Further Thoughts on Teaching...

Human knowledge had become unmanageably vast; every schience had begotten a dozen more, each subtler than the rest; the telescope revealed starts and systems beyond the mind of man to number or to name; geology spoke in terms of millions of years, where men before had thought in terms of thousands; physics found a universe in the atom, and biology found a microcosm in the cell; physiology dicovered inexhaustible mystery in every organ, and psychology in every dream; anthropology reconstructed the unsuspected antiquity of man, archeology unearthed buried cities and forgotten states, history proved history false, and painted a canvas which only a Spengler or an Eduard Meyer could vision as a whole; theology crumbled, and political theory cracked; invention complicated life and war, and economic creeds overturned governments and inflamed the world; philosophy itself, which had once summoned all sciences to its aid in making a coherent image of the world and an alluring picture of the good, found its task of coordination too stupendous for its courage, ran away from all these battlefronts of truth, and hid itself in recondite and narrow lanes, timidly secure from the issues and responsibilities of life. Human knowledge had become too great for the human mind.

All that remained was the scientific specialist, who knew "more and more about less and less," and the philosophical speculator, who knew less and less about more and more. The specialist put on blinders in order to shut out from his vision all the world but one little spot, to which he glued his nose. Perspective was lost. "Facts" replaced understanding; and knowledge, split into a thousand isolated fragments, no longer generated wisdom. Every science, and every branch of philosophy, developed a technical terminology intelligible only to its exclusive devotees; as men learned more about the world, they found themselves ever less capable of expressing to their educated fellow-men what it was thtat they had learned. The gap between life and knowledge grew wider and wider; those who governed could not understand those who thought, and those who wanted to know could not understand those who knew. In the midst of unprecedented learning popular ignorance flourished, and chose its exemplars to rule the great cities of the world; in the midst of sciences endowed and enthroned as never before, new religions were born every day, and old superstitions recaptured the ground they had lost. The common man found himself forced to choose between a scientific priesthood mumbling unintelligible pessimism, and a theological priesthood mumbling incredible hopes.

In this situation the function of the professional teacher was clear. It should have been to mediate between the specialist and the nation; to learn the specialist's language, as the specialist had learned nature's, in order to break down the barriers between knowledge and need, an find for new truths old terms that all literate people might understand. For if knowledge became too great for communication, it would degenerate into scholasticism, and the weak acceptance of authority; mankind would slip into a new of faith, worshipping at a respectful distance its new priests; and civilization, which had hoped to raise itself upon education disseminated far and wide, would be left precariously based upon a technical erudition that had become the monopoly of an esoteric class monastically isolated from the world by the high birth rate of terminology.

-The Story of Philosophy
Will Durant

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Once again I must unfortunately take what is grand and lofty and make it pedestrian though my experience with the martial arts. Mea Culpa. Many of my teachers had performed acts bordering on magic. From taking my balance without physically touching me to holding two grown men back while standing on one foot, I have for years marveled at one impossible ability after another. Some may say these acts are fake but I personally know them to be true. I've felt them and believed despite all my inclination and desire not to believe.

While I have never achieved anything bordering on magic, I've always felt that my gift as a martial arts teacher was to make that which was esoteric and unclear, transparent for the average person. Slowly this became my raison d'etre for most of my learning in any subject. Professionally, my rold was often translating between the academics and trigger pullers and vice versa.

I don't believe anything is so complex that I can't at least understand its basic principles. The technical specifics might be beyond me but the principles, if they are indeed principles, should not be. I am no nephrologist but I understand broadly the way my kidneys work and what my treatment is supposed to accomplish. Because of that, I have caught my nurses and doctors in countless mistakes that would have adversely affected my health. All because I had one doctor who had the ability and inclination to take the time to explain it to me. I think the professional teacher's role has something to do with this.

In Defense of Teachers

As is my habit, I like to give exceptional contrary responses to anything I've written its own featured place. The following is a response to my post "Active Citizenship" written by my friend who is incidentally, the English teacher who prompted my thought excursion. A passioned, energetic and well-reasoned defense, I think it deserves a serious read. I will respond in the comments section.

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Because you never discuss the various manifestations of civic duty, I stumble over your pessimistic assertion that “most educators under 50 feel they owe the Country nothing more than a check.” Similarly, because it remains unclear what qualifies for you as “a contribution to the body politic,” it is difficulty for me to understand why you believe most teachers are not qualified to teach citizenship. However, I am sure you would agree that civic duty could take on many forms beyond enlisting in your nation’s military forces. Teachers take on the responsibility of providing rising generations with the core knowledge and skills necessary to actively participate in, and perhaps even improve, their communities. For example, an English teacher’s fundamental goals are to teach a student to read critically and write for a variety of purposes and audiences. Most English teachers I know, myself included, believe there is tremendous power in the written word and that being able to identify and use rhetorical devices in a given text allows us to understand how we are persuaded to believe in another’s ideas and how we can develop convincing arguments ourselves. Such skills, which fall under the nebulous category of critical thinking skills, can prevent us from being snowed into buying material items for the wrong reasons based on slick advertisement techniques or falling victim to more dangerous propaganda. Critical thinking is the keystone of active citizenship. Your friend who decided he could not criticize the Country without contributing was demonstrating just this.

Furthermore, while I agree with you that it is important for teachers to resist the temptation to indoctrinate their students according to their personal political persuasions, teachers, whether they are conscious of it or not, are indoctrinating students in American values. After all, America’s public education roots are firmly planted in this purpose—to gather children from a variety of ethnic and cultural backgrounds and teach them a common and unifying core of knowledge, mythology and skills that serves the country’s economic and political progress. Therefore, teaching children is indeed a civic duty-- it is a contribution to the larger society. In my seven years of teaching, nearly one thousand students have passed through my classroom. Equipping a thousand people with improved literacy skills, not to mention the peripheral skills, ethics, and ideas that are taught through the literature we read and the discussions generated, is a significant contribution to the Country. Therefore, I believe I am qualified to teach citizenship.

