John G. Messerly's Blog, page 43
October 13, 2020
What about Hope?
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by Lawrence Rifkin MD
The middle-aged woman in a dark red sweater looked withdrawn and forlorn. I had been answering questions from the audience after presenting a talk called “Humanism As a Source of Inspiration and Meaning.” She raised her forearm just slightly to indicate she had a question. Her question—and my inability to satisfy her with an answer—haunted me for weeks.
“What about hope?” she’d asked.
Undaunted by the aura of hopelessness in her tone, I answered brightly: “The humanist worldview is filled with hope. We may be made of matter, but we decide what matters. It is through meaningful human action that a blank computer screen can become a poem, that slavery can become freedom. We can help others, alleviate suffering, and experience beauty. Humanism is not just the rejection of an idea. Humanism is an affirmation. It is a positive, clear-eyed response to our one world. It is saying ‘yes’, not saying ‘no.’”
“I don’t see how that helps me have hope,” she said, monotone. I went into high gear, and tried a different answer.
“Humanism is about possibilities. Without some grand supernatural plan or destiny, the future is open. Possibility means the door for hope and change and goodness is open. Possibilities can lead to progress, in the world and in our individual lives. It is a positive psychological message. We have choices in how to shape our lives. We can live with caring and compassion. We can invest ourselves in worthy goals. We don’t need anything supernatural for that. The fact that we can try to change ourselves, other people, and the world—and make it a better place through reason and compassion—is a fundamental wonder of being human, and can be celebrated. It is a cause for hope, and wisdom.”
“Okay,” she said. She was polite but unconvinced.
I don’t know what personal trauma, life events, or innate characteristics made the questioner long for hope, but clearly she’s not alone in seeking to satisfy this deep human need. Religion, in part, peddles hope. Hope also wins elections and sells products. The question is—for someone who is currently without hope—are the kinds of secular answers I proffered going to be enough on a personal, emotional, and psychological level?
I realize now that philosophical concepts may be too abstract for some who feel despondent. She needed a personal answer. What about hope for her? Humanism has a solid foundation. We have secular dreams of a better tomorrow, and a track record of positive social change. But do we have answers on a personal level? Do we have a fulfilling substitute for “God loves you” or, for the bereaved, “don’t worry, you’ll meet again someday in heaven”?
So let’s admit straight out: humanism is not about hope. It’s about facing the world as it actually exists and making the best of it. It’s about looking this real world in the eye and, using imagination and initiative, building castles in the sand, not castles in the sky. It’s about finding goodness within the spectrum of what’s real and what’s possible. And in facing such truths, humanists don’t look outside nature for salvation; they don’t seek change through wish fulfillment. This perspective is not a limitation. It’s a motivator. It’s the ground for positive action and results.
There are other approaches as well. A naturalistic, scientific worldview has led to medical marvels such as surgical anesthesia and life-saving antibiotics. In the same manner, properly used psychoactive medications can be thought of in a positive light as one tool among many to help relieve mental suffering and stress, find inner calm and happiness, and help individuals and their families to enjoy better lives.
Reflecting about the woman who asked, “What about hope?” I realize now that what she needed most was not just ideas, but love, broadly understood. She needed to feel loved by a person, family, or community. Conversely, she might find meaning in providing unconditional love to a person, pet, or worthy goal.
Ideas are the groundwork of the humanist lifestance, and are valued. But I now feel that the best response would have been to ask the woman to meet me for coffee afterwards, and then listen to her. To care. To show by action that there is the possibility of finding a person or a community that listens, supports, and tries to help with appropriate suggestions. A community that strives to provide encouragement—not with fairy tales, but with a whole realm of positive, real-world, personal human responses. That is the humanist way.
(Published in the January / February 2012 Humanist. Reprinted with the author’s permission.)
October 11, 2020
Ernest Becker’s, The Denial of Death
The Denial of Death is a work by Ernest Becker which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1974, shortly after his death. (In the scene above Woody Allen buys the book for Diane Keaton in the Academy Award-winning movie “Annie Hall.”)
