Friday, March 1, 2024

Forgiveness Note

In the middle of the night, surfing the web looking for something else, I came across something I wrote and forgot in 2008. These reflections about forgiveness may some day be helpful for someone struggling to forgive someone or come to terms with injustice to themselves or others about which they know. Forgiveness is the most challenging of all Christian ideas.

I finally got around to following up this comment thread. Thanks for the promo!

You raise the central question: Should one forgive in the midst of the ongoing unrepentant practice of evil?

If we use Christ as our model his dying words suggest exactly that. "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

Thankfully I no longer work for him, but for nearly twenty-seven years I was subordinate to one of the meanest men in the company for which we worked. Without going into detail, it is sufficient to say that he was known by one and all to be insulting, sarcastic, abusive and unaccountably indifferent to the feelings of others. He kept his job because he was knowledgeable and well-organized...and his father was well-placed. Anyway, at one particularly stressful point a sympathetic customer who knew the situation said something helpful: "It will build your faith," she said. And she was correct.

I thought about that a lot as the years went by, and I had to forgive this man, sometimes several times a day, for what he said and did. In time I came to feel sorry for him, much the same way one feels sorry for any of God's pitiful creatures. I learned in time actually to defend him when talking about him with others, despite his ungrateful, relentless verbal and psychological abuse. (It was some comfort knowing that he was not just picking on me. He was that way to everyone at one time or another, scapegoating or insulting them for situations over which they had no control.)

You put your finger on the dynamic in your post. We forgive, not because of what forgiveness does for the perpetrator, but for what it does for us. When we fail to forgive we get infected with a corrosive, septic spiritual condition that poisons everything in life. All our senses are affected, and we can no longer hear, see, feel or experience life without distortion. For me, it is the same dynamic that makes me oppose capital punishment. The reason has more to do with what it does to me than what happens to the criminal. In the same way that capital punishment caused me as a citizen to become a perpetrator of evil, unforgiveness also transforms me into someone I know I don't want to be.

It's easier said than done, of course. But that's the best I can do in a comment thread.

I wrote about Leila Abu Saba at my first blog if anyone cares to know the backstory. She died of cancer shortly after this was written but thankfully some of her writing remains accessible, including this link to one of her several blogs.   This post is not linked to my social media platforms because some of my friends from the past will recognize the person about whom I wrote and I want to avoid conflict.


Sunday, February 11, 2024

Without Equality There's No Freedom

This story appeared in my "X" feed and received many moving responses.