However, above and beyond what I maintain is the civic duty intrinsic in the act of teaching our nation’s youth, most teachers I know seem to have an inherent drive to improve and protect their communities, a drive at the heart of civic duty. These teachers create curriculum that models and demonstrates this value, and perhaps even provides students with the opportunity to experience civic participation. At minimum, a Humanities teacher will expose students to a variety of American leaders who have created change in their communities models the character, values and pathways necessary to become an active citizen. But many of us go beyond this level of exposure to experiential learning as well. It is not difficult for me to incorporate civic duty into a grade-based system. For example, during the last election year, my students were required to participate in a campaign effort for a candidate of their choosing running for any level of political office. A certain number of hours, an evaluation by a supervisor, a final paper and presentation all contributed to a cumulative grade.
But even better, I watch students move towards voluntary active citizenship as a result of having this value modeling for them by teachers and their curriculum. And this leads me to respond to your statements on the role that character (or according to you, lack thereof) plays in school. I think civic duty does indeed begin with watching or reading the news, and doing so is not the same as watching or reading sports. The action of educating ourselves in the activities of our nation and other nations is the beginning of recognizing the larger communities to which we belong. Therefore, we begin to care about these larger communities; we begin to realize how we influence (both positively and negatively) them, and then often, our investment in these larger communities grows. For example, over the last two years of teaching at a private school based in a low-income, African-American neighborhood, I became increasingly uncomfortable with the lack of interaction between the school and its surrounding community. My students regarded members of the neighborhood with suspicion, fear and gross generalizations. Furthermore, the community itself is in crisis, wrestling with the usual suspects that emerge in a poor neighborhood—gangs, drugs, homicide. So I started attending meetings at city hall with our district supervisor, who wants to harness the interfaith community in this district to become a force that responds to the community’s problems. This led to the idea of an interfaith teen council. All I had to do is choose 4-5 students who I have watched become increasingly conscious and concerned for the worlds beyond the small one they move through on a daily basis (home, school), who demonstrate leadership and initiative, character traits I am convinced they learned, at least partially, in school. These students started accompanying me at the city council meetings--not because their participation was required or counted towards a grade. But simply because they care and they want to live up to the expectations of mentors they respect. I think this example illustrates that schools are quite capable of helping students build character. Earning an A on a paper after a semester’s worth of Bs and Cs, being caught cheating and suffering not only concrete consequences, but also the disapproval of a teacher you respect, overcoming the fear of public speaking, these are all character building experiences that take place in schools.

The Foolish Dennis Kucinich

One of my very best friends today remarked that she thinks I operate better when I'm a little pissed off. Sadly that's true. I have ample reason to be rather perturbed these days- personal and professional ones- but I must admit that I appreciate the push of a little emotional energy. My inner conflict often consists of a 'lay by the fire' laziness and an Germanic need for precision. The only thing that keeps me from being abandoned by my friends is the fact that the primary target of my critical lens is me.

That's why I love Dennis Kucinich. Listening to him talk takes the lens of myself for a moment. I may be an asshole but I'm not a naive asshole. In this dangerous world, this difference definitely matters. When asked if the thought the world would be better off if Hizbollah was dismantled, his answer was that the world would be better of without war. Yes, and I would be better off if Jessica Alba was my girlfriend but that's not likely. Uma Thurman, maybe but not Miss Alba.

So caught up in his own ideology, Kucinich completely dismisses the needs of other people. Comfortable in the warm blanket of security provided by the US Military, Kucinich feels no shame at criticizing others who seek the same comfort. He may not be dumb but he is still a fool. He is, in fact, the worst kind of fool convinced of his own intelligence. He and his ilk are the most easily manipulated by the hustler. He's so sure that violence is the ultimate evil that he is willing to reward those who use it as a terroristic weapon. He believes that dialog can solve anything- a childish, Sesame Street view of the world.

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
-John Stuart Mill

Kucininch needs to grow up. The world is not the safe, fuzzy places he wishes it to be. Peace doesn't naturally exist. It never has. Peace is earned and protected by men with weapons. And Kucinich's freedom is a gift from those same men too.

Send in the Legion

All this talk of inserting a peacekeeping force into Lebanon has reminded of a story I heard from a USMC Gunnery Sergeant who had served in Beirut at the time of the tragic Marine Barracks bombing. My question to him was simple, "Who were the most effective at keeping the peace over there?" (actually, my words were "baddest motherfuckers) His answer shocked the hell out of me.

"The French," he said emphatically.

I guffawed. "You gotta be kidding Gunny. The French? Are we talking about the same people?"

"Look, Sir," he said with tension mounting in his voice. "They'd put a single Legionaire with his rifle and a pack of cigarettes in areas we wouldn't put a company of Marines."

The French Foreign Legion. That made a bit more sense. The modern Legion doesn't quite share the same questionable reputation of their predecessors but they were still a hard group of men not to be trifled with. And say what you want about the French, the leadership tends to give the Legion wide parameters in which to work. Apparently, at one point, one of these Legionaires got stoned while standing his post in a section of Beirut. (I don't remember which one.) Not the green bud, 420-type stoned but old school biblical stoned. He made it safely back to his Command but had taken a few hits. Though the Legionaire was no worse for the wear, the commander of the unit decided that he could not tolerate such an offense. He mustered the whole unit and they made their way back to area of the insult. Once there, the Legionaires locked arms and walked up and down the street putting the boot to everybody; men, women, children, grandmothers. Nobody fucked with the Legion after that.

Now I wasn't there so I can't vouch for the veracity of this account. But I have absolutely no reason to doubt the Gunny's word and plenty of reasons not to. Plus, it also corresponds with what I understand about Arab Muslim culture. Kindness is uniformly considered weakness. A culture of people on the make, violence is often the only way to get through to them and to let them know you are serious. It's a universal language and one they understand well.

Unless the Peacekeepers are going to go in and kick some Hizbollah ass, it's criminal to send them. They will be risking their lives for nothing. You cannot negotiate with a terrorist organization as you would a nation-state. The old rule set no longer applies. The problem is we don't have a new one yet so we're making it up as we go. We're bound to make mistakes but let's not make the same ones we did in 1983. There's the memory of 241 Marines who deserve better than that.

