Pitching a Fit at a Susceptible Age

We have all seen the 2-year old pitch a fit to get his way. It is absolutely crucial that the parent intentionally make this fit a deliberate, high-profile issue seriously and somberly addressed and the outcome without any question won by the parent. The parent must dramatically “fly behemoth–like within the child’s radar.” The world for a moment should come to an utter stop. If there is any compromise, it must be in communicating that the parent loves the child despite the required and essential punishment. The preferred punishment will be a slap on the butt by the father. Only this method (rather than a time-out, for example) makes it clear who is in charge and applies sufficient pain to the child’s prideful ego to imprint on the brain the consequences of insubordination (in fact, making it clear that misbehavior is in fact insubordination). The parent must see this unpleasant occasion as so important that it will set the stage for years to come—as it truly will. Done properly, this will change the little gray cells in the child permanently.

In politics, we often see some voters eternally pitching fits no matter what governmental authorities try to do. Government cannot get anything right, not even if it asserted 2 + 2 = 4. In my book, what is truly missing in many instances is that the chronically unhappy adult when susceptible as a child missed having his little gray cells fashioned as described above. This destines him to a life of anger and resentment aroused by any authority and is permanently irresolvable even should Eldorado authoritatively descend with streets of gold into his living room.

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The Perils of Individualism

Replica of Thoreau's cabin near
Walden Pond and his statue

The principal political danger of individualism is the lust for anarchy it can engender. The principal religious danger of individualism is the lust for self-idolatry it can inflame. Those with anarchistic fantasies admire Henry David Thoreau’s secluded life at Walden Pond and his assertion "'That government is best which governs not at all'; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have." But he wrote as well: “I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government.” Inveterate individualists tend to ignore the fact that Thoreau was an abolitionist and participated in concerted organized actions to free slaves—actions that required intense social cohesion. Even his stay at Walden on property owned by his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson inherently reached beyond individualism. No doubt inconsistencies with strict individualism and cohesive action were resolved in Thoreau's mind through the door of paradox.

The paradox of individualism is that pristine individualism cannot be realized in a state of anarchy because in such a state strong-willed thugs and their gangs end up in charge—totally shredding any idealist fantasies of freedom born through anarchy. On the other hand, democratic governments thrive only when integrity of individual conscience is highly revered. Thus, the highest form of individualism becomes possible only under the most inclusive and responsible form of government. As this quandary's solution is through paradox, we can trust it as reliable and true.

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The Common Courtesy of FYI's

I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. (John 15:15 NIV).

We all receive FYI’s regarding developments that might impact or interest us—either the forthright kind saying “For Your information” or the silent, devious, exclusionary ones communicating “Fuck You Imbecile! You don't need to know a Goddamn thing.” Which communiqué would you rather receive?

Those in power and those knowledgeable occasionally wish to exclude others sometimes unnecessarily and inconsiderately. This can cause resentment and lead to unfairness in fact and feeling. Feeling “left out” is one of the most powerful of all human emotions tapping survival instincts. The preferred course is to communicate too often rather than too seldom. We should worry more about our own betrayal of trust and less about the conjectured ethical weaknesses of others. If we must speculate when deciding which type of FYI to send, let us speculate about our own devious nature and give others a well-deserved break.

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Mental Hamstringing

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results." (Rita Mae Brown).

Mental Hamstringing: A self-restrictive practice occurring when one assumes the current approach to solving a problem is the only (or best) approach and thus fixates through iteration on this process without looking for other means or methods of problem solution. Mental hamstringing limits perception causing all opportunity costs to be severely discounted or ignored.

Mental hamstringing is more likely to occur when one is under intense pressure to solve a problem (when put “on the spot” to quickly come up with a solution and thus forced to prematurely narrow focus). Conversely when there are disincentives to solve a problem, ineffective and stultifying iterations can be the preferred course: to intentionally “kick the can down the road” and to by design “stay in a rut”--to use circumscribed iteration to complicity indulge in the act of mental hamstringing through calculation—a strategy of dutifully playing the violin while Rome burns.

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The Usefulness of Metaphor

Have you ever visited a ghost town, ancient ruins or once famous building, long since abandoned? What was it like then and now? (Serendipity Bible 10th Anniversary Edition, page 1310).

The concept that matter is composed of discrete units and cannot be divided into arbitrarily tiny quantities has been around for millennia, but these ideas were founded in abstract, philosophical reasoning rather than experimentation and empirical observation. The nature of atoms in philosophy varied considerably over time and between cultures and schools, and often had spiritual elements. Nevertheless, the basic idea of the atom was adopted by scientists thousands of years later because it elegantly explained new discoveries in the field of chemistry.[8] The ancient name of "atom" from atomism had already been nearly universally used to describe chemical atoms by that time, and it was therefore retained as a term, long after chemical atoms were found to be divisible, and even after smaller, truly indivisible particles were identified.

References to the concept of atoms date back to ancient Greece and India. In India, the Ājīvika, Jain, and Cārvāka schools of atomism may date back to the 6th century BCE.[9] The Nyaya and Vaisheshika schools later developed theories on how atoms combined into more complex objects.[10] In the West, the references to atoms emerged in the 5th century BCE with Leucippus, whose student, Democritus, systematized his views. In approximately 450 BCE, Democritus coined the term átomos (Greek: ἄτομος), which means "uncuttable" or "the smallest indivisible particle of matter". Although the Indian and Greek concepts of the atom were based purely on philosophy, modern science has retained the name coined by Democritus.[8] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom).