Alon Mizrahi | without equality there's no freedom

Let me share with one of the most surreal and sobering moments of my life, that happened to me while I was an IDF soldier stationed in Gaza in at the end of 1992. That kind of moment could only happen to a Mizrahi, or Arab-jewish soldier. You'll see why I say it. And I could swear to you that every word of it is true. No embellishments, no filling in missing pieces of memory. All truth. - In the summer of 1992 I finished basic and some advanced infantry training, and my platoon was ready to partake in combat function, which really was just (same as for generation of young Israeli men and women before and after that) enforcement of Israel's occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The unit I was joining at this stage had under its responsibility (for purposes of overt occupation activities) the Al-Shati refugee camp and some of the adjacent Rimal neighborhood, on the northwestern part of the Strip. At the end of 1992, Israel's leadership decided that the (Zionist and brilliant) solution for the growing discontent, or resistence, in the Strip, was removing 400 Hamas 'leaders' from Gaza and sending them into exile in Lebanon. As many of those Hamas figures lived in and around the area designated for my unit to handle, we were appointed with making dozens of arrests, or maybe hundreds (Israel would always arrest additional people for more information, as a form of pressure and to prevent an eruption of a violent reaction). For weeks in November of 1992 I would spend whole nights of my very young life walking from house to house in the dead of night in Gaza, knocking on doors, threatening family members of missing wanted people and handing over those who were home to the representatives of the security services, who were always with us, and always in plain cloths. As part of my service there, I was in hundreds of Palestinians homes in Gaza, many of them during that month of endless nocturnal search and arrest hours. Some nights we would take in 10 different people from same numbers of homes. - I was too young and shocked to understand anything, though it was clear to me that this was not the hero's service fighting evil I spent the months and years before joining the IDF hoping for and fantasizing about. Those people in Gaza were normal in a way that no part of me could align with evil. And I could never bring myself to become that natural lord and master that colonial and racist regimes always expect their soldiers and cops to be. I was too soft. - The people we took in never cried, begged for forgiveness or claimed it was a mistake. They would climb up and sit in the military vehicle with their hands tied behind their backs and their eyes covered in a kind of quiet that was more thunderous, more painful for me to remember all those years later, than any other act would be. - One man in particular I remember. A big, sombre man in his 30', who looked untouchable in a big, thick black coat. But as he sat in the military vehicle with his hands tied behind his back his coat slipped over his shoulders, revealing a tank top and a body and skin that did not look invincible, or untouchable. He was human. And he sat there, staring into space, in total quiet. Back then I had no idea where these men were taken, and what was going to be unleashed upon them. Only many years later did I discover how extensive Israel's use of torture was, and how horrible.
But the big, somber, fragile man sat there, quiet, and, like any other Palestinian I saw in this situation, with what I can best describe as dignity in brokenness, that was astonishing. I have never seen anyone with more dignity in my life than a hand-tied, eyes-covered Palestinian detainee. - Towards the end of those weeks of knocking on doors and arresting people, one morning, around 7AMm after a long long bight, that moment happened to me. It was something that I never forgot and never will forget. It was the last arrest for that night, which already becade day. We stood there, a small band of soldiers, and knocked on the door of what looked like a well built, well kept house. It was not fancy, but it surely not the house of poor people. We waited for someone to come and open the door. After a minute or so, someone did. If you ever felt like reality around you had its fundamentals twisting and changing, or like the layer of meaning that enveloped reality was torn, revealing another layer of deeper meaning, but in a way that makes you dizzy and dumbfounded - if you know that feeling you'll know what I went through that moment. Because the person that opened that door at that house that morning in Gaza was my very own and only sister. The door opened and the actual, precise, living and breathing image of my sister, identical as any identical twin ever was, stood in the doorway. It was her face. her expression, her hair, her highet, her age, her build, her movement, her skin tone accurate to the 1000th degree. I didn't know what was going on, or what kind of insane trick was being played on me. I gasped, lost for words. I stood a meter away from her, and my very wanted to call her by my sister's name. - Not long after this, after that whole period, I started cracking. I could not take it anymore, though I never could tell myself what it was that I couldn't take. I went to see a psychologist and got restationed to a non-combat unit. It took me many years to start to appreciate the damage done to me by what I was sent to do and see in Gaza. I don't think that even today I have completely processed it. - She stood at the door and was a little puzzled, bot not panicked. She was wiping the floor, and it was still wet. A bucket with a rug in it stood by. It was a clean house, with a shining clean floor. The officer told her to get out and speak to us from street level, as the house was one stair up from that. But the street was dirty and sandy, and she couldn't bring herself to step outside barefoot. Her foot (my sister's foot) ventured out for a second, not actually stepping, just hovering, but then was drawn in. The officer pretended to not notice. He didn't insist, and she remained inside. By not insisting and not becoming violent, I think, he saved my actual sanity, and never knew it.

Monday, January 15, 2024

The Tame Geese -- A parable by Søren Kierkegaard

This is a backup copy of something I blogged over a decade ago that was lost in my memory, not to mention that the link has also since gone dark.

The Tame Geese -- A parable by Søren Kierkegaard (by Søren Kierkegaard, from A Kierkegaard Anthology, edited by Robert Bretall, p. 433)

Suppose it was so that the geese could talk — then they had so arranged it that they also could have their religious worship, their divine service. 

Every Sunday they came together, and once of the ganders preached. 

The essential content of the sermon was: what a lofty destiny the geese had, what a high goal the Creator (and every time this word was mentioned the geese curtsied and the ganders bowed the head) had set before the geese; by the aid of wings they could fly away to distant regions, blessed climes, where properly they were at home, for here they were only strangers.

So it was every Sunday. And as soon as the assembly broke up each waddled home to his own affairs. And then the next Sunday again to divine worship and then again home — and that was the end of it. 

