Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Armed Religion
Last
January, Israel's Welfare Minister, Isaac Herzog, said his country aimed
to prevent an "over-dramatization" of facts by fanning out its
diplomatic corps to all corners of the globe to explain why it needed to
bomb the Gaza Strip into a different grade of gravel. It was heralded
as a battle for public opinion. I doubted it would go well.
"Over-dramatization" is hard to avoid in all situations that cannot be
exaggerated.
I thought, world will listen to spin and reject it, because people are choosing a more enlightened path for themselves. People are miserable with spin. Matthew Arnold wrote, "He who finds himself loses his misery" , which is a start. Quote only isolates end result of a long process that begins with facing the truth about one's self and can be very miserable indeed. It's personal, you see.
On an individual level I can only comment as an older man who finds himself in the grocery store with other older men. We are all creeds and colors, but that is superfluous in two places: the beer aisle and the chip aisle. There we are just older men in profound meditation, a subculture apart, bound by experience in the belief we know better than to believe we know better.
We even have the same physique. This is not genetics, but conditioning. Our chief form of exercise is kicking ourselves and this develops the same muscle groups. It is also outward and visible evidence that we know how to have pasts.
Problem with Middle East is too much past. Whoever was there first has to deal with everybody else who was there first too. They have aligned this absurdity with the disposition of their immortal souls, which any old guy in a grocery store will tell you is just silly. Result is, you get deevolution to whatever mental age children spend most of their time running at each other.
In fairness to children, they possess joy. They feel what Virginia Woolf likened to bursting from the schoolhouse door on the last day of term: "sudden joy". Later, we find joy in finding chips, plain chips with no fancy-shmancy seasoning and health stuff in them, and calling all the other old guys over."They're here, bottom shelf, found 'em!" Then, as one, we shuffle off to the beer aisle, strong, joyous, united and search for...well, everybody likes a different beer. I like stout, others prefer pilsner, lager or some excellent non-alcoholic brews. At that point freedom is best served by divided forces and we accept that. Why is it so much easier in a grocery store?
I thought, world will listen to spin and reject it, because people are choosing a more enlightened path for themselves. People are miserable with spin. Matthew Arnold wrote, "He who finds himself loses his misery" , which is a start. Quote only isolates end result of a long process that begins with facing the truth about one's self and can be very miserable indeed. It's personal, you see.
On an individual level I can only comment as an older man who finds himself in the grocery store with other older men. We are all creeds and colors, but that is superfluous in two places: the beer aisle and the chip aisle. There we are just older men in profound meditation, a subculture apart, bound by experience in the belief we know better than to believe we know better.
We even have the same physique. This is not genetics, but conditioning. Our chief form of exercise is kicking ourselves and this develops the same muscle groups. It is also outward and visible evidence that we know how to have pasts.
Problem with Middle East is too much past. Whoever was there first has to deal with everybody else who was there first too. They have aligned this absurdity with the disposition of their immortal souls, which any old guy in a grocery store will tell you is just silly. Result is, you get deevolution to whatever mental age children spend most of their time running at each other.
In fairness to children, they possess joy. They feel what Virginia Woolf likened to bursting from the schoolhouse door on the last day of term: "sudden joy". Later, we find joy in finding chips, plain chips with no fancy-shmancy seasoning and health stuff in them, and calling all the other old guys over."They're here, bottom shelf, found 'em!" Then, as one, we shuffle off to the beer aisle, strong, joyous, united and search for...well, everybody likes a different beer. I like stout, others prefer pilsner, lager or some excellent non-alcoholic brews. At that point freedom is best served by divided forces and we accept that. Why is it so much easier in a grocery store?
The lebanese students were right. America should not send any troops to the Middle East In fact, she shouldn't send them anywhere in the world, as she gets stuck.
ReplyDeleteAs for 'who was first' it's not relevant only to the Middle East, but also to other regions in the world, like America in its early days, for example. Those who were first, the indians, got exterminated; so, I suppose, there is no much talk on that there.
Dear Duta, you're quite right. Even when I was in 4th grade, some of my classmates were descended from 2 aboriginal nations. Our history text was "California Yesterdays". I recall asking them about one of its "heroes", Junipero Serra. They told me the real story of the Spanish conquest of our state as their parents told it to them. It was then I first understood the textbook character of Father Serra was propaganda.60 years later, Stanford University changed its mailing address from Serra Mall to Jane Stanford Way. I guess it takes generations of little boys' and girls' bullshit-detectors going off before the system adjusts.
DeleteThanks for posting this old gem. You were just as clever then as you are now. Too bad our world leaders haven't figured it out yet. Life is MUCH easier in a grocery store, no matter which aisles you may frequent.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Susan. In grocery stores nobody exploits others because we all need to return, all our lives, to a well-organized life-affirming public process. Equality is essential. Why is it some folks can't get that when they leave the parking lot?
DeleteI could ask you the same thing about people who are exiting churches. Seems like all of their peace, love, and understanding disappear like magic with the final amen.
DeleteI suspect much of that effect is caused by getting up before 11 a.m. on Sunday morning.
DeleteObviously you don't go to the same grocery stores I frequent where it's an elbows out, cart on your heels free-for-all. No concessions made for age either. There is no reasonbing with an old broad who grabs hold of your 50% off roast two seconds after you do...let her have it...trust me...let her have it.
