Which Do You Hear, the Messenger, or the Message?

One of the things about human nature I've noticed is how often people will hear a messenger, but not the message. That is to say, what is being said seems less important to the listener than who is saying it or how it's said (or both).

When evaluating information coming to us, there are preconceptions people place on those providing the information. This prejudges the information, deeming what is being said to be valid or invalid simply because of who is speaking. Even the manner of delivery will have an impact on whether anyone bothers to listen to what's being said.

This proclivity becomes especially pronounced in politics. If the person saying things (regardless of the "things" being said) has a bad "presence", poor speaking voice, odd appearance or a history of saying/doing really odd things, the listeners will not hear what's being said. They'll focus on the oddities, the things that bother them, rather than on the words coming out of the speaker's mouth.

This is, of course, a two-edged sword. A "bad" politician will be unable to sway a crowd with presence/appearance/voice alone. But a "good" politician won't have to say anything memorable, relevant or factual provided s/he says it in a manner that is presentable, visually appealing and appeals to the aural needs of the crowd.

A few years ago in the late fall, during a commemoration of fallen war dead, a tall, awkward-looking, soft-voiced man stood up and spoke for a few minutes. He followed several speakers who orated with great passion and at length, to the delight of the crowd. There were several reporters covering the event. Barely anyone noticed what was being said by this tall, awkward-looking man and only one reporter out of dozens jotted down the speech for posterity. It was a remarkably short speech.

The presentation of the speech was poor. Barely anyone noticed when it was being delivered. Few paused in their writing from the previous speaker's orations and several never heard it at all. But it became one of the most moving speeches in human history - only AFTER it was published where no one had to listen to the speaker or be distracted by the now utterly lost and irrelevant but well spoken orations of the others at that event.

The speech started out, "Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal..."

In this case, what was being said was FAR AND AWAY better than how it was said, or even who said it.

Sadly, in today's world, we are caught in a reality of sound bites. The three minutes it takes to recite the Gettysburg Address is too long for the attention span of news organizations who seem to think that quick, out-of-context or viciously short barbs and quips are actually relevant provided the right people say them. We are becoming less concerned about what people say, than how they say it or even who is saying it.

Politicians are great at rhetoric. All you need do to to get people cheering is to stand up on a stage, toss a bit of confetti in the air, drop some appropriately colored balloons and shout, "God Bless America!" in a well practiced, booming voice. But the "science" behind his goes a few steps further, and was touched upon in my "Rednecks" post.

Politicians never say insightful things today like Lincoln did 146 years ago. Today, politicians are strictly out to get elected. Lincoln was speaking to the future beyond the next election. In order to get elected, politicians now have talking points and each time, those points are changed slightly to accommodate the prejudices, sensibilities and expectations of the crowd. All of these talking points can be summed up with the phrase, "I believe in what you believe in, so vote for me."

It doesn't mean the politician is telling the truth.

At a Democratic rally, you'll hear politicians talking about protecting the environment, reducing military spending, increasing aid to the needy. At Republican rallies, you hear them talking about banning gay marriage and abortions, building a strong America with a strong military and bringing prayer back to schools. Both sides talk about fiscal responsibility (Yes, the liberals actually do that because to do otherwise would be to play to the stereotype). Both sides talk about doing the "will of the people" because "it's what Americans want!"

So you elect your liar of choice and what happens? Pretty much nothing. Neither side is willing to let the other side "win". One side's America isn't the other side's America. WHAT they said means nothing. It was all in the delivery. Next time you go to a political rally, LISTEN TO THE WORDS. The actual amount of meat (or meaning) in them wouldn't feed a hummingbird. Look at the crowd and judge for yourself if those words are just what they want to hear, or actually go beyond the moment (or at least beyond the coming election).

I don't expect politicians to be Mark Twain, Winston Churchill or Abraham Lincoln in what they say. Great oratory isn't written by the orators these days. Often times, great oratory isn't even written by anyone. It's all sound bites of quick, compact messages designed to influence you and convince you to vote for that guy (or gal). They don't move you so much as stick to you so that when you're in the voting booth, you vote for them in the hopes those sticky, icky bits of bites will FINALLY wash off.

And be forgotten.