The book’s basic premise is that human civilization is a defense mechanism against the knowledge that we will die. Becker argues that humans live in both a physical world of objects and a symbolic world of meaning. The symbolic part of human life engages in what Becker calls an “immortality project.” People try to create or become part of something which they believe will last forever—art, music, literature, religion, nation-states, social and political movements, etc. Such connections, they believe, give their lives meaning.
Furthermore, Becker believed that mental illness, especially depression, results when we don’t feel connected to some meaningful project. And lacking such a project reminds us of our mortality. He also argued that schizophrenia results from not having defense mechanisms against mortality, causing sufferers to create their own reality. (These ideas remind me of Viktor Frankl’s claim, in Man’s Search for Meaning, that mental illness most often results from a lack of meaning.)
Moreover, Becker believed that conflicts between contradictory immortality projects, especially religious ones, are the main cause of wars, bigotry, genocide, racism, and nationalism. Our particular immortality projects are so important to us, that we can’t tolerate others suggesting that our beliefs are mistaken. But, Becker argued, religion no longer offers convincing arguments for immortality or meaning in life. Unfortunately, for most people, science doesn’t fill the void.
In response, Becker suggests that we need new comforting “illusions” to give life meaning. He doesn’t know what these new illusions will be, but he hoped that having them might help us create a better world. Still, deep in our bones, we know that we are mortal. As Becker put it:
This is the terror: to have emerged from nothing, to have a name, consciousness of self, deep inner feelings, an excruciating inner yearning for life and self-expression—and with all this yet to die.
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Note. This post first appeared on this blog on December 7, 2014.
October 8, 2020
Evolutionary Psychology
&[image error]Nobel Laureates Nikolaas Tinbergen (left) and Konrad Lorenz (right) who were acknowledged for work on animal behavior.
“In the distant future I see open fields for far more important researches. Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation.” ~ Darwin, Charles, The Origin of Species. p. 488.
I recently read the article “Why Evolutionary Psychology (Probably) Isn’t Possible.” While I appreciated reading Dr. Smith’s article, I’m skeptical of many of its claims. Here are my concerns.
I would say two things in reply. One is that Dr. Smith holds evolutionary psychology (and by extension, I assume evolutionary epistemology and ethics) to very strict standards. For example, she says “evolutionary psychologists have not shown that there are specific psychological programs that are written in our bio-historical document” and Evolutionary psychological inferences can succeed only if it is possible to determine that particular kinds of behavior are caused by particular psychological structures.” In doing so she is creating something of a straw man. Her argument works against biological determinism but not against our inherited cognitive structures resulting in a propensity, tendency, or proclivity to certain behaviors.
Moreover, Dr. Smith’s critique hinges on our inability to solve what she calls the “matching problem.” But, she says, “Solving the matching problem requires knowing about the psychological architecture of our prehistoric ancestors. But it is difficult to see how this knowledge can possibly be acquired.” In the strictest sense, this is true. We don’t have access to Cro-magnon or Neanderthals brains.
But we can, using the regulative idea that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, draw inferences about the evolution of psychological structures. This was the essence of Jean Piaget’s genetic epistemology which discovered, among other things, that functional invariants govern the evolution of cognitive structures on both the ontogenetic and phylogenetic levels, as well as in the history of science. In short, this means there is a close connection between biology and psychology. (All expressed in detail in his book Biology and Knowledge.)
Now there is a question of when the evolutionary paradigm breaks down. Clearly our bodies evolved and clearly we inherited our body’s structure from our evolutionary past. It is such a stretch to extend this paradigm to psychology and epistemology? Surely our minds evolve, and surely we inherited cognitive structures from our ancestors. And of course we can extend the evolutionary paradigm further to explaining ethics or religious beliefs too.
No doubt culture becomes increasingly important as we extend the evolutionary paradigm further from the evolution of bodies, and I’m not maintaining that every “just so” is accurate. It may be that religious belief aided survival among our ancestors but present-day people probably have many different reasons for believing. But to claim that evolutionary biology can’t help explain our current behaviors—if that is Dr. Smith’s claim—is just nonsense. E.O. Wilson and others have demonstrated beyond dispute that sociobiology (the old name for evolutionary psychology) rests on firm foundations.
