POLITICAL POEM: Fighting Exclusively

February 6th, 2017 Filed under: Poems Add Comment

It was his thing
Fighting exclusively
Battles he could win
His crowning I deal
Never finding himself
On-the-cide of losers
Whirled why’d
Naught ails
But win
Filling his sales
Whatever
He could bye
A captain of destiny
In habiting the same owed ship
Where awe is lost
Save hope
For another class

This poem is about doing most anything to win, and where pragmatism provides cover for sociopathy. What one will not do, that sacred “NO”, defines the boundaries and character of one’s ethical system and ultimate values. Without “no,” there is only sociopathy, boundless amorality. This is synonymous with “winning is everything.” The ability to lose, suffering loss, making sacrifices for a greater good, is at the heart of any mature system of values. This is not saying that suffering is intrinsically good, but some suffering is a necessary part of any process which seeks to trade up to greater goods. Our capitalistic culture provides easy cover for amorality, a mysterious “invisible hand” that will turn our selfishness, shortsightedness, and greed into durable goods. This makes nonsense of literally any system of ethics and human values. Capitalism is a meat-grinder of all that is human and humane.

In our contemporary context, Donald Trump is the consummate example of “winning is everything,” willing to trample anything and anyone to satisfy his rapacious appetite and infantile desires. His staggering indifference to coherency is perhaps the best testament to his sociopathy and megalomania. As his collection of infantile desires churn about from crying to be fed by others, being lulled by the prospect of absolute security, and to poop and have others clean it up, momentary contradictions are twittered away. During his campaign, Donald Trump illustrated well the height of his foolishness by claiming that he would regulate himself when he was president, even though he considered it his sociopathic duty to behave with no self-regulation in his shady business dealings, his defining “success.” The fact that so many Americans ate up this pablum attests to the worshipful status of the mythical “invisible hand” at the center of capitalism that will magically fix our bad behavior while encouraging bad behavior (sic).

Though it is any easy target to point out Donald Trump’s extraordinary stockpile of character defects, “winning is everything” is essentially a corollary of electoral politics. Losers don’t govern. The threat of apparent helplessness induced by electoral defeat is enough for most politically active human beings to habitually subjugate their highest ideals and dreams. Ideals and dreams are easy prey in the capitalistic meat-grinder of democracy for sale and ensuing plutocracy/oligarchy/kleptocracy. The nonnegotiable principals of “losers” are better served outside electoral politics where this different class of human (“losers”) can demonstrate the true winds of change needed for equality and justice for all. Losers, in terms of electoral politics, are simply those whose basic needs and human rights are not met by the governance of the current rulers in power. There are a lot of losers! When the many “losers” unite in solidarity against the fewer privileged elites, the electoral “winners,” justice is expanded. You may correctly note that in this equation the truest source and force for justice for all resides with the “losers.” When people with “skin in the game,” whether from involuntary disenfranchisement or in voluntary solidarity, confront those with soothing privilege, truth and justice favor the side off the oppressed. May all of the “losers” of the world unite!

Tags: Absolute Security, Amorality, Awe, Business, Capitalism, Change, Character, Culture, Democracy, Donald Trump, Dreams, Equality, Ethical, Ethics, Greed, Heart, Helplessness, Hope, Human Rights, Ideals, Justice, Loss, Megalomania, Oligarchy, Plutocracy, Poems, Poetry, Political, Politics, Power, President, Privilege, Sacred, Security, skin in the game, Sociopathy, Solidarity, Status, Success, Suffering, Truth, Values

POEM: Enlightenment Not Worth Beings

June 7th, 2016 Filed under: News, Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings Add Comment

Conversing in the street
At a protest
We had a very enlightening pow wow
As too in form me
He stated with qualm assurance
“Protest before enlightenment, protest after enlightenment”
A parity of action
Like I had never seen
To which I yack knowledged
You mean like
“Child abuse before enlightenment, child abuse after enlightenment”
And parently flailing attest
Of means
And states not worth beings
As well as dis coarse
With know end incite

This poem was inspired by a conversation I had with a fellow protester on the street. As not subject to small talk, we touched upon the nature of enlightenment. The undiscerning tautology of “[insert action] before enlightenment, [repeat same action] after enlightenment,” struck me as a perfect representation of New Age gobbledygook. Hopefully, the palpable absurdity felt in one’s soul with my succinct parody: “Child abuse before enlightenment, child abuse after enlightenment,” should be enough to dismiss such nonsense.

