Dar Kush

The Art of Lying Without Lying

2009-06-09T11:54:00.001-07:00

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The fact that we can lie without quite actually "lying" is pretty clear. And everybody does it to one degree or another. But as I've said: lying about eating candy, Santa Claus, or a surprise birthday party is qualitatively different from lying about things central to entering a war, maintaining household financial integrity, or cheating on your wife.

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It isn't cut and dried, of course. But once I realize I'm talking to someone who will speak in a multi-level fashion (giving sound bytes their adherents can use to rile up the base while simultaneously couching phrases for plausible deniability. Pretending not to realize that their words are being widely misinterpreted . Deleting or not mentioning information critical to the opposition's position).

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All of this turns a critical process (attempting to determine truth), into a game (who's smarter? Who spent more time researching? Who better understands the structure of argumentation ?)

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Because I don't play that game, it is important to identify people who do. Unfortunately, almost everyone in politics plays it to one degree or another. But this is one of the reasons that people who can quote statistics to political effect don't really impress me--I know there are people on the other side of the issue who can also quote stats. If I don't have that kind of knowledge, what I'll do is try to set it up so that someone from the other side can present their position.

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If I can't do that, I'll generally fall back on ad hominum evaluations. In other words, does the person making the case take the position that his political opponents are always wrong? (That Liberals of Conservatives, Democrats or Republicans are assholes). Then this person is a partisan, and absolutely cannot be trusted to represent reality clearly. If they take a more balanced, nuanced position, I MIGHT be willing to accept their interpretation of data. Might be willing to trust that they would not hold back information that would be useful in determining the truth.

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Why is this so important? Partially because people often will conceal their actual arguing point. A man having an affair with a waitress at a given restaurant, trying to keep his wife from going to that restaurant, CANNOT be trusted to make an honest argument against the food. A bigot who hates black people (I'd estimate 5-10% of the population to be actual bigots) will almost never announce herself. Rather, she will attack black politicians or political agendas on other grounds--but would hardly be expected to offer a piece of information that might prove the opposite point of view. Someone who is a total Luddite who wants technological civilization to vanish cannot be trusted to make honest arguments about Global Warming. Someone who is disgusted by homosexuality cannot be trusted to make honest arguments about the economic impact of Gay Marriage.

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In fact, you can wear yourself out dealing with the "presenting argument"--the surface ploy that disguises what they really feel, really want. I've run into so much of this, it seems so universal across political, gender, or economic lines that it seems obvious that we also do it to ourselves. Our internal monologues rarely deal with the real fears that actually drive us. "Fear" is shameful (especially for guys), so we mask it as anger, outrage, and so forth.

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It would be impossible to count the number of times I've been discussing something, and it turned into an argument, and I suddenly realized that I was being manipulated into arguing about something that wasn't the real point at all. And if I could slow the person down and demonstrate my point, the entire false discussion collapsed, and suddenly we were having a much deeper, much realer conversation.

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Has anyone else had that experience?

2009-06-08T09:34:00.000-07:00

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To Thine Own Self Be True

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I can't think of a single real mistake I've ever made in my life that didn't boil down to dishonesty. Lying to myself, lying to others. And in truth, they are often the same thing. "Do not think dishonestly" in A BOOK OF FIVE RINGS is often translated to "Harbor no sinister designs." Liars weaken the fabric of their relationships, as well as complicating their lives to an absurd degree. It is so damned difficult to remain on the path of personal growth. A few good lies can trash all your efforts.

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Some time back I spoke of this, and a few martial artists noted that much combat relies upon deception. Am I then saying that these warriors are morally defective? No, not in any way. The Way of the Warrior is, in my opinion, as exalted as any other Way of life, including that of the Priest, the Healer, the Artist, or the Teacher. But most would agree that violent confrontations, and most certainly war itself, is to be avoided if it is possible to do so without violating ones morals and values.

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I meet damned few people who don't seem to feed their egos with lies: either to justify their positions, their pasts, their actions, their political affiliations. As someone noted: it is common to delete information when arguing, if the information would help the other side.