October 5, 2020
Orwell’s 1984
Books of My Youth
The first books I remember reading as a child were baseball biographies. Stories of baseball legends like Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, and Stan Musial. I also have a fond memory of reading a book about the favorite baseball player of my youth titled: Ken Boyer: Guardian of the Hot Corner. (Why do such trivial things make such impressions?) The first novel I remember reading was Across the Five Aprils by Irene Hunt. It was a short novel about the American civil war that I read when I was about ten years old. Amazingly, it is still on my bookshelf! In high school, I read Charles Dicken’s Great Expectations, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
, Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and The Sea
, George Orwell’s Animal Farm, and many others.
In college, I remember reading Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values, and I was particularly moved by Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha.
No doubt the memory of reading many other books has long since evaporated from my mind, and there are thousands of wonderful books that I’ve never read.
The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. … Power is not a means; it is an end … The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. ~ George Orwell 1984
But the novel that influenced me the most was George Orwell’s masterpiece, 1984. ( It was the Boston Public Library’s choice as the most influential book of the twentieth century.) It is the most personally transformative novel that I’ve ever read. No one who reads and understands the book remains the same. Orwell removes a curtain that hides reality behind it—a reality so different from its portrayal by the voices and images that proceed daily in front of us and which mislead and control rather than inform, thereby making a mockery of truth. In Orwell’s world The Ministry of Truth lies; The Ministry of Peace wages war; The Ministry of Love tortures. In our own society, politicians lie with impunity; the Department of Defense wages war, and the CIA and penal system torture. We live in an increasingly authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government—a near fascist state.
It is as if Orwell allows us to peer past Kant’s phenomenal world to the neumonal world—to the way things really are. To a social and political reality so bleak and barren that even love cannot thrive. In the end, the novel’s protagonists, Winston and Julia, betray each other because, contrary to what I’ve written about in previous posts, love is not stronger than death, at least it is very hard for it to be in this world. (It is hard to love in a society which pits each person against others.) Here is Winston and Julia’s conversation after both have been emptied of their most noble inclination—the inclination to love another.
“I betrayed you,” she said baldly.
“I betrayed you,” he said.
She gave him another quick look of dislike.
“Sometimes,” she said, “they threaten you with something—something you can’t stand up to, can’t even think about. And then you say, ‘Don’t do it to me, do it to somebody else, do it to so-and-so.’ And perhaps you might pretend, afterwards, that it was only a trick and that you just said it to make them stop and didn’t really mean it. But that isn’t true. At the time when it happens you do mean it. You think there’s no other way of saving yourself and you’re quite ready to save yourself that way. You want it to happen to the other person. You don’t give a damn what they suffer. All you care about is yourself.”
“All you care about is yourself,” he echoed.
“And after that, you don’t feel the same toward the other person any longer.”
“No,” he said, “you don’t feel the same.”
If Orwell is right, life is bleaker than we usually let ourselves imagine; if Orwell is right, life may be even bleaker than we can imagine. Power and the lust for it largely remove beauty and love from the world. Orwell taught me how bad the world can be. Let’s hope it will be better someday.
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Note. This post first appeared on this blog on October 23, 2014.
September 30, 2020
Feelings about the Future of America
My previous post alerted my readers to many essays pointing to the possible forthcoming political crises that may result in a one-party fascist rule. Here now are my own feelings about the destruction of the country.
My first reaction is one of trepidation. I worry about my children and grandchildren living in an increasingly fascist and violent state. No one is safe from unjustly wielded power, including all the sycophants who cozy up to it. Have the never heard of purges!
My next feeling is impotence. I’m relatively powerless against the forces that move the world, as is the rest of humanity. Yes, I know that’s how the powerful want you to feel, but demonstrations aren’t particularly effective against tanks.