That was the end of it. For though the discourse sounded so lofty on Sunday, the geese on Monday were ready to recount to one another what befell a goose that had wanted to make serious use of the wings the Creator had given him, designed for the high goal that was proposed to him — what befell him, what a terrible death he encountered. This the geese could talk about knowingly among themselves. But, naturally, to speak about it on Sundays was unseemly; for, said they, it would then become evident that our divine worship is really only making a fool of God and of ourselves. 

Among the geese there were, however, some individuals which seemed suffering and grew thin. About them it was currently said among the geese: There you see what it leads to when flying is taken seriously. For because their hearts are occupied with the thought of wanting to fly, therefore they become thin, do not thrive, do not have the grace of God as we have who therefore become plump and delicate. 

And so the next Sunday they went again to divine worship, and the old gander preached about the high goal the Creator (here again the geese curtsied and the ganders bowed the head) had set before the geese, whereto the wings were designed. 

So with the divine worship of Christendom…

And a commentary...

Why didn't the geese fly?

After hearing and understanding such a powerful message about the opportunities available to them, they seemed to ignore it. They didn't fly home. The message made no impact on their lives. They continued to do what they had always done. They waddled home.

Why, when there were so many good reasons to change, didn't the geese fly?

It seems a part of the human condition that we don't always do what we know we should. We don't always act in our own best interest, even when we know better. In fact, we sometimes even deliberately do things that we know we are going to end up paying for in the long run. We might call this phenomenon the Amazing Action Anomaly. That is, people most often know what it is they should be doing but usually choose to ignore or act in contradiction to either their strongest instincts or to reality. Although, it makes no sense, we continue to waddle.

Tuesday, January 2, 2024

Reflections about Education

This is mostly a cut-and-paste copy of an 18-year old post from my old blog. Many of the hyperlinks have since gone dark and some obscure references are outdated but my views of education have changed very little. Perhaps some day one or more of my grandchildren will come across this post and find it interesting, especially the part about my maternal grandmother and her father.

 Mamacita and others on education

One of my jobs where I now work is dipping ice cream. (I was working in the dining room of a retirement community.) And one of the flavors is Moose Tracks. Don't ask me why, that name...maybe because moose leave huge lumps of stuff behind as they go tromping through the woods. Or maybe the dairy people, like the people who name real estate developments, just ran out of names one day. I dunno. Anyway, in moose tracks you sometimes dig around in the tub and come across a mother-lode of chocolate all in one piece, a semi-sweet chocolate boulder of chocolate magma than has to be broken a time or two to make room in the dipper for even a little vanilla ice cream. For the average ice cream aficionado it is a nice perq, but for the chocoholic, it is like waking up on Easter to find your basket packed with nothing but chocolate. No marshmallows. No circus peanuts. No jelly bird eggs. Just one chocolate treat after another.

I say all that to introduce three rich wellsprings of rich blogging all in one post. Nothing I write here (as you can see for yourself) will be anything like what they say themselves. They are The Anchoress, Siggy (short for Sigmund, Carl and Alfred), and Mamacita. Think of Siggy as a the most indulgent banana split you have ever been served, Mamacita as a big portion of Moose tracks on the side, and The Anchoress as a tall, frothy cup of gourmet coffee, not too much sugar, with a generous shot of Drambuie added.

These three converge on this occasion to discuss the sorry state of education in America. Since my own baby is pushing thirty and my grandchildren are a generation down the line, separated more by keyboards than books, I don't have personal credentials to speak with authority about what is happening in schools today. I'm sure it is as bad as they say, maybe worse. But I am more alarmed at the whole in loco parentis theme defining what now passes for education in the post-WWII era which has made the two-income family obligatory instead of optional. It is all well and good to say that the mission of school is to educate, not provide day-care. But that ideal is a distant dream for a lot, maybe a majority, of families. And the poisonous phrase single-parent family is not helping.