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But if you do this, you can't say you were interested in the truth. You wanted to "win", pure and simple, whether you were right or not. I remember an argument with a friend, about Muslims and whether the Muslim world would ever be in harmony with the west. His stated belief was that Islam is incompatible with Democracy, and challenged anyone to mention a single Muslim country that wasn't a dictatorship. I mentioned Turkey, and he smoothly rolled into an explanation of the special circumstances that made this "an exception that proves the rule." I realized pretty quickly that he knew the answer to his question before he ever posed it. Not in the slightest do I believe he would have mentioned Turkey if I hadn't. His intent, from that point of view, was not an honest discussion: it was victory for his point.

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Now, this is the way the game is usually played. As I said, Clinton clearly had no interest in clarifying what had happened between him and Monica. The fact that he "didn't exactly lie" is only partially comforting--we deserve better from our leaders.

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But in fact, I am literally the only person I've ever heard actually help someone with their argument if I know information that will make their position stronger. And people look at me like I'm nuts when I do it. Oh well.

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The trouble is that dishonesty creeps back on you. People lie about their finances, their relationships, their bodies. They lie to themselves about the long-range results of short-term actions. And the results can be pretty ghastly.

I've seen a lot of world cinema, and the result is just perfectly in line with my observations about racial images in American film. In general, Japanese film is about Japanese. Chinese film about Chinese. Indian film about Indians. With very rare exceptions, the people who are the dominant cultural/ethnic group of a country will pretty much control the images so that they reflect their own reality, their own belief that they are the best. And they'll shade history to make themselves look better. (I remember sitting in the Kokusai theater in L.A. waiting for a Zato Ichi movie, and there was a coming attraction for a film set during WW2. "Defeated in War--but not in fights!" the subtitle said. I loved that: everyone needs to believe.)

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Nicki graduates college this Saturday. Wow...hard to believe. My little girl is all growed up. Sort of.

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The Hangover (2009)

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Look. If you liked "Porky's" and Apatow movies, you're going to love this story of four guys on a bachelor party weekend in Vegas. Let's just say they wake up with various contusions on their bodies and bizarre amokness in the suite, and no memory of how it all happened. Oh...and the groom is missing.

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The entire film is these doofuses trying to figure it all out. The movie is seriously hilarious, and if you stay through the closing credits, you will wonder where the hell the MPAA was. I'm quite sure there is going to be some serious controversy around a couple of images THERE, and I kid you not. Very, very funny and profane and just a bit touching. A "B+" for fans of raunch.

WARNING: SAMBO ALERT

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Well...The only black characters with speaking parts are:

1) A convicted rapist (Mike Tyson)

2) His fat bodyguard

3) A REALLY fat black woman.

4) A drug dealer, and an incompetent one at that.

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Now, this is in a movie where every white woman with a speaking part is a slender sex object. Once notices these things after a while. And there is a single lead Asian character who is VERY effeminate. Now, most of the people in this movie are caricatures. But the non-white characters are specifically RACIAL caricatures. In other words, the script writer and director didn't write funny characters--they wrote funny Black characters, or Asian. Their ethnicity loomed larger in the minds of the creators than anything else about them. While the leads were "guys," there wree no specifically racial stereotypes applied to them (jokes about "can't dance", "racist", "short penises" or whatever). Except maybe that one gets sunburned.

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The fact is that none of this kept me from enjoying the movie. But if you want to know why Asians, and I would think ESPECIALLY Asian actors are irritated when whites "don't understand" why it is insulting for white actors to go Yellowface, there it is. When Asians and Blacks go "whiteface" then, sure. When Asians get to play lead in movies without being martial arts experts, sure. When black or Asian actors get to be sexual, then we'll talk about white actors being sexual with black or Asian women. Otherwise, it's as if there is segregation, but white people can still move into black neighborhoods. If blacks complain, then they are considered racist. This is just dishonest bullshit, but it's typical: fish can't see the water they swim in.

If I was an Asian actor, and was constantly told there are no roles for your "type" and when there ARE roles, they go to white people in makeup...I'd be pissed. And if I wrote about being pissed, and white people criticized my right even to be upset in a peaceful, intelligent manner--I would consider them blind, deaf, and dumb...like foxes. That they are oblivious because it serves them to be. After all, the millions of dollars in salary and residuals remained in the white guy's community, putting THEIR children through college, paying THEIR medical bills. And those Asian actors are working at Burger King. No one is talking about burning down studios or theaters...but when you hear that it's unreasonable to even be upset, someone is lying to themselves, or simply doesn't want to notice the degree to which the deck is stacked.

