HOPEFUL TIMES

I've been getting a lot of phone calls lately. Never fear; there's been no bad news. On the contrary, I have lately reconnected with many old friends and I hope to see them over the next couple weeks. Additionally, I have received a few offers to do some "paying" work from home, and with my finances as critical as they are, I am loath to turn them down.

Against that background, I am going to do my absolute best to keep up my writing schedule. But in the coming weeks, I may have to without a post for a few more days than usual. I apologize for that. On the other hand, I am grateful that I am starting to spend more time out of the house. For the first time in over a year, my partner is feeling well enough for me to reasonably start pursuing some additional interests, seeing more people and rekindling a social life that has been dormant for quite some time now. To put this all in perspective, I have not been able to leave the house for more than a few hours at a time since late 2008. That is changing now.

My life is getting richer every day. I know that richness will aid my writing. This is certainly not to say that I am going to stop writing. In fact, I am committed to this blog more now than I have ever been. I am grateful for my readers and I always look forward to hearing from you. I am proud to have amassed so much writing about so many subjects.

Having said all this, I will be branching out a bit more in the coming weeks. If that means two and three posts per week rather than the customary five, I am willing to pay that price. It is simply a question of free time. When I have it, I will write. When I have something else going on, I won't. But all in all, I think time off the blog will be my exception, not my rule. I just want to keep the option open. And I wanted to let you all know about it.

Thanks again to all who stop by for Reason, Commerce, Justice and Free Beer! I am excited about the future. And even when I don't write, I experience, observe and analyze my surroundings. Experience always delivers me onto fertile creative grounds; life is never really dull when you dare to live it.

See you all soon!

Oesterhoudt

SEEING, HEARING AND REMEMBERING : PATHWAYS TO UNDERSTANDING

AN ESSAY

In ancient China, Confucius allegedly said: "Tell me and I will forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I will understand." I had never heard this proverb before. It captivated me because it encapsulates many of my views about sense, speech, memory, experience and empathy. All these things relate to each other. And they all aim for one thing: Understanding.

What does it take to understand another person? Is it enough to hear a person describe problems with words? How about observing something firsthand? What is the most effective way to find understanding and empathy?

I have often written that we humans are subjective creatures. We know only what we sense. Unfortunately, we must also depend on language because our senses have a limited range. After all, we only feel certain about something when we perceive it directly. We would prefer to see something with our own eyes rather than hear about it in words from someone who saw it. We want to understand our surroundings and the people in our lives. And the only pathway to understanding is sense.

But it is a troubled pathway. For what can we really know, let alone understand? Knowledge is not the same as understanding. Knowledge is more banal than understanding. Knowledge means that we merely manifest a subjective belief that something is true because we perceived it. Yet understanding is more subtle. Understanding means that we not only know things, but we intuitively arrange our knowledge to tell a larger story. Knowledge is about details. Understanding is about narrative. Knowledge is just an actor. Understanding is the whole play. And we don't feel truly fulfilled until we really understand something: What good are isolated facts unless they tell us something more significant?

Confucius recognized that human sense opens the door to both knowledge and understanding. Yet he also recognized that there is a hierarchy in human sense. He says: "Tell me and I will forget," implying that hearing is a weak sense. How right he is. How often do we hear language and immediately forget what we just heard? It is difficult to glean knowledge from language, let alone understanding. It is incredibly easy to forget words. After all, words are a poor substitute for actual perception. But in many cases they are all we have to reconstruct our perceptions.

Sight is better than hearing. Confucius confirms this when he says: "Show me and I may remember." Here, he does not say he "will forget." If he perceives something visually, he says he "may remember" it. Again, Confucius is right. Sight links intimately to memory. Our eyes leave "visual impressions" on our minds long after images leave our present view. When we reminisce, we engage our "mind's eye." We attempt to re-see images that have long since disappeared from sight. We may not precisely remember what we see; indeed, with time, memory weakens. So in that way, Confucius correctly points out that we only "may" remember something after we see it.

And we see all the time. It is simply impossible to recall every single thing we visually perceive every day. Our memory works best only after we see something worth remembering, namely, something exciting, unusual, captivating or appealing. To a large extent, our own subjective desires color what we remember. If we are infatuated with someone, we remember how they look with great detail. We hang on their words and even remember what they say. Yet those subjective desires obscure other details. We don't remember many things we see because we are distracted with our love interest. We are not paying attention; our emotions cloud our perceptions. Thus, while sight may be a better way to acquire knowledge than hearing, we will never remember everything we see. There is just too much going on. We cannot know everything because our senses are imperfect.

But Confucius does not end his proverb with knowledge. He goes beyond. He ends with "understanding:" "Involve me and I will understand." Understanding is the ultimate goal; the proverb builds up to it. He does not equivocate here, either. He says: "I will understand."

What is going on here? And why is understanding better than knowledge?

Anyone can know facts. You must merely have functioning sensory organs to know whether something is hot, cold, smelly, coarse, green or blue. Some facts require complex sensory deductions and inferences, but deductions and inferences are just mechanical mental conclusions. Anyone with rudimentary reasoning power can infer one fact from another.

But understanding is more transcendent than that. Understanding combines knowledge with experience and intuition. It is one thing to know whether another person is sick, obligated, depressed or happy. It is quite another to understand a person who experiences those circumstances. Understanding requires a person not only to listen, observe and infer facts about another. It also requires him to put that knowledge in the light of his own experience and honestly try to feel what the other person feels. That is no easy endeavor. It takes time to assemble experience. That is why we tell young people: "When you're older, you'll understand." After all, how can you understand a complicated emotional problem if you've never experienced the emotions that make it a problem in the first place? If you do not have experience, you cannot truly understand. You can know, but you cannot understand.

Confucius was right to extol understanding as the "higher result" of knowledge. Why do we learn? Simple: So that we can understand. And why do we want to understand? Because understanding enlightens us. It makes the world more comprehensible. Understanding equips us to help others. Understanding counteracts prejudice and shortsightedness. Violence springs from misunderstanding and ignorance. It is hard to go to war with someone if you actually understand them.

Yet the fact that human beings constantly make war on each other bespeaks a sad truth: Understanding is not common. It is hard enough to acquire reliable knowledge through hearing and sight, let alone to understand larger implications about life. Most people never even acquire the knowledge they need to understand others. Understanding is impossible without knowledge. And only a patient person takes the time to obtain the knowledge needed to find understanding.

Who has time for that in our society? Who has time to listen? And most importantly, who has time to get involved with others in order to understand them? Confucius' proverb said that involvement results in understanding. That means living with others and experiencing their lives first hand. That means living with their problems, too. Involvement is not just a pervasive sensory journey; it also is an emotional one. When you involve yourself in another person's life, you eat, drink, sleep and breathe their problems. You sense what they sense. You obtain knowledge at an astronomical rate. And because you combine your experience with theirs, you necessarily will understand them. Once you understand them, you can empathize and comfort. Or you can turn away. In either event, you are enlightened. You are no longer ignorant.

But that takes a very long time. It takes a lot of energy. To achieve understanding, then, a person must not only have experience and knowledge. He must also be patient enough to involve himself in others' lives in a compassionate way.

Sadly, neither patience nor understanding are highly prized virtues in modern American society. Yet people yearn to be understood. In most cases, they must pay others to understand them. After all, time is money in the United States. No one has time to sit down and listen to another person's deepest thoughts, let alone get involved in their lives in a meaningful way. This is one reason why people are desperately unhappy in this country. They want to be understood, but no one has the time, patience or intellectual capacity to "learn" their woes. This leaves many people feeling isolated and forgotten. Even married couples never take the time to really understand each other.

I venture that understanding offers its own rewards. It is satisfying to understand others and to understand yourself. True, it takes time, learning and effort. But it feels so good to know another person understands you. By the same token, it feels good to give back by understanding others. It is an enlightened and compassionate way to live. Despite all the impulsions to the contrary, sometimes it is good to be patient in our society.

MY TEETH ARE DOOMED

AN ESSAY

I am getting older. Every day, time leaves new marks on my body. When the light shines a certain way, I notice time's inscriptions. Lines emanate away from my eyes, especially when I smile. I have more wrinkles on my forehead. My hands are starting to look cracked, crooked and worn. Hair is sprouting up in places I'd rather not discuss. And my teeth aren't so pearly white anymore; in fact, I can feel them getting weaker by the week.

Our bodies doomed to decay. That's the problem with bodies. Beauty and youth please us. But we understand how fleeting they are. We understand that time is never on our side. When we see a beautiful person, we know they won't be so forever. It's all just a matter of time before remorseless months and years erode even the supplest beauties.

Aging is a natural process. But that doesn't make it any more appealing to us. Death is a natural process too; and very few people like death, either. Still, natural processes can be both scary and reassuring. They are scary because no one wants to get old and die. On the other hand, they are reassuring because everyone reliably knows they will happen. Just as everyone knows a flower will wilt and turn brown, so too does everyone know that we all will die one day. That is just what happens in nature. You can see it. And you can apply it to your own life. It is rhythmic. You can count on it.

But let's get back to the scary part. While nature might provide us analogies to understand what will happen to us in the end, it is no less unpleasant to consider. We are, after all, rather vain creatures. We do not like the idea that our youth and appeal may one day fade. We do not like the idea that our beauty will wilt like the flowers in the garden. We experience so many pleasures in youth. And God forbid that time will steal them from us. It is not a pleasant thought.