New Age philosophy and other forms of “immaterialism” view life as simply a spiritual process where specific ends literally don’t matter, and one meaning is as good or bad as the next meaning — and what meanings might follow from such inanity and insanity! While such a whirled view may seem an intriguing balance, or even antidote, to postmodern materialism, the reactionary amoral forces of materialism are mirrorly replaced with eerily similar nonreactionary amoral farces, conveniently well-suited to First-World privilege and god-like individualism. Such absurd amorality rejects any set of collected knowledge about good and evil, leaving society with no landmarks to navigate progress in manifesting goodness over and above evil. There is no right and wrong, only differences. And while this may lead to a certain profoundly uncommitted form of tolerance, it leaves human rights awash, and human wrongs unaccounted for. Such a perverse viewpoint is only inviting inasmuch as we trust in our own godness alone. New Age spirituality’s OCD lock on “life as process” does reflect an incomplete truth related to the redemptive nature of essentially every world religion or perennial philosophy; that is, good can emerge from evil. Fortunately, these esteemed traditions do not collapse good into evil. These age-old spiritual traditions value transformation in society and of society, not simply the fate of one soul divorced from all others — a lonely god fore better or worse. In fact, if personal transformation means nothing in particular, then such spiritual progress is limited to oxymorons, and no one else. Further, if there is no accountability to others, no legitimate demand of others on us, then even the sparsest just us is untenable and unattainable. I have long been intrigued by Buddha’s choice to remain present in this world to help others rather than blow out into nirvana, as he was do. The good news of a social gospel should not be tossed into a fiery dustbin from which nothing is retrievable — leaving only nothing as retrievable. While there is much wile in discerning good and evil, to reject such efforts out of hand is far more dangerous. I will gladly give a pass to my fellow protester, who may have simply been a victim of fuzzy thinking. Of course, we can meditate on such unprophetable ruminations until the cows come home. Still, it is passable to do the right thing for the wrong reason; just as doing the wrong thing for the right reason is culpable of mends to the othercide of a fence. Intentions and actions are two sides of the same flipping coin. Means and ends are inseparable as attested to by anyone subject to any given mean or any fatal end. To harmonize is the objective, not to monotonize the subjective. May we all benefit from both good intentions and right action.

Tags: Absurdity, Accountability, Amorality, Balance, Enlightenment, Evil, God, Human Rights, Individualism, Insanity, Life, Materialism, Meaning, Nature, New Age, Philosophy, Present, Privilege, Progress, Reactionary, Religion, Society, Soul, Spiritual, Spirituality, Trust, Truth

POEM: Loving Your Enemas

April 19th, 2016 Filed under: Anti-War, Peace, Peace Signs, Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings Add Comment

The legal lists
Were longing
With who hurt
And who not heard
Attesting too
How much they love
They’re enemas
Only wading
For sue a side
As eminent just us
And inevitably knot
Passing the smell test

This is a poem about the intractable mess of trying to love your enemies and kill them as well. American Christianity generally considers pacifism a quaint way of life, tolerable in direct proportion to its relegation from the halls of power in church and state. American Christianity has bought rather wholesale into war as a practical necessity — the necessity of evil, that is. Wince again, the necessity defense is the greatest offense. Is the oneness of humanity to be cleaved by the body of Christ? For badder or worse, the inconvenient truth of dying for one’s enemy reliably leaves American Christians more than cross. At best, nationalism, and at its worst, imperialism, become the legal ism for such a knotty morality. And if any prophets may bedevil such an undertaking, their fate is bound in the hands of a certain high priest, possessed buy inescapable logic: “You know nothing at all! You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.” (John 11:51) Yep, to gain the world and halve the whole world parish. American Christians all to often worship a bastard son, pax Americana, a modern day roamin’ umpire, overruling with just US, and as per fuming so extravagantly that we don’t even realize we fail the smell test.

May awe of US unearth humility enough to execute amorality, in a creation fit for all — for Christ’s sake!