With all the rhetoric out there in politics today, it's easy to get caught up in the stickiness of it all. But keep in mind, that stickiness is deliberate. They don't want you to remember what they said (god forbid they be held accountable for all of those promises!). They want to sell that feeling you had when you were cheering them (even if you weren't quite sure why you were doing that) long enough for you to go to the polls and vote for them.

At Gettysburg in 1863, when Lincoln finished his speech, there was a smattering of applause from the gathered dignitaries and reporters. That reception of his few minutes of speaking was almost silent compared to the cheers and applause which had punctuated the conclusions of the previous speaker's remarks. Lincoln thought what he had said was not liked or, worse, somehow insulting. The war between the states was a time of great passion, great emotion and great suffering. Our nation had been torn asunder by innate differences in how we viewed our fellow man and was poorly stitched back together by the imprecise, violent surgery of war without the benefit of anesthesia.

Over the years, that short speech, delivered so poorly by a man who would be assassinated fifteen months later because of the delusions of those who refused to accept the changes which had been wrought on the nation, has since resonated throughout American history. In the Boston Globe, on June 1st, 1865, a reporter wrote,

"Lincoln was mistaken that "the world will little note, nor long remember what we say here." Rather, the Bostonian remarked, "The world noted at once what he said, and will never cease to remember it. The battle itself was less important than the speech."

No one remembers what the other speakers said. It was a bunch of bombast, pomp and circumstances. To quote another man who was good with a phrase,

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Think about THAT the next time someone is speaking to you from a podium and inflames your passions about the things you think you believe in. Are those issues you're cheering about really that important? Or are you just so lost in the moment, you don't think about the future? Or, worse, do you even know why, or what, you're cheering?

The future is out there, and it's coming at us faster than you think. Next time you see a politician, LISTEN to what is being said. If you come away hungry, they're not saying enough. And if they're not saying enough now, there won't be enough from him when the future arrives.

Politics IS Religion

Let's face it, Politics in the U.S. is no longer about the secular world. It's all about religion.

Recall, now, that I define a religion as a set of dogmatic behaviors. Defining Politics as religion may be stretching this definition a bit, but if you consider the fact you can describe the behaviors of a conservative as well as a liberal within a fairly narrow boundary for each, and that each side is moving to push their people to abide within those boundaries, and that the boundaries are becoming even more restrictive, politics become less about government and the running thereof and more about religion.

There is definitely a belief system involved here. It's already been pretty conclusively proven that neither extreme of the political spectrum (conservative and liberal) has ANY answers. They've moved out of range of actually solving any problems with the party planks they've acquired over the last couple of decades. When people believe in things that can't really happen, you start moving into the realm of religion as well. Though beliefs don't qualify something as a religion in my book (Behaviors do, remember), they definitely have the same area code. And when those beliefs move into the impossible (or extremely improbable), then we're looking at shared zip codes.

Another reason why politics is a religion is because of the reason the effort is put into it. And the reason is secular power. Though one could argue that there is no religious basis for politics, that it's all about social issues and the way governments run, let's look at it from the flip side. Organized religions are all about secular power. They brow-beat their followers with dogmatic platforms demanding compliance to a certain behavioral code. Belief is only a by-product and, in the end, isn't really necessary. Provided the followers go through the motions and say the right things, they "believe" in the eyes of others, whether they actually do or not. Further, while religions have long since insinuated themselves into social issues, more and more lately they've inserted themselves into how governments run as well. The language of government is fraught with religious symbolism and ideology.

All of this describes a political rally, although I'm inclined to say that at a political rally, the followers are far more likely to believe in their nonsense than someone in a church.

And what that nonsense has the same impact: That is to say regardless of who's in power, nothing really changes. The progressives try to move forward while the conservatives try to move backward. There may be some movement at times while one or the other is in "power", but the fact remains that as much as the progressives move forward while in power, the conservatives move backward. Like a religion, it doesn't matter what you believe politically because the end result is always the same - nothing changes, no one new is converted, no one who believes stops believing.

Finally, and most telling of them all, is the fact that politics includes violence against others to force them to "behave" the same way as those inflicting the violence. Religion is fraught with examples of coerced conversions. Politics is fraught with the same thing.