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Why don't we hear more from Asians about their exclusion? I think because there is a safety valve: Asian cinema itself. If there were no movies imported from Japan, Hong Kong or Mainland China, it would be different. But there are thousands of movies and television shows depicting the lives of Asians in a full-spectrum manner. Any time you want to see it, you can just turn to the Japanese or Chinese-language channel, go to an Asian theater, pop a John Woo or Akira Kurosawa film into the DVD player and...voila. Latinos have a similar advantage: a Spanish language station in every town with a significant population, and stores selling thousands of films and television shows produced in Latin America or Spain.

And while that doesn't reduce the sting of specific rejection by your home country, if you want to show your children heroes who look and sound like them...you have infinite choices. Black Americans, I think, have bleeted so long and loud because we have no where else to go, and nothing to turn to. Either we make this country work for us, or we're screwed.

Personally, I love the amount of change I've seen. As I've said, when 5-10% of the Senate is black, I'll believe things have evened out. But this century is off to a damned good start.

A different perspective on Carradine's career.

2009-06-05T22:10:00.000-07:00

http://www.apaforprogress.org/david-carradines-legacy-shame

An interesting perspective on David Carradine's career, writing by an Asian with political consciousness. While reasonably respectful of the man, he is seriously critical of his choices. I loved the "Kung Fu" series, but if it had been a "Shaft" series played by a white in blackface, I would have been horrified. I get it. The justification is that he was half-white, so it's O.K. for him to be played by a white guy. Right. I think that the major litmus test for whether you buy that is whether it works out to your racial advantage.

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The term "Yellowface"--for white actors who play Asians--is interesting. I hadn't heard it, and rather like it. Here's something odd. I've seen hundreds of Japanese and Chinese films, and have never seen one put an Asian in "white" makeup to play a Caucasian. It is tempting to think that, for some reason, whites consider themselves the universal human type, that Joel Gray can play a Korean, Peter Lorre a Japanese, Boris Karloff, Sidney Toiler, Christopher Lee or David Carradine can play Chinese. Why? I say it is because Fu Manchu, Charlie Chan, Kwai Chang Kane, Mr. Motor, or Chuin were characters with intellect, force, masculinity, and even complexity. In order for white audiences to sense their "inwardness" the actors had to be white. Note that, since it became unfashionable for whites to play such roles NONE of these characters have appeared again. It is just so sick and wrong. And comes, I think, from being so powerful for so long that you can hallucinate that the world revolves around you. Oh, hell, everybody believes that, and has myths to back it up (with the exception of American blacks, whose mythology lifts whites above them. Yuck.) But America and Europe have been so powerful, for so long, that I suspect there is so much political, economic, artistic, religious, and even linguistic support for the belief that as the world browns, a LOT of people are going to freak out. It will feel as if the world is ending.

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No. The world is just awakening from a dream. Not a good one, either.

Farewell, Grasshopper

2009-06-04T07:56:00.001-07:00

David Carradine hanged himself in his hotel room in Bangkok early this morning. Good night, Grasshopper...

ﾠﾠNo, I don't see the situation of "Iraq is connected to Al Queda, Al Queda caused 9/11, therefore the administration is saying that Iraq caused 9/11" because I was against the invasion, although I was.

I have seen people use that kind of formulation to avoid conveying information all my life. "Mommy, is there a Santa Claus? The kids at school say there isn't."

"Well, Tommy, children are often wrong about things like that."

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Mommy can say that she didn't lie. But she can't say that her intent was to honestly answer the question. I've done that myself, and smiled about it. I remember listening to Tom Bradley, mayor of L.A., during a press conference, and was boggled that he spoke for an hour and never said anything. I just couldn't believe the degree to which he twisted logic and words to convey zero information, or avoid answering questions.

