as Zimmerman misread himself, putting himself in a position too vulnerable for his fighting capability).

To me this case provides an opportunity for me to revisit how I construct my persona (the threat profile I project into the world) and my response to others' personae (the threat I perceive from other people in my vicinity). I cannot make myself appear universally unthreatening (nor would I want to, honestly: the world has some bad people in it, and I would rather they fear me). Nor can I correct the error in judgement that nature has built into my own threat-perception: the species survives because we are paranoid, seeing danger that isn't always there. That said, I can prepare myself to act responsibly on the reality that my environment presents constant threats. I can become more effective than Zimmerman in dealing out appropriate violence (starting with the rule that I don't charge in with my only defense being "kill the other guy!"), and more effective than Martin in allaying the threat others may feel from me (starting with the rule that I don't jump people who tail me).

Letter to a Jesuit

Below is part of a letter I wrote recently. As an attempt to capture my spiritual path over the last 10 years or so, it seemed worth saving. I have removed anything that might identify the recipient.

I was born into a very devoutly religious family. My parents are both converts to Mormonism (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, with headquarters in Salt Lake City), which they found in early adulthood and have adhered to faithfully since before I was born (the eldest of six living children). I grew up Mormon, far away from Utah, in a small and close-knit congregation of Saints (as they like to call themselves, perhaps a bit pretentiously from your point of view). I went through the entire cursus honorum that contemporary Mormonism offers young men—attending weekly meetings faithfully, receiving and carrying out the duties of the priesthood (first Aaronic then eventually Melchizedek), graduating from seminary, receiving my endowment in the temple, serving a two-year proselytizing mission in northern Spain (I spent many months working in Galicia), graduating from Brigham Young University (the LDS church's university in Provo, Utah), and eventually marrying in the Salt Lake temple (which you may have seen: it is rather pretty, especially when compared to more modern Mormon architecture). Experience has taught me to beware of judging the quality of one's faith in terms of external career. In my case, almost everything I did from the age of about twelve came from a motivation informed somehow by my Mormonism—a Mormonism that was very sincere and earnest, perhaps too much so as it happens.

As part of my Mormon formation, I was taught church history and doctrine (I hesitate to call it theology, but the term is not utterly inapt) formally and informally. My formal schooling took place in church, in seminary, in special retreats held for missionaries, at BYU (my alma mater), and in the temple (where Mormons take part in complex rituals that dramatize the creation, fall, and redemption of the world). Informally, I did a lot of reading on my own. I was drawn very early to scripture, and over the course of my youth became very familiar with the King James Bible, in addition to other books the LDS church regards as holy scripture (including the Book of Mormon, which I have read many times). I was naturally interested in the history of the books I read—the context out of which they arose and took their first meaning before being handed down to me. Before I went out as a missionary, I had already begun studying religious history and had even decided that I would need to study biblical languages (Latin, Hebrew, and Greek) in college. As a youth, I did not notice any great imbalance between my personal religion and the religion preached and practiced at church. The more contact I had with the institutional church, however, the more this changed. My two-year mission in Spain was revelatory in this regard: I saw the church doing things that made no sense to me, things that seemed to me to cheapen the gospel in the interest of gaining converts to it (superficial converts, with no great understanding of what it was they were committing themselves to). At BYU, I began studying church history in great detail, on my own and in company with others, and I slowly came to realize that the church history I had been taught throughout my youth was by and large a complete fairytale—a transparent hagiography of the early Mormon movement that transformed men like Joseph Smith and Brigham Young from nineteenth-century mobsters (with good and bad traits) into modern Saints (with no evil qualities worth noticing).

By the time I was married and about halfway through graduate school (far from BYU), I realized that I could not participate actively in LDS Mormonism any more. Under the influence of my ongoing studies into church history (early Christian history as well as Mormon history), I could not see the LDS church's version of Christian history as anything but an increasingly transparent fable (as literal history: as a symbolic narrative, it has some merit). To make things worse, the church demands that the individual conform his private thought and (at the very least) public utterance to its versions of events. It does this by controlling access to temples (etc.) through a process of ecclesiastical confession that involves meeting regularly with local church authorities (the bishop or one of his counselors, and then the stake president or one of his—perhaps a bit like talking to your local parish priest and then the bishop). These gentlemen inquire into your orthodoxy (“Do you believe in the divinity of God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost? Do you believe Joseph Smith to be a Prophet, Seer, and Revelator?” and so on). If you cannot answer questions to their satisfaction, then your status as an active Mormon is revoked until you repent. I cannot answer questions as they would like, and I cannot repent (for when I look into the historical record, I do not see what they want me to see—viz. that I must subject my opinion on doctrinal matters to theirs, whatever it may be, without critical judgement).