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Tags: Amorality, Awe, Christianity, Church, Creation, Defense, Enemies, Evil, Humanity, Humility, Imperialism, Life, Logic, Love, Modern, Morality, Nationalism, Pacifism, Poems, Poetry, Power, State, Truth, War, Worship

POEM: Love Is Scored

April 1st, 2016 Filed under: Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings Add Comment

He did
Not necessarily
Believe
In evil
Though he found it
Much easier
To commit
Than endure
And hear in lies
Won lessen
As love is scored

This poem is a tribute to apologists for evil everywhere. The lesser of two evils rationalization is perhaps the all-time most popular moral shortcut. Unfortunately, when evil is embraced, morality is cut loose. The “necessity” defense is actually an abnegation of moral agency altogether, pretending that no choice exists. Of course, where there is no choice, there is no morality, or perhaps more conveniently, no immorality. So much for freedom marching on! For you can’t have freedom without its twin: responsibility, that bully big brother. Ultimately, one’s own responsibility is morphed out of existence into an other’s accountability. He “made me” do it. As we become an impersonal — and amoral — force for precious accountability, we polish a veneer of morality, all the wile avoiding personal responsibility for our own actions. Most simply put, we become mirrorly a consequence of evil, our moral agency be dammed! We become an effect of evil rather than a cause for good. Morality necessarily involves restraint, the project of limiting our choices, hopefully to good choices, among all possible choices. The key point is that it focuses on self-restraint, not other-restraint. This shift of focus on accountability of others, presumably punishing evil, is classical psychological projection of one’s own shadow, dark side, evil onto an other. No doubt, evil happens. No doubt, evil costs dearly. Projecting all responsibility onto others serves the convenient purpose of shifting the cost away from our own costly choices. No doubt, morality is costly — just as evil is. Enduring these costs is the stuff of a moral life. This is the price of true freedom. Evil runs over the good for evil ends, for its own sake. Good revels in the good for its own sake, and somewhat paradoxically, lifts up, invites true freedom for others’ sake as well Half of the moral life is the willingness to live into what we know to be good. Half of the moral life is enduring the inescapable effects of evil, what we no to be evil. Only God knows the half-life of evil. While it may be a truism that we do not get out of this life alive, we can live more than a half-life. May you live fully! Moral choices may be unclear. Moral choices may be extraordinarily difficult. Still, moral choices are always a choice. To deny this is the paltry heights of amorality and a brutal equivalency of evil with good.

May you find wide-open love stronger than shadowy hate in your life.

Tags: Accountability, Amorality, Big Brother, Choices, Defense, Evil, Freedom, God, Hate, Immorality, Impersonal, Life, Love, Moral, Morality, Poems, Poetry, Projection, Rationalization, Responsibility, Time, Willingness

POEM: An Answer to the Problem of Evil

December 15th, 2013 Filed under: Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings Add Comment

An Answer to the Problem of Evil

One morning God woke up
Before there was such a thing as morning
God was well pleased with God’s self
“I know that I am all that!”
In fact, the only thing better
Than knowing I’m all that
Is to not know I’m all that and then find out I’m all that!
So God got lost
And it’s been mourning since
Good morning

The epic title of this poem is somewhat ambitious, since this poem, no matter how optimistic or hopeful, obviously doesn’t bring an end to the problem of evil. Of course, the title begs some humility in suggesting “an” answer, not “the” answer. What I hope this title and poem offer is a positive perspective on the intractable problem of evil. This poem addresses one of the deepest and thorniest philosophical and theological issues that exists: how can evil exist alongside a powerful, loving God? Nonetheless, my hope is that this poem’s playful tone elucidates something about the nature of God in the face of such a mournful human problem.

My understanding of salvation is deeply rooted in a transcendent perspective which ever moves me toward that which is larger, more all-encompassing, and more whole — some would call this spiritual perspective as seeking a higher power or God. I see this process of salvation or enlightenment as a continual trading up to something better. In the process of trading up, one must give up the current or old to make room for the new and better. This is a mournful process. Losing things of value is difficult This is especially true when things of value are taken away from us without any choice on our part. These events and processes of loss seem to capture our attention quite effectively. Somewhat ironically, the process of gaining things of value, especially when due to no choice or action of our own, generally receives little complaint, and often scant attention. Exhibit A: the gift of life, your very existence. Unearned gains, the stuff of grace, is the companion of the problem of evil: the problem of good. Of course, few people demand a solution to the problem of good, not seeing a need to address it as a problem. Still the philosophical and theological issues are exactly parallel. To be fair and balanced, these issues should be addressed as the problem of good/evil. No doubt, some have aspired to amorality as a deeply ironic and banal way of “transcending” such a problem. If we can’t do any better than this, then we certainly can’t do any worse! Such a desperate, nihilistic approach seems to me like destroying the question to avoid having to answer the question. But back to the question at hand! The process of mourning loss (and celebrating gain) are inextricably linked. My definition of sacrifice is this: giving up something of value for something of greater value — “trading up.” When loss is put in perspective of gain, then loss can “gain” positive meaning. This is certainly no justification for evil, but it opens the process of redemption. My favorite example of this is getting hit in the face with a two-by-four. It is possible to learn/gain wisdom from such a situation, whether it was at the hands of another’s cruel intent or an “accident.” However, just because it is possible to learn/gain from such a situation, does not mean that it is good to hit people in the face with two-by-fours. It means that such bad situations can be redeemed, placed in a larger, “transcendent” perspective, where wisdom can be gained. No doubt there are better and worse ways to learn/gain wisdom, but every situation offers raw material for learning. So, let’s redeem those worthless coupons of loss, whose face value is meaningless, into something greater, something with meaning and value.