Pundits exhort their rabid fans in vague terms (which in reality can only be interpreted one way) to go out and save the country from the bad guys (who are invariable the politically polar opposite of them). The violent imagery involved in these exhortations is subtle, but apparent to those who have a discerning eye or are too simple-minded to understand that the images aren't meant to be taken literally. While cause and effect isn't always linear, the fact remains that political rhetoric, passing off politics as a religion that is to be followed with no questions and no resistance and to call those who don't the enemy who should be "targeted", is widespread and that people have died who were targeted because of their differing political ideology.

This puts politics down there with religion. The only difference I can see is that unlike religion, with politics, the people vote for who their gods will be.

A Time-Out for Time-Outs

As usual, this idea is controversial, especially if you believe in the New Age idea of molly-coddling children. If you have a mass-produced bumper sticker on the back of your car that lauds your child's completely irrelevant and minor scholastic achievements, and you read this, you will probably think I'm utterly barbaric. You're probably right, but then, that's the whole reason for this post.

Here's the reason for the post: I DO believe in child abuse.

Let me rephrase that so the politically correct types can stop hyperventilating in preparation for an apoplectic fit of yuppie rage.

I believe that the responsible application of corporal punishment on children for offenses which merit criminal punishment in adults is both a more effective and more suitable deterrent to the possibility of re-offending than the current method of punishment of using "time outs" and the restriction of other privileges.

Lying, cheating, stealing, fighting, public disturbances, talking back; all of these are offenses at some place for an adult for which a civil or criminal penalty is imposed. Most kids these days will get a "time out" for them. Most kids will then re-offend and do the same thing. If, as an adult, you're getting back-talk from a five year old, something is wrong with this picture.

Let's look at child-rearing, then and now, and explode a few myths along the way. This might help put things in proper perspective.

Back when I was growing up (a time somewhat after the last Ice Age, before the Computer Age, when Leave It To Beaver, Gilligan's Island and Star Trek - the one with William Shatner as captain of the Enterprise - weren't in reruns), kids played outside with toys that sparked imagination. The term "helicopter parenting" wouldn't appear for at least four decades and a Bush was household shrubbery. No one talked much about the latest kidnapping, rape and murder of children (though, actually, it happened more often then than now). No one had GPS and cell phones to keep track of their little darlings. School officials were allowed to beat the living crap out of you if you got out of line. (okay, okay, they could spank you - but if you saw my Assistant Principle you knew that if he were to spank you, your odds of survival were the same as those of the proverbial snowball in Hell). While some places had kids acting out, for the most part, schools were gun-free, knife-free and generally well ordered. Crime, for my generation, started a decline. The criminals were people who were either over-the-top abused or were never spanked.

Then we enter into the age of the Time Out.

Now we have children in gangs (lots more gang activity today than back then). We have a new way of teaching everyone that everyone wins in school, when in real life, practically no one wins and no one gets out alive. If someone acts out, they get a "time out" which is a period of not too unpleasant boredom to "think about what they did". What they actually think about is how not to get caught the next time. Corporal punishment was removed from schools and as a result, metal detectors and police were installed in its place. But with the plethora of entertainment devices a child has today, even if they're sent to their rooms, it's not like that's all that much of a punishment. Sitting them in a corner is no more effective than being bored on a Sunday afternoon.

You see, my generation didn't enjoy getting the crap beaten out of us (well, that's how we thought of it at least). We were thinking way too short-term. We felt the pain and thought to ourselves, "Isn't there a better, more enlightened way to direct a child's behavior than by inflicting pain?" We vowed never to beat our kids because we were beaten. But we never really thought about the consequences of our beatings on our behaviors. For the most part, we grew up to be fine examples of modern society. We may have thought of it as having done it in spite of the way punishment was meted out to us. Few ever stopped to consider the probability it was BECAUSE of the punishment meted out to us.

Yes, it was unpleasant, but it was memorable. VERY memorable. And in that is the key to punishment. Is a "time out" memorable? Let's put it this way, if you were ever standing around on a Sunday afternoon, say around three fifteen in the afternoon between games on TV and after mowing the lawn, with nothing to do, you're experiencing the exact same thing as some kid who is sitting in a time-out. I know I can think of a time or two when I was bored, but what kind of an impact does that make on my desire or willingness to break a law (or rule, transgression, etc)?