Still, we must confront it. I confront it a little bit every day when I notice the new little injuries time has left upon me. In a strange way, it makes me reflective. When I notice something going wrong with my body, it makes me remember how long I've been here. It makes me remember how much I've seen and experienced. I go back through the years and I remember the times when my body did not ache the way it does now. I remember when there was no hair in the places it grows now. Our bodies are like fossils; and our memory confirms to us how long we have been here. Although I do not like the idea that I am decaying, I can at least take some pride in the idea that I have made it this far.

Having said all this, my teeth are doomed. I think they are even more doomed than the rest of my body. My constant coffee abuse, advancing age, lack of insurance and insufficient funds portend a dental disaster of unspeakable magnitude. Last year, I managed to scrape up enough money to get an examination, along with a cleaning and whitening (I am still paying interest on the visits). The dentist scraped unbelievable amounts of plaque from places in my mouth I barely knew existed. Then she flossed mysterious cracks in those unknown regions. She drew blood almost every time she hit the gum.

Toward the end, she said: "It's been a while since your last visit, hasn't it?" Then she offered me some Tylenol.

My poor, doomed teeth. It does not help that I have English ancestry. Genetically, the English have bad teeth. My own circumstances make my naturally bad genetic situation even worse. Every day, I notice my gums getting whiter. There are stains between a couple teeth that were not there before. And I can feel my teeth moving in my gumline in a way I have never felt before. Plus, they tell me I have impacted molars that must be removed before they burrow into my nerves. Put simply, I am in dire dental trouble.

But this is what happens when you get older. Time brutally flogs our bodies. There is little we can do about it. It just happens. Sure, we can live as healthy as we possibly can. We can eat right, exercise and even think positively about the future. But these are mere salves: Nothing can stop time's slow, steady, corrosive assault on our flesh.

It would be nice to escape our bodies for a while. While our bodies might offer numerous ways to experience the world's pleasures, they are also enormously restrictive. They can produce as much pain as pleasure. Time's corrosion is just another terror our bodies must confront. Still, it is so easy to put trust in our bodies. It is banal in the truest sense. We know our bodies better than anything else in our lives. We are stuck with them. We see them every day. We monitor them and scrutinize them. We must endure their chemical tempests and painful discomforts. They matter to us because they place insistent demands on us: Feed me; relieve me; give me rest; make me comfortable; make me feel pleasure. If we ignore them, we suffer pain for it. And we learn from earliest memory that pain is not good. So we slavishly pander to our bodies.

It is no accident that the law targets the body. Almost everyone cares about his own body. If there is something no man wants to experience, it is bodily discomfort. So the law threatens to inflict bodily discomfort on anyone who transgresses its commands. While some exceptional people hold their bodies in contempt, they are too rare to make a difference. The law concerns itself with efficacy: It knows that almost everyone fears bodily punishment, so that is what it threatens to maintain order.

So we spend our lives worrying about our bodies until time slowly eradicates them. It is quite a pathetic lot if you think about it. Still, it is completely natural. As living organisms, we want to stay alive. To stay alive, we must preserve our bodies. We fear death largely because it means we can no longer enjoy what life has to offer our bodies. We know that we will die in time because we see what time does to others' bodies. So we fear aging, because we know what it leads to.

But what about life beyond the body? Is it possible to achieve some mental satisfaction without worrying about the body's inevitable decay? Throughout history, we find examples of men who did not put all their faith in bodily comfort. There have been men who lived for something beyond placating their bodies and avoiding death. In fact, we tend to revere men who lived beyond their bodies because they are so rare. It is no accident that Jesus Christ is the central hero in Western Civilization: He gave up his body so that others could enjoy theirs. There is a nobility in life beyond the body because so few people can effectively ignore their bodies. Most people fear aging and death. Most people simply live to experience the pleasures the body can give. Love it or hate it, that is just how we are.

I am no martyr. I am just as worried about my body as the next man. But I fear pain more than I fear death. I wish I could hold my body in contempt. Yet the body is rapaciously insistent; it is difficult to ignore its demands for long. No matter how strongly I believe in abstract principles and ideas, I cannot say whether I could maintain my commitment to them in the face of torture, hunger or agony. I am worried about my hair and my teeth, for goodness' sake; imagine how I would feel if confronted with genuine bodily scourges?

But death is different than pain. Pain is about the body and its limitations. Death is about existence and non-existence. Death rules out the body altogether. In that light, it is easier to romanticize non-existence than pain. In fact, non-existence lends itself much more to abstract principles than mere contempt for the body. Death frees us from concern about the body. Death liberates us from the body's incessant demands and penalties. True, death might cut short our ability to experience the body's joys. But it also forecloses the body's ability to torment us any longer. There is some objective, rational appeal to that possibility. If bodily life--on the whole-- appears to offer more pain than pleasure, why go on living at all? It is better to cease to exist in order to avoid pain than to exist for nothing more than pain.

Yet this broaches another conundrum: What if death does not end our pain? After all, no one has ever reported to us what death is like. No one has come back from that "undiscover'd country from whose bourn/ No traveler returns." Hamlet, Act III, sc. i, lines 80-81. We have all seen aging and pain because living people experience aging and pain. We see what happens to them. They can tell us how bad they feel.

But no one has experienced death and lived to tell about it. Who knows what awaits us there. That is what makes people fear death: Unknowability. Maybe something dreadful happens once we die. No one knows. No one can know. No one can sense anything once they die, let alone communicate what they sense. And that is why death continues to terrify us. So as bad as bodily life may be, we choose to "bear what ills we have,/ [rather] Than fly to others that we know not of." Hamlet, Act III, sc. i, lines 82-83.

I have argued before that it is unreasonable to fear death because death cuts short our bodily ability to sense anything. http://reasoncommercejustice.blogspot.com/2009/05/why-we-fear-death.html. But once again, we see that humans are not invariably reasonable. They fear death even though death eliminates their sensory capacities--including the capacity to experience pain--because they fear the unknown. That fear is not reasonable because reason is based in human sense. Death obliterates sense, so it is not reasonable to fear it.

It is actually more reasonable to fear aging than death. We can sense our bodies aging. We can feel our bodies weakening. We know that aging will bring us more pain and less bodily satisfaction. We can sense all these things. Our reason has something to grasp in that situation.

I reasonably worry about my teeth. I have every reason to believe they are doomed. And I know it's going to hurt.

But with death: Who knows what I'll feel? That is strangely reassuring.

MOMENTS I'M NOT PROUD OF

A REFLECTION

We remember moments in life. It is hard to remember particular days, or even particular eras in our lives. But certain moments inscribe themselves in us with uncanny detail. I think that's interesting, because moments are much shorter than days or eras.

On the other hand, it makes sense that we remember moments because they are sensory. Memory is little more than "stored sense" that fades over time. In a particular moment, we see, hear, feel or taste particular things. Sometimes our senses leave an impression. Most times, they do not. After all, we need to sense to survive; we can't possibly remember every little thing we sense. No, we only remember moments that are, well, worth remembering.

I have a lot of really good memories. My good memories generally fall into two categories: Moments when I felt inwardly good about a situation without external recognition; and moments when I overcame some external obstacle or achieved some popular reward.

I can give examples. First, I remember a night in November 1994 when my best friend and I frolicked shirtless through a school field in rural Connecticut. No one was there but us. The moon was shining. We laughed and screamed all night. We fell in the grass and just looked up at the stars. I talked about whatever came in my head and everything I said just seemed to be right. It was unusually warm for that time of year. Then we got into my car and just went home.

That was a "good memory" that did not involve any external recognition. I remember the things I saw, heard and felt. No one else witnessed what my friend and I did that night; yet it remains a cherished memory. I did not win any accolades for it. I just remember feeling so, so good. And I can relate that feeling to the things I saw, heard and felt that night in 1994.

Second, I remember several days in January 2004, during my first year in law school. I had just taken my first law exams and I was extremely nervous. I felt as if my entire future depended on how I did on those tests. For the previous four months, I had worked harder than at any other time in my life to that point.

New York Law School published exam results through a computer system. Every day, I nervously logged in to my account to see whether they had posted my results. I had to type in an ID code to access my information. There was always a brief delay between the time I entered my code and the time the webpage came up. I always held my breath during that moment. I remember that my heart even raced. I remember that I perspired a lot then, too. I remember feeling droplets of sweat fall from the top of my armpit onto my side.

After about a week of nervous checking, I finally saw results. I had gotten mostly A's on my exams and wound up with a Grade Point Average of 3.79, which placed me in the Top 10 of my class of 400. I felt a bizarre mix of relief, exultation and new confidence. Professors and friends congratulated me after the yearly rankings went public. I relished my success. It felt really good. I had overcome a huge barrier and received external praise for it.

Unlike the nocturnal moment in the field with my boyhood friend, this was a "good memory" that depended exclusively on official judgments. It was still "good," but for entirely different reasons. And I remember it differently, too.