The Abolition of Me

It is pure visceral pleasure to read C.S. Lewis' writing. I'm talking about the unexpected glimpse of a beautiful woman, first taste of a small house Cognac, cassoulet on a frigid day-type pleasure. I've taken to reading his words out load, having discovered that this increased my pleasure. But there is more than just beauty. Unlike a beautiful woman who will seduce you and break your heart. Unlike the Cognac which will lead to a hang over. Unlike the cassoulet that will pack on unneeded pounds and clog your arteries. Lewis doesn't use beauty to distract you from a lack of substence. He uses to make a difficult topic palatable.

In comparison, I offer Dave Eggers. There is no doubt Mr. Eggers is a master storyteller and wordsmith. His sheer facility with the English language is mind-boggling enticing me to read about things I have no interest in. But at the end of it all, I just don't care. Much like candy, the pleasure is great but lacking in nutritional value. I want a Ducasse, a Keller, an Adria. Skill is just not enough for me. I admire great writers. I just believe that they should be great thinkers first.

The Abolition of Man gives shape to my personal quest. I had mistakenly thought that the goals of Eastern spirituality and Western intellectualism needed to reconciled. What I now realize and what Lewis so clearly expounds is the fact that both disciplines come from the same Truth or Tao as he refers to it. I won't go through the book piece by piece. Though short in length, I'm quite sure that I would misrepresent the depth of this work. I will, however, share some of my thoughts as they relate to the book and hope you will find them interesting enough to want to read The Abolition of Man.

The martial arts. Why do I always come back to this? Undoubtedly, part of the reason is because I know this better than I know anything else. But there's more to it than mere self-absorption. The arts continued to fascinate me long after my skills as a fighter stood to gain no noticable improvement because they are a telling metaphor for life. Watch a man train and watch him fight and you will know more about him than he ever would or could tell you himself. I have acquired instructor-level skill in 9 distinct martial arts and proficieny in 7 more. I didn't do this just to pad my CV. I don't believe I truly understood the martial arts until I mastered my 3rd. From there they became easier and easier to learn because they were all derivatives of the same Truth. I'd explain it to my students like this. Everybody eats rice but the preparation depends on where you live. Cooking the rice is basically the same process everywhere but how you spice it, how you dress it gives each rice its own character. Learn to cook the rice properly and then you can spice it however you want. And yes, they would look at me funny when I would say this.

There is some crazy and ridiculous stuff out there in the martial arts world. There are also some pretty amazing skill sets bordering on magic. (See my previous post- the Devil and Sifu Frank) But you can pretty much divide the martial arts world into 2 camps. One has been in real fights. The other hasn't. People who belong to the fighting camp generally tend to agree on most things and their techiques and applications start to look remarkably similar. On the other hand, the people in the no-fighting camp argue about every little detail because they have no standard by which to judge the efficacy of a technique. Actual fighting is to styles like the wind tunnel is to car design. In the name of efficiency and effectiveness, things generally start adopting the same shape.

In his much more intelligent way, Lewis says this is true of Life. He says that there is a universal standard, naturally existing right or wrong that are so, long before we get to them. Whatever we call them, however we might try to manipulate them, they are still inherently right or wrong. And how are we to know this? Only by perceiving correctly, a skill which I maintain has been woefully neglected by Western Thought. (See my post- Descartes! You French Bastard!) He goes on to show how a world without standards taken to its logical ends destroys itself.

Cyrus the Great used to send his young princes to go live in a rugged far off land like Bactria to return to when they were 18. Until then, they were only to be taught 3 things: to ride well, draw the bow, and speak the truth. Only then would they be taught more advanced topics like philosophy. Even 2500 years ago, Cyrus knew that teaching boys to be clever before you taught them to be good creates problems. Lewis takes this concept further and refines it arriving at the conclusion that the study of Ethics will only make sense to someone who has been taught from childhood to love goodness. As he put it, he would rather play cards with a man who was skeptical about Ethics but was raised to believe that a gentleman never cheats than a man who understood the study of Ethics intimately but would try to win at any cost.

My only problem with this book is personal. His reasoning against using the human body as spare parts for medical advancement is very difficult to argue with. He could have just as easily been talking about stem cell research and transplants. As much as I agree with his reasoning, I can't help but feel his logical conclusion is just wrong. I think Lewis fell into the Cartesian trap in believing that a well thought out argument is the same as the Truth. But it's equally likely that I'm wrong as well. I'm alive because of a transplant. Stem cell research holds great promise for my future happiness. I cannot distinguish between what is and what I wish it to be, in this case.

The Abolition of Man completely destroyed my internal philosophical system which, in all honestly, needed destruction. I had gotten too caught up in trying to think an Original Thought- a pointless exercise in ego gratification. I know better than that. I look at all the charlatans starting their own martial art systems which invariably are nothing but new training methods. The Tao is all coming from the same place. The effort should be to discover it fully, not take a piece of it grow it into a monstrosity. This was the wake up call I needed and I have the Dumb Ox to thank for it. My goal as always, is to forget 'me' so I can see reality clearly. This book gave me an intellectual foundation for what I believed was true in my heart. Validation? Yes, but so much more than just that. My apologies to Mr. Lewis for using "Abolition" in a manner counter to what he meant in his book in the title of this post. But the Abolition of Man freed me, however momentarily from my petty and ridiculous attachment to my ego. That is the 'me' that needed to be abolished.

Active Citizenship

A few days ago, I traded a couple of emails with a friend of mine. She's a high school English teacher and I reached out to her to resolve a grammar issue that stumped my merry band of grammatically challenged hooligans. With all that's going on in the world, the topic naturally moved to the issue of the day and I vented my frustration with people who passionately voiced their opinions despite an ephemeral understanding. She replied with an elegant yet powerful paragraph framing her goals as a teacher.