This poem sets up this process as God getting lost to us, so the even cooler prospect of discovering God is opened up. The implied calculus of this deal is that the pain and loss of not knowing God is worth the coolness of (re-)discovering God. The playful tone of this poem emphasizes the creative and playful aspect of God. Hopefully, this lighthearted aspect of God can be manifest in us enough to make up for the heavy-heartedness of all the pain, loss, and grief that we experience. So, let’s carry on with the longing and groaning of such discovery.

Tags: Amorality, Balance, Enlightenment, Events, Evil, Experience, Gift, God, Grace, Hope, Humility, Ironic, Learning, Life, Loss, Meaning, Mourning, Nature, Perspective, Philosophical, Philosophy, Poems, Poetry, Power, Redemption, Sacrifice, Short Poems, Spiritual, Transcendence, Transcendent, Wisdom

POEM: Farcical Optimism

October 23rd, 2013 Filed under: Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings Add Comment

He said to me
“Your optimism is farcical.”
I said
“You may be right.”
Of course
Wisdom may just be
Realizing that
Farcical optimism
Is ever so slightly preferable
To farcical pessimism

If you gathered all of the information together to make a determination of whether or not it is justified to be an optimist, it may very well be a close call. There is plenty in this world to be pessimistic about. The more edgy, less centered pessimists may even consider all a farce. If this seemingly even-matching of evidence to justify optimism or pessimism, throws you off-balance, then consider balance. Just because Pollyannishness exists does not negate optimism or hope. Just as because nihilistic thoughts and behavior exists doesn’t mean that all is lost. Walking this seemingly fine line between optimism and pessimism sets up one’s own basic attitude about life: which side of reality do you want to face, live into? While the line may be fine, this most fundamental existential choice of attitude, direction, is the profound difference between good and evil. This is how freedom plows meaning into reality and how our spirits are incarnate into the world. Some with nihilistic orientations would prefer less meaning full terms — good and bad, useful and not useful, painful and pleasurable. I find a deep irony in folks who are too nihilistic to even drum up a belief in evil! This is what I would call farcical pessimism. Unfortunately, you can’t escape this existential choice, conundrum if you will, by not answering the question. Amorality falls solidly into the immoral category. Amorality amounts to bad faith. If you don’t like free will, maybe you don’t deserve to wield it. If you don’t think that the world is about deserving and undeserving, then welcome to the world of grace…

Tags: Amorality, Attitude, Balance, Conundrum, Evil, Existential, Faith, Farce, Free Will, Freedom, Grace, Hope, Irony, Life, Meaning, Moral, Morality, Nihilism, Optimism, Pessimism, Poems, Poetry, Reality, Short Poems, Wisdom

POEM: By No Means Necessary

October 9th, 2013 Filed under: Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings Add Comment

By No Means Necessary

When the strident are
Up in arms
Staking their claims
By any means necessary
May such a battlefield
Arouse patience strewn
A bout
Of faith
Inciting our most gratuitous hopes
By any kinds possible
The prison door of necessity
Leaving us
Unhinged
Taking liberties
Only in dependence
On open hearts
In tact
In our chest
No longer hoard
Soles in a circle unbroken
Vaulting us
To claims unstaked
In arms above
Scaling untrodden heights
With such generous helping
Hands down
The best
Giving rise
By no means necessary