Next, I feel overwhelming impotence. I live on a planet hurtling through the vastness of dark, cold, inhospitable space. How fragile it all is and how careless are so many with the ecosystem that sustains us. The earth will eventually be rendered uninhabitable if we proceed with reckless abandon. This is all so frightening that many find comfort in invisible and imaginary gods. I have no such comfort.
I also feel an acute sadness. I’m devastated by the gap between what the world is and what it could be. So I’m worried, feel relatively powerless, and know that only humanity can save itself—a prospect that seems increasingly unlikely.
In the end, I take comfort only in my ignorance—I can’t predict the future. I do what I can and hope for the best. After all, the universe is a mysterious place and perhaps, if this particular experience in consciousness extinguishes itself, we’ll find ourselves in a parallel and better universe. The universe is probably stranger than we can imagine.
Summing all this up, I’m reminded of what James Fitzjames Stephens taught me long ago:
We stand on a mountain pass in the midst of whirling snow and blinding mist, through which we get glimpses now and then of paths which may be deceptive. If we stand still we shall be frozen to death. If we take the wrong road we shall be dashed to pieces. We do not certainly know whether there is any right one. What must we do? ‘Be strong and of a good courage.’ Act for the best, hope for the best, and take what comes … If death ends all, we cannot meet death better.
That’s not much to hang your hat on, but it’s about all we have.
(For more see “Staying Sane in Anxious Times (without being useless)“
September 26, 2020
The Election That Could Break America
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Barton Gellman’s article in the Atlantic, “The Election That Could Break America,” is perhaps the scariest piece I’ve read about the election yet—it was even published early because of its urgency. Fascism is at our doorstep.
And multiple essays echo its specific themes including:
“This is not a drill. The Reichstag is burning.” by Dana Milbank in The Washington Post; “The Legal Fight Awaiting Us After the Election” by Jeffrey Toobin in The New Yorker;
“Trump’s escalating attacks on election prompt fears of a constitutional crisis” by Rucker, Gardner, and Linskey in the Washington Post;
“Will Trump’s Presidency Ever End?: America is in terrible danger” by Frank Bruni in the New York Times;
“I’ve Never Been More Worried About American Democracy Than I Am Right Now” by Richard Hasen in Slate;
“Alarms are ringing everywhere about Trump’s election plot — except in our top newsrooms” by Dan Froomkin in Salon; and many, many more.
I could also list dozens of articles from psychiatrists and psychologists about Trump’s various psychopathologies—he is a textbook psychopath. Perhaps the best overall explanation of this can be found in The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President – Updated and Expanded with New Essays[image error]
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Moreover, I have written dozens of essays myself on Trump and the Republican’s fascism/authoritarianism in the last 4 years. Here is just a small sampling:
June 20, 2016 – “Is America on the Verge of Civil War?”
August 1, 2016 – “Summary of Ken Burns 2016 Anti-Trump Commencement Speech at Stanford”
November 7, 2016 – “To My Grandchildren on the Eve of the 2016 American Presidential Election”
December 2, 2016 – “Devastated by the American Presidential Election”
December 26, 2016 – “American Totalitarianism”
December 29, 2016 – “Yes, America Is Descending Into Totalitarianism”
February 6, 2017 – “The USA Overthrows Democracies Abroad, Will They Overthrow Their Own?”
February 26, 2017 – “How To Cope With This Stressful Presidency”
May 13, 2017 – “‘How Trump May Save the Republic,’ But Not in the Way Bret Stephens Thinks”
January 7, 2018 – “Trump is an Existential Threat”
December 10, 2019 – “The Fragility of Civilization”
February 18, 2020 – “How To Survive Trump”
February 28, 2020 – “Trump: Corruption and Autocracy
March 10, 2020 – “Trump is the American Nero”
March 13, 2020 – “Trump White House Closed Office That Dealt With Pandemics”
March 14, 2020 – “Does Trump Care About You?”
April 23, 2020 – “George Packer ‘We Are Living in a Failed State’”
These lists could go on and on. I’ll try to reflect on my response to all this madness in my next essay.
September 24, 2020
The Music of Dan Fogelberg
Peoria Riverfront Park Dan Fogelberg Memorial Site
“To every man the mystery
Sings a different song
He fills his page of history
Dreams his dreams and is gone.”