Pretty much none. It wasn't memorable. It was boring, yes, but it wasn't a trial of any kind. There was no lasting impression made from a time-out.

But a paddling?

Talk to anyone with gray hair. Almost universally, they'll remember being paddled, spanked or in some other way physically touched in order to inflict a mild to moderate amount of pain with no permanent physical harm. And if done right, it will be not only memorable, but effective as well.

This segues nicely into the fact that getting spanked has a right way and a wrong way. The wrong way is to haul off and beat the crap out of a kid the instant the transgression happens. Yes, it's viscerally satisfying on a deep, emotional level to strike at the source of one's irritation, but a civilized society usually refrains from such indulgences. The best way to beat the crap out of a kid so that it is a lesson that is memorable and effective (preferably without requiring a doctor's visit or hospitalization) as opposed to abuse is to be calm, be timely, be consistent, have rules and explain what's happening, when and why.

So, step 1. Rules.

A child can't know when they've broken rules unless they know the rules ahead of time. Ignorance of the rule is no excuse. So a wise parent will have rules and, just as importantly, punishments for breaking those rules. Make sure there's a "when in doubt" rule to cover all bases.

Now that the boundaries are laid, crossing them should always require a parental review. Was it justified? If so, the boundaries have to be moved. If not, it was a violation and punishment is required. That's the consistency part. Look over the transgression. Yes, kids will be kids. I really do get that. But kids need to learn the limits and what better way than to put an electric fence on it - make them stop, look, be very careful if they're going to cross that line and understand that if they screw up, they get zapped. Be consistent in applying the rules and don't be secretive about them.

Next, make punishment a BIG THING. A fast slap on the butt in the marketplace (aside from probably drawing the attention of Child Protection Services) isn't going to leave much of an impression on the child (no pun intended). But if you discover a transgression, treat it as if they're an adult. Depending on the severity of the transgression, place them under "arrest" with restrictions on toys, activities, privileges, etc. Sit them down in a trial. Tell them what they did wrong, why it was wrong, let them argue their case and show them the error of their ways. Then pronounce sentence. Let them think about THAT for a bit. Finally, commence with the bea..., er, spanking, in a calm, measured, dispassionate way. Do not tell them that it hurts you more than it hurts them. They won't believe you. Do not sympathize with them. The lesson won't be learned properly.

When it's over, don't hold grudges.

The point here is that if a punishment isn't memorable, what's to stop a kid from doing it again and again? If there's too much punishment, it becomes difficult for a child to know what's right and wrong. Not every transgression merits a spanking, of course. Every child is different, as well, so one must know whether physical pain, administered in a measured, controlled fashion will be the most effective deterrent to that child's case of bad behavior.

And if you don't have the kind of time to do this, you should give your kids up for adoption. They need parents, not playmates.

Now, as much as I believe in child abuse for kids, I believe even stronger that such punishments should extend to adults. Only with adults instead of safely tucking it away behind prison walls where only whispered stories of various levels of truth leak out from time to time in specials designed to show how awful it is in them, we need to be public, open and visually brutal.

Adults aren't children. They generally don't live to please an authority figure. They have a greater ability to rationalize away criminal behaviors. Adults are capable of a level of brutality far exceeding that of children. Meeting this brutality with a controlled brutality is the only way to mete out a punishment of sufficient intensity to be memorable in such a way that one would NOT wish to experience it again. I think public floggings for relatively minor offenses which would normally merit a jail sentence should be the norm. The number of strokes would depend on the offense. It should be administered by a machine (for the sake of consistency and safety) which is physically constrained from exceeding a safe "per-stroke" level of force. A medic should be on hand to ensure that no permanent damage is done (aside from the potential of scarring unless a scar-free way of flogging someone can be found).

Why flogging? Because it's visual, visceral and brutal. It's MEMORABLE, both for those who undergo it and those who witness it. And it's not an experience one would wish to repeat.