This poem is about hope and the possibilities that kindness open up to create a new and better reality. Claiming a need to reach an end “by any means necessary” is precarious moral ground. In common political parlance, the phrase might be “we are leaving all options open.” At best this is a casual amorality, at worst a cruel compulsion or “necessary” evil. I’m not big on “necessary” evil. Militancy focuses on a “you forced me to” mentality, fixating on our most base needs and instincts alone. No doubt, certain actions lead to likely reactions. Nonetheless, we can do better. Acting in hope with open hearts is an invitation to escape from closed-sum thinking and hurt feelings, and join together in something greater than the sum of its parts. Hope is a vulnerable invitation in that it may be rejected. If rejected, in retrospect, it may appear to have been better to have not made an invitation. I think that this is why humans have learned a certain reactionary approach in life. This makes sense, but such a reactionary approach does not represent all that is possible, or even all that is probable. Leaders make invitations. Leaders offer hope. Leaders make themselves vulnerable and put some actual skin in the game, in order to walk the walk not just talk the talk. We can make excuses by saying, “He made me do it,” but this denies our most basic freedom, to do something differently, that is our greatest asset in human progress. Not surprisingly, hope is by its very nature a community project. Only by joining together, with mutual invitations and mutual aid, can our highest hopes become real. And the highest hope is a circle unbroken, everyone in and nobody out. The cynical acts of confederates to “get ours” at the expense of others is ultimately self-defeating, degrading the vitality of human community of which we are inescapably a part. Of course, the hope that springs from the faith that humanity is ultimately one is like all other faith: something not fully realized but believed to be present. Such faith and hope cannot become fully realized “by any means necessary,” being by no means necessary; still it may be realized “by any kinds possible.” Do not rise to every occasion in kind, rather, in kindness rise to every occasion.

Tags: Amorality, Community, Compulsion, Cynical, Evil, Faith, Freedom, Heart, Hope, Humanity, Kindness, Life, Militant, Moral, Morality, Nature, Patience, Poems, Poetry, Political, Present, Prison, Progress, Reactionary, Reality, skin in the game

POEM: Lifting Fog

July 21st, 2013 Filed under: Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings Add Comment

Lifting Fog

You can’t fight city hall
They are too big to fail
We are too small to make a difference
A mere drop in a vast sea
These lies can travel through vast deserts of grief and despair
Like a camel
Which has swallowed an ocean
Thinking it is a god
Only to apprehend itself
As a criminal
Who got the drop on itself
Buried in a straw world
Never knowing
The last from the first
Nor all in
Its mist
The back-breaking work
Of fog lifting

Working for truth and justice requires a large, perhaps even transcendent, perspective. I see patience as the mother of all virtues. The good fight takes patience and persistence to hold us over during the sometimes barren spaces between positive visible outcomes commensurate with our efforts. Plus, much of our work must necessarily be carried on by others beyond our own lifetimes. First, the seeming invincibility of the powers that be can be daunting. Second, the seeming small power that any given individual has is humbling. Together, they seduce many into despair and even slip many into amorality or nihilism. Who is asking us to swallow oceans? What honest worldview would require that we get to walk around dropping “the last straw” on the proverbial camel’s back of injustice any more frequently than we find that proverbial needle in the haystack (of straws)? Perennial philosophies include some concept of illusion or deceptive aspect of reality that must be overcome in order to apprehend truth — the “fog”. I think that a common mistake is assuming that we must move mountains or build some Tower of Babel to heaven. I think this mistaken assumption is part of the “fog”. The final twist in this poem is juxtaposing “back-breaking work” with “fog lifting”. This is not a slam on hard work, but rather the notion that (ever-increasing) physical labors are our salvation — if only we worked just a little harder! The spiritual project of “lifting fog” better represents the ethereal project of living out our humanity to its fullest.

Further, a great example of completely misunderstanding a sacred text is in Matthew 17:20 where Jesus says, “I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you” The standard, and completely wrong usage of this passage is that if you just believe enough that God will come and instantly move a mountain for you. In fact, it means the opposite. First, some context:

Herod the Great is best known for his attempt to assassinate the newborn Messiah, and while it was true he was brutal and paranoid, he was also a genius builder. He was responsible for an astounding man-made harbor at Caesarea Maritima, the mind-boggling desert fortress of Masada, and the magnificent Temple mount. Around 37 BC, his sights turned to the desert for a building site once again. He wanted to build a fortress palace there that could be seen from Jerusalem and the surrounding areas so that the Jews never forgot he was always watching. He also wanted to be sure it was the absolutely tallest thing in the surrounding landscape. So, he narrowed his building site down to two hills (small mountains) which were near each other.

