Mani from Heaven

So I just posted my last post and then read a poem by Mary Oliver.  I really love her poetry and then realize I am juxtaposing my bleak entry about evil next to her paean to nature and I feel like I’m a complete dark angel only fit for the bad news of the world.

Not so best beloved.  Not so.  I see beauty too.  I hear the wild cry of the heron, the yips of the coyotes and the birdy scrum around my feeder every morning.  I know the earth has much beauty.

But, the world is very harsh.  I see the world as Manichean*—half dark, half light, and always, the one side battles against the other.  We need to be “woke” ladies and gentleman.  But there’s woke and then there’s fit to be tied.  You guys don’t need to be fit to be tied.

As Aunt Francis said to me in her last letter:

“Cool off bonkyhead.”

 

*Mani, a Persian, from whom we get Manicheaism, attempted to pull together all the religions in the world into one coherent belief system.  I love that there was a Persian  philosopher named Manny.  Some names never get old.

Anyway…

This was in early AD.  Roughly, he believed that matter (that is our earthly bodies) are dross and evil, and our spirit comes from God, all good and illuminated.  Sounds familiar doesn’t it?

Aunt Francis just said “shit, girl, I already knew that. ”  She’s so smart, that Franny.  Here’s her picture if you’ve forgotten what she looks like:

Wait a minute.  I just realized Mani rhymes with Franny.  Coincidence???

I don’t think so.

 

 

EVIL

“He didn’t believe that you should try to be good because it pays (as today’s moral tales insistently advertise, though it doesn’t necessarily turn out that way in real life), but because evil stems from intellectual and emotional stuntedness and is the one form of poverty that should be shunned.”

I can’t remember where I got this quote but I agree wholeheartedly.

Last night I watched a Frontline presentation about a neo-nazi group called  the Atomwaffen.  It’s so-called intellectual and philosophical teachings aside from Hitler and his ilk come from a man named James Nolan Mason.

This fellow, who has been a part of the movement for years, aside from being morally insane presents as a reasonable, soft spoken man  He is the perfect example of Hannah Arendt’s “banality of evil.”  He believes that all our woes  come from the Jews.

It’s the same old, same old Jewish conspiracy thinking that has been around since Moses.  I find the young men who surround him especially disturbing. They see in him the answer to all their fears, and insecurities.  He provides a road out of their fecklessness, their unhinged anger searching for a rationale, their bankrupt souls.

There will always be young soldiers that can be conscripted into this crazy army.  Can’t get and keep a job?  It’s the Jews.  Can’t prosper in the economy?  It’s the Jews.  The Man always has his boot on your neck?  It’s the Jews.

A lot has been said about these “lost boys.”  I can’t say anything more about them except to say they exist in all countries.  Their languages are different, their rationales are different, their religious beliefs are different, but they all are searching for something bigger and grander, something exciting and engaging;  a place, a belief, an ubermensch to follow.

It is facile to say they are all crazy.  Some are.  Many are simply unfinished souls looking for a place to hide.  They like the bravado, the weapons, the surety of conviction.  They are drawn to a worldview that explains all their shortcomings and disabilities.

James Mason a skinny, balding  confidante of Manson (yes that Manson) is the magnet around which these shavings adhere.

He is EVIL.  Almost affectless, logical and thoughtful seeming;  until his reveal.  He is James Jones, Charlie Manson, Adolf Hitler and any other of the legions of men who seek to remake the world in their own image.  They are Satan and they always live among us.

 

 

Cease to harass your soul

But life is not worth living, and there is no limit to our sorrows, if we indulge our fears to the greatest possible extent; in this matter, let prudence help you, and contemn with a resolute spirit even when it is in plain sight. If you cannot do this, counter one weakness with another, and temper your fear with hope. There is nothing so certain among these objects of fear that it is not more certain still that things we dread sink into nothing and that things we hope for mock us.

-Seneca-

Ain’t it the truth.

Anxiety

This piece is called Thin Slices of Anxiety by Catherine Lepange.  I think it is the perfect representation of my husband, although frequently his field of vision is to the front as in the future—“What will Happen?”, “What can I do to prevent it from happening?” , “When it all goes wrong, how will I deal with it?”

Last night as he was worrying about a trip we are taking three days from now, I said “Stop.  Can you just stop.  Let’s try to be spontaneous and see what happens.”

He was offended that I asked him to be spontaneous.  I wasn’t judging him.  I know who he is and how he operates.  I just find it tiresome to play out a scenario over and over again in order somehow to forestall it all going sideways.  It either will go sideways or it won’t.  Plan accordingly.

Roll with it, Robin, lean into it.

As a little aside, is that Freud or Lenin represented above?  And if it’s Lenin, boy, did things go sideways for him.

Dance

Oh the world is so grim now.  It’s always been grim but somehow I feel that we have been cossetted in the  American Dream that all things will eventually work out.  This is true.  They just may not work out as we expect or want them to.

So given all that and putting aside Nero dancing while Rome burned, let me encourage all of us.

Dance.  Dance as if we have something to dance about.  Dance and sing and carry on.  Turn the music up, invite some friends over or just dance alone.

Dance.

 

 

First: Do no harm

Thinking about a little seed this morning.  A fertilized egg, the beginning of everything; an idea.

Rob and I saw a documentary last night about triplets who were separated and adopted out at six months of age.  This was no simple adoption.

The babies were a part of a psychological experiment to determine whether nature or nurture was more important.  It used babies to test hypotheses.  This wasn’t just observation;  this was psychological and social tinkering.

The babies were born to unwed mothers with mental issues and adopted out to “certain” families who had the characteristics that the scientists wanted.  The families who were selected were chosen because they had been recipients of babies in the past.  They had been previously vetted and ranked as to education, social status and economic stability.

You might say “big deal.”  Robin was muttering “Mengele, Mengele,”  as the story was told.

What was strange for him was the fact that the babies were Jewish, the psychiatrist was Jewish, the adoption agency was Jewish and the folks who sponsored the study were all Jewish.  Robin’s take on this was how unconscionable that the Jews acted just like Germans.

I think Robin is guilty of racism.  Anyone can be complicit.  In pursuit of science( which is to say in pursuit of fame and fortune) Jews can be assholes just like Germans or Christians, or Muslims or anybody.  Being an asshole is offered to each of us.  It’s a choice, best beloved.  It’s a choice.

If Newberger and his students had asked themselves the ethics of what they were doing; if they had said “…to what end,” besides just pushing the boundaries of knowledge for the sake of it, they might have reconsidered.

Perhaps they would argue that the harm they caused to the families and the babies is minuscule compared to what they’ve learned.  What did they learn?  The results were never released.  The results are locked away in a vault at Yale University until 2060.

My take:  humans tinker with other humans.  It can be science, social engineering, borrowing someone’s DNA for experimentation (Henrietta Lacks), or messing with babies to see how it all turns out.  I don’t care what you call it.  It is obscene and it happens more often than we know.

 

For the Birds

I follow a site called Birding Oregon.  I can’t describe how happy this makes me.  I get to see amateur and not so amateur photographers capture photos that take my breath away.

I know birds evolved from dinosaurs but I so prefer their current incarnation;  bright-eyed among the berries.

Coda for 2019

I have a New Year’s resolution. To do what I want (within limits), when I want (within limits), so as not to blame or shame anyone if things don’t turn out the way I want them to. I think that means being intentional with my own desires.