While we're on the subject, I'm NOT an advocate of the Death Penalty. Yes, it gets rid of unwanted vermin, but sometimes they throw out the baby with the trash - innocent people HAVE been executed in the US. That's very bad juju. Instead, I advocate a "Prison TV" channel for people who would otherwise have been executed. Every prison should have their own station, which the viewer can access and control, to watch what happens to a lifer in a prison. No privacy. No escape. Public humiliation. It's been proven that the death penalty isn't a deterrent. But maybe something like this will satisfy society's desire for vengeance.

One thing for sure: It's memorable.

The fact is, the criminals of today's society need a good spanking. If it's memorable enough, painful enough and embarrassing enough, it may have more of an impact than the way we punish criminals today.

Okay, the yuppie, new-age, easily bruised sensibilities people can now go and have some white Zin and tofu cakes and get on with your lives. Keep repeating to yourselves, "It's only a blog... It's only a blog... It's only a blog..."

Forgiveness - It's Why We Fight

It struck me recently (yes, it hurt) that humans don't forgive and that lack of forgiveness drives our societies, religions and politics.

Our histories are rife with acts of revenge, blood feuds and grudges held against a people, families or tribes that can last centuries. In some cultures, such demands of vengeance are considered honorable and good. People don't avoid it, they embrace it. We as a people seek revenge instead of justice, demanding not just that biblical limit of only an eye for an eye and only a tooth for a tooth (yes, folks, it's a call for restitution, not bloody retribution - Exodus 21:22-25. And Matthew 5:38-48 says to turn the other cheek anyhow.), but to take the whole body (and then some) for incidents that aren't even criminal in some cases.

Remember the Alamo! Remember Pearl Harbor! Remember the Maine! Remember 9/11!

All of these have been used as rallying cries to inflict harm and damage on people who had nothing to do with the atrocities mentioned. It wasn't uncommon for prisoners to be shot, so the Alamo had no survivors. Pearl Harbor was a strategic mistake in many ways, but would it have made any difference if the Japanese had managed to declare war before the attack? Germany didn't attack us and look what happened there. Millions of Japanese civilians who had nothing to do with the war died. Investigations have since determined that the Maine probably blew up due to a coal dust explosion, but a lot of Spaniards who had nothing to do with it died because of our seeking revenge for it. And 9/11... It was used as a political excuse to go to war with a country we didn't have to fight, resulting in well over a million casualties and countless more people seeking vengeance.

Our tendency to fight first, understand later is what makes humans so dangerous. We kill in haste, repent at leisure, but the problem is that those we kill are often not responsible for what happened to us. And they knew people who hold grudges over friends being killed for something that friend didn't necessarily do. If we throw in the tendency to rationalize our violence (like convince ourselves that because the people who flew planes into the twin towers and the Pentagon were Middle Eastern Muslims that all Middle Eastern Muslims are dangerous and should be exterminated before they do the same to us again), we end up going far and away beyond the eye for an eye concept. When the fact that those being killed have the same reaction to being killed as we do (because to them, they're perfectly justified in killing us) the violence never ends.

Look at the Palestine/Israel conflict. The damned thing's been going on for 62 years. The conflict has raised the stakes so that now, even if the Palestinians got a "home" and all demands on both sides were met, the violence would not end because both sides carry grudges.

This is the essential nature of mankind: Vengeance, revenge, retribution. Making someone hurt and pay for what they did to you. There is no INHERENT goodness in man. There is only the caveman hunched by a fire with a sharpened stick waiting for the tribe from which he stole one of their women to come after him and wipe out his tribe because of it - then kill the woman he stole because she was no longer "pure".

Sound familiar?

Here's the funny thing: We LOVE this stuff. We can't get enough of it. How many movies, books, stories and such are based on the simple concept of over-kill in retaliation for a wrong? We sacrifice horny teens by the gory score at summer blockbusters just to build up the concept that an entity (or person) is bad and deserves to die. While this would be fine in the normal scope of things, the simple fact is humans DON'T KNOW WHEN TO STOP. In real life, if that entity or person was slaughtered in an imaginative and sufficiently gory way, attention would then turn on their friends, associates, family members, religion and/or workplace. How many times has it happened that innocents suffer for what someone they know did?

Way more times than is comfortable to think about.