Then, he simply used forced labor to pare the top off one to add to the top of the other to make it bigger. One pail full of dirt and rocks at a time. He literally moved a mountain.

And a little more context:

As clever as Herod was, he was perhaps known more for his wickedness. He maintained his authority by terrorizing his subjects. He grew increasingly paranoid and throughout his life he had thousands of people executed — including his wife, his son, and many family members. He killed everyone who might be a threat to his reign. This he tried to do as well to baby Jesus.

From the shepherds of Bethlehem to the priests in Jerusalem, all would have been reminded of the presence of Herod every time they saw the volcano-like hill in the distance, or any time they encountered one of his many buildings. But what would they have been thinking? Would they have admired his ingenuity and achievements or would they have despised him and feared for their lives?

It would not be far fetched to imagine that Jesus was looking toward the Herodium when he said:

I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, `Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you. Matthew 17:20

In this inspiring statement, Jesus was pointing out that it doesn’t take the abuse of thousands of workers to do what man might think is impossible. If they couldn’t see the Herodium, his listeners would have known about Herod’s moving of the mountain. He had done the “impossible” through fear, cruelty, punishment, and death; but Jesus was saying, “If you will only follow the Father, if you have even the smallest grain of faith in me, nothing will be impossible.”

The lesson we should learn from all this is that the Lord is not impressed by what we might accomplish — he is only interested in our hearts. We can also be sure that Herod, and all those like him, will one day learn that the wise men had it right.

Of course, moving mountains, or any grand project, regardless of the purpose behind it, takes a lot of time, and thousands of people moving persistently “one bucket at a time.” Patience my friends…

Tags: Amorality, Authority, Cruelty, Death, Faith, Family, Fear, Genius, God, Heaven, Hope, Humanity, Injustice, Jerusalem, Jesus, Justice, Labor, Life, Mind, Nihilism, Paranoid, Patience, Perspective, Poems, Poetry, Power, Powers that be, Proverb, Punishment, Reality, Sacred, Spiritual, Time, Transcendent, Truth, Work, Worldview

What Are Conservatives Conserving?

April 4th, 2012 Filed under: Political and Philosophical Musings, Top Pun Design Commentaries Add Comment

What Exactly Are Conservatives Conserving (Earth) POLITICAL BUTTON

This cool design is linked to a button, but other great Top Pun products like T-shirts, bumper stickers, mugs, caps, key chains, magnets, posters, and sticker sheets can be accessed by scrolling down the product page.

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What exactly are conservatives conserving? This is a great question! Of course, I love the play on the similar root of the words conservative and conserving. Conservatives love talking about freedom. However it seems that if we listen to conservatives we would be free to live in a world that is being consumed by all of its so-called free human beings, and all these human beings would be competing to no end against one another. Sounds like a crappy version of freedom to me. Freedom without understanding and honoring the limits of the natural world seems to me to be simply a license to ignorantly destroy the planet and all of its inhabitants. Of course, the shared reality of the natural world, if it is going to be protected for the benefit of humanity, must put demands and limitations on human freedom. Human beings, though seen as the pinnacle of reality by many, are certainly not exempt from the feedback or karma that the rest of reality causes in response to our actions. Oftentimes, when I hear conservative speaking of freedom, it sounds to me like some immature fantasy of being free from anything and everything (or anyone). However, I believe that true human wisdom lies in discerning what we should do, not simply what we can do (or get away with). Reality gives plenty of good feedback about what we actually can’t do, so the obsession with freedom seems to me to be a sort of moot question. Like the existentialist philosopher John Paul Sartre says, “we are condemned to be free.” Freedom actually isn’t even a choice; we are born free. Certainly, living in community with other human beings is a complicated and difficult thing. However, it strikes me as foolish to ignore or greatly discount all the great things that we get from community as somehow too fuzzy or somehow reducible to some individualistic form of math (the whole equals the sum of the parts, not more) that need rely only on some “invisible hand” to do the difficult and messy work of creating and maintaining a healthy and functional community. In the end, it seems to me that what conservatives are conserving is the right to be selfish – more of an excuse than a human right. Then, to get out of this amoral or evil conundrum, they claim that selfishness is the highest form of selflessness or benefit to the common good. I suppose it’s very difficult to argue against an ideology that creates both its central tenet in its exact opposite. Let them eat cake and keep their cake to. What could be more conserving than that?