When I was no longer able to practice Mormonism actively, I did not cease to have a spiritual vocation. I needed to feel myself part of something larger than myself, but I also needed the freedom to express myself openly and honestly, even when others might possibly construe my expression as a threat to faith (not the way I construe it, but I can certainly appreciate that I am not the only person with a point of view that matters: we all see things, and we all matter; I am certainly as open to taking criticism as I am to dishing it out). Fortunately, my wife was not a dogmatic Mormon: she was one of the few external things that remained constant in my hour of confusion; I am very grateful for her unflagging moral support. Initially, I felt something of a gulf between myself and institutional Christianity. (To be completely candid, I still sense that gulf today, but experience has prepared me to confront it with curious interest rather than defensive hostility.) As a result, my first spiritual home outside Mormonism was a small Buddhist sangha in the Kagyu tradition (Tibetan). I found (and contine to find) Buddhist rhetoric very liberating (it is nice to be told that the self is impermanent when your own has just been brutally shattered), and I continue to enjoy the Kagyu liturgy (which involves meditation and chanting prayers, with or without the aid of tools such as a rosary or icons). But there is something important missing in my Buddhist experience, something that I cannot help but call Christianity.

It is hard to put into words, but let me try. Buddhism satisfies my intellectual hunger entirely, offering an outlook on the world that appears appropriately wise and skeptical (important to me, given my past history of being gulled into what the Buddhists would call “wrong views”). While it is very beautiful, Buddhism does not satisfy my aesthetic hunger: I find the bodhisattva distant and aloof, rather like the gods of Epicurus. Mormonism such as I grew up with was not a religion of passive acceptance. Mobster that he was, Brigham Young was also determined to build heaven on earth, and while I shrink back from some of the evil consequences of his efforts (e.g. the Mountain Meadows Massacre or the suffering of people involved in polygamy against their will), I still admire the aim. I want to make the world a better place, actively—or at least to see the examples of others engaging with sin or crime or other natural hardships in authentic ways that I might possibly emulate. I love retiring from the world, but I need to build something in retirement (“the kingdom of God”)—and I have years of exposure to Christianity that predisposes me to find meaning of some kind in Christian scripture, discourse, and ritual.

While serving as a Mormon missionary in Spain, I attended a public mass in the Cathedral of St. James in Santiago and conceived a desire that I carry to this day of completing a pilgrimage there on foot. If I ever have money and time, I will certainly carry this desire out, whether or not I become Catholic. I feel a great internal need to do it, to see the places where I came bearing Mormonism and give thanks for the many unexpected gifts I received in return. One of those gifts was a chance encounter with the Jesuit Andres Torres Queiruga, who invited me into his apartment to discuss religion and left a very profound impression on me (as being utterly sincere and good, even if his belief in the resurrection is metaphorical rather than literal—as mine now is, too). Regardless of how I feel toward what are sometimes called “religious truth-claims” (i.e. whether God is personal in some particular way or the Bible a literal history composed in the manner of Thucydides), I feel drawn toward Christian tradition, especially older versions of it that have a sense of their history—a memory of the good and the evil done in God's name over time. I don't know what to do with this attraction, whether I should abandon it to continue on as a Buddhist atheist (see below) or pursue it (as I am trying to do in reaching out to you).

My reading of the historical Buddha is very like my reading of the historical Jesus. What draws me to both is not the idea that they are more real or powerful than ordinary human beings, but the aspiration that they have come to represent to so many of my fellow creatures, an aspiration to make life beautiful where it can be ugly. I share that aspiration, no matter what I may happen to think right now about the ultimate order or disorder of the cosmos. “The kingdom of God is within you” is a statement that I continue to find incredibly edifying (and frustrating, as I seek some means of relating my window on that interior kingdom effectively to others—in ways that edify them and me, recognizing and respecting the reality that we need each other, that we are all part of a vast ecosystem of overt and hidden relationships that have the power to become incredibly beautiful even if they are occasionally also ugly).