Her statement was direct. "I teach active citizenship." Dynamic and seductive, who could disagree with a statement like that? But why, then, has that one statement weighed heavily on my mind since I read it? Active citizenship. What about that actually bothers me?

First, I suppose in the interests of full disclosure, I should say that I'm not a fan of democracy. I'm part of the tradition that began with Plato, believing that democracy invariably degenerates into the rule of the flatterer. Flatter the masses, tell them how smart they are and you will win your post. Sad, but true. Churchill said, "Democracy is the worst form of government except for all others." That is, perhaps,closer to what I believe but I'm looking for something better- something to break the cycle of Democracy- Republic- Monarchy- Despotism ad infinitum. Until I find it, the rule of the mob will have to do.

To my mind, implicit in the word 'citizen' is activity. Otherwise the proper word would be 'subject.' In De Toqueville's Democracy in America (an oft quoted but little read book), he writes of how the criminal in America is the enemy of every man because citizens have a stake. In Europe, the criminal is only the enemy of the King. Having spent a great deal of time in Europe, I know this attitude is still true. The European engagement with the poltical process is mostly centered around social services provided.

But what kind of 'activity' shall we have? What about our civic duties? Do we get to decide what they are or does the State? Civic duty is a term that has fallen out of vogue. These day, it seems that people are far more interested in what the Country can do for them instead of what they can do for their Country. Is paying taxes adequate fulfillment of my obligation to my Country? Most people think that it is. And I would suspect that most educators under the age of 50 feel that they owe the Country nothing more than a check. Is this loss of civic duty a lack of citizenship instruction or of substandard instruction?

Teaching a subject, any subject, implies that the teacher is more knowledgable about the topic than the student. In the case of citizenship, how many teachers are actually qualified to teach this topic? Naturally, this leads to a debate about what is citizenship. It's really quite simple. Citizenship is contribution to the body politic. One of my Marines, when asked why he joined the Corps, said that he enlisted because he wanted to be able to criticize the Country and he wouldn't feel comfortable doing so until he made a contribution. Who taught him that? I suspect that this 19 year old Marine didn't come up with such a thought on his own. Another example of this is my friend Baby Gator. At 25, she's as smart as anyone I've ever met coupled with a breakneck work ethic and near limitless ability. Clearly on the fast track, her major concern is that she is not contributing enough, not doing all she could for her Country. And to truly piss you off, she's beautiful to boot.

By this standard, I would have to say that the vast majority of my academic teachers and professors were not great examples of citizenship. Most of them weren't bad either but a teacher should be an exemplar of the topic he is teaching and I only had half a dozen teacher and professors who would qualify. Is this an issue of patriotism? I don't think so. I distrust overt displays of patriotism. I'm reminded of this old Cuban man who told me over a morning Cuban coffee, apropos of nothing, that if my woman started becoming very affectionate with me and telling her friends how great I was, she was definitely cheating on me. I think the principle applies to overt patriotism. But citizenship is something else. It's a matter of focus. It's a question of gratitude.

Duty is the sublimest word in the language. You can never do more than your duty. You should never wish to do any less.
-Robert E. Lee

The fact of the matter is that none of my academic instructors taught me a single thing about duty. And what is citizenship if not duty? I don't think school is where you learn to be a good citizen. I don't think it can be. Your grade is unaffected by your character or lack of it. Citizenship is about character, not cleverness, and academic institutions have been unable to teach it for quite some time. With the emphasis on grades, I think that school often teaches the wrong thing. Perhaps the pedagogy has advanced to the point where this has changed. That's possible. But watching the news and reading the paper makes me no more of a citizen than watching sports on TV makes me an athlete. I learned more about character in the judo dojo. Duty found its meaning when I had teammates on a waterpolo team who depended on me. The books I read that taught me about my duty as an American were ones I sought out myself. There is a fine line between education and indoctrination. And unfortunately, it's a line that the Education establishment doens't draw clearly enough.

We've Seen This Enemy Before

Though we wish not to admit it, we are at war with Iran. We have been since the 1983 Hizbollah bombing of the Marine Barracks in Beirut. But the roots of our conflict are far deeper than that. They go back 2500 years to the invasion of the Pelopenesse and Attica by Xerxes and the Asian hordes of his Persian empire. Modern day Iranians hope to rekindle the legacy of the Achaemenids. Having once ruled most of the world, they believe it is in their power to do so again.

From our vantage point, this seems foolish. How can a backwater nation such as Iran challenge the United States? The idea seems absurd. But as I have often maintained, a nation's reasons for war only have to make sense to itself. And challenging the US for supremacy pays homage to their Persian history. In six short years, Cyrus (not yet the Great) had elevated himself from King of a small mountain tribe to absolute ruler of all the lands between India and the Aegean. He accomplished this through conquest, bribery and careful diplomacy. He was ambitious as he was capable.

America has been a superpower for so long that we take national pride for granted. Much as a Harvard graduate may hesitate before claiming his alma mater, many Americans (particularly well-traveled ones) hesitate before showing pride at our Country's greatness. Pride, to us, seems like a childish reason to go to war. But pride alone has started almost as many wars as it has started fights. Far more than being an acceptable casus belli, it is for the humiliated, the greatest one.

Iran, home to political intrigue for almost 3 millenia, has always known that it cannot beat the US in a straight fight. Despite all their bluster, in strict military terms, our military would make short work of theirs. So it has engaged in assymmetrical warfare and been quite successful at it. Hizbollah has since their inception been Iran's proxy, doing Tehran's bidding while given them deniability. This style of warfare goes back to the days of the Persian War as well. Western armies, as a legacy from their Greek ancestors, traditionally look for the decisive fight. Livy wrote that the Romans like their wars "big and short." But the armies of the East eschewed such warfare. They preferred skirmishes, picking away at their enemies over time until they were so weak that a convential fight was guaranteed victory. Our conception of war has a definite beginning and an end. Theirs is decidedly more flexible. 10 years between attacks is not ten years of peace. It is merely a lull in the ongoing battle.