ReplyDeleteDelores, I haven't quite fathomed the particulars but here in the past couple years people have got more and more polite and considerate in supermarkets. I hope it's a spreading trend. There's supermarket niceness on the rise. I bet that gal who nabbed your roast ate it raw before she got to the checkout lane.
DeleteYou are a very wise man, Geo and, of course, your Lebanese friends were correct.
ReplyDeleteI remember when Barack Obama invited Henry Gates and the policeman who had wrongly arrested the professor, to a beer Summit in the Rose Garden. If Michelle Obama had anything to do with it, I am sure that healthy chips were served. Maybe some common ground and forgiveness was found. We can only hope, but it was a wonderful visual and truly a perfect way to show a nation that if we sit down with an open heart (and can of beer) and listen to each other, progress can be made.
In the hateful climate we have today, there seems little chance that something like that will ever happen again
Thanks, dear Arleen. Given the public profile of Mrs. Obama, I'm sure she cares enough to monitor her family's diet carefully. I remember that Rose Garden conference and am likewise stunned at the toxicity of public discourse that followed her family's terms in office. But it will be rational and cordial again. The administration of the Obama family is a compassionate, teachable one.
DeleteGood choice. Why does culture barriers seem to be less important in a grocery store? Shopping for food is on equal ground. Every culture wants tomatoes! Coffee! Chocolate!
ReplyDeleteWe are bound together by the basic needs of food and helping each other find Lindt dark chocolate.
I love Lindt Chocolate! Also Ghirardelli's Chocolate from nearby San Francisco. I see tall people get stuff off upper shelves for wheelchair shoppers. People say "Excuse me" and "Just one item? Go head of me in line". Policy makers could take valuable lessons from supermarkets.
DeleteThe reflection on the time with your Lebanese friends and their warning is poignant.
ReplyDeleteYour 2009 post Amred Religion is excellent. Wise, and it made me smile as well.
And from another stout fan, cheers!
Cheers to you too, Tom! And thank you. I met my Lebanese friends in August, 1968 and learned much from them. Two years earlier, someone close told me there were marines in in Southern California practicing on sand. I had one of those "Oh shit" moments --went to a friend's house where there was always Guinness in the fridge.
DeleteYou are -- heartbreakingly -- so right.
ReplyDeleteHumans CAN get along. I'm sure of it. But you'd never know it, looking at the state of the world.
Oh Jenny, I wish I wasn't right. I wish it was different. But don't let it break your dear heart --My heart broke 13 years ago and I had to have it pulled out by an Irishman who rebuilt it, spent a week in hospital! And yes! humans CAN get along. I have seen it happen --lately in Walmart.
DeleteAnd from another stout fan, cheers again.
ReplyDeleteAs for the Middle East, what can one learn after thousands of years of conflict? It is as it always was. And it is sad.
Cheers to you too, Bruce. What can I learn? It's like palming a tree frog in the shower and taking it outdoors to lead a rewarding life. Now that immigrƩs come from the south, I don't see any difference. Does it strike you as coincidental that the wall went up just before El Chapo got nabbed?
DeleteI discovered how important it is to make the first move when it comes to kindness, friend Geo. I walk to and fro work, and when I meet someone that it isn't immersed in their cell phone, I make eye contact and smile … and getting many return smiles. Bonus: Often it's the same peeps I meet, and often I notice that the smiles are getting bigger in time. Let the land slide begin … the landslide of kindness, that is. Love, cat.
ReplyDeleteDear Cat, now THAT'S the kind of landslide even coastal Californians approve of.
DeleteThanks for reposting this piece (I've done that a few times recently, too). And you're right with the middle east having too much "past." It was a Marx (and I don't think it was Goucho), who said something like this, "The past weighs like a nightmare upon the brain of the living."
ReplyDeletewww.thepulpitandthepen.com
You're quite right, dear Jeff. Karl Marx, German philosopher, economist, etc., supplied the central theme of my 8th-grade commencement speech in front of graduates and their families:"To each, according to need; from each according to ability." --which I thought was a compassionate idea of education. My teacher made me cross Marx out of my notes and insert, "a great philosopher once wrote..." It was 1963, you see. Marx was also an economist --as evidenced by his infrequent commerce with the barber. But I used his quote because it was humane and realistic.
DeleteP.s. I should in fairness mention the excellent political history contained in GROUCHO Marx's wonderful song, "lydia", available on Youtube.
DeleteActually, I think the grocery store contains the answers. If we could simply feed everyone - both literally and figuratively - all would be sorted out. It's a seemingly simple solution that somehow never is.
ReplyDeleteWorld history in a nutshell.
Squid, you've nailed it. If only we could correct the key areas of human deprivation, food shortages, conference of respect, spiritual-physical well-being --and the exploitation of these poverties by power-seekers-- we could go far in raising human tolerance, cooperation and dignity to the level of grocery stores.
DeleteAs the song says, "Everything old is new again." Perhaps still is better than again.
ReplyDeletePersistence over recurrence. Yes, I'm for that --but especially the pleasant surprises offered by both processes, the "sudden joy".
Delete