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I can accept that human beings, and especially those called politicians, will do that in order to promote their agendas or avoid problems. But if you want me to believe that the administration didn't know that a big proportion of the American public believed--and in some cases STILL believes that Iraq was responsible for 9/11, I can't go there. And to me, if the intent is honest communication, then you go out of your way to say, plainly: "while there are some connections between Iraq and Al Queda, there is NO, I repeat NO connection between Iraq and 9/11." And say it more loudly and with less equivocation than anyone is saying "Iraq is connected to Al Queda"--because you KNOW people are misunderstanding, and it is critical to the survival of a democracy that people be able to trust their leaders.

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Unless you take secret joy in the misinterpretation, when it comes to something that will involve hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives, there is an obligation to do more than use syllogistic constructions that, while technically may be true, leave vast swaths of the American people believing something you know is wrong.

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Perhaps you don't run your life this way. Perhaps you would accept such behavior from your wife, children, business partner, and friends. And I must assume that you yourself would do the same things, and consider it completely fair play.

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Which disappoints me, seriously, because I could not associate with someone who hid behind language in such a fashion. Language is all we have, and it is a damned poor substitute for mind-reading. When someone is either oblivious to the effect of their words, or deliberately avoids phrasing that will communicate accurately, this is not someone with whom I can associate. I don't play that, and never have. Perhaps it is necessary to function in certain corners of the world. But there is an expression in Neuro Linguistic Programming: "the meaning of a communication is the reaction you get."

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The reaction the administration got from this formulation was "Iraq was responsible for 9/11." I heard countless people and pundits arguing this very point. For me to believe Cheney's words were not deliberate obfuscation, I'd have to believe he read no papers, watched no television, listened to no radio. If people's misunderstanding disturbed him, he should have spoken up, said "Iraq was not connected to 9/11" MORE often than he said "Iraq was connected to Al Queda." If you scream the second and whisper the first, yes, people can find a couple of instances in which the truth was told. But not for a second do I believe that the result--misinterpretation--was not the intent. And if you don't agree about that...I have to believe we're playing by very different rules, that you would deliberately omit information if the result would support your point of view. I'm sorry, but does anyone really trust people who think that way? If it's just about Santa Claus, that might be funny. But when lives are on the line, that's what I call human evil.

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I'm sure some of you disagree. And would accept such behavior from your own circle of friends and associates. I myself would not. Maybe that makes me too rigid, or naive, or something. But you know what? I can live with that.

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Cheryl and I

2009-06-03T09:02:00.000-07:00

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I increased my H2H kettlebell "juggling" to 120 second rounds with 1 minute rest. Needless to say, nine rounds of this is pretty murderous, even at low intensity. Two days later, I'm waking up pitifully grateful that I stretched the night before. I would be TRASHED otherwise. Even so, I can feel that my body wants me to back off a bit today. No problem: today is using the S.H.O.T protocol created by Jeff Martone. Jeeze, that guy is an animal. Woof.

"To know oneself is to know everything"--this is a thought extracted from the Bagahvad Gita. I agree. If you go to Musashi "Know one thing, know ten thousand things" or even Jerry Pournelles "If you master anything, you have the key to mastering anything else" or the "it takes 10,000 hours to master a discipline" and take these comments as a cluster, it seems pretty clear that they all point in the same direction. Then in the Art of War we are warned that someone who knows neither his opponent or himself will lose every time. One who knows himself but not his opponent will win some and lose some. And one who knows both his opponent and himself will never lose.

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I look at these things, and come to the conclusion that, indeed, our primary task is to know ourselves, and that when we do that, we open the doorway to all other knowledge. The road I've taken for this is the assumption that, until proven otherwise, everyone wants a relationship, a healthy fit body, and to make a good income doing something they enjoy. Three measurable standards that point to the person within. The only missteps I've made in my life have to do with lying to myself about something connected with one of these arenas. Frankly, most of the mistakes I've ever seen others make are connected here too.

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It's clear that not everyone wants these things...but that really seems the way to bet.

So in looking at something like "A woman's right to choose" it makes sense to look at my own experiences, and my reactions to them, to help me understand other people's reactions better. And no, I don't accept that men can't understand women's reactions in this arena, any more than I accept that white people can't write about black people. You have to listen to what women say, that's for sure. But unless they're all liars, it should be very possible indeed to grasp the situation.