The Persians were also adept at using bribes to weaken their enemy. Knowing how fractious the Greeks were and how tenuous their alliance, Persian made every attempt to win over the Greeks who were on the fence. They are still playing the PR game and by all accounts, they are far better at it than we are. There is something naive in the American character that makes it susceptible to such advances. Perhaps it's because we have been so coddled for so long. Embarrassingly, many of us travel to Europe for one summer and consider ourselves worldly. In times of peace, this is funny. In war, it is dangerous.

With the Persian way of war in mind, we must remind ourselves that there are no innocent Lebanese. They must be taught that tolerating Hizbollah will only bring them pain. No real government would tolerate such an overt challenge to their sovereignty unless they were in collusion. This is nothing new. Total war doctrine was introduced by General Sherman who wanted to teach the Southerners that supporting the war put their lives at risk too. Brutal it was, but it played a huge role in the ending of the Civil War thereby saving countless lives. The Israelis have been clear in telling the Lebanese to vacate any area about to be shelled. In doing so, they have greatly lessened the efficacy of their operations. But they do so to minimize the loss of human life, something that Hizbollah isn't the least bit concerned about.

Iran is using Hizbollah to attack Irael to take the world's attention off its nuclear program. If Hizbollah survives this exchange intact, so much the better. With expectations being what they are, all Hizbollah has to do is remain politically viable and it will have won in Muslim eyes. Israel could never win the PR game because Hizbollah doesn't wear uniforms. Of the dead Lebanese civilians, I wonder how many were actually noncombatants. No, Israel must win and do so decisively because a large part of its safety is found in the mental edge they possess. Arab armies that have achieved nothing but defeat and humiliation at the hands of the IDF. Because of this, countries who have publicly called for Israel's destruction have been hesitant to act beyond assymetrical warfare which can never cause the extermination of a country. But if Israel loses this aura of invincibility, if her mighty military is shamed in Arab (not Western) eyes, then the nations that want to wipe her from the planet might start getting ideas that they could succeed negatively affecting Israel's national security in a very real and substantial way.

I never liked the term 'War on Terror.' I've always thought it ill-advised to declare war on a tactic. We must see these attacks for what they are and treat them accordingly. They are assymetric incursions against the West sponsored by primarily by a State actor. It's an age old struggle and maybe one we will never settle. But we have to start seeing this for what it is- an actual full-blown war. An in this war, we have the one ally with the intestinal fortitude, understanding and competency to fight it. We do not have to rescue her- Israel can take care of herself. But she does need our support on the international scene where anti-Semitism is widely accepted. To constrain our ally is to embolden Iran which will only cause more problems for the world. Iran's day of reckoning will come. The sooner we make that happen, the sooner we can continue to advance globalization in the region and increase the standard of living for everyone.

Failed Assumptions

I woke up feeling pretty good today which I found strange because the world seems to be taking the express train to hell. A quick inventory didn't blunt my mood either despite the fact that I have a good friend stuck in Beirut right now as well my usual assortment of compatriots in Iraq, Afghanistan and other fabulous vacation spots around the world. Just in the last week we, as world citizens, have had to deal with a tragic bombing in Mumbai, North Korea and Iran's complete defiance of the international community and the Hezbollah-Israel conflict. I've heard a lot of different commentary but all of it seems based on assumptions I would not necessarily agree with.

The first and most egregious assumption I want to challenge is that violence solves nothing. Violence of the the lethal sort is the ultima ratio. A dead man's interests have no weight. When we in the civilized world are shocked by genocides, ethnic cleansings or raw barbarity, we show our naivete. Where violence as a tactic hasn't worked, it's because it wasn't used as thoroughly as required. No, the idea that violence solves nothing has been drilled into our collective consciousness by people who have only experienced violence as the victim. It may be wrong. It may be immoral but there is no doubting its effectiveness. We should not be surprised when those who do not share our morals or those whose morality is only written in their minds and not in their hearts resort to it.

"War is a spectacular expression of everyday life."
-Krishnamurti

Once we are indoctrinated into the anti-violence cult, it is only a short step to "War doesn't solve anything." Now this attitude isn't just foolish but dangerous. According to the ancient Greeks, wars were started for 3 reasons: fear, honor and interests. Or any combination of the above. It is just intellectual laziness to make immorality the only casus belli of this day and age. A State's reasons for engaging in open warfare only has to make sense to itself. Take for example the shame and humiliation felt by many Muslim men in the middle east. Their shame finds its roots in the practices of their own culture and religion. Our very existence humiliates them. What are we to do? Kill ourselves to be polite? Their hatred of Western culture is simply sour grapes. They haven't achieved anywhere near as much so they label our achievements wrong and evil. But this very juvenile reason is enough to mobilize Muslim youth to blow themselves up. It isn't immorality that makes them do so. It is fear, honor and interestes. It also is a history of "might equals right" going back to Mohammed.

War, in fact, has solved every major issue in how we live our lives. The Persian wars of ancient Greece protected democracy from being smothered in the cradle by a despotic Asian hegemon. The 30 Years War ended in the Treaty of Westphalia which gave us the modern nation-state system. WWII gave the US one of two dominant positions in the world. The Cold War ended the reign of the Communist system in national government among major players on the world scene. (China, for all intents and purposes, is no longer a communist country.) While it's certainly true that not every war has decided a major issue, it's equally true that war has decided all the primary principles of every culture directly or indirectly.

So it follows that if both violence and war accomplish nothing, then it must right to avoid violence at all costs. But this can't be true. I learned this when I was 10 years old. My father was giving my mom a pretty good beating and I went in to stop him. Being 10, I was ineffective and caught a beating myself for my trouble. He apologized the next day and promised it would never happen again but it did. I learned a valuable lesson early. Talk wasn't going to stop my dad. Only violence could. The most reliable way to ensure my mom's safety was to be more capable of violence than my father. If the ability were mine then, I could have protected my mother. Would it have been moral to refrain from violence then?