Many people whose circumstances appear externally very similar to mine—people whose history has brought them into significant conflict with some fundamentalist, literalistic religious tradition (such as modern Mormonism has increasingly sought to be)—become atheists. Some of them find all the socialization, all the service, all the spirituality they need outside established paths. I have examined their ways of life thoughtfully, and I find much to admire in many of them. But at the same time, I cannot believe that “the old ways” are defunct, dying, or useless. To me it seems that history shows humanity existing with certain constant strengths and weaknesses. Occasionally, these express themselves in ways that are incredibly destructive (and we get something like the Holy Inquisition in Catholicism or the Danites in Mormonism), but that does not deny that they can also be very good—and dropping a particular ideology does not insure us against their destructive recurrence (as the last century has proved to me: atheism or secularism carries the same capacity for evil that religion does, more in an age where science exists to supply leaders of any ideological stripe with WMDs). I see that religion is occasionally poisonous (like all medicines), but that does not mean that I can abandon it (any more than I can abandon eating, though its eventual consequence is death). I value tradition, I am trying to say—even when I disagree with it, even when it challenges me, even when my response to its challenge is more negative than positive. A good man needs good enemies, friends who know how to wear their friendship in disagreement and disappointment as well as concord. I did not find that in Mormonism. I wonder whether I might find it somewhere in the universe of Catholicism.

Is there some way a person like me might become Catholic, or at least engage Catholicism in a meaningful way (mutually useful in terms of building the kingdom of God)?  No matter what happens, I will always be grateful for the faith of men like Thomas Merton, whose books have been a real blessing to me over the past few years as I have sought to rebuild myself in the image of God.

Musings on Racism

Recently I took part in a very interesting conversation about racism (tribalism, factionism, whatever it is that makes people pick a side to defend or attack in social situations where something important seems to be at stake).  Here are some scraps of ideas I was not willing to throw away into the dark bowels of the NSA's storage crypts.  Comments adapted from people other than me are in bold.

[A] Some amount of inter-tribal animosity is human nature: we can't change that, and thinking we can is a dangerous utopian illusion (that plays out badly in history, as people claim to transcend their tribalism only to come up very short). On the other hand, the harm and injustice caused by this unfortunate trait is magnified hugely if there's a macro-level system in which some tribes hold disproportionate amounts of power.

[B] As one who typically has no answers, I must wonder about education.  But I am not sure what that means. The phrase walk a mile in another's shoes rings in my mind, but I am tilting at windmills. 

Walking in another's shoes is a good exercise, until one thinks one has done it and discovered the one true road for someone else to walk.

The problem I see with all "naive" attempts at liberalism is that they fail to see how they set themselves up to devolve into more and more restrictive tyranny (as the people's champions encounter tribalism and fight to eradicate it rather than minimize its capacity to do damage). Any attempt to build a heaven in which humanity responds to one good (one universal Platonic Form of goodness) in one way (the way of the philosopher-king) will always produce damaging authoritarianism, even when we call that one good "liberty" and the way we choose to pursue it "democracy" (vel sim.). The words don't matter as much as what they signify, and that is always going to be something bad to the extent that we imagine situations in which I tell you what to do, how to behave, etc., without leaving you clear, legal, respectable options for protest, rebellion, and dissent. Every person is tribalist. Every person will reach a point at which she breaks and goes for the jugular. The utopians (liberals, Marxists, religious fundamentalists, supremacists, fascists, it matters not what they call themselves) who imagine that this can be bred out of us, that we can be effectively broken and domesticated out of our humanity, are dangerous lunatics--most especially when they manage to appear sane.

What is dangerous is not their individual motives, which may be excellent (indeed it is always best to give them the benefit of the doubt here), but the dangerous practical imbalance these motives historically create when they become implemented as public policy.

I can learn to suppress my tribalism where it appears obnoxious to me and society. I cannot learn to unmake it (and transform myself into the holy saint that the utopians require to make their pie in the sky edible). Note that tribalism as I use it here is more than any historical instance of racism: it is the general category behind all particular instances of racism. Human beings have always been divided into competing hostile factions. We can improve relations between factions, enlarge factions, redefine factions, etc., and we have done so repeatedly in history. We cannot erase the faction as the bedrock of humanity--a source of both good and evil, both of which are requisite for our survival. Another way to say this: the evil that we call "racism" (or "tribalism" or "faction") is the same thing as the good that we call "community" (or "family" or "tribe" or "culture"). We can get better at prescribing the drug of culture (modifying its content and varying the dosage with historical circumstances), but we cannot engineer it to be utterly non-lethal. That would destroy its utility (and doom us to destruction).

[A] On a genetic level, ideas of "race" are pretty much noise. In terms of cultural and historical identities, however, they are very relevant. My appearance does affect how people will react to me on an everyday basis, and the appearance of my ancestors affected the future opportunities of their progeny since it was a factor in what society gave them economically.