But I am not ashamed to admit that I remember bad experiences as much as I remember good ones. In fact, I think I have learned more about myself by reliving my less-than-heroic moments and understanding why they were so bad. Our failures defines us as much--if not more--than our successes. After all, just as we can succeed in many ways, so too can we fail in many ways. We can fail externally, as through school grades or critical condemnation for "poor work." Others can tell us we have failed to reach an "acceptable" standard, and that feels bad. Or we can fail internally, as when we lose our composure or sacrifice our beliefs. We don't need other people to tell us we've failed when we fail internally.

I have suffered both kinds of failure. But I find external failure much easier to bear than internal failure. After all, you can always blame your judge or your critic if you fail externally. Maybe they just didn't like you. Maybe the test was unfair. It's easier to justify external failure.

But you can't run from yourself: When you fail internally, you've failed to meet your own standards. And you can't point your finger at some test-grader or theater critic for that.

I'm far, far, far from perfect. I have failed so much in life. In most cases, I can move beyond my failures. But I never forget them. I try to learn from them. Still, they sting me when I recall them, especially when I failed myself.

Here's a moment I'm not proud of. Last October, my partner, Steve, went to the hospital after suffering an acute manic episode. For several weeks before that, his condition had steadily worsened. He did not sleep for 60 hours straight at one point. He constantly busied himself with "tasks;" he woke me from bed every 15 minutes every night to help him re-clean the apartment or find some random webpage. He drew up long, detailed lists every day and tried to accomplish every little thing on the list, like buying a gurtel at some far-away store he found on the internet. He became angry when he did not complete everything on the list each day. Then he became hostile and profligate. He picked fights with random people on the street. He spent thousands on useless things, like Christmas ornaments and big rolls of fancy platinum ribbons for Thank You cards.

By the time Steve went to the hospital, I was ready to strangle him. Yet this was the man I had loved for ten years. I could not believe I was feeling the way I was. But I was so exhausted and so emotionally battered that I just wanted relief; and it seemed the only way to find relief was to cast him off. I felt better when I recognized that he had a serious disease. I tried not to take his abuse personally. The words still hurt, though. I was happy that he got the medical attention he needed. I was even happier to get a three-week break alone to rebuild my mental constitution.

I remember feeling somewhat disappointed when the doctor called to tell me that Steve was ready to come home. I felt a swirling mix of fear, resentment, childish selfishness and fatigue. I did not want to endure the same problems that arose when Steve fell ill. I didn't want to be woken up again every 15 minutes. Plus, I felt as if I had just caught my breath after a grueling bout, and now I would have to grit my teeth and start fighting all over again. Still, I tried to put on my most positive face when I went to pick Steve up at the hospital. I could not deny that I still loved him. I thought: "Maybe he'll be better now." I allowed myself to hope, even though my overall mood was dark and frustrated.

Steve was in surprisingly good shape when I brought him home. His doctors had found the medication he needed to achieve emotional stability, and he was on the path to a "new normalcy." I was glad to see that. We even went out to lunch late that afternoon. Steve moved very slowly. His eyes looked exhausted and glazed over. He was heavily medicated. One medication made him drool and he had to wear a bib. I had to help him walk from place to place. He used a cane because he was unsteady on his feet. Naturally, all these things aroused my pity. Steve cut a pathetic picture now. It hurt me deeply.

And I still felt past resentments. My temper was short. I was in no mood for any additional challenges. But sure enough, while we walked home from the restaurant, a challenge arose. As we crossed 4th Avenue at 12th Street, we tried to hail a cab. When the cabbie saw Steve's cane, he made a dismissive gesture and said: "No, no, no," then drove off. That made me angry. It also cost us time; the light was about to change. Steve was too slow to make it across 4th Avenue before the oncoming traffic got a green signal. It was around 5 o'clock. As we passed in front of a guy on a motorcycle, the horns started blowing. The guy on the motorcycle rolled his eyes at me and Steve as if to say: "Get going, will you?"

It touched a nerve. I completely lost my temper. I stopped right in the middle of the street and said: "What the fuck are you looking at? Can't you see I'm trying to help this man?" In the meantime, Steve made his way to the other side of the street. But I stayed. My voice rose and my heart pounded hard. I continued yelling. I remember saying: "So you think you're special because you're wearing that fucking hat, huh?" As I stood there cursing, the traffic started moving at full speed all around me. I was so enraged that I did not even recognize how much danger I faced. The guy on the motorcycle didn't say a word. He just smiled at me and shook his head as if to say: "What a fucking nut." He drove right past me. Another guy in a car almost rolled over my right foot. I remember feeling the tire graze the front of my sneaker. I was too livid to comprehend what was going on.

Ultimately we got a cab and headed home. Steve told me that my voice changed and that my eyes had bulged while I was out yelling in the street. After a few minutes, the adrenaline passed from my body and I started to feel extremely bad about what had just happened. I felt that I had made a fool of myself. Steve just shook his head. I tried to explain that I lost my temper because I was upset that people were so insensitive about his condition. That was partially true; I was also just really angry about having him back in the house again. Thankfully, the subsequent weeks proved that anger moot; Steve never went manic again.

I recount that story because it's a moment I'm not proud of. I take pride in my reason. I like to feel that I can coolly handle any situation with dignity. But on that day in October 2009, I completely abandoned my reason and fell headlong into dangerous emotion. Make no mistake: I do not flee from emotion; in most situations, I even relish it. But extreme emotion is dangerous. It undermines everything. I felt uncontrollable rage that day. It was as if I stepped from my own skin and became a wild beast. In addition, I reproached myself for the petty selfishness I felt that whole day. I knew that selfishness fanned my underlying anger, and that anger exploded into fury. That was out of character for me. I failed myself.

Still, I learned a lot from that moment. I learned that human reason hangs by a thread. Despite all our claims to rational intelligence and equanimity, pressures can drive the human mind straight back to animal depths in an instant. It is just a question of circumstance, mood and stimulus. After all, we are but sensory creatures. Sense might lead to science and discovery. But it can also lead to wrath and destruction.

Having said all this, I can still find some justification for my outburst. I truly feel anger toward people who are callous about Steve. I won't deny that. I love Steve. He is handicapped; it is obvious. When people look at him funny or rush him on the street, it really bothers me. For the most part, he stays indoors now because he knows that he can't handle the barbarians outside.

Most people just don't understand. I can't expect them to, either. But that doesn't stop me from feeling anger about it. I wish I didn't. I'm not proud of it. Yet I can learn a lot about others--and myself--when I reflect on it.

LIFE IS NOT RATED PG-13

OESTERHOUDT STRIKES

Movie ratings amuse me. Whenever I see a movie poster, I always look at the rating box. In the old days, the rating box was simple: It just listed the rating (G, PG, PG-13, R or X), plus the general description for the rating. For G, it said "General Audiences." For R, it said "Restricted Audiences."

Now the rating box is a little more complicated. It still gives the rating and the general description. But it also gives "reasons" why the movie earned its rating. For example, it might say the movie is rated "R" because it contains "Nudity, Some Sexual Content and Drug Use." Or it may say the movie is rated "PG-13" for "Some Language, Adult Situations and Scary Images."

I know why there is a rating system. The Motion Picture Association of America started the system in order to help parents decide whether they should take their children to the movies. If a parent sees "R" at the bottom of a movie poster, then he or she would know not to take 6-year-old Johnny to see it.

But the rating system does more than "protect children from unsuitable content." I have written that it can also perform a political function by limiting access to a film if the "raters" do not like its message. An "R" rating, for instance, substantially reduces a film's potential audience by reducing the number of theaters that will show it. That, in turn, makes it more difficult for a film to reach a broad audience. In sum, raters can influence an artwork's communicative outreach by tacking on harsher ratings, even when they are not really warranted.

And who are these raters? What criteria move them? Put simply, they are private Americans with relatively little tolerance for "unconventional" ideas, language, themes, images or messages. They also have a very squeamish moral sense. Sex and nudity put them off more than violence. Breasts are more threatening than explosions and killing. If a movie even remotely strays into "controversial" ground, they will rate it "R." A straight make-out scene might only generate "PG-13." But a gay one would definitely yield an "R;" or maybe even "NC-17" if it is graphic enough. And if you dare to use the word "fuck" once in your movie: Forget it; that's an "R" for you. Hey, you could always opt for "fudge" to save your
box office.

What explains this hypersensitivity? Is it really all about the children? Why should movies that deal with "real-life things" earn harsher ratings than meaningless fluff?

Consider this: I recently saw a movie poster with a "PG-13" rating because it contained "Some Smoking." Say what? Smoking? Since when did smoking become a taboo subject? Do we really believe that our children will turn into criminals because they see someone smoking a cigarette onscreen?

I mention this for three reasons. First, I do not like the moral hypersensitivity in the movie rating system. Second, it is just not possible to shield children from every single allegedly "bad" thing in life. Third, there is little correspondence between what happens in movies and what happens in actual human experience.

Children see smoking all the time. They do not need to be 13 to know that people smoke. In fact, if their parents smoke, they probably have known about smoking since the moment they could form memories. Even if their parents don't smoke, it does not take long to see someone else smoking outside. Smoking is everywhere. Sure, it's not good for your health. But it's part of life. There's no sense morally rebuking a movie simply because it shows something that millions of people do every single day. And there's even less sense in attempting to prevent children from learning about it: Chances are they already know.