Tags: Amorality, Common Good, Community, Conservative, Conundrum, cool design, Environmental, Evil, Foolish, Freedom, Humanity, Ideology, Immorality, Individualism, Karma, Love, Musings, Play, Political, Reality, Sartre, Selfish, Top Pun, Wisdom, Work

Force Attracts Men of Low Morality

March 29th, 2012 Filed under: Peace, Top Pun Design Commentaries Add Comment

Force Always Attracts Men of Low Morality–PEACE QUOTE BUTTON

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Albert Einstein is recognized as perhaps one of the greatest geniuses that ever lived regarding physics. However, few people realize that Albert Einstein was also a great genius of metaphysics, or spiritual physics if you will. This simple rule that force always attracts men of low morality can be a powerful organizing principle in how we relate to the world. What if we realized, truly realized, that the world of command-and-control, the world of the military and security apparatuses, did not attract the so-called best and the brightest, but attracts those of low morality. While Einstein certainly devoted the better part of his life to understanding physics, his number one extracurricular activity was to work for peace and the uplifting of all humanity. Of course, these types of activities typically don’t make the history books, if for none other than the simple reason that history books only deal with great persons in history with a few paragraphs at most. However, dealing with issues of morality in our culture seems strangely avoided. This seems to be entwined with the Western civilization worldview that science is objective and all is science, that is reductionistic science. We simply don’t know what to do with subjectivity, of which morality is one of the more obvious subjects. Is it any wonder that Western civilization can be strikingly amoral? So-called Western civilization has nearly perfected the ability to neuter any productive conversations about subjectivity or morality. Oddly, this is probably viewed as a highly moral position. You’ve got to love the irony! Well, back to Einstein. I like to think that his commitment and fascination to humanity springs forth from the essential truths that he reflected and meditated upon in physics. I believe that all things are connected, and that this is a profound truth that underlies both physics and metaphysics. I would hope that very few would object to the premise that all things are connected, as this is profoundly interwoven in the assumptions of any science. The problem that many people shy away from, of course, are those connections that could be called subjective between humans and the rest of reality. In the end, I guess my point is that many would view of what Einstein as a prototypical scientist. If this view is based in any reality, we should pay attention to the fact that Einstein concerned himself with the nature of humanity that cannot directly be put under the proverbial microscope. While Einstein is perhaps the best example, and he is the most well-known, there are many examples of theoretical physicists who have immersed themselves in and accepted a mystical reality that cannot be fully explored with traditional hard science. Yes, Einstein was a softy – a really smart softly.

Tags: Amorality, Control, cool design, Culture, Einstein, Genius, History, Hope, Humanity, Irony, Life, Love, Metaphysics, Military, Moral, Morality, Musings, Mystical, Nature, Objectivity, Philosophical, Physics, Quotes, Reality, Science, Scientific Reductionism, Security, Spiritual, Subjectivity, Top Pun, Truth, Western Civilization, Work, Worldview

Real Test of Power to Prevent War

March 19th, 2012 Filed under: Anti-War, Peace, Top Pun Design Commentaries Add Comment

PEACE QUOTE: Real Test of Power to Prevent War–PEACE SIGN BUTTON

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This peace quote reverses the typical notions of power. Power is typically viewed as the ability to make things happen. That is certainly true in the context of the capacity to make war. However, the power to exert brute force and coercion is very different from the type of moral force is needed to build and sustain peace. Morality, in its essence, is about restraint. By contrast, amorality is simply having no restraint or limits on one’s actions. Thus, when comparing the capacity to make war versus the capacity to prevent war, or to create peace, these concepts of power tend to clash. War is hardly an exercise in restraint. While war may require a lot of discipline in many respects, it requires unleashing incredible brute force that by its very nature cannot be controlled. One simply has to recognize the reality that for every combatant killed in wartime, approximately ten non-combatant are killed. Clearly, war is not a precise surgical procedure, despite all the talk about smart bombs and laser guided systems.