My own views on education have already been formed. I am open to whatever ideas might be added as time passes, but I cannot break free of the foundational importance of the family in determining the end result. There are good reasons for officials, authorities, politicians and other putative "leaders" and "role models" to offer guidance about what should and should not be included in a curriculum, but I have no confidence that any certified outline or syllabus can ever substitute for old-fashioned parental encouragement and support. I am careful to avoid using the word "involvement" because it is misleading. Involvement implies that a level of parental accomplishment that is commendable but not essential to the success of the process. How else would illiterate parents ever rear children who develop into physicians or physicists?

Only two days ago I came across a wonderful family treasure: a three-page letter, written in pencil toward the end of the nineteenth century. With two or three erasures and corrections, and a couple of repetitions that reveal that the writer was not accustomed to writing much of anything, it was a sincere written plea to my grandmother from her father to seek the advice of a well-educated Dr. McKee and his daughter regarding what might be the best course of study for her, my grandmother, to pursue in school. She was a college student in Ohio at the time and it was easy to spot her daddy's thinly-veiled concern that her interest in elocution and physical education might not serve her well in finding a "profitable position" when she got out of school. Having lost her mother, his wife, in childbirth, and his fortune by having sold the family estate to someone who paid him off in Confederate money, he was in no position to give his only child, being reared by relatives better able to feed and support her, much more than encouragement to seek the advice of others whom he respected.

Again I am reminded of my own great heritage, not of formal education, but of a family that valued the process of learning. Whatever educational achievement I have I attribute to that heritage more than any institution. And my guess is that most educated people, given enough time, would tell a similar story. Classrooms, instructors and others from academia would be an important part of the story, of course, but in the end there would be role models -- maybe not parents or family -- who became the linchpins of their success.

Tuesday, November 28, 2023

Hate and It's Children (January 2008)

"Hate and it's children" is a long-form stream of consciousness posted at my old blog about fifteen years ago. Much has changed since then including the disappearance of links and personalities as the appearance of Substack and podcasts replaces old-fashioned blogging. This backup enables me to add editorial adjustments since I have no control over the original Hootsbuddy's Place. 

This morning's post by The Anchoress is one of those treasures worth keeping, found on the shore of the ocean we call the blogworld. I'll get to that in a moment, but first I want to address a question someone asked me a few days ago.

I told one of my children who does graphic design work that for Christmas I wanted some cards, like business cards, that I could give to people I meet identifying my blog. A blog card, if you will, instead of a business card. She came up with a layout of ten to be printed on photo paper that I chop up into cards. I gave one to someone who asked what made me start blogging and I realized I didn't have an answer. Not a good one, anyway.

In the beginning there was a fantasy about becoming well-known as a sage or thinker, someone whose insights and opinions would be sought by those seeking clever or wise commentary about matters large and small. I admired the wit of James Lileks, sharp insights of Michelle Malkin, over-the-top excesses of Rachel Lucas, timely scoops from Matt Drudge, and catholic attention to the whole universe by Glenn Reynolds. I knew that Steven Den Beste and Bill Whittle were writing long pieces that were atypical of blogs generally, but even they had respectable followings. I could tell by the comment threads how people were perceived. This was before the TTLB ecosystem emerged as a gold standard for traffic and links. All I knew was that the ocean was out there and the water looked fine, so in I jumped.

I realized as time passed that the sites that had excited me most shared a common political undercurrent I had not noticed at first. I saw myself as a veteran of the Civil Rights movement, a child of the Sixties whose anti-war predilections led me to change my draft status to conscientious objector, later to be drafted as such to serve two years as an Army medic. Yet here I was, twenty or thirty years later, having gone into the world of business, serving as a manager and boss, attracted to the Conservative wing of political writing like an ant to sugar. Like Freddy said to Eliza, "It's the new small talk...you do it so awfully well!" I didn't particularly appreciate the content, but the form was truly wonderful.

Oh, there were places from what can be called "the Left" that also were pumping out stuff. But they were the lunatic fringe, you know...conspiracy theorists, astrologers, practitioners of exotic (typically Asian) alien philosophies, Marxists (who never tire of endless fountains of words, words, words) and other cranks who were hard to peg. Pejorative use of the word "moonbat" came about quite naturally because those of us from the nether edge of the political spectrum do tend to be poorly coordinated, less focused on practical details and more taken with crazy dreams. (Two of my favorite lines are Will Rogers' I'm not a member of any organized political party...I'm a Democrat and Ambrose Bierce's definition of a "Conservative" as One enamoured with prevailing evils as opposed to a Liberal who wished to replace them with new ones.)