There is so much about movies that is totally unrealistic, even in movies that claim to portray reality. Movies are a fascinating medium because they lead viewers into a dimension that closely resembles reality. Yet on reflection, it is clear that they are not real--not even close. Life does not have snappy dialogue, segue cutscenes or a melodramatic soundtrack. It does not have a set run-time, either. Put simply, there is a wide range of human experience that will never appear on a movie screen. And even the most banal things--like going to the bathroom or sexuality--often earn harsh scolding from the raters.

We do and say things every day in our lives that would lead to an "R" rating or worse. Just getting undressed to get in the shower pushes us into "NC-17" territory. The human body, in other words, is a taboo subject. And movies are supposed to represent reality? How could they when they don't even show the most basic things that people do and say every day?

Movies are artificial. They do not represent reality. In that light, it is foolish to rely on them to form impressions about life because there is so much about life that they never portray.

Movie ratings are artificial, too. If anything, they simply measure the moral qualms of a few squeamish Americans. It is too bad that the raters have such a strong influence on what millions of people see on movie screens.

All I know is that my own life is not even close to PG-13. It's been NC-17 since before I could even talk. If you've ever been naked in your life, you're rated "R" at least.

Movies might spare the faint of heart. But life doesn't. This shit is rough.

DO WE SPEAK TO UNITE OR TO DECEIVE?

AN ESSAY

As I mentioned last week, I'm re-reading Aristotle's Politics. Surprisingly, I found myself agreeing with many of his points about human beings and their motivations. That surprised me because I always took a prejudiced view against Aristotle. In college, I dismissed him because he was an "absolutist" about truth. But now that many years have passed--and now that I have read so much more--I approach Aristotle with more forgiveness. I do not read him with a smirk anymore. Rather, I read him for what he is: A classical metaphysician. I like some points; I don't like others. It's like reading anyone else.

Yet Aristotle is no average writer. He is a giant among Western philosophers. His views on virtually every subject became dogma for centuries. Men died challenging Aristotlean doctrines in the Catholic church during the Middle Ages. Others risked everything to dispute Aristotle's teachings about ethics and astronomy. As time went on, scientific advances dethroned Aristotle's pre-eminence in some areas. But in others, his influence remains strong--and still relevant. After all, Aristotle wrote about politics, ethics, human beings and beauty. These things cannot be reduced to mathematical fact. Rather, they constantly invite debate, interpretation and reassessment.

Aristotle's political work certainly has continued relevance. Like all the political philosophers who followed him, Aristotle begins by discussing human nature. Aristotle approaches the question with his usual confidence: He makes conclusions as if they were obvious, even if they are just assumptions. He also plays the biologist, constantly comparing humans to their analogues in nature.

I love any discussion about human nature. And I have always disagreed with Aristotle's view here.

Aristotle claims that men are "political animals...by nature." The Politics, Book I, ch. ii, para. 1253a1. He makes this conclusion by examining the key difference between men and beasts: Men have speech. He acknowledges that both animals and men have voice--cows can moo and dogs can bark to voice their feelings--but speech is unique to man.

This might not seem like a profound observation, but Aristotle's understanding of speech is remarkable. The consummate metaphysician, he argues that "speech has a single purpose" and no other. Namely, it enables men to "indicate what is useful and what is harmful," and "what is just or unjust." Id. at para. 1253a7. Finally, he draws the ultimate distinction between men and animals: "[H]umans alone have perception of good and evil, just and unjust." Id.

For Aristotle, then, speech has a justice function. It not only allows men to communicate their feelings, but it exists to help them find what is useful and just for all. This is the natural purpose of speech. It is imbued with a sensitivity for morality (good and evil), practicality (useful and not useful) as well as justice. These are profound concepts. And Aristotle speaks in absolute terms. There is one "good," one "evil," one "justice" and one "useful." In his view, speech enables man to find them all--and to organize States on that basis. Man is not only a speaking animal; his speech allows him to unite with other men to find universal justice in a useful society. What a remarkable assertion.

It is a remarkable assertion because it invites so much scorn. I naturally shy away from absolutes. Aristotle always offered me a tempting target because he reduces complex issues into absolute "sayings." His argument about speech--and human nature--strikes me as impossibly naive. Aristotle's philosophy of "specific purposes" (teleology) always leads to moments like this. After all, how can we say "speech is for justice and unity" when even brief life experience reveals that men often do not use speech for those purposes? Aristotle assumes that speech leads to cooperation and good. But life experience refutes this: Men lie. They don't cooperate. They don't tell the truth. They divide from one another and twist language to advance their narrow interests. And they certainly do not always use language to find justice. In most cases, language leads to injustice.

For his part, Aristotle would say that deceivers do "not use speech according to its purpose." This is a laughable objection, unfortunately: If language's "natural purpose" is to "find justice," then I would argue that people rarely use it "naturally."

Broadly speaking, Aristotle's theory of language reflects a good view of human nature. Aristotle believed that men naturally worked with one another to achieve a "good life." See Politics, Book I, ch. ii at para. 1252b27. He thought that speech gave them a natural tool to discover useful methods for securing a "good life," as well as to distinguish "good from evil," "right from wrong" and "just from unjust." Finally, he thought that men naturally cooperated with each other to achieve a "good life" filled with justice.

These are admirable sentiments. The problem is that Aristotle assumed everything he concluded. Every philosopher must assume certain basic principles in order to develop his theories about life. Aristotle's assumptions sound appealing, but they remain assumptions. For my part, I cannot assume that men are good by nature. And because of that, I cannot assume that men generally use speech for good purposes. Men unite with speech, but they also deceive with it. Men do good with speech; they also do bad. It is no answer to say--as Aristotle does--that they are merely "ignoring speech's natural purpose." There are no overreaching purposes. We simply attach them according to our individual sensitivities.

Aristotle thought that he could find truth by assigning specific purposes to everything open to human experience or imagination. And he assumed that one "truth" exists to be found: That was his worst assumption of all.

WAR, DEATH AND TRUTH : PUBLISHING CASUALTY PHOTOGRAPHS

AN ESSAY

Associated Press photographer Julie Jacobson recently published a “disturbing image” in the New York Times. See http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/04/behind-13/. Specifically, she dared to snap a picture of a U.S. Marine moments after he suffered a mortal injury in Afghanistan. The image shows two comrades struggling to stabilize him. His lips are weakly parted; he stares at the ground as if in shock. His bloody leg (or stump) is clearly visible. His rifle lies powerless at his side. According to the article that accompanies the picture, the Marine died several days later. His father learned that Ms. Jacobson had the picture and asked her not to publish it. He did not want the picture to “sully the memory of his son.”

Ms. Jacobson published the picture anyway. Defense Secretary Robert Gates angrily denounced her decision. Although he acknowledged she had a “legal and constitutional right” to publish it, he claimed that “common decency” and “taste” should have stayed her hand. In response, Ms. Jacobson pointed out that she complied with the Defense Department rule for publishing “U.S. casualty photographs,” namely, only after the Department confirmed the casualty and notified the soldier’s family. This satisfied her sole legal obligation. From a strictly legal perspective, the fact that the Marine’s family objected to publication made no difference; Ms. Jacobson followed the only rule that constrained her.

Not surprisingly, Ms. Jacobson’s decision sparked a heated debate on the New York Times’ website. The debate broke into two camps: (1) Those who believe that the press must always respect a family’s wishes and (2) those who demand to see the “truth of war” uncensored and uncut. One angry commenter even went so far as to say that “acts like this” (ie, photographers defying military families’ wishes) were reason to “revoke the First Amendment.” But another applauded Ms. Jacobson for delivering a “dose of truth” about a war that seems all-too distant and “sanitized” in American eyes.

This is not a new debate. Americans have always been queasy about seeing pictures of their own men dead (or dying) on the battlefield. We have been in many wars since the advent of photography. Matthew Brady was the first man to photograph dead soldiers after the Battle of Antietam during the Civil War. His work sparked outrage and disgust. He said he was merely trying to show “what really happens in war” beyond all the glorious rhetoric and saber-rattling. Despite his commitment to “telling the truth” about war, the U.S. military took steps to curtail such publications. These efforts culminated in complicated rules about publishing “U.S. casualty images.” These are the rules that Ms. Jacobson’s image now calls into debate.

Interestingly, the military’s rules about publishing “U.S. casualty images” only apply to U.S. service personnel. If a civilian is killed, there is no rule prohibiting a journalist from immediately publishing the image. Similarly, if a soldier from the enemy army dies, a journalist does not have to wait until his family is notified. And naturally the journalist need not heed the foreign soldier’s family’s objections to publication (if they even know their son has died fighting the Americans). The U.S. military defends its rule because it wants to “uphold the dignity and memory of troops who give their lives for their country.” Yet that concern does not apply to any other human being who dies as our troops fulfill their mission. At the same time, the rule leads to a skewed impression: Americans only get to see dead enemy troops and civilians, but never dead Americans. In the end, this blinds the American public to the brutal reality of war. After all, American troops die in Iraq and Afghanistan every day. We know this from the “official casualty rolls.” Yet those rolls do not begin to tell the same story as pictures showing soldiers dying.