Let's face it, mankind doesn't WANT to forgive transgressions against it. No one ever believes themselves to be in the wrong. Even if they know they are, they deny it. So they fight, and maim and kill all in the name of righteous retribution for a transgression against them - be it real or imagined. The ridiculous lengths to which we go over this kind of thing is beyond imagination, but sadly not beyond reality.

How many sports fans have attacked and killed other sports fans for what a member of or a whole team did? How many Muslims died in protest over the depiction of their Prophet and how many of them wanted to see the entire West die because of it? An accident in one household can lead to murder in another. There is an inherent lack of perspective when it comes to events such as this that we are not willing to embrace. We seek the "noble cause", the "righteousness of our cause" or some other high-minded rationalization to justify our basic desire to kill people over what we see as harm. Politicians and religious leaders have played on this concept for so long, it is part of our culture and mindset. It's not like we're going to be able to change that anytime soon.

Now, I'm not advocating that we all take a Christian point of view about forgiveness. After all, reality doesn't work that way in the first place and in the second, not everyone can stomach the Christian morality. Forgiveness isn't about saying, "What you did was bad but I forgive you." Real, true human forgiveness should be about saying something to the effect of, "I won't take it out on people who aren't responsible, and once you are punished for what you have done, I won't hold a grudge."

Be aware that, in the human mind, the balance of scales regarding acts demanding revenge are skewed. Therefore, it's necessary to seek a proportionate punishment for the act on the individuals actually responsible for the act. This is the root of the beginning to understand real human forgiveness. It's a forgiveness that is realistically attainable for most people which can help contain the mindless, directionless violence that often accompanies vengeful acts.

Mankind will never give up the desire to seek retribution. At least not anytime in the next few thousand years. But a "civilized" species can learn to moderate that desire for revenge by acquiring some perspective and spending a lot of time in anger management lessons.

We COULD, I suppose, get into a long, involved discussion about "justice" as an alternative to revenge, but let's face it, revenge balances the scales in the mind of the one seeking revenge. Justice is strictly something society does and really doesn't address an individual's harm. Learning "forgiveness" is the simple act of seeking a revenge that balances the scales in proportion to the act being avenged and then moving on without letting the original act consume your life or bringing others into the picture.

Forgiveness: Proportionate revenge with the perspective of an outsider.

Now let's examine the proper application of this idea, since in religions we get a lot of rules without a lot of ideas in exactly how to go about this in real life.

To begin with, let's quantify what we're talking about: Personal harm should be defined only as acts intentionally directed at you specifically intended to inflict emotional, physical or mental damage. If it isn't personal harm, let it go.

First of all, examine the act. This is the anger management part. Were you hurt? Was property damaged? Was there any lasting harm to you? If not, get over it. You only have one shot at this life. Filling it up with petty garbage from slights and insults that have done nothing to you will only screw up your life and I'm sure you have better things to do than to have your life screwed up by something which did you no personal harm.

Always think first. Not about how many tiny bloody bits you can carve someone into, but about what happened in proportion to what you want to do. Did someone in another land do something you don't like? Did it hurt you personally? If so, how much? Is it righteous indignation you feel? Let that go. Others don't share your faith and if you don't respect their right to have a different one, you don't deserve to have your faith respected by others, either. Did they disrespect your faith? Fine, let them. If you think your faith can't handle the disrespect of others, then you need to find a stronger faith. Their disrespect for your faith doesn't hurt you or your faith. Are they killing you over your faith? Go for the ones who are doing the killing, not the ones you think have the same faith.

The point here is that what you believe is personal harm usually isn't. The other point is that you need to know who is actually responsible for inflicting that personal harm because it's usually not the ones you hurt back.

Stop and think about things, folks. That's how to implement this whole concept. Revenge is a dish best served cold and you can't do that when you're enraged. Once you cool off, you may realize that it wasn't an act deserving of any retribution at all. I don't advocate forgiveness as a free pass. Human nature demands punishment for acts that cause harm. But we do need to learn some perspective about what we think is harm and be proportionate in seeking any retribution. We don't swat flies with shovels or spank babies with axes. Why do we do that kind of thing when it comes to revenge? Perspective and proportion. Those are realistic interim behavioral goals that humans can actually achieve on our paths of spiritual exploration and evolution. Rome wasn't built in a day. Human instincts have had millions of years of evolution to get to this point and only thousands of years to get used to civilized behavior.