The obvious rebuttal to my experience would be to say I could have called the cops. That's true but what is throwing my father in jail but violence? Law and order works because there is the threat of violence. Comply or we will make you. That's what's lacking on the international scene- the enforcement branch. Any group or State can sign whatever document it wants and there's no statuatory cost for breaking their word. We can't even agree on a rule set. Look at the current conflict in Lebanon. Not even the G8 can come together on a course of action. They issue a proclamation stating that is the conflict is Hizbollah's fault. Is the G8 going to mete out a punishment? One more severe than the Israelis are doing? Whose lesson will Hizbollah better learn?

So it's clear that "avoid violence at all costs" is a dullard's pursuit. So how does one then justify the way of the world with the original inaccurate assumption so indelibly etched into our brains from years of brainwashing? Rather than challenge the original assumption which the vast majority of people are loath to do, we create a doctrine called proportionality. No one who has been in more than 3 real fights can make sense of this foolish thinking. As with anything based on a false premise, it is doomed to be wrong but its danger is that it is seductive. For the moderately educated with no experience in violence, it seems right. But it is not.

One of the basic laws of the jungle is that the person who starts the fight doesn't get to say when it ends unless he ends it (by winning) or has taken enough punishment that the other party is satisfied. To deny the validity of this truth is to give every advantage to the party initiating the violence. Why wouldn't I resort to violence if I could retreat without significant damage? If I win, I will get what I wanted. If I lose, I won't lose much. This describes our current relationships with Hizbollah and Hamas. And to make this worse, we are inconsistent with application. Al Qaeda we eradicate. To everybody else, we issue strong statements and eventually appease. The only thing that has ever worked with Hizbollah is what the Soviets did in Beirut in 1985 when four members of their embassy were kidnapped. The KGB kidnapped someone of their own and sent back pieces until the hostages were released. (1 was killed) Such a response was indeed proportional. The Soviets had more than enough firepower to level every Hizbollah stronghold. But such responses are unavailable to Americans making the idea of proportionality a sham. Prpoportionality cannot be a guiding principle when it loses out to a schoolgirl's morality.

I know the realpolitik arguments for it too. Proportionality gives you someplace to go and room to escalate. I suppose this thinking is fine if you don't actually want to solve the problem. Again, the doctrine of proportionality has led us to our current predicament in the world. Make no mistake, we are in this conflict with the fundamentalist Muslim world because they find us weak. At their core, they are cowards. Look at how they treat their women. Weakness only emboldens a coward. In fact, it is the only thing that does. They attack American interests all over the world, taking American lives seemingly at will and respond by destroying a few insignificant building durings specific hours of the day to minimize casualties. What is to us proportional is to them pathetic. In making ourselves feel better we endanger countless more lives in the future.

Iraq was predictable and not for the reasons most Democrats think. The problem started with President Reagan and his lack of a meaningful response to the death of 241 Marines. President Bush made a attempt to change the status quo with the first Gulf War but failed to win any real changes. President Clinton was more concerned with Europe than he ever was the Middle East. During the last 20 years, our enemy has been probing our defenses, looking for our threshold, seeing how far they can push us before we push back. Eventually, they were going to push us to far and we would tire of it. Whether you agree with it or not, the OIF 1 and 2 are part of the Administration's attempt to deal with transnational terrorism at its roots. No, not poverty, inequality or anything like it. The root cause of transnational terrorism is state sponsorship. It is the sine qua non of Islamic terror.

Look, fighting sucks even if you win. From mano a mano to open warfare, you can't get into a fight without suffering some damage yourself. There is always a price to pay. Now I may have to fight someone but if I do, I'm going to make sure I never have to do it again. What that means depends on the person I'm fighting. If it's just some drunk guy looking for a brawl, it's obviously not going to take much to dissuade him from making the same mistake twice. But if it's a guy who been hired to kill me, well, he may take a little more convincing.

What does Hizbollah want from Israel except its complete destruction? Hizbollah is not an existential problem for Israel but they're enough to be more than a serious nuisance. But why should Israel have to bear that nuisance over and over again? If foreign agents of another country snuck into the US and kidnapped 2 soldiers, there would be hell to pay. Israel's response is proportional. They could have leveled Beirut. Instead they are hitting specific targets. The Lebanese government has more than a little culpability here. A democracy they may be but more a eunuch than a man. The country's balls are held by Hizbollah. Russia and China both have their own financial reasons in calling for Israeli restraint. France, well is France and their anti-Semitism runs deep. We are Israel's only ally and we should act like one. Nations will watch us right now and by our actions decide whether or not they wish to align with us in the future. A country, like a man, is only as good as his word. I'm glad Israel has finally come to conclusion that negotiation with these people is impossible. Hizbollah must cease to exist. They must be eradicated. And if we pressure Israel to discontinue the job that it must do, then we wil be at least partially responsible for the lives Hizbollah will take in the future.

My Favorite Poem

The Man Watching

by Rainer Maria Rilke

I can tell by the way the trees beat, after
so many dull days, on my worried windowpanes
that a storm is coming,
and I hear the far-off fields say things
I can't bear without a friend,
I can't love without a sister

The storm, the shifter of shapes, drives on
across the woods and across time,
and the world looks as if it had no age:
the landscape like a line in the psalm book,
is seriousness and weight and eternity.

What we choose to fight is so tiny!
What fights us is so great!
If only we would let ourselves be dominated
as things do by some immense storm,
we would become strong too, and not need names.

When we win it's with small things,
and the triumph itself makes us small.
What is extraordinary and eternal
does not want to be bent by us.
I mean the Angel who appeared
to the wrestlers of the Old Testament:
when the wrestler's sinews
grew long like metal strings,
he felt them under his fingers
like chords of deep music.

Whoever was beaten by this Angel
(who often simply declined the fight)
went away proud and strengthened
and great from that harsh hand,
that kneaded him as if to change his shape.
Winning does not tempt that man.
This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,
by constantly greater beings.

____________________________________________________________________________

A professor of mine once encouraged me to possess some of the better poetry that I liked by memory. This seemed like a waste of time for me but trusting him as I still do, I went ahead and made the effort to memorize. A remarkable thing happened. The very act of saying the poem aloud gave me a deeper and different understanding than what I previously possessed. Nowhere was this phenomenon more clear than with this poem. A friend of mine learned it in its priginal German and said it yielded even more layers of understanding. We discussed them but not possessing the German myself, the lessons were unavailable to me.