If America wants to wage war, it should know the costs. War is not about animated maps and strategic objectives narrated on the FOX News Channel. Nor is it even about geopolitical balancing or justice. Rather, for the men who fight war, it is about fear, carnage, brutality and death. For the men who fight war, it is an agonizing sensory experience. The sights, sounds and sensations of war irreversibly alter those who experience them. (See, e.g., All Quiet on the Western Front). Yet these sensory impressions rarely make their way back home for everyone else to see. War veterans cannot even start to “explain” what it is like to be in combat and to see young men suddenly die. Yet photographs can at least partially convey the sensory impressions that language can never capture. In so doing, they tell an essential story that would otherwise be forever lost. Put simply, when the government censors images capturing the visual, visceral, unforgiving “essence of war,” it deludes the public. If the public really wants to know the sacrifices men make on the battlefield, it should know about the uncensored brutality they see every day.

Yet many strongly disagree with this assertion. They say that the public’s “right to know” about war’s brutality must yield to the individual soldier’s family’s interest in freedom from the emotional turmoil that flows from seeing their dying son paraded in newspapers. They say that military families have a right to “cherish certain memories” about sons who die in combat, even if those memories are inaccurate or false. While it is true that military families will suffer immense pain upon seeing such images, their pain must be compared with the broader public interest in knowing the true cost of war. I venture that it is better for the public to know how bloody and senseless war is than to fall into ignorant delusion about its human price. The only way to truly inform the public about war’s price is to inflict additional emotional pain on the families of the individual soldiers whose dying bodies we see captured on film.

This sounds harsh. Yet this is the only way to drive home the cost of war. Nothing else even remotely tells the story.

My heart goes out to the father who lost his son in Afghanistan. I am truly sorry that he must bear the additional burden of seeing his son’s final moments in a photograph. I am also sorry that the public, too, can now see that image. But I venture that this image does far more than inflict individual emotional pain on those who knew the soldier who died. It does not disparage his memory, nor does it dilute his sacrifice. Rather, it honestly shows what he endured. It shows what war does to men. It reveals that there is nothing glorious or heroic about war. In so doing, it educates the public. When the public knows what war really costs—in visual, visceral, human terms—we can only hope that they will be less eager to start them in the future.

America needs to understand that wars have costs. Yet rules such as the military’s ban on “casualty photographs” blind us to those costs. They also deceive the public into believing that “we do the killing, but not the dying.” Ms. Jacobson’s photograph unsettles these assumptions, and rightly so. It illustrates that war is not fun for anyone, American or not. It is important for Americans to know that before launching another military excursion somewhere in the world.

Europeans learned the cost of war between 1914 and 1945. That is why they criticize us so much for our willingness to start new ones.

SOME THINGS CHANGE FAST

A REFLECTION

This morning I thought about how fast some things change. Sometimes history can change in an instant. So can our lives as individuals. Developments are not always measured or even reasonable. Sometimes we deserve things; sometimes reason scolds us because we "should have anticipated results." Yet sometimes events strike from the blue and change everything overnight. There is no logic in these sudden changes. They defy the notion that life can be planned. In large part, they strengthen my belief that something beyond reason and "chance" works in our lives.

In 1942, the Japanese were winning the Pacific War. In May, a Japanese fleet was steaming toward Midway Island. The Japanese planned to destroy America's aircraft carriers and take the island. Japanese pilots were far superior to the Americans at this stage in the war. They had experience. They had high morale. They had never lost a battle. They had every reason to think they would win the upcoming battle.

But they did not. By chance, the Japanese had to switch their bombers from ground attack mode after they discovered American ships nearby. For twenty minutes, all their bombers stood dangerously exposed on carrier flight decks while crew members switched torpedoes to bombs. Fuel was strewn all over the place. At that precise moment, an American bomber squadron was overhead. They had no idea the Japanese were refueling and rearming. The American bombers swooped down at this critical moment. They sank three of Japan's four mightiest carriers in five minutes. It was pure luck. Japan never recovered from this catastrophic blow. For better or worse, America did not win the Battle of Midway by skill. They won because they profited from fortune.

Such moments do not just occur in war. They occur in everyday lives, too. Consider my life partner's story. One night two years ago, he walked into a gym. At that moment, he was healthy and had everything to live for. He suffered a freak burn accident in the gym. He spent 15 days in an ICU and almost died several times. Since then, he has never been the same. One moment he was healthy. The next moment, he was crippled. Bizarre accidents happen to many people; I report this incident because I know about it. I have seen how (mis)fortune can radically transform individual lives in an instant.

Things do not always change gradually. Sometimes they change without reason, defying our expectations. Our assumptions can transform in an instant. Sometimes fortune strikes for the better. Other times, it strikes for the worse. No matter how fortune falls, it defies our logic. We cannot account for "randomness," yet "random" events change history and our own lives in equal measure. Some say that we can predict events based on circumstances from which to make "educated guesses" about the future. Yet no one could have made an "educated guess" about the Japanese refueling their planes at the moment the American bombers were overhead, nor could I have made an "educated guess" about the disaster that befell my life partner. When fortune falls, our logic appears woefully inadequate.

Should we then embrace destiny? Does some other power ordain these seemingly random events? I have written that destiny appeals to me--even as an empiricist--because my all-too human senses can neither prove nor disprove it. I am content to believe that there are things I cannot know. This does not mean I subscribe to a particular religion. Rather, studying history and experiencing life both teach me that it is mature to acknowledge limitations to our capacity for knowledge in this world. By the same token, I am deeply skeptical of anyone who claims that "he can know" anything in life. He obviously has not suffered a random misfortune.

On the other hand, perhaps everything is truly random. There is no way to say one way or the other. Yet that is a disheartening thought.

TRUTH IN THE NEWS?

AN ESSAY

Last week, I read an interesting little article in the New York Daily News. See L.I. dad slain uptown, N.Y. Daily News, July 17, 2009. Newspaper reporting interests me not so much for what the writers disclose, but rather for what they do not disclose. Ironically, newspapers ask readers to accept their reports as “truth,” even though close inspection reveals myriad unanswered questions in every article. Even the smallest, most insignificant news stories often conceal luscious “subtexts.” In the past, I rarely thought about subtext. Now that I’ve gained some experience in life, I see that subtext is far more important than printed words. In the end, I never fully trust a news report. I simply use it as a basis from which to draw my own conclusions, applying my own experience and memory to the “facts” presented. In short, I do not rely on the news for “truth.”

So how exactly does “subtext” work? And how do news outlets warp perceptions? Let’s examine L.I. dad slain uptown. It’s a short article. The reporters tell us that a “motivational speaker from Valley Stream, Long Island” named Jeffrey Locker, 52, drove into Manhattan last Wednesday afternoon. He was white. We know this because the News includes a picture next to the headline. We then learn that two young “neighborhood people” in East Harlem (a largely black and Hispanic neighborhood) saw Locker walking into a Deli on Second Avenue at around 3 A.M. Immediately thereafter, they saw him exit the Deli carrying a bottle of water and “some Trojan condoms.” One witness told the reporters that he looked “cool, relaxed.” Two hours later, the same “young people” saw Locker in the driver’s seat of his 2007 Dodge Magnum. On closer inspection, they saw that his hands were tied behind him and there was a cord around his neck. He was dead. According to the “police report,” he had been “strangled and stabbed.”

Upon reading these “facts,” I made my own conclusions. Here was an affluent white man with a successful career as a “motivational speaker.” He lived in the suburbs with his wife and three children. So what could possibly draw him to East Harlem at 3 A.M., park his station wagon on the street, then buy condoms and water? The News does not speculate. But is it not obvious? It is a well-known urban truism that affluent white men often drive into “bad neighborhoods” for drugs and sex. They patronize prostitutes. They buy crack cocaine. They pay for all the “wild things” they cannot get in their “respectable neighborhoods.” They indulge. Then they get on the parkway and head back to their wives and “respectable lives.” Their wives inevitably ask: “Why are you so late?” To which comes the familiar reply: “Oh, I got held over at work.” Why else would this man have been East Harlem? And why else would he have bought condoms? To make water balloons?

You might ask how I know this. My answer: I’ve seen it happen. When I lived in Chicago, there was a “skid row” near my apartment a few blocks from some busy nightclubs. These clubs drew the seedy as well as the trendy. Not everyone went to the clubs; in fact, most came simply to “mill around the streets.” Some preyed on drunk kids staggering home. Women donned high heels and hot pants to attract “business.” And then there was a cadre of wig-wearing black transvestites who flagged down cars and hopped into passenger seats. Most of these cars were “suburban:” station wagons, family-edition SUVs, sports cars. The drivers were all white. They were suburban men who came into the city for “exciting hookups” thinking no one back home would ever know. In short, I know from experience that white men often visit cities in order to get “exciting sex” that they never get at home during their “respectable lives.”

I could not ignore experience when reading about Jeffrey Locker. Nor could I ignore my cynical assumption that suburban white men do not go to poor black neighborhoods for saintly purposes. Perhaps the News did not explicitly mention why Locker was in East Harlem at 3 A.M., but expected readers to make their own conclusions. That may be so. But the report contained some other “facts” that cut against this interpretation. These “facts” try to paint Locker as an “innocent victim,” not someone who knowingly put himself in a compromising position. For example, the article quotes Locker’s wife: “He was going into the city and coming home. He was supposed to be coming home…He was supposed to come home. He wasn’t there by choice.” See L.I. dad slain uptown, N.Y. Daily News, second column, July 17, 2009. It also quotes Locker’s mother-in-law: “He probably trusted someone…He was a very trusting person. That’s probably how it happened. You could sell him the Brooklyn bridge.” Id. Finally, it quotes a neighbor who “often took bike rides with Locker:” “He was a nice, really great guy…He was a really wonderful father.” Id. at third column.