A few weeks ago I wrote a post about an especially moving song about death by the American musician Dan Fogelberg whose lyrical rhymes often touch on existential themes. I have listened to his entire musical opus and virtually every song he wrote says something profound about life. He is also a master of surprising phrases such as in “sweetest sorrow,” “thundering, velvet hand,” or evocative poetry like “Burning lines in the book of our lives.”
Here are some more of his beautiful words and music.
Part of the Plan
I have these moments, all steady and strong
I’m feeling so holy and humble
The next thing I know, I’m all worried and weak
And I feel myself starting to crumble
The meanings get lost and the teachings get tossed
And you don’t know what you’re going to do next
You wait for the sun but it never quite comes
Some kind of message comes through to you
Some kind of message comes through
And it says to you
Love when you can
Cry when you have to
Be who you must that’s a part of the plan
Await your arrival
With simple survival
And one day we’ll all understand
I had a woman Who gave me her soul
But I wasn’t ready to take it
Her heart was so fragile and heavy to hold
And I was afraid I might break it
Your conscience awakes
And you see your mistakes
And you wish someone
Would buy your confessions
The days miss their mark
And the night gets so dark
And some kind of message comes through to you
Some kind of message shoots through
Love when you can
Cry when you have to
Be who you must
That’s a part of the plan
Await your arrival
With simple survival
And one day we’ll all understand
There is no Eden or heavenly gates
That you’re gonna make it to one day
But all of the answers you seek can be found
In the dreams that you dream on the way
(There is a tension here between “one day we’ll all understand” and “there is no Eden or heavenly gates.)
The Leader of the Band (a tribute to his father)
An only child alone and wild
A cabinet maker’s son
His hands were meant for different work
And his heart was known to none
He left his home and went his lone
And solitary way
And he gave to me
A gift I know I never can repay
A quiet man of music
Denied a simpler fate
He tried to be a soldier once
But his music wouldn’t wait
He earned his love through discipline
A thundering, velvet hand
His gentle means of sculpting souls
Took me years to understand
The leader of the band is tired and his eyes are growing old
But his blood runs through my instrument and his song is in my soul
My life has been a poor attempt to imitate the man
I’m just a living legacy to the leader of the band
My brother’s lives were different for they heard another call
One went to Chicago and the other to St Paul
And I’m in Colorado when I’m not in some hotel
Living out this life I’ve chose and come to know so well
I thank you for the music
And your stories of the road
I thank you for the freedom
When it came my time to go
I thank you for the kindness
And the times when you got tough
And, papa, I don’t think
I said, “I love you” near enough
The leader of the band is tired
And his eyes are growing old
But his blood runs through my instrument
And his song is in my soul
My life has been a poor attempt
To imitate the man
I’m just a living legacy
To the leader of the band
I am the living legacy
To the leader of the band
Heart Hotels
Well there’s too many windows in this old hotel
And rooms filled with reckless pride
And the walls have grown sturdy and the halls have worn well
But there is nobody living inside, nobody living inside
Gonna pull in the shutters on this heart of mine
Roll up the carpets and pull in the blinds
And retreat to the chambers that I left behind
In hopes there’s still may be love left to find, still may be love left to find
Seek inspiration in daily affairs
Now you soul is improper and requires repairs
And the voices you hear at the top of the stairs
Are only echoes of unanswered prayers, echoes of unanswered prayers
Well there’s too many windows in this old hotel
And rooms filled with reckless pride
And the walls have grown sturdy and the halls have worn well
But there is nobody living inside, nobody living inside.