My favorite line: Winning does not tempt that man. This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively, by constantly greater beings.

Winning tempts us all. Any of us who have achieved mastery in something will instinctively look for opportunities to display that mastery. But such an impulse is trivial. It serves the ego and nothing else. I would see these people on the dojo floor, practicing only what they were good at in situations that provided them with maximum advantage. This methodology gives the illusion of mastery and nothing more. To achieve each of our own individual potential, we must not be tempted by winning. Growth is painful and that's why very few people actually grow.

I like to win too. More than most perhaps. That's why this poem means so much to me. As with all great poetry, I feel as if Rilke wrote this for me specifically.

Descartes! You French Bastard!

I just purchased an interesting book: "The Pig Wants to be Eaten- 100 Experiments for the Armchair Philosopher" by Julian Baggini. After looking through it, I realized that this would provide me maybe 100 topics for my blog. I will address each example in a separate posting and will, of course, let the reader know if I haven't actually read any of the primary material. Hope this is somewhat interesting and that some of you engage me.

Alright. I'll start at the beginning. Rene Descartes. Why, oh why did this book begin with him? Descartes is my nemesis and I hold him largely responsible for the denegration of modern philosophy. I was once an acolyte instinctively understanding the Spinozan idea of belief coexisting with understanding. Only as a member of the congregation could I honestly appraise the validity of Cartesian thought. It survived for many years at the forefront of my thinking. I don't know when it fell from grace. I don't think it was a grand event, more of a slow and inevitable decay. Now, more and more, I see the damage caused by such a philosophy.

Baggini, in his first thought experiment, brings up the concept of the Evil Deceiver. In brief, suppose you are under the influence of an Evil Deceiver who has tricked you into believing that everything real is false and vice versa. Because of this, everything you believe must be called into question, even the simplest things like if you are awake or asleep. Obviously, the Deceiver doesn't have to be a demon. It could be mental illness or a fundamental set of logical principles. Whatever the case, reality, even as a self-perception, is now open to being challenged.

"The genius of this thought experiment is that, in order to judge its plausabillilty, we have to rely on the one thing the test is supposed to call into doubt: our capacity to reason well. We have to judge whether we are able to think well by thinking as well as we can. So we cannot set ourselves apart from the faculty of thought we are supposed to be assessing to judge it from a neutral perspective. It is like trying to use a suspect set of scales to weigh itself, in order to test its accuracy."

-Julian Baggini
The Pig Wants to be Eaten

We are all familiar with Descartes famous, "Cogito ergo sum." There is no denying his nice tidy logic but the fact remains that he is just wrong. You can separate yourself from your faculty of thought and indeed you have to if you have any hope of perceiving the world clearly. (Notice, I'm not saying accurately which implies something else.) Do to my heritage and my upbringing, I have schooled quite naturally in both Eastern and Western thought. Whereas much of my mental energy as an adult has been used in an attempt to reconcile Greek cognition with Judeo-Christian morality, my youth was spent trying to reconcile Western Christian and Zen Buddhist thought. Only recently have these disparate elements reached some sort of simpatico. For most of my life, it was a battle with both sides giving and gaining ground over time. What I am sure of at this point is that there does exist a space the human mind can exist in before thought. The pre-cognitive place is what yogis, Buddhist Monks, and various adherents can achieve through meditation. Because of the nature of Eastern thought, this event is often referred to as spiritual but understanding it in a Western way isn't accurate. There is a methodology to achieving this space. Everyone has the capacity, if not the discipline to get there. When understanding it like this, it doesn't get in the way of Christianity at all. One of my teachers once described it as quiting the mind so one can hear God free from our own petty judgments. Interesting enough, the founder of Aikido, Morihei Ueshiba once remarked that practicing aikido made it possible for a person to be a better Christian. I know what he means by that.

This understanding was shaped by many things. A few years ago, I started noticing an interesting thing when invovled in high pressure negotiations. I am chagrined to toot my own horn, but I began noticing that my assessment of the various situations I found myself in uniformly led to better results than that of my colleagues. For about a second, I thought I was smarter than everybody else. It didn't take long to shake that delusion. At the level I was working at, everybody was smart, everybody could reason and everybody had done the work. What made my assessments different? After much reflection and many hours of going over videotapes, I realized what it was. I was able to slip into the "zone" in times and situations my associates couldn't.

What is this "zone?" We hear of it all the time in athletics and even in music. Difficult to explain, it has been described as a state of grace. It is unconscious competence and it can only be achieved through practice. That's why we see it in sports and music. In modern American society, these are practically the only pursuits where practice, rote practe, is common. It's easy to see the advantages of the "zone" when we see Michael Jordan or Yo Yo Ma slip into it but what about daily life? How did this help me in negotiations?

The main flaw of Cartesian thought is that it stovepipes information. It fundamentally misunderstands the nature of the acquisition of data. It doesn't work like the Matrix where one's brain can be programmed with kung fu skills. The very acquisition of knowledge shapes that information making unbiased thought, outside of mathematics, impossible. According to Cartesian thought, the process of accepting a piece of information is two fold. First you assess the validity of the proposition then you choose to accept it or not. Spinoza is much more accurate here saying that comprehension and acceptance is the same step. Once you have accepted it, you can only then determine its validity. This is obviously true. When confronted with new information (of the paradigm shifting variety) most people judge according to past personal experience, the only standard a person has. Only by accepting a proposition and expanding you understanding can a person then honest test its truthfulness. The problem here is that when a person is confronted with fundamentally different material, the Cartesian mind is making judgments and assessments as information comes in, preventing the accurate intake of information.