Was the News mocking these people? Or was it genuinely trying to suggest that Jeffrey Locker was a “great father” who was not in East Harlem “by choice,” but rather because he was a “trusting person?” True, these people knew Locker from his “respectable life” in Valley Stream. They likely had no idea that he had secret sexual desires, or at least refused to acknowledge them. But they are the only people quoted. They did not even quote a neutral police source that might have shed some objective light on the reasons why a suburban white male was alone in a “bad neighborhood” at 3 A.M. on a weeknight.

If the News expects its readers to think that Jeffrey Locker was completely innocent and that some “evil minority person” took advantage of him because he was “too trusting,” then it is both racist and naïve. Jeffrey Locker was in the city because he wanted to patronize some prostitutes in East Harlem. He would not have bought condoms if sex were not his goal. He thought he would park his car, buy some condoms at the local bodega, invite some hookers into the car and do what he came to do. But he was playing a dangerous game. He was in a risky position by choice. “Reasonable people” do not go to “high-crime” areas late at night, let alone park expensive cars there. Apparently someone saw him as a mark and attacked him. We cannot know exactly why it happened, but it is not very surprising. It was a crime of opportunity. And it simply defies belief to suggest that someone “seduced” Jeffrey Locker. Did someone “entice him” on his way home to Long Island, convince him to drive all the way uptown, park his car in a “bad neighborhood,” then kill him? That kind of thing just doesn’t happen. Moreover, the unbiased eyewitness statements contradict that scenario. According to the “neighborhood people” who saw him, Locker was “cool” and “relaxed” as he walked from a Deli carrying condoms. That does not sound like some overly trusting, misled soul to me.

In sum, this was a white suburban man who was unsatisfied with his boring sexual life at home, so he went into the city for some fast, anonymous sex with black and Hispanic prostitutes. This was a man with secrets. He was leading a double life. To his neighbor, he was a “really nice guy” and “a great father” who “rode bikes.” But the “neighborhood people” saw his dark side. Who knows how many times he had gone to East Harlem in the past? All this was clear to me when I read the article. I saw a sexually frustrated white middle-aged suburban man using lower-income city dwellers to play out fantasies that he could not indulge in his “respectable life.” It is not complicated. It may be embarrassing and pathetic, but not complicated.

Yet the article reported none of these things. To fully grasp what happened in Jeffrey Locker’s case, I had to apply my own experience and analysis. I could not rely solely on the information in the report. Still, newspapers claim to present “unbiased fact” so that we learn the “truth” about “what happened” in particular events. Newspapers report on “matters of public concern.” Murders concern the public. Nonetheless, the article about Jeffrey Locker does not remotely report the “truth.” No one will ever know the “truth” except Jeffrey Locker and the person who killed him in his car. A few witnesses saw Locker two hours before he died. Their sensory recollections provide us some insight about his motivations and why he was in East Harlem. But they know nothing about his final moments.

Despite the News' best efforts—and every reporting company like it—we can never really grasp the “truth” about events we do not perceive. At best, we can interpret what “may have happened” based upon our own experience, memory, intuition, impressions and emotions. When we do that, we do not actually perceive “what happened,” nor do we come any closer to the “truth” as an absolute matter. Rather, we create truth in our own minds. We hear recollections. We read details. We digest reports. These things interact with our own experience to create something we believe. We see events in our mind’s eye even if we never saw them with our real eyes. We think these mental images are “truth.” In fact, they are nothing more than interpretations based on our own experience. To that extent, truth is entirely subjective. And because it depends on experience, no two people will ever precisely agree on what is true. After all, we all draw on unique experiences to guide our interpretations.

At best, we can agree on certain “indisputable details” when analyzing events. Nothing can replace actual sense. But our society demands “truth” about events, even when no one was there to observe them. Our news media answers this demand. In so doing, it assumes a central role in our consciousness. If we cannot be present to experience every event that concerns us as a society, at least we can receive some information upon which to make our own conclusions. Still, how many people really draw their own conclusions from news reporting? After all, as the Locker case shows, news reporters have the power to selectively publish certain details about past events. Those details channel interpretation. Not everyone has the same life experience to tease out the subtleties concealed in a story. In fact, news stories lure the reader into feeling that he is reading “the pure truth” about a past event. But this is delusional. The mere fact that a newspaper describes an event does not make it true. Rather, the fact that a newspaper describes an event should make the reader even more suspicious about “what actually happened.”

I do not rely on any news media for “truth.” But I do not completely discount it, either. After all, news outlets perform an essential role in disseminating details about events. Without them, we would have no information at all about “things that happen.” Beyond that, however, it is up to me to sort out what “actually happened” based upon my own life experience. It is not easy; interpretation never is. Yet if we simply credit everything we hear in the news, we lend ourselves to deception far more than “truth.” After all, we humans have very limited sensory range. Our senses provide the best pathway to “truth” about the external world. Unfortunately, we can use them to grasp a comparatively minuscule proportion of all the things that happen during our lifetimes. For everything else, we depend on language, second-hand reports, stories, memories, distortions, recollections, biased impressions and legend. In all these cases, “we weren’t there” to perceive the event reported. Nor can we really say whether it “really happened.” We can choose simply to believe it did—or did not. And even then, we see something in our mind’s eye that might be totally different than what “actually happened.”

Is there any way to sift through language, fragmented details, memory and bias to find “truth?” Is it a hopeless endeavor? Or worse, do we just reveal our own individual biases when we try to “create truth?”

LIFE, DEATH, HAPPINESS, SENSE, MONEY & OTHER UNCOMFORTABLE WORDS

AN ESSAY

Several weeks ago, I wrote about why human beings fear death. All living organisms cling doggedly to life. But only humans can articulate the reasons why they want to live. I concluded that people fear death because they are “sensory creatures” who derive enjoyment and meaning from their senses. Their senses allow them to stimulate their bodies, affording opportunities for pleasure and satisfaction. Death, however, causes “irreversible sensory shutdown,” precluding any further sensory input. Death cuts short our ability to experience the world with our senses. It eliminates our potential pleasures at the same time it spares us potential agonies. No matter the result, we fear it because we cannot imagine an existence without sense; we simply don’t know “what it’s like.”

Sense is everything. Generally speaking, human beings live for their senses. They want to see, hear, feel, taste and smell things that make them feel inwardly happy. Although some people profess to find happiness through the spirit or by some other intangible route, these are exceptions. For the most part, human beings work, struggle, contend, compete, strive and wrangle in order to bring joy to their senses. They engage in commerce to earn sufficient money to spend their time in a manner that allows them to positively stimulate their senses. Success in commerce allows “sensory success.” Of course, achieving success in commerce takes a very long time. Ironically, those who ultimately succeed in commerce usually do not have much time left to placate their senses. Life for most people follows a predictable pattern: Strive at all times to win in commerce, because success in commerce will provide a reliable means to positively stimulate the senses, thereby minimizing negative emotions and maximizing positive ones. Put simply, it is a race against time. People know that they only have so many days to find happiness. With every passing day, their potential for positive sensory stimulation dwindles. Life is a closing door.

This is why people fear death. Death cancels their ever-dwindling opportunity to achieve positive sensory stimulation and happiness. Death shuts down the senses: Obviously people will fear something that threatens the very capacity that makes it enjoyable to live. In modern American life, people do not just fear death; they try their best not to even think about it. They push it away with all their might. After all, American life follows a program, and death is not on the agenda. The program teaches worldly success, sensory satisfaction and happiness through material acquisition. Sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell are essential to find happiness along this path. American success means success in life and through sense. The tangible world before us is not opaque. In American life, the best things in life are right in front of our eyes: Houses, electronics, cars, bulging bank accounts, boats, overseas vacations. We can possess these things. We can see them; and so can others. Americans tailor every day in their lives to ultimately acquire these things. They work their whole lives without them for a chance to live with them. Sadly, most people do not get all the tangible items they want. But they don’t want to die because that would preclude their opportunity to get them. Still, even if they live, they probably won’t get them, either. But they can’t know that. So they prefer life to death. They want the chance to stimulate their senses in the way they always wanted—which almost never happens.

Death just does not fit in the American life program. Americans have too many other things to do. They have to get jobs, go to school, purchase land, impress their friends, make enough money to retire, go on the right vacations, find health insurance, buy the right stereo equipment, go to dance clubs, watch movies, save money on phone plans, buy a second home and send their children to college. Their goals lie in this world; they are right there for the taking. All these goals involve the senses. There is no time to think about death. It is incomprehensible. No one sees what happens after death, nor can anyone receive a report about it. Put simply, death cannot be achieved, won, savored, acquired or known. That is why it does not fit in the American life program. In a world stuffed with perceptible, achievable, tangible goals, death is the great unknown. It takes people out of the race for good. And when winning the “sensory race” is all that matters, is it surprising that death strikes terror into the competitors? People fear death because it forces them to come face to face with a startling new reality after living their lives believing that sense was the only reality.