Along The Road
Joy at the start
Fear in the journey
Joy in the coming home
A part of the heart gets lost in the learning
Somewhere along the road
Along the road your path may wander
A pilgrim’s faith may fail
Absence makes the heart grow fonder
Darkness obscures the trail
Cursing the quest
Courting disaster
Measureless nights forebode
Moments of rest
Glimpses of laughter
Are treasured along the road
Along the road your steps may stumble
Your thoughts may start to stray
But through it all a heart held humble
Levels and lights your way
Joy at the start
Fear in the journey
Joy in the coming home
A part of the heart gets lost in the learning
Somewhere along the road
Somewhere along the road
Somewhere along the road
Same Old Lang Syne
Met my old lover in the grocery store
The snow was falling Christmas Eve
I stood behind her in the frozen foods
And I touched her on the sleeve
She didn’t recognize the face at first
But then her eyes flew open wide
She went to hug me and she spilled her purse
And we laughed until we cried
We took her groceries to the checkout stand
The food was totaled up and bagged
We stood there lost in our embarrassment
As the conversation lagged
We went to have ourselves a drink or two
But couldn’t find an open bar
We bought a six-pack at the liquor store
And we drank it in her car
We drank a toast to innocence
We drank a toast to now
We tried to reach beyond the emptiness
But neither one knew how
She said she’s married her an architect
Who kept her warm and safe and dry
She would have liked to say she loved the man
But she didn’t like to lie
I said the years had been a friend to her
And that her eyes were still as blue
But in those eyes, I wasn’t sure if I saw
Doubt or gratitude
She said she saw me in the record stores
And that I must be doing well
I said the audience was heavenly
But the traveling was Hell
We drank a toast to innocence
We drank a toast to now
We tried to reach beyond the emptiness
But neither one knew how
We drank a toast to innocence
We drank a toast to time
Reliving, in our eloquence
Another “Auld Lang Syne”
The beer was empty and our tongues were tired
And running out of things to say
She gave a kiss to me as I got out
And I watched her drive away
Just for a moment I was back at school
And felt that old familiar pain
And, as I turned to make my way back home
The snow turned into rain.
Longer
Longer than ther’ve been fishes in the ocean
Higher than any bird ever flew
Longer than there’ve been stars up in the heavens
I’ve been in love with you
Stronger than any mountain cathedral
Truer than any tree ever grew
Deeper than any forest primeval
I am in love with you
I’ll bring fire in the winters’
You’ll send showers in the springs
We’ll fly through the falls and summer
with love on our wings
Through the years as the fire starts to mellow
Burning lines in the book of our lives
Though the binding cracks
And the pages start to yellow
Longer than ther’ve been fishes in the ocean
Higher than any bird ever flew
Longer than there’ve been stars up in the heavens
I’ve been in love with you
I am in love with you.
River of Souls
I take my place along the shore
And I wait for the tide
It seems I’ve passed this way before
In an earlier time
I hear a voice like mystery
Blowing warm through the night
The silent moon embraces me
And I’m drawn to her light
I follow footprints in the sand
To a circle of stone
Find a fire burning bright
Though I came here alone
And in the play of shadows cast
I can dimly discern
The shapes of all who’ve gone before
Calling me to return
There are no names
That fit these faces
There are no lines that can define
These ancient spaces
The spirits dance across the ages
And melt into a river of souls
Lo que es de mio ~~ what is mine ~~
Lo que es de dios ~~ what is god’s ~~
Lo que es del rio ~~ what is the river’s ~~
Melt into a river of souls
I take my place along the shore
And I wait for the tide
It seems I’ve passed this way before
In an earlier time
To every man the mystery
Sings a different song
He fills his page of history
Dreams his dreams and is gone
There are no names
That fit these faces
There are no lines that can define
These ancient spaces
The spirits dance across the ages
And melt into a river of souls
Lo que es de mio ~~ what is mine ~~
Lo que es de dios ~~ what is god’s ~~
Lo que es del rio ~~ what is the river’s ~~
Melt into a river of souls
I highly recommend the music of this wonderful singer, songwriter, and artist.
Thank you Dan for your artistic contributions. I hope you have melted into a river of souls.
September 21, 2020
Climate Migration
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I strongly recommend the following two interactive articles about the great climate migration. Part 1, “The Great Climate Migration,” shows how roughly 20% of the currently populated parts of the world will become virtually uninhabitable in about 50 years. Part 2, “How Climate Migration Will Reshape America,” explores how the climate crisis will increasingly affect migration patterns within the United States. All this raises the question, “where will these climate refugees go?”