As for me, I think about revenge a lot, but my personal philosophy doesn't let me seek retribution without incurring grievous harm on myself. For the most part, I let the universe sort it out. It takes patience but it keeps the dry cleaning bills removing blood stains to a minimum.

Beating Mind Games: Why Johnny Will Never Be A Genius

This post will probably offend a lot of people, but if you can get past the resentment (mine and yours), I think the point is both valid and one needing to be addressed.

As someone with an above average IQ (Okay, WAY above average and yes, I've been tested.), I find the fact that geniuses are universally hated and reviled, bullied and put upon to be rather depressing. Let's face it, we as a nation, revere strength and physical power over brains and mental agility. The former are muscular bad-boys with good looks who are glorified on the field of combat (well, sports fields in mock-combat) while the latter are bespectacled, acne-scarred social misfits relegated to musty, dark rooms, pouring over stacks of moldy old tomes in the search of something the stereotype will typically say is relevant only to the searcher. The former gets the girl and his face on magazines until he's too old for ESPN. The latter gets the Nobel Prize, and pretty much complete obscurity after that.

People call geniuses social misfits (at best), mock them, deride them, insult them and yet without them - that top 10% of brain-power among human kind - civilization as we know it would cease to exist. Without the thinkers, the doers could only do so much. In warfare, if you eliminate the planners, the army can't fulfill its role and is eventually defeated by the side with planners. Better planners will win over poorer planners.

In schools, mediocrity is ENCOURAGED, if not enforced, by the social structure. The person who skews the average by actually learning the material better than anyone else is vilified and outcast from the rest. Never mind that they are more likely to make more money, be more successful in life and have the last laugh at the 20 year reunion, they're hated by their peers all their lives. Given this proclivity in our social expectations and traditions, it's hardly any wonder that they tend to form intellectual clubs.

Geniuses tend to group with other geniuses because, finally, there is a new peer group that actually understands what's being said as well as one in which the peer group has a mutual understanding of the life experiences of others in that group. They don't talk football stats or which steroid is least likely to turn one's testicles into useless raisins. They talk Cobal, or Klingon, or Chemistry. Like everyone else, they have mutual interests. Unlike everyone else, those interests have little or nothing to do with physical prowess (except in sex, but that's just the human condition of wanting what you can't get).

The similarities between the two groups - the physicals and the geniuses - are numerous. It is the mentality of the two which is so vastly different. Geniuses think. Their activities involve brain-work. Physicals do. Their activities involve muscle work or relatively mindless entertainment. Because of this mentality gap, the two groups don't relate well to one another. And because of the fact there are ten physicals to every genius, general society is made up of physicals who take a dim view to thinking.

Now, least you think this is a skewed perception consider this: The person most likely to get beaten to a pulp in school is above average in IQ. The evil character is almost always portrayed as an "evil genius". Even "Brainiac" was an outcast among the super heroes. Politicians especially do NOT want an educated, smart electorate. God forbid they have one because then they'd actually have to come through with their campaign promises. People would remember them. They'd also have to stay on their best behaviors, because educated people aren't about second chances when these elected officials screwed up so badly the first time. They can't lie to them (smart people actually bother to check snarky things like facts and figures, starting with the hypothesis that most politicians are lying in the first place in some way). They can't twist the truth (for the same reason). Smart people are usually smarter than the politicians.

And so, because society, and their leaders, are generally made up of physical types whose brain-power is less than equal to those of the geniuses, they make life very hard on the geniuses. Everything reflects the bias against being smart, against being well educated, and against having a point of view that differs from what these physical types have decided is 'normal'. Mediocrity is the goal. If excellence is to be seen, it must be a physical feat because they can see it. Mental feats require people to understand what they were, why they were done and how it may effect them. That requires thinking on the part of society in general and, as we have already established, society in general isn't really cut out for that kind of thing.

"ELITIST!!!" you scream.

"Damn straight," I reply mildly.

Consider this: Most of you will never understand quantum relationships or how faster than light communication is not only possible, but is being tested now.