Americans manifest their death fears in many ways, both overt and subtle. Overtly, they emotionally react when threatened with death. The law threatens death to the “worst criminals” on the assumption that death is the “worst thing” that could happen to anyone. Because no one wants to die, the law assumes that no one will engage in behavior that could lead to the death penalty. When Americans see violent events in which others die, they feel traumatized. It reminds them they don’t want to die, either. They recoil from the thought that they will not have a chance to stimulate their senses anymore or to follow their life program to potential happiness. Pain plays a role in this fear. But pain is not the main reason why people fear death. People fear death because death cuts short their anticipated life program and its opportunities for sensory stimulation. Americans overtly manifest their fear in this regard when they see others die.

Yet subtle death fears are much more interesting than overt death fears. To some extent, we can explain overt death fears on a crude biological level. Even dogs become terrified when some overpowering force threatens them with death. Self-preservation is not unique to lower mammals; human beings are no exception. Living organisms want desperately to live, and when they perceive that something might end their life, they manifest emotions consistent with a desire to live, including overt death fears. But human beings express their death fears in more subtle ways. We are the only species that uses the mouth, palate and tongue to create intelligible speech. We tend to presume ourselves “superior” to all other creatures because we can do this. We use our speech to do great things as well as treacherous things. We use our speech as much to inform as to confound. We use our speech as much to unite as divide. Although speech may set us apart from other life forms, we certainly do not always use it for abstractly beneficial purposes.

We voice our emotions through speech. Through the words we choose, we indicate how we subjectively feel about certain phenomena. We can use direct words, such as: “I am afraid.” Or we can “circumlocute” our true feelings because the truth makes us uncomfortable. We might say: “I am concerned” when we really are terrified. This is a conscious obfuscation, a self-delusion. But there are other ways in which language itself changes to reflect a pervasive, universal fear, even if the individual speaker does not experience it at the moment he says the words.

Death is a prime example. In recent decades, Americans have almost universally replaced the verb “to die” with “to pass.” George Carlin placed this “word shift” into the growing catalogue of issues about which Americans simply can no longer speak honestly. See Parental Advisory : Explicit Lyrics (1990). He was absolutely right, and for a significant reason: Because death is anathema to the American life program. American language has changed in order to express a prevailing social discomfort with—and even disapproval of—death. Because death stands in such stark philosophical opposition to the entire sense-oriented program under which most Americans live, Americans deliberately refuse to confront the uncomfortable implications. “To die” means to “cease to be.” It refers literally to the moment in which a living person—with senses, ambitions, dreams and a “life plan”—becomes a dead person—with no sensory capacity or potential for sensory stimulation at all. But “to pass” does not literally refer to that biological event. No, “to pass” implies “physical movement through, around, toward or beyond something.” It derives from the Latin word “passus,” meaning “step.” It refers to movement involving tangible objects, places or obstacles, as in: “I passed by the store this morning on the way to my mother’s house,” or “I passed through the door on my way into the office,” or “We passed each other in the hallway.” There is nothing biological or existential about it. It is about banal movement.

Metaphorically, “to pass” can also mean “to end.” But this meaning traditionally refers to events and circumstances, not to death. A wise uncle might say to his nephew: “Dear boy, fear not. For this, too, shall pass.” This did not mean someone died. It meant that some adversity would soon “go away.” And this metaphorical meaning derives from the “physical movement concept” implicit in the word “to pass.” Circumstances—like living beings—can “move through or beyond” fixed points or obstacles. In this sense “pass” does not have an existential meaning.

So Americans now say they “pass” to mean they “die.” Why? To avoid using the scary word “die.” “Die” is a simple word. But it is disconcertingly honest. It goes to the heart of existence and non-existence. It is too honest for American discourse, in which everything depends on life. Only the living can achieve success, acquire property, make lots of money, enjoy sensuous pool parties and go on vacation without financial worry. Only the living can reap commercial rewards because they have senses that those rewards can stimulate. Everything in America depends on life, because everything revolves around sensory stimulation. Death permanently removes a living being’s capacity to experience the world though the senses. Death ends any hope to achieve “success” as conceived under the “American life program.” Americans strive their whole lives to achieve that success; death undermines the entire enterprise. It even renders the enterprise absurd. It is thus little wonder that Americans refuse to even countenance the word when talking about the event to which it refers. So they choose a meaningless, harmless substitute: “To pass.”

I hate to break it to these folks. But when we die, we do not “pass” or “go” anywhere. When we’re dead, our passing days are over. Our bodies are done. They ain’t going noplace, at least under their own power.

Yet some Americans truly believe that “we never stop thinking about money or success.” Last week, I read a few pages from a book written by a “professional money coach” who counsels “executives” struggling to balance their obsession with money with “normal lives.” She wrote about some company Vice President who had to take a day off from work in order to visit his dying mother in the hospital. He felt guilty because he didn’t want to leave work or make a bad impression on the company President. The “money coach,” however, told him that his guilt was natural—and his mother would understand that he couldn’t stay long—because his mother hadn’t stopped thinking about money, either. “We never really stop thinking about money, no matter what our circumstances may be,” she wrote, referring to a dying woman she never met.

I found this shockingly asinine. As much as the “American life program” demands that we fixate our attention on “this world” and the “success” it can bring to our senses, death renders everything moot. I found it preposterous for this “money coach” to presume that a woman facing death had not stopped thinking about money when she was about to die. I can say that I do not always think about money or success, and I am not dying. And I was with my father when he was dying three years ago; I know for a fact he was not thinking about money, success or his job when confronted with non-existence. In fact, he entered an extremely reflective state in which he deeply questioned everything he had done in his life. He wondered why he spent so much energy chasing things that did not really matter. Money and success are among those things that “don’t really matter” when death looms. Yet they are the cornerstones of the “American life program;” and they entrench themselves so deeply in us that many people cannot fathom an event that makes them irrelevant.

But there are ways to accommodate both this world’s fixation on success and the existential fears that spring from contemplating death. Commerce and gain are not the only ways to stimulate our senses. We can achieve sensory happiness without material acquisition or winning a competition for limited resources. After all, these are merely external stimuli. If we can find strength within ourselves, if we can cultivate our own personalities and thoughts, then we might find value beyond commerce. To be sure, this is not a popular path to happiness. Like death, it does not rest easy with the “American life program” because it focuses on subjective meaning rather than objective material acquisition. But by looking within ourselves, we determine who we are, not what we have. And when we stop worrying about what we have, the thought of dying no longer seems so daunting. After all, if “having things” is not so important to us, what does it matter whether we leave “the world of having things?”

If we make that discovery, we are unafraid to say “die.” We do not need to delude ourselves by saying we “pass.” We “pass” the McDonald’s on the way home from work. We “die” when we stop breathing.

NEW IDEAS

I have been having some adventures lately. Sometimes I blame myself for not writing more. But when I don't write, I inevitably get out and start experiencing things. It's incredible how much you can experience in life when you actually have time to just go with the flow. There is comfort and advantage in stable routines. But there is occasional value in breaking them. I never shy from that option, even if it scares me at first.

I am grateful for my life. My obligations are not tremendously burdensome. I do not worry about money too much. I complain about as much as any rational human being does. Complaining is human; humans rarely actually feel satisfied, even when they should be satisfied. I have time to write and to experience new things at the same time. I'm not overflowing with good fortune, but my health is good, I have been in a loving relationship for 10 years and no major disaster has befallen me since 2007. No one demeans me, commands me or orders me to fulfill obligations. In this sense, I am enjoying relative "freedom from unhappiness inflicted by the outside world" as Freud called it.

Most importantly, I am getting new ideas. Time off means time to reflect and time to resettle things in your mind. That is exactly what I have been doing. In the next few weeks, I will explore new issues and offer some new perspectives based on things I have perceived lately. Put simply, I am assembling new memories. It is too easy to forget things in life. Holding onto experience and details is a craft. In some sense, it is intensely self-conscious. There are some things we cannot avoid remembering. But there are myriad others that slip away from us almost instantly. We can't get them back. That's why it's important to take memory seriously. After all, memory begets inspiration. So I take it seriously.

Thanks for reading. Stay tuned for more Reason, Commerce, Justice & Free Beer!

COMMITMENTS ARE UNREALISTIC AND USUALLY UNREASONABLE

AN ESSAY

We hear about “commitments” all the time. When we hear that a person has “commitments,” we tend to admire him. In the abstract, we link commitments with positive ideas, such as “a commitment to justice” or “a commitment to goodness.” But we make and break commitments all the time. They do not typically involve lofty ideals or premises. Rather, they concern the forgettable grist of life: Commerce, fleeting relationships, petty plans, timing, instrumental networking—stuff that ultimately no one remembers. Generally, there is nothing intrinsically special about commitments. Rather, they force human beings into a losing game, because commitments try to buck natural changes in life. Just live a few years to learn nothing stays the same for long in this world. That’s why it’s unrealistic—and usually unreasonable—to commit to anything. And in most cases there is nothing we can do about it.