Whether it's "socially programmed" or not doesn't matter, because whether I personally ignore people's "race" or not does not change that there existed at some point biases and chain-reactions (their parents were given less opportunity, so they themselves grew up less affluent) with a significant influence on where they stand now.

There are males who see "us and them" when it comes to females. But I call BS on "male culture" as something coherent. Of course hormones influence behavior (in generically categorizable ways even), but I don't share any meaningful culture with some other dude merely because we both have balls (and/or elevated testosterone levels).

Talking about "male culture" as something particularly real--something responsible for coherent causes operating on a discrete individual, such that my opening the door for somebody with a vagina means that I must endorse your intention of raping her--is ludicrous, obscene, and the opposite of empowering (for anyone). "Black culture" is the same. As is "white culture." (I utterly reject the idea that I must share sympathy with someone because we both have relatively low melanin levels. How are Beethoven and Eminem alike? How is their likeness more important, more real, than their unlikeness?) And of course "American culture" (vomit). These are words people like to burp out, words that occasionally even seem to mean something--an unfortunate semblance when we confuse it with verity (enshrining it in statistics, where it can live on in the mind of the faithful determined to see me as nothing more than a pawn in the invisible hand of "the media" or "the neo-con movement" or "the Tea Party" or "corporate Mormonism" or "right-wing America" or some other impossible chimaera). 

[A] I agree with some of your points, but I'm wondering if you're suggesting that all distinctive cultures are bullshit.

I don't think they are. But I do think people mischaracterize (misgeneralize, jump from true particular instances to false general conclusions). When people say the words "white culture" or "male culture" or "black culture," they are referring to something individually, particularly real (something they know from their experience). When they look at me as a stranger and assume I must match their experience (i.e. when they generalize from the particular), they go wrong. Attempts to correct what is wrong with their particular experience via generic conversations that rely on unexamined false identities are doomed (when blacks aren't black, whites aren't white, and I am not a male). 

To me it seems that many invocations of racism (whether by proud neo-Nazis or penitent progressives) come from a perspective antithetical to justice.

It isn't unjust if 100% of prison inmates in some random locale are white, or Irish, or Catholic, or left-handed, or male, or 6 feet tall, or illiterate, or whatever. It is unjust if one of those inmates is falsely accused, negligently tried, and fraudulently convicted--no matter what he looks like and/or who finds him creepy (criminal: "kill the creeps!") or socially maladjusted (pitiful: "but this little guy was only a small boy looking for some harmless fun!").

That said, people who cry "racism!" are not always bad (working against justice) or wrong (misperceiving what justice should be): there are legitimate times to push back against people making unfair and unnecessary generalizations, generalizations that hurt innocent individuals.

Rosa Parks had a point, a good one, and she made it well. I hope I would have been brave enough back in the day to stand with her when idiots made the argument that black people (or brown people or yellow people or tall people or short people or skinny people or fat people, etc. ad nauseam) should be refused common human courtesy (e.g. a seat on the bus that you pay for and occupy peacefully to the obvious pain and detriment of nobody who isn't perfectly willing and able to bear it) merely because they carry some external characteristic (melanin, a tattoo, a turban, a mustache, balls, birth defects, etc.) that some fool associates with criminal activity or social ickiness ("You're on your period? Unclean! No menstruating women allowed in grocery stores! Where's my congressman! Where's the police! Somebody pass a law and give me the hand-cuffs!").

The Civil Rights Movement, in my eyes, was about pushing past stupid barriers blocking our political and civil discourse--stupid barriers like the idea that all black people are evil hooligans and/or lesser forms of life that shouldn't be allowed to mingle peacefully with "decent folk" (as though such a category were clearly defined in reality: "Please collect your 'decent human being badge' at Window 8, citizen, and remember to display it prominently on your person at all times!"). The Civil Rights Movement aimed to get us past seeing a guy and thinking, "Ooh! He's wearing a turban! Must be an evil Arab terrorist! Attack!" It was about process (treating all folk as equally innocent until proven guilty), not results (counting up the 'proven guilty' at the end of the day and making sure each demographic in society is appropriately represented: we all know that criminals get together with Satan every Tuesday down at Larry's nightclub and determine how many blacks, Latinos, and whites are going to commit felonies that week, making sure that there are no communities where any single 'race' is ever responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime).