Pajamas Media represents the Right perfectly, creases pressed and colors coordinated, small points of discussion notwithstanding. That venerable assembly preceded Netroots by a few years, but that latter-day rag-tag outfit with all its profanity and outrage, emerged as the Left's reply to Pajamas. I have watched helplessly as the aftermath of 9/11 and a knee-jerk reaction have polarized national politics to the point that I no longer identify easily with either pole. When I started blogging I felt comfortable with a messy but principled Left, such as it was, but I have been embarrassed by extremes from that side. Excoriating the name of General Petraeus and failing to recognize positive efforts by the president to bring about meaningful immigration reform come to mind (not to mention uncoupling health insurance from employment, an idea which has great practical appeal to me but which no one is speaking about openly...though it is an idea specifically from the White House).

Anyway, getting to what The Anchoress said, she opens by describing an important difference between what I call partisan hate and personal hate. Partisan hate is rather generic, enabling the hater to close ranks with others of like persuasion in a feeling of power or solidarity. Personal hate, on the other hand, tends to be individual, more inner-directed and as a result more corrosive to one's character and temperament than an outburst at a rally or surge of excitement seeing one's letter to the editor in print. Personal hate is like tinnitus, always ringing or buzzing in your head, never going away. Sometimes, even in your sleep, grinding teeth and nightmares nurture the poison, leaving a kind of mental pus staining the rest of life, dampening happiness and excitement into dull tolerance.

That is the end of Part One of my thinking this morning.

In order to fully appreciate the pain and suffering that grows from what I have termed Personal Hate, go there now and read this woman's incredible confession, self-examination, and journey toward absolution. She is articulate to the point of tears. Her description of personal hate and how her family members, the angels that God has given her to let her know He loves her, lead her out of her darkness into the light that only comes from faith.

What upset me more than anything is that for the first time in my life, I was actively hating someone. I’ve never hated anyone - not even people who have done me physical and spiritual harm. But I was hating this fellow. And hating him even more for “making me” hate him.

Which, of course, he could not do. No one can “make” you hate; I simply allowed hate in; I welcomed it in, gave it an honored chair and fed it. And fed it. And it was incredibly destructive and oppressive - to me, mostly - but it did nothing good for anyone who had to be around me if the subject had my head. My whole family, and a few friends, have had to endure watching me give myself over to this resentment, allowing it to have its way with me, and to own me, body and soul.

I'll wait here while you read the rest. She tells her story better than any excerpt can capture.

(The Anchoress is the blog name of Elizabeth Scalia who is still blogging but her old posts are not easily found. She also has an X account these days.)

§§§§§

For Part Two I want to redirect the reader's attention to what I have called Partisan Hate. 
Partisan hate is importantly different from personal hate. Partisan hate derives from groups more than individuals, although individuals plant the seeds and nurture its growth. What impulse attracts others to this or that category of hate is not clear. The reasons are probably as diverse as the numbers attracted. My instinct is that partisan hate may be an outgrowth of personal hate, but I don't want that laid on me. MY partisan hate is not as bad as YOURS, of course, so we know there are exceptions to such a rule.

I don't want to run down that road too far because it will have us all running in circles. What I want to point to is a partisan argument now developing over the use of the word "fascism." Individuals are involved in the discussion, so I want to be clear here: my aim is not to "disrespect" (I think that's the right modern usage of that neologism) any person, but to point to an idea or trend with which I find problems.

With September 11, 2001 now six years past, we divide contemporary history into Pre- and Post-9/11 eras. Thanks to what seems to have been a carefully-orchestrated narrative America's response to that event has had two misleading concepts at the core.
• The first is that there is no significant difference between Muslim extremists and Muslims as a population.
• The second is that the attack on the World Trade Center was an act of war, not just an act of terrorism.

Recently a voice of reason in Britain finally pointed to the naked king, stating the obvious:

The Director of Public Prosecutions said: 'We resist the language of warfare, and I think the government has moved on this. It no longer uses this sort of language."