As the United States is beating the drums of war against Iran, there is talk about the right thing to do, the moral thing to do. Of course, most of this talk is couched in terms of all the evil, bad, or immoral things that some other parties are doing. Sort of by default, morality is imputed on people who oppose such evil doings and evil doers. Unfortunately, what is lost in the mix, mostly of lies, is that morality is more about restraining one’s own behavior than about restraining another’s behavior. By losing our focus on our own behavior, we can drift dangerously close to the unaccountability needed in order to wage war. If you think war-making requires restraint and discipline, try peacemaking and loving your enemies. The difficult task of taking personal responsibility for one’s behavior both as an individual and as a citizen of a nation can be costly. However, there seems to be an inertia in the human condition that defaults to blaming others for one’s own problems, and shifting the cost of relating to one another as human beings to other people that we see at fault. Even if I have a relationship with someone where a conflict or “problem” is 20% mine and 80% theirs, this does not relieve me of being accountable for my 20%. Rather than taking care of our own moral business and accountability, we often feel justified in focusing the blame and the full costs of the conflict onto those we see as enemies. It is impossible to successfully wage war without demonizing one’s enemies. This is the only way to justify killing a combatant. This is definitely the only way to justify killing non-combatant. Show me a nation that can create peace in the face of potential war and I will show you the most morally powerful nation on earth.

Tags: Accountability, Amorality, Business, Coercion, Conflict, cool design, Demonization, Enemies, Ethical, Evil, Immorality, Iran, Moral, Morality, Nature, Power, Reality, Responsibility, Top Pun, War

POLITICAL CARTOON: Free Market Jesus – Blessed Are The Amoral

February 19th, 2012 Filed under: Political Cartoons Add Comment

Free Market Jesus Speaks!

Jesus Cartoon: Free Market Jesus - Blessed Are Those Who Let The Market Decide Your Morals

Welcome to Free Market Jesus! This is a new Top Pun series of comics that will run on Sundays, featuring Free Market Jesus, Country Club Jesus, Gen. Jesus, Comedian Jesus, and who knows what other incarnations!

This week’s comic captures the amorality and sociopathy of the free market. People are moral agents, or least people should be moral agents. Free markets are not moral agents. Unfortunately, though, people who function with the amoral boundaries of the so-called free market relinquish their moral agency to other human beings, or worse yet, to inert matter. Further, moral agents really don’t get the choice of being amoral. The vain hope of amorality distinctly falls into the category of immorality. I see the near religious attachment to the idea of a free market primarily as a way to avoid personal responsibility for one’s actions and how they may affect others. Part of being a human being is taking responsibility for one’s actions. You can’t outsource your personal responsibility, no matter how hard you try, or how little you try, as the case may be. This lack of free choice in whether we are responsible for our own actions, is what Jean-Paul Sartre termed “condemned to be free.” Free will is a part of human existence; though, free will is subject to much debate, mostly running along the lines of either how mysterious free will is, or how absurd free will is. Either way we seem to be stuck with free will, however ironic that maybe. Of course, you run across the occasional person who doesn’t believe in free will. Though, apparently, they are forced to believe this, so don’t be too hard on them. Some days it’s difficult to be complicated dirt, especially when another mistakes us for human!

The Jesus graphic is modified from the famous Sacred Heart painting that will be recognized by many, particularly those who are Roman Catholic. Please note that the inscription on Jesus’ heart, “Greed is God,” is a slight takeoff on the proverbial “greed is good.” While this is technically a pun, the root word for God and good are so close that it barely counts. Hopefully, this elicits what I would consider a simple definition of God which would be that which is of the good. This doesn’t necessarily require a traditional view of God, but may provide some common ground between more traditionally religious people and those who have trouble with the word or concept of God. I hope that those readers who are more traditionally religious will not find my parodying of Jesus offensive. My parodies are actually intended to cut through the bull shit of what passes for conventional wisdom, morality, or religious truth these days, and reveal the seed of truth that is often overlooked or under-appreciated. I think Jesus would approve. Any honest reading of what words are attributed to Jesus, and you have to admit that Jesus had a sense of humor. For those of you who aren’t really big on God, I hope that these Jesus parodies make some truths more accessible.

We can’t afford the free market! The free market is the bane of Western Civilization and the nadir of scientific reductionism.

So, until next Sunday, with the next edition of Free Market Jesus, talk amongst yourselves or let me know what you think.

Tags: Amorality, Blessed, Cartoon, Catholic, Comics, Conventional Wisdom, Free market, Free Will, Funny, God, Greed, Heart, Hope, Humor, Immorality, Ironic, Jesus, Market, Materialism, Moral, Morality, Parodies, Political, Religious, Responsibility, Sacred, Sartre, Scientific Reductionism, Sociopathy, Top Pun, Truth, Western Civilization, Wisdom

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