No amount of ditch digging, wrestle-mania, pro-sports or any other physical act is going to make this register in the minds of most people. These who can't conceive of such notions are the people who deny global warming, believe in politicians or political pundits as if those people are saying or going to do anything other than what it takes to get elected and generally go around beating up the very people who actually understand what's going on. Let's face it, most of you don't understand the technology you use every day - even the exact means necessary for you to read these words on your screen are little more than a vague notion that it's "like TV". (It isn't, by the way. It may look like a duck and quack like a duck, but it's not a duck.)

Now, it's not that you HAVE to understand these things. You don't. You're probably a doer (though one could argue that doers are out doing and thinkers are out thinking, and most people who bother to read are thinkers, which means this blog post is being read by the wrong people, but isn't it nice to have someone who understands your plight and is willing to put it out there?). Doers have to do.

Yet it's up to the thinkers to invent this technology, find those medical cures, design those buildings and cars and motorcycles and sports safety equipment. I'll bet most people could name the winner of last year's world series (or who's in the playoffs this year) than can say who discovered Penicillin which has saved more lives than will ever WATCH those games. (Just so you don't have to Google it, Alexander Flemming is credited with the discovery in 1928, and awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1945 which he shared with two others who helped him develop the antibiotic from the penicillin mold. Ian Flemming (no relation) invented James Bond. The two Flemmings are often mistaken for the same person.)

So while doers make the world go around, it's the thinkers that enable them to keep it spinning, making things faster, better, stronger for everyone. We each have our roles to play in the grand scheme of things and the thinkers recognize this. It would be nice if the doers were less inclined to beat the crap out of the thinkers, though. Just because you don't understand it, doesn't mean it's bad. We know you don't like change or new things. But we're thinkers. That's what we do. We make things better and by doing so, change the old things. You are doers. You will learn to do with the new better than you did with the old. Just take a deep breath, let it out slowly, follow the instructions (I admit we thinkers could write them so you can actually understand them better) and you'll be fine.

In the meantime, buy a thinker or two a beer. After all, it was a thinker who invented the stuff in the first place...

We are our brother's killer - 06/16/2007

Mankind can't get along.

This is a relatively sweeping statement, but in essence it's true. Oh, sure, various groups can get along most of the time, and the majority tend to go about their business without resorting to lethal levels of violence, but on the whole, Mankind will never get along.

Why do I say this? Because Mankind is made up of individuals and individuals don't always get along with everyone else. Any group of individuals (defined as three or more people) will sub-divide into another, smaller group in SOME way. Ultimately, someone will be left standing alone, either by preference or by group design. This doesn't necessarily mean that these sub-divided groups are all mutually hostile to each other - after all, they ARE part of a larger group - but the fact that they do sub-divide into groups with non mutual views shows the inherent fragmentation that is a natural instinct of Humanity.

Even if you can find someone who gets alone with EVERYONE, not everyone else will get along with them. Hence the problem persists.

Insofar as mutual cooperation goes, people CAN get together for short times to cooperate toward a mutually desired goal. But after that, things always fall apart. And given the wide range of human behaviors, it's inevitable that some will resort to violence. The question is, WHY?

No one will ever get along with everyone else all of the time. This means that no matter how much violence you apply toward one group to get them to cooperate, there will be individuals in that group who violently oppose mutual cooperation. But since it's much easier to be violent than it is to find the ways and means of mutual cooperation (including tolerating one another's non-violent, but differing behaviors), violence will persist as the first choice of action for those who oppose mutual cooperation.

Now, the key word here is 'mutual'. Mutual cooperation. This doesn't mean that one side wins and another side must cooperate with the first side. This means both sides (or all sides, regardless of numbers) find common ground in which their differences can be tolerated. But that takes too much effort and even if it's found, some swinging dick in some group is going to find something intolerable about it and do something violent about it.

So the fact is, that though the vast majority of us can actually find something upon which we can mutually agree, there will always be fringe groups who can't, and will express their displeasure over the situation violently. Will it change the situation? No. Governments can be swayed. People can't. And until we all learn that people hold the power, and learn how to deal with people, we are all going to be our brother's killer.