I support the Civil Rights Movement (as outlined above). I do not support people whose idea of it is diametrically opposed to mine, such that we become more focused on results than process, more keen to entrench stupid notions of collective culture as something permanent--and diagnosable: "I see you have some white culture there, my friend! Let me help you carry this burden!" The point is that the burden is impossible, idiotic, and immoral. There is no white culture that applies universally to all of us (Irish, Scottish, English, French, German: my ancestors hated each other every bit as much as competing African tribes). There never was, not even when a bunch of nitwits got together recently in the Deep South and tried to claim "the Bible says so!" (my Bible says you are full of crap, idiots). There should not be. Individual people should not be presumed guilty because of some random characteristic they share with other people whom somebody else finds threatening (for whatever reason: some reasons are good, and some are total garbage).

[C] There is no white culture but there is undeniable white privilege. As long as you "pass" you are afforded it. 

I think we should make a point of sending young people abroad somewhere they cannot pass. I spent two years in northern Spain doing obnoxious door-to-door saleswork at a time when many people over there were very angry at Americans. My skin color was not an issue, but I did not pass, and it was not fun. It was a really good learning experience. 

[C] Agreed. I spent a very uncomfortable week in the West Bank and not knowing the language, looking different (and evil), can definitely afford some perspective.

Personally, I think outcomes are most likely to improve systemically as we consciously refute and throw mud on the human tendency to draw lines in the sand that are unnecessarily harmful.

The existence of "black culture" as something actionable, something that sets "young blacks" apart from the rest of America (with whatever intention), seems to me fundamentally evil. Sure, some people will separate them. Some people will say they are creeps who should be shunned (or shot when seen "acting suspicious" and/or physically confronting somebody in a threatening way). Others will say they are poor persecuted infants who should be kissed and hugged and cradled. I say no to both parties. If I were black, I wouldn't want your irrational hatred or your irrational love: I would want the freedom to live as free of you and your misconceived notions about me as possible. Keep your love and your hate, and let me be. I would want some human decency, some respect, something more than a beat-down or a hand-out "because you're black." This, incidentally, is precisely what I wanted from the Spanish people, in real time. I don't care if they hate Americans or love them, personally: all I want is the freedom to do my work in their society without having to be the poster-boy for America (whether that means taking a physical beating because of my Americanism or getting a pat on the back and a rousing speech about how great George W. Bush is). 

[D]  Personally, I found out rather late in life that I had a black great-grandfather. Does this mean that I'm "black"? Does this mean that I'm not "white"? The reality is that I was brought up thinking I was entirely white (inspite of only having to look at my mother and grandfather to see the obvious), when I really am partially black.  I think that we're talking about random, irrationally created thought constructs that have nothing to do with reality. Why can't we allow each individual's experience to be their own?  

People will profile you. They have to. Life has built profiling into our DNA (with good reason: I fear gangs of young people hanging about in public places to this day because I was physically assaulted by one such mob and threatened by others). But this reality doesn't have to be destructive. I can learn to hold back my feelings of irrational anger when I see teenagers together at the mall. I can refrain from following them around waiting for something, with a gun in my pocket. I can even be nice to them when occasion offers (as I was, in fact, when attacked: I think that may be part of what saved me from getting some serious injuries).

PTSD is real. People who are raped or otherwise violated have issues, justifiably and unavoidably. But the solution is not to mark and remove anything that might be a trigger to those issues. We have to deal with them--as individuals more than as communities, it seems to me. The community helps best when it emphasizes solidarity ("we are all in this together!") rather than factionism ("look at those awful/pitiful weirdos over there! kill/kiss them!"), and process ("you do X in this town, and the result is Y--no ifs ands or buts") over results ("well, you are a special case, since people take a shine to you: the rules don't apply any more!"). That is my opinion, which I don't expect anyone else to hold (necessarily) or blame anyone else for not holding. Life would be boring if we all thought the same way. 

[A] How can the individual feel that society denies him access to his own identity? 

In Spain, I was an American. In Spain, all Americans hate Iraq. That's why we all got together and appointed Bush II absolute dictator and then took voluntary tours of duty with the Army to kill Iraqi babies. People didn't see me. They saw this thuggish G.I. Joe stereotype and reacted with disgust, hatred, and occasionally violence.

(And of course not all Spaniards saw me this way. Far from it! I would go back if given the chance, and I find many things to love about Spanish culture, not least among them the fact that there is no such thing that all legal Spaniards agree on.) 

[D] Personal experience is all we have and the only thing that counts. Everything else is the narrative fallacy. We have to get back to this ultimate reality, since that's the only thing that really matters. All of this discussion of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin doesn't matter at all.