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In my own past, I was involved in two abortions with a former girlfriend we'll call "Cheryl." It was a horrible decision to make. Best case scenario is that abortion is the worst #$%ing form of birth control you can possibly imagine. There were no direct health issues--frankly, it was just massively inconvenient. We weren't ready to get married, and our life situation would have made a child a gigantic drain of time and energy.

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Anyone who reads this blog knows my commitment to my children. I would NEVER have kids were I not ready to make that commitment: to sacrifice career, dreams, or even life itself to provide for them. Period. To use my children to force myself to become more mature. To let them inspire me to become healed at deeper and deeper levels. I look around myself at the world, and realize that most people begin to abandon their dreams by the age of 20 or so. They pass on to their children a message that life is a constant, draining endurance event with death the finish line.

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I don't believe that, at all. But it was easy to see the trap. Not just for me, but for my children, and theirs as well. Those were my thoughts.

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On the part of "Cheryl", I think that if I had said "let's get married" she might well have said "yes." After all, what she had as a role model was a mother who had sacrificed her own dreams to have children, even when her marriage was confining and sometimes painful. Cheryl had her own hopes and dreams, and the hours we lay in bed talking about what we wanted for ourselves, and each other, were among the happiest of my life. Trust me, Cheryl was devastated by her decision to have the abortions. Yes, I could probably have talked her out of them. No, I'm not sorry I didn't.

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I saw that, later, when Cheryl became a mother she fell right into her mother's pattern, sacrificing and giving everything for her children. And while she seems somewhat satisfied with the choices she made, there is also a sense of sorrow. We probably all feel that at time.

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And I think that she wounded herself with those medical actions. Yeah, I do. I remember that several times Cheryl and her girlfriends took over our house, banished me to a movie to perform a Menstrual Extraction--a kind of abortion--on a woman who couldn't get a medical appointment. There was absolutely nothing jolly or casual about this. It was as solemn as a church service. This was a space in which I was not welcome, although they appreciated that I did not criticize.

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What is the precise feeling of having life blossom in your body? I don't have it exactly, but I've listened to hundreds of women speak of it, and there are enough parallels to other human experience in those words to, I think, give me a glimmering. And I've never, ever felt anything casual, even if there were, on the surface, the appearance of casual emotions. No: I saw a wrenching, tragic decision made by people just trying to make their way through a confusing world.

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I've never seen anything, anything at all to convince me that women have LESS empathy, LESS regard for life than men. In fact, I am tempted to believe the opposite.

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Because I cannot say with certainty when life begins (I just have an opinion), it would seem invalid to try to tell women what they can and cannot do with their bodies in this regard. I see hypocrisy on both sides. The manipulation of language into "Pro-Choice" bothers me, but then the language war is one of the major battlefields of human experience. "Pro-Life" bothers me just as much, if not more.

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As I've said, it seems to me that the major difference between the Left and the Right is the question of whether Essence precedes Existence, or Existence precedes Essence--a debate that simply can't be answered conclusively. To demand that a woman adhere to some standard of behavior decided by men, when the very basis of those standards cannot be decisively clarified, when that basis is in essence Faith rather than science...I just can't go there. I can't.

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Ultimately, it feels like a choice that has to be between a woman and her sense of the ultimate ethical structure of the universe. With God, if you will. There are few instances where women get to control what men do with their bodies. I know that it bothers the hell out of me that the fact that men die more violently and often than women simply isn't reckoned into the equation of "who's got it better" during explorations of sexual politics.

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When Queens rule, and have declared war, they've sent all-male armies off to die. On the occasions when women have power, not one of them, to my knowledge, has disbanded their male military and put women in their place (it would be insane). I accept that, but it hurts me that the terror and pain of those countless men simply isn't figured into anyone's equation of "who's in control." I don't believe that, in general, anyone is in control, regardless of the illusions so many buy into.

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And if we're going to get out of this trap, a trap that was designed to produce maximum children so that a people would flourish, we have to give individuals freedom over their own lives and souls. I see no real alternative.