(The above research results from a partnership between ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine, with support from the Pulitzer Center. You can also read more about the data project that underlies the reporting.)
These articles display a careful and conscientious analysis of the data. They give the very best estimate of how the current and future climate change will produce more climate refugees and stress on food production, as well as inciting violence and political instability.
Be prepared though. This is a thoughtful analysis using the best data available and not the trite nonsense that pours from the lips of the current American President and his sycophants, scientifically illiterate or dishonest Republican politicians, or those who profit from spewing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. It provides what is so desperately needed in our complex world—deep, informed, and honest thinking.
Final Thoughts
However, after reading the articles and seeing the photos, I admit to sometimes wondering if all the pain and suffering in this life is worth it. Perhaps it would be better to just let life on this planet go extinct. While in his eighties, one of my intellectual heroes, Bertrand Russell captured my sentiments as follows:
Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.
But then I think of my children and grandchildren and all the little ones I see in these article photos and I revolt. They should be saved. They should be able to live decent lives. Again Bertrand Russell poignantly expressed my sentiments in this regard. Still in his nineties, in his very last manuscript, Russell answered the question of the possibility of creating a better world differently,
Consider for a moment what our planet is and what it might be. At present, for most, there is toil and hunger, constant danger, more hatred than love. There could be a happy world, where co-operation was more in evidence than competition, and monotonous work is done by machines, where what is lovely in nature is not destroyed to make room for hideous machines whose sole business is to kill, and where to promote joy is more respected than to produce mountains of corpses. Do not say this is impossible: it is not. It waits only for men [and women] to desire it more than the infliction of torture.
I too await such an awakening of the human heart and mind.
September 17, 2020
Roger Ebert’s Last Words
The short clip above is from the audiobook of the Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic Roger Ebert’s Life Itself: A Memoir. It is reminiscent of David Hume’s ruminations about his impending death. It is one of the most profound and moving reflections about one’s impending deaths I’ve ever heard.
And it contains stanzas from what I consider the greatest American poem, Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself.” Here is the stanza Ebert quotes:
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.
I’ll always think about Roger when I watch movies. And I’ll finish the poem:
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.
For more about Roger Ebert (1942 – 2013) see Life Itself, the wonderful documentary about the Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic and social commentator. It has a rotten tomatoes score of 100% among top critics.
September 14, 2020
The Life and Death of Roger Ebert
I recently watched Life Itself, the documentary about the Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic and social commentator Roger Ebert (1942 – 2013). It has a rotten tomatoes score of 100% among top critics. The documentary is based on his best-selling book, Life Itself: A Memoir. (I have read large portions of it.)
I give both of my thumbs up to the documentary, with a cautionary note that seeing Mr. Ebert’s physical condition at the end of his life can be difficult. As for his memoir, it is wonderfully well-written as Ebert was a great prose stylist. Here are its opening sentences:
I lived at the center of the universe. The center was located at the corner of Washington and Maple streets in Urbana, Illinois, a two bedroom white stucco house with green awnings, evergreens and geraniums in the front, and a white picket fence enclosing the backyard.
Isn’t that the way it is for all of us? We are all born at the center of our universe, and nothing for the rest of our lives makes quite such an impression as our childhood.
I first became familiar with Ebert in the 1970s while watching “Sneak Previews,” his show with Gene Siskel. I really enjoyed listening to two knowledgeable movie critics discuss films. At the time my own tastes in movies were slightly more aligned with Siskel’s, perhaps because he was a philosophy major. But if they both recommended a movie—gave it two thumbs up—I felt confident the movie was worth my time. For many years I only bought videos if they had two thumbs up. Siskel and Ebert saved me a lot of time that might have been spent watching bad movies.
I also enjoyed reading Ebert’s blog which became his passion after he lost his voice. His last blog entry, “A Leave of Presence” was published just two days before he died. It is a beautiful and moving entry. In my next post, I will discuss Ebert’s last words about life and death. In the meantime, I highly recommend the documentary.