My process is a little different. I try to quiet my mind to the extent I am able in an emotionally charged situation. I am constantly in receiving mode and I'm trying to accumulate as much raw data as possible without judgment. Then as I need to, I slip out of it to make a point or adjust the mood in the room and then I go back to receive. Easy enough right? Simple but not easy. The greater the pressure, the louder the voice in your head gets and the harder it gets to silence it. And the louder it gets, the more inaccurate your reception of all the information in the room. This again is obvious. Even with no pressure, how many people misread a document when it discusses something they are emotional about?

But why am I so upset with poor Mr. Descartes? Because according to him, thinking is everything. The creation of a tight, logical, cogent piece of thought is all. Cartesian thought allows people to believe that it is enough because it is the only thing you can trust, though his point was less about truth and more about proving one's own existence. I don't know how many people I have run into who have mindlessly blundered into situations oblivious to the damage they were causing simply because they were confident in their own reasoning. It doesn't matter how good your reasoning if you misassess the world. It doesn't matter how clever you are if you are working with bad data provided by senses clouded by thought. You will invariably reach the wrong conclusion or learn the wrong lesson from the experience.

Cartesian thought is only part of the big picture. As loyal readers of my blog will attest to, I'm less concerned with proving things right or wrong than I am trying to make an intellectually honest and beneficial blend. The East, having spent millenia trying to learn to perceive clearly, have poor logical and reasoning skills. The West, while advancing logic and reason to it very pinnacle, has spent no time developing the inner technology that allows the body to receive information as pristinely as possible. Neither provides the complete picture and I believe that it is through a blend that we will advance the human condition.

Viva la France! Decimate the whining Italian team!

The Contemptible Watada

I don't know if Lt. Ehren Watada, US Army, has samurai ancestors but if he does they must be doing backflips in their graves. Lt. Watada is the first officer to publicly refuse to fight in Iraq on the grounds that it was an illegal war. Sounds reasonable enough right? No, it's not. Lt. Watada has shamefully turned his back on his brotherhood and the proud tradition of military officers serving this Country. He has no ground to stand on at all. He is an opprtunistic coward and I'm deeply ashamed that we're from the same state.

He's not a pacifist. He's not a conscientious objector. He's not saying that he's unwilling to fight. Just not in Iraq. Well, he doesn't get to make that call. If he was further along in his service, maybe he could resign his commission but at this early stage in his career, he still owes the American Taxpayer what he took his oath for. As a professional soldier, you go where you're told. You don't get the option of thinking for yourself here and civilians should want that. A military that doesn't willingly give in to civilian rule is one that may not defend such rule when push comes to shove. We have the longest living democracy in the world and not once has it ever been threatened by a military coup. Do you think that is because the military is scared of the civilian leadership? Hardly. The military capitulates to civilian rule, no matter how incompetent it may be, because to do otherwise in any situation sets in the motion the military coup process. There are tragic repercussions if Watada is allowed to escape punishment.

As far as the war being illegal, that's just plain silly. Justice, put simply, is what you can compel. I'm not talking about some divine notion of justice. That's way beyond my pay grade and any other human's for that matter. I'm talking about justice as it is exercised on earth and in reality. For justice to exist, there must be a set of laws and an enforcement mechanism to enforce those laws. If either aspect is missing, then justice becomes meaningless and unobtainable. Personally, I dislike the word. I've seen it used too many times to justify some aberrant behavior. Justice implies kicking ass in a socially acceptable, morally responsible way- what all warriors want. The ethical green light. But all these lofty ideas mean nothing with it comes to international relations and discourse between nations simply because there is no enforcment mechanism with the ability to compel compliance with a specific rule set. We as an international community cannot even agree on a single rule set.

It's is just plain stupid to apply the idea of law and order as we enjoy it in the United States to the world stage. In the United States, the Government holds the monopoly on the lawful use of force. Law and order cannot exist without that precondition. Expecting our foreign policy establishment is ply it's trade on the international scene as an agency might do in the United States proper serves no one. Good intentions are far worse than bad one because they somehow are exempt from accountability. I've seen good intentions cause much more damage than bad ones because good intentions often kill hope before they take life. Countless NGO's in Africa are guilty of this.

Watada's shameful act is more than just about him. If it were, I really wouldn't care if they just sent him home with a dishonorable discharge. His act tears at the very fragile fabric that keeps the American Officer the finest and most ethical in the world. He accuses President Bush of committing an illegal act and emphasized his point by committing one himself. That's not principle. That's the tantrum of a child. If he really had misgivings about deploying to the war, he could have taken his own life. That way, he wouldn't have to deploy and he would still retain his honor. But obviously honor means nothing to him. He's scared and wants what he wants. He's nothing more than a garden variety coward unworthy of even contempt.

Clever, but not the Point

Clever but not the point. I find myself saying that more and more when engaged in debate these days and it’s becoming more and more frustrating. I like to engage in debate, particularly with someone whose views differ from mine. I’ve found that this adversarial process is a great way to check my thinking and test the validity of my ideas provided I have an intellectually honest debate partner. But to my great dismay, such individuals are harder and harder to find.

I don’t ever debate for it’s own sake. I don’t see the point anymore. I want to solve a problem or at least move towards solving a problem. Winning a debate services only my ego, nothing else. Too many times, I have found myself in a debate about a substantive issue only to have the opposing party blatantly resort to logic theorems and/or debating tricks. Now these devices certainly have their place but when they are used to primarily gain an advantage, they cheapen the debate.

More often than not, resorting to these very obvious devices is just a clear indicator of a lack of command of the facts. Sure if A = B and B = C then A = C but in the real world, A never equals B and B never C. Different people are different judges of a situation and see it more or less clearly. At a certain level, all of us can think clearly and it’s just a matter of the data we have to work with.

In the blogging world, I see so much of this. Each person trying to outwit the other. To leave the last clever word bomb. I suppose I see the sport in this but I just don’t have the energy for it anymore. I want to talk. I want to engage. I want to vigorously disagree. But I want to do it honestly and without an agenda. So let’s do that. Please engage me. Prove me wrong. Show me where I have made a mistake. And to those of you who already have, particularly the Dumb Ox, I hope you continue to do so. Because we can’t advance our collective thinking if we’re not thinking about the