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After all--take a look at the spread of opinions about "when life begins." The Spartans exposed children who were actually already born--and we revere the Greeks. Late-term abortions are supported by some, reviled by others. First-term abortions are probably supported (given medical reasons) by the majority, but still reviled by some.

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The "morning after" pill has similar controversy. And it doesn't stop there: there are those who feel that any form of birth control at all is sinful. And worse, there are some who feel that masturbation is wrong, on the basis that it is a sort of pre-emptive birth control. And others who feel that it is our sacred obligation to have sex and procreate.

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There simply is no "line" everyone agrees on, and there would have to be before we can agree on what to do with that line. What I DO see is that men, statistically more violent and murderous, have little claim to being MORE compassionate and respectful of life than women. But most of the most strident anti-abortionists are men. Which leads me to think that the primary thing is not respect for life. What then? Control? Well, sure. Everyone wants control. I do think that men tend to control with fear, while women control with guilt. But that's just an opinion.

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How about fear? At the base of every negative emotion, I believe fear is lurking, using other masks to distract us from its primacy. And if that is true, it is quite clear the things that men would have to be afraid of, if women have complete (or more) control over their reproductive systems. That impacts on so many other aspects of life that I couldn't begin to address it casually.

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I like fear as an answer. Fear of women's power (as women are fearful of men's power). Fear of being made irrelevant. Fear of a future in which Paternal Power is no longer driving the overt structures of authority, commerce, and politics. Of course, respect for life is there. But as someone noted, if people REALLY believed, really, deeply believed that abortion was murder, I would expect a far larger percentage of anti-abortionists to resort to violence--just as I probably would if I knew my next-door neighbor was murdering his children, and no authorities would stop it.

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But that doesn't happen. So I think that that is partially just inflammatory rhetoric. This subject is so painful, and so charged with mistrust and fear on both sides, and there is just no way to come to any absolute conclusions about that "when does life begin" question. Slide the line too far in one direction, and most of us would agree that children are at terrible risk. Slide it too far in the other direction, and women are biologically enslaved.

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This is the reason why I would be perfectly happy to just let women work it out. They have as much empathy and respect for life, morality and wisdom as men. Different proportions, perhaps. I see no way that they would not come to useful and appropriate conclusions. Men have the problem of trying to hold onto the power structures as they have existed in their, and their father's lifetimes. That feels just a little like Southerners trying to hold onto segregation, using Biblical justifications to prop up a power structure that just happens to be to their advantage in every way. Can't go there.

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But I really do empathize with both sides. But because I believe that there is more to life than biology and physics, I think that the answers human beings cannot ultimately resolve will all balance out, in the end. And unless I am willing to take responsibility for a woman's soul--let alone financial and emotional responsibility for her child--I will not presume to tell a woman what to do in this regard. I just cannot. I would have to be divine to see what really needed to be done, and I am not.

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I have to admit that men who would NOT be willing to allow women to vote amongst themselves on this issue make me nervous. I trust my daughter, my mother, my wife...and Cheryl. I tasted her tears.

Want a Free Autographed SHADOW VALLEY?

2009-06-02T09:39:00.000-07:00

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http://www.slate.com/id/2219266/

Obama's facebook page. Who said it's hard to make fun of the Prez? The problem is that a LOT of the early humor had specifically to do with race, as if people were trying to get as close to "the line" as possible without stepping over it. It felt crypto-racist, with people saying "what? Watermelons have a racial connotation? Horrors!" and so forth. That's just people's tribalism poking out from under a polite facade. We'll get past it.

Cheney 2009: "There was never any evidence...Iraq was involved in 9/11"

Cheney 2004: ""There clearly was a relationship. It's been testified to. The evidence is overwhelming."

Arrgh.

Here's a story I should write. I say women have total control over their bodies (or...at least as much control as men have over theirs.) But I grasp that an individual man has an interest in what happens to his sperm. How about the development of an artificial womb? A man who establishes parentage over a fetus can sue a woman to prevent her from aborting--but his only option is a simple procedure to remove the fetus from the woman and implant it in the man.

Question: if the removal procedure was less risky than an abortion (!) would this be objectionable?

I just got my author's copies of SHADOW VALLEY, my newest novel. Jeeze, it's pretty! Still don't have any reviews up on Amazon, so anyone who's read it should sashay over there and tell people what you thought.