 

Democritus in ancient Greece coined the term "atom". No question, based on man’s present knowledge centuries later there is a sense in which he was dead wrong….but also a nagging sense in which he was uncannily conceptually right on. We must admit even today that his thoughts (given allowance for aspects of knowledge inaccessible to him) were noteworthy.

Sometimes I wonder what structures we map out today people years hence will say “In a sense they were dead wrong, but in a another sense right on.” A thousand years hence, they will generously excuse us for not having knowledge inaccessible to us now and refrain from quibbling about this when they find a basic idea useful.

In my view, a principal candidate for this involves the spiritual aspects of mankind. I look forward to the day when faith and belief in the Fruit of the Spirit will be verifiable as absolute based upon real phenomena simply inaccessible to current tools of understanding. For example, one Sunday morning I heard a young layman illustrate to children regarding spiritual matters that we are something like radio receivers receiving guidance from God and the Holy Spirit. You may think this illustration ludicrously corny, but the idea could well prove to be basically right even though our idea of ”receiver” will be shown to be hugely outdated and grossly oversimplified in the light of more complete understandings.

Broad Entree into Greater Happiness and Productivity

From your year-at-a-glance calendar, what “appointment time” are your eagerly anticipating? Which scheduled appointment are you dreading? Are you good at waiting? How so? (Serendipity Bible 10^th Anniversary Edition, page 1310).

After approximately 33 years of working for the City of Saint Petersburg or its facilities, I retire on February 7, 2014—the close of the first pay-period after my 70th birthday on January 27, 2014. Retirement!!!! Certainly a new chapter! In many ways I anticipate feeling like a kid again, no longer burdened with the daily responsibility of working to earn income. I imagine what that first Monday after retirement will be like. No alarm in the morning; no job responsibilities waiting for me at the start of a new week; no expectation of meeting and greeting my fellow employees—and the promised luxury of being able to take naps after lunch. In a sense I have already experienced some of the freedom awaiting those for which retirement is imminent; for example, the abeyance of the fire in the belly to in some perhaps undefined way prepare for the next promotion—the freedom that comes with setting aside ambition—the freedom quite frankly in an unadulterated sense to wish the very best in the way of advancement to my co-workers who might otherwise come to symbolize my competition.

There is also a little dread about it. After all, retirement is one of life’s closing chapters. Contemplating this, immense gratitude for the myriad blessings I have consistently enjoyed throughout my life pour over me. There is no way that I can begin to repay those people and institutions that have enriched my life—I defer to receive the blessings as offered—as gifts unencumbered with detailed payback expectations, rather, given me as broad entree into greater happiness and productivity.

 

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The Golden Rule and the Rule of Gold

How do you tell the difference between honorable wealth and unjust riches? (Serendipity Bible 10th Anniversary Edition, page 1309).

In pure capitalism prices are determined by the market. But in terms of labor the market alone is not sufficient for a fair and just distribution of wealth; in capitalism, almost by definition, capital rules. That is, the labor market sets a price below the true value of the worker who generates wealth for the capitalist. The owner of capital usually has sufficient labor supply available such that labor scarcity does not enter into the equation in many instances. Thus unpleasant as it may be ideologically speaking, it is necessary to administer the price of labor to a certain degree (as with minimum wage legislation).

Another way of saying this is that the concentrated power of capital trumps the weak and vulnerable position of labor . The power imbalance is often egregious. This may not be the case in some exceptional instances – such as the power imbued by the limited supply of brain surgeons. But we must get accustomed to the idea that exceptional cases make for bad general policy.

How is the price of wages to be administered? What is a fair wage? In many instances the answer is imponderable and the prescribed red-tape prohibitive and paralyzing. Thus regulation cannot determine all prices. However, it should be clear that if a person is working two jobs totaling 40 hours or more, he or she should be able to make a living wage and not be imprisoned in poverty. The capitalist is clearly favored by the status quo and has the upper hand and will no doubt resist change that would increase the power and influence of labor, especially of the most humble sort. Unfortunately within the political economy, the capital/labor remuneration equation can be a zero-sum game. Nothing can obfuscate this unpleasant fact.

Public policy must reflect fairness and justice rather than economic ideological purity even in a system patriotically characterized as capitalistic. To do otherwise would be to make an idol of a conjectured economic structure, a configuration that is inherently imperfect when applied in the real world. And why are corrective measures necessary?—because we are a nation “under God” which acknowledges principles of justice and fairness not realized by egocentric drives for power and profits. Right is not determined by might—not even that of economic power and property or the invisible hand of self-interest. Any unlimited drive—especially that of self-interest in an imperfect market—is self-defeating and ultimately self-defacing. Only in theory are markets free. The characteristics of capital (such that it can be stored over time) ensure that vast inequities exist in the market making it singularly hostile to establishing a fair playing field and severely burdening some by the heavy weight of history. That is, some make their entry into economic life severely handicapped. Are we really ready to assert before God Almighty who through providence can level any playing field with one sweep of his mighty hand that we are not in the least interested in His Golden Rule plainly set before us as the abiding standard for addressing social needs?

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