London is not a battlefield, he said.

"The people who were murdered on July 7 were not the victims of war. The men who killed them were not soldiers," Macdonald said. "They were fantasists, narcissists, murderers and criminals and need to be responded to in that way."

His remarks signal a change in emphasis across Whitehall, where the "war on terror" language has officially been ditched.

This important moment has gone unnoticed both there and here but a few people have taken note and perhaps one day in the future, when more reflective than reflexive observers are doing an analysis of the post-9/11 era that moment will find "new" meaning.

Regarding the other misleading idea, that there is little or no difference between Muslim extremists and Muslims as a population, it was plain to me from the start that there was a serious disconnect between the Muslim faith and terrorism. Having worked with a few people who were Muslim, both devout and nominal, I had and continue to have a clear impression of them standing in sharp relief to the images being fashioned and fed to Americans for popular consumption.

Helplessly I watched as preparations for the invasion of Iraq got underway. I had mixed feelings about what was being advanced as a "preemptive" invasion, and along with everyone else I gave credibility to the "threat"scenario. Once the war was underway, matters got out of control and there was little that anyone could do to bring about coitus interruptus in an international violent rape.

In the aftermath we see that General Petraeus and his insights should have been involved from the start, but you know what they say about hindsight...

Underscoring my instincts, I heard General Sir Michael Rose say in an interview last night that "by invading Iraq, of course we were going to make it almost impossible for the West to be able to mobilize the very people we need to help us fight Al Qaeda and that are the Muslim people of the world."

Which leads me to a neologism that has bothered me ever since I first heard it: Islamofascist. I'm not sure where the term originated, but I don't think it came from any confessing Muslim. Since no one wants to be associated with fascism (even those who are by definition fascists, I believe) it becomes a perfect label to attach to any group or individual one wants to discredit. Since the end of World War II the word fascism has the same stench to the children of the Allies that terms like Commie and fellow-traveler had in the Fifties or Nigger-lover had in the deep South about the same time. In fact, the term fascist is worse. I know people not ashamed to have been associated with the idealistic Communists of the past. And I, myself am satisfied -- no, honored, to be called Nigger-lover.

But that word fascist is another matter. I haven't met anyone who wants to own that designation, just as I have yet to meet anyone (or hear of anyone) pleased to be called Islamofascist.

All of which gets me to the point of this post.

The book Liberal Fascism and it's cute logo, a happy face with a Hitler-type mustache, is emerging, thanks to its provenance, from the mire of pulp slime trolling to the status of acceptable commentary. If a less well-known writer had produced this book it would not have attracted as much attention. It certainly would not have been viewed with as much respectability. But we are living in a time when the Ron Pauls of the world can go tromping across the national carpet with muddy boots and get away with it because what they say scratches a national itch that just keeps getting worse.

I saw the logo before I saw reference to the book. I dismissed it as so much sillyness. Then I saw it was a book, but I didn't pay much attention. We who openly call ourselves Liberal are accustomed these days to all kinds of personal invective. Then I noticed David Niewert's remarks followed by Jonah Goldberg on C-SPAN talking about his book. That got my attention. I see now that a heated argument is underway among pundits, historians and other experts regarding the pros and cons of Goldberg's book.

It's not hard to discern which side of this discussion is which.

I'm not enough of a scholar to say comment about the derivation of the word fascism. Moreover, I'm not interested in doing the homework when people like David Niewert are on duty. (Someone in the comment thread even linked to a critical review by Michael Ledeen.)

But I am smart enough to know it is an execrable insult to anyone to be called a fascist. There is an old saying in the South that even a dog knows when he's been kicked. There's a difference between being kicked and being tripped over. And I, as a self-identified Liberal, feel kicked and it really pisses me off. I'm not to the point of personal hate as referenced above, but it is fair to say that in the same way that The Anchoress draws the line between partisan hate and personal hate, I have to say I am full in the glow of partisan hate, resentment and insult.

This rant is as far as I will allow myself to go. But the issue has been stuck in my craw ever since I became aware and I had to get it out so I can move on with my blogging.