So why do we admire commitments in the abstract? Let us start with the word. “To commit” has many meanings in English. For our purposes, the word’s most relevant meaning involves “pledging, obligation and assurance” to undertake future action or believe future thoughts. Dictionary.com specifies: “4. To bind or obligate, as by pledge or assurance.” A commitment, then, is a statement or promise to do or believe something long in advance. It obligates the speaker to do what he says, even if future events turn out in a completely unexpected way. It forces him into a dilemma between “his word” and the pressures of unforeseen reality. By making a “commitment,” the speaker takes a huge gamble that life will not twist away from him in the time it takes to keep his promise. If he loses the gamble and reneges on his commitment, others label him “dishonorable” and “unreliable.” If he wins the gamble and fulfills his word before circumstances turn on him, others label him “honorable,” “steadfast” and “resolute.” In both events, commitments are risky. If a commitment is long-term, there is a greater chance that intervening reality will undermine the circumstances necessary to fulfill it. But if it is short-term, life has a smaller window in which to unravel it.

Yet our society encourages us to make commitments all the time. In so doing, it leads us into dangerous territory. It insists that we “honor our word” to do things. But if life gets away from us and makes it impossible—or at least extremely difficult—to honor our word, we suffer excoriation for failure. The law adds more thematic baggage to the unofficial “dishonor” stigma that accompanies failure to fulfill commitments. In “regular life,” we make “unofficial” commitments. The law, however, recognizes special “official” commitments called “contracts.” While “regular life” penalizes our failure to adhere to commitments with social stigma and derision for “dishonor,” the law penalizes us in a highly technical way. In so doing, it gives official approval to the prevailing social convention that “commitments are good,” and “word-breaking is bad.” If a commitment fits the legal requirements of “contract,” it is more than just a commitment. It becomes a “cause of action” for money damages when some unlucky soul does not fulfill his word. Fault and circumstance have nothing to do with it. If a person does not do what he promised, the law penalizes him, no matter what the situation may be.

Whether in life or in law, commitments are troublesome. They ask us to ignore and defy inevitable changes that pursue us. In my view, it is not only unrealistic to make certain commitments, but also unfair. This is not to say that it is not admirable to make long-term commitments. It is merely to say that life changes far too much—and men are far too weak—to realistically deliver on many promises. In this sense, life and law overlap. Consider long-term mortgage contracts. Generally speaking, mortgage customers commit—both legally and grammatically—to pay a bank a certain amount every month for 30 years or more. Consider what can happen in one year, let alone thirty. Someone could get sick. Someone could get run over by a train. Someone could suffer crippling depression and lose their job. The economy could tank, causing widespread unemployment. A disaster could strike, destroying the house. Someone could get laid off. Someone could take a pay cut. Someone could have a crisis of conscience and refuse to take a paycheck from a corrupt organization. Someone could lose a limb. Someone could commit a crime and go to prison. Someone could cheat on a spouse, leading to marital strife, divorce, acrimony and reduced income. Someone could lose their parents, causing emotional turmoil. Or someone could just lose interest in life and commit suicide.

All this could happen in one year. Think about what can happen in thirty. Life whips us with unrelenting pressure, from both inside our souls and from the outside world. Yet the bank could care less: You made a commitment. You must pony up the payment every month—like you said you would—no matter what dramatic, unforeseen circumstances you might face. It doesn’t matter that you did not foresee trouble 15 years down the road. You made a commitment. The fact that both popular judgment and the law favor the bank’s position in this situation strikes me as fundamentally unfair—and unrealistic in the extreme. Realistically speaking, we cannot adhere to commitments. Life changes too much. What was normal on the day we signed the contract may no longer be normal five years later. But commitments bind us to our word even when it would be painful or absurd to continue following it. All this ensues because we “pledged ourselves” to an action. When we make commitments, we entirely assume the risk that life will not turn against us in the time it takes to fulfill our word. That is not smart.

Commitments, then, are unrealistic because they ask us to defy inevitable, unforeseen change in life. That is unreasonable because a reasonable person does not take action that is sure to fail. Reasonable people use their sense, experience and memory to judge future actions. If sense, experience and memory reveal that a certain action will likely not yield success, a reasonable person will refrain from engaging in it. Sense, experience and memory quickly reveal to us that life is unpredictable and volatile. What appears tranquil one day may be disrupted and toxic the next. Only a naïve person could ignore that. Why, then, do we continue to make doomed commitments every day? Simple: Because in many cases power plays a role in commitment.

We do not live in an equal society. In our commercial world, we need “things” that we do not have. In order to get what we don’t have, we must deal with people who do. That means we must enter into relationships with people who hold advantages over us, whether they are lenders, merchants, schools or retailers. These people want to make a profit on us, and it is easy to make a profit when you can define the rules of the relationship. If we want money from a bank because we can’t afford a home, they give it to us only if we commit ourselves to paying them back every month with twice as much interest. If we want money from a lender to go to school because we can’t afford tuition, they give it to us only if we commit ourselves to paying them back every month with three times as much interest. When we make our commitment, we do not really think about the future. What do we know what the future holds? We just need the money now, in 2009. We hope that we will have income to pay it back in 2014, 2024 and 2034. We don’t know what disaster might strike in 2013. We don’t know if we’ll lose our job in the financial crisis of 2021. We gamble that we will have the money every month to pay the bank because we made a commitment. Yet that commitment puts the risk on us that our lives will not inalterably change at some time before we fulfill our word. That is a huge risk. And it is an unreasonable one. We take it only because we must. In that sense, our commitments may be unrealistic and unreasonable, but we have little choice in the matter. Either we make an unfair, unrealistic or unreasonable commitment, or we do not get our tuition money. We gamble that we will have a better shot at life with an education, so we take the bet. In this sense, we make commitments in many cases because the relationship is skewed: The powerful party sets the terms, and we must follow.

Not all commitments reflect unequal commercial relationships. Emotional commitments, for instance, do not strictly involve money. Nonetheless, emotional commitments are just as unrealistic and unreasonable as financial commitments. Commitments are commitments, no matter the subject matter. They ask us to defy inevitable, unforeseen changes in life. In emotional commitments, changes can strike from the outside. But more often they originate in human weakness and inconstancy. Human beings’ tastes and desires vacillate as violently as the weather. When two people commit to each other emotionally, they play a dangerous game. They gamble that one or the other will not develop affections for anyone else at any time. They gamble that one or the other will not suffer injury or lose interest in the relationship at any time. They gamble that external pressures will not cause emotional rifts between them.

As was true in financial commitments, these are losing bets. Human beings are weak. They lust for others, no matter what commitments they have made to their mates. Their circumstances change over time, altering the way they look at their partners. The same goes for the other partner. Human beings do what makes them feel happy, not what enables them to fulfill their word. Naturally, this makes emotional commitments extremely difficult to maintain. After all, if the only thing maintaining an emotional relationship is the abstract desire to “keep one’s word” at the expense of happiness, it does not take a psychiatrist to understand that the bond will soon break. The quest for happiness is individual, not joint. It changes with time and circumstances. That leaves a lot of room for mischief in a “committed relationship.” In short, a lot can go wrong over time between two individual people who each want to be happy in their own way. That is why emotional commitments are just as unrealistic and unreasonable as financial commitments. No matter the subject matter, commitments defy change and time. That is why they are losing propositions.

I am certain that readers will find my premise here too pessimistic. My rhetoric might lead readers to think that I have no faith in commitments. This is not entirely true. I think that some commitments can work, and I admire people who adhere to their word no matter what curveballs life throws at them. Honor and commitment do go hand in hand; honorable people do what they promise. But in many cases honor has less to do with it than blind fortune. Some people live relatively changeless lives. Some people do not regularly suffer terrible upheavals or reversals. Some people make plans and no intervening events foil them. They can fulfill their commitments without complaint because nothing bad happens in the meantime. Is it honorable that they fulfill their word? Certainly. Nonetheless, they benefited from stability and changelessness. They could be honorable because nothing forced their hand. We cannot all be so lucky. Our choices do not always define our path in life. Sometimes we suffer reversals and hardship even if we make all the right moves. By contrast, sometimes everything turns out well even if we repeatedly make asinine decisions. Change affects us all differently. And that is really what determines whether we can fulfill commitments.

Honor means that we adhere to principle no matter the circumstances. It means that we take our commitments seriously. I like to think that I have honor. But I won’t deny that life has its own plan. More often than not, life interrupts our plans, alters our values and forces us to change our assumptions. We see things differently from year to year. And sometimes one year will deal us a disaster that fundamentally disrupts everything we thought was true about life. Time poses these challenges to us all. Thus, while it is good to have honor and to adhere to our word, I do not think it is wrong to modify our commitments when life chops the foundations out from under us. There is nothing honorable or spectacular about adhering to commitments when the very reason for those commitments has vanished. In fact, that would be unreasonable.

Yet honor wields a bothersome mystique. It tells us to feel guilty when we must abandon our word, even if life forces our hand in the matter. But should we feel guilty about reneging on a commitment that was unfair and unrealistic in the first place? Or are we to blame for making the commitment to start? At this point, I cannot ignore power. All too often we make commitments under pressure; and powerful parties use our own honor against us to make us feel bad about failing to live up to their unfair conditions. When we give our word to do something under unfair disadvantages, I do not think it dishonorable to renege if we lose the rigged game.

Of course, the law sees it differently. And the house always wins. “You made a commitment....we don't care what happened to you. Tough luck."

But for the grace of God go we all.