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And if you don't have a copy...here's a deal for people who have thought about buying the LIFEWRITING YEAR LONG course. You'll notice I don't talk about it much here, because I want this space for more personal reflection, rather than commercial interests. That said, for the next week, I'll give a free, autographed hardcover of SHADOW VALLEY to anyone who invests in the Year-Long. I really am proud of the program: Six CDs, a 250-page workbook, a "Year of Movies" addendum, and a free evaluation of your work. What a deal! If writing is your thing, I promise the Year Long will absolutely floor you.

A Hell of a Ride

2009-06-01T07:18:00.001-07:00

The murder of the abortion doctor Tiller is a tragedy. I do have to say that a lot of the comments from the outraged suggest that they don't believe anti-abortion activists really think abortion is murder. From their perspective, it is something to be discussed and legislated. Got it. But if I really, truly believed it was murder, and it was legal, I might have to do something drastic. If I believed my next-door neighbor was murdering his children one at a time, and no one would stop it...wow. I feel that what we have here is a tragic social schism, with tons of misunderstanding on both sides. Don't get me wrong: I back a woman's right to choice right up until that baby could survive outside her body on its own. That's where I draw the line. But while this action was purely criminal and murderous...I'm not sure people aren't deliberately pretending not to understand that it really is possible to have a difference of opinion about when life starts--anti-abortion folks aren't all pretending about that.

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It really bugs me when I disagree with someone, and they assume that I must be pretending just to irritate them because, ya know, no sensible person could hold a different point of view from theirs.

That being said, it's fascinating to note that violence against abortion clinics was up during Clinton, went to almost nothing during Bush, and now it's back again. That's fear at work. When people feel like they're winning, they are less likely to feel threatened enough to launch into violence. We've definitely got a culture war going, and it won't get better before it gets worse. The trouble is that there has been one way of doing things, for all of living memory. And those who are used to the world having a particular shape are going to be frightened as the changes come: whether they have to do with race, gender, class, sexual orientation, or the dominance of nation-states. Stay balanced, folks, and roll with the punches--it's going to be a hell of a ride.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/31/spike-tv-awards-brad-pitt_n_209477.html

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The headline says a "Halle Berry Butt Grab." I guess it was at the MTV movie awards. Halle was being given the "a decade of hotness" award by Jamie Foxx. He grabbed her butt, and she...well, look for yourself. My, my. At least it wasn't Adrian Brody again.

"Up" and "Drag Me To Hell"

2009-05-31T09:46:00.001-07:00

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"Drag Me To Hell" is the best "fun" horror movie I've seen in maybe a decade. Sam Raimi's tale of a bank loan officer (Allison Lohman, sweet and terrific and utterly game) cursed by an evil gypsy (Lorna Raver, braver still) and struggling to prevent the titular event, damnation at the hands of a demonic force called the "Lamia". It's kinda like "Evil Dead" meets "Curse of the Demon" (a truly superior 1957 horror film), where rationality and the supernatural collide head-on, and while it ain't pretty, it's funnier than hell (pun intended) and scarey, and gross-out good in a way that used to make great date movies. Justin Long (the Mac guy) plays her boyfriend, and he is so sweet and nice that you just KNOW something awful is going to happen to him. Ah, this one is an instant mini-classic. An "A" for horror fans. A "B" for regular audiences. Really top-notch.

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WARNING! SAMBO ALERT!

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All the evil people are dark-haired "others". All the people who know of the "forces of evil" are dark-skinned. A little Mexican boy is dragged to hell in the first five minutes of the film. And no, I don't think that the film-makers would have done that quite so cavalierly with a little blond white kid. Reminded me of the last "Exorcist" film, where a little black child was dragged off and devoured by jackals. I'd never seen a white child treated so horrifically, and believe the "disconnect" is responsible for this. Sam Raimi's Fat Black Woman from "Spiderman" (the only black people with dialogue [Macy Gray singing doesn't count] in "Spiderman" are both rather overstuffed) makes an appearance. In "Spiderman" she's warning Peter Parker he's too small to fight in a cage match. Here, she just sits silently in the background at the bank. Nice to see she's getting work, I suppose, but it annoys me. So blond Allison Lohman is threatened by dark people, assisted by dark-skinned Spiritual Guides. I'd be lying if I didn't say there was part of me cheering for the demon.

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"Up" (2009)

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Pixar is on the edge of creating their own genre: the "Pixar Film." If you'll notice, no one compares their movies to other people's any more. They just rank 'em in order of their favorite Pixar offerings. And this is just. They are so far ahead of the pack in terms of consistently imaginative and spectacular, moving and technically perfect works that it's beginning to get absurd. This tale of an old man (played to perfection by Lou Grant himself, Ed Asner) who decides to fulfill his younger dreams by floating his house to South America in search of adventure, is quite mild, not frantic at all, and contains the kind of emotional resonance found in the story of Jessie's abandonment in "Toy Story 2." That's the first half. But when things kick into gear, it's never the kind of frantic overcompensation one senses in, say "Madagascar" or "Bee Movie." Everything just works. And while this isn't their best film, it may well be their wisest. Kudos to Jordan Nagai, the little Asian cub scout who goes along for the ride. First time I remember seeing an Asian in an animated film other than "Mulan" and it's about #$%@ time. Damned good weekend for movies: An "A" as well. Pixar is simply wonderful right now. Whatever they're doing, I hope it spreads.

My personal favorite Pixar film? "The Incredibles." What's yours?

I love the fact that "racism" is the charge used by folks like Gingrich and Limbaugh against Sotomayor. And that's with nothing but anecdotal instances of discrimination or disadvantage. Anyone who thinks blacks or Latinos are too quick to complain, or women too swift to complain about sexism, needs to note this. Everybody uses anything they can to gain all the advantage available. But man...if there was ever an actual statistical disadvantage for white males, these guys would squeal like pigs. It really is like I've said: if you take people who make these comments, and switched races on them, I bet they would absolutely HATE white people. Makes me laugh, it really does.

Teaching and stuff

2009-05-29T08:10:00.001-07:00

I'm having so much fun over at the 101 Board. Anyone interested in signing up for it, just go to www.lifewrite.com.

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For the time being, we've changed our intent. Originally, we were going to sell the basic program after beta-testing. But there are important issues. If I feel blessed to have gained a measure of spiritual and psychological clarity in one small arena of my life (trust me, thar be plenty confusion in other arenas) then it makes sense to me to give back to the universe. So we're giving away the basic course, and will charge for the CD set and a personal consultation, keeping the price as low as possible.

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Simple reason for this. I just see too much damage in the world that arises from fear, imbalance, and lack of empathy. Every morning I get to go over to the forum and talk to people about their hopes and dreams, their loves and losses. And that feels like earning my day's air.

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I didn't set out wanting to be a guru figure. Studying NLP back in the 70's, the attitude was that if you wanted to really learn it, you had to use it. So I started playing around with it on willing victims, and people started asking me for help. After I had an epiphany about the concept of balance (after watching "All That Jazz" I decided that my only salvation was to become obsessive about it) I really sought out conversations about the subject, and that led to more interaction.

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And somehow over the years, I just fell in love with teaching and sharing. The recent exploration of Steve Muhammad's "Four Rules" discusses the need for a spiritual law. Even if I were an atheist (and by some definitions, I am. Which amuses me.) I would want to have clarity on what I'm willing to die for, because in a very real sense, I'm trading the moments of my life for everything I do and want to achieve. Is it worth it? What is worth investing 10,000 hours of my life to master?

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I'm clear on that: I would gladly die to communicate my core belief. And that belief is that we are asleep. We are gods pretending that we are ants. And if we can wake up, it is a transformative experience. And that core belief drives my writing, and my life. Yeah, I guess it gives me the guru-itch. But trust me: what I really crave is conversations and interactions on the subject of personal growth, and when I have them, I often find myself in the teacher position. I like it a lot better when I'm in the student position, trust me.

Cautious optimism. I may have found a real, genuine breakthrough for Jason's behavior problems. Every morning, we set a 2 or 3 minute boxing timer (he likes the "ding! ding!") and just sit, cross-legged or Japanese style on the floor, holding hands and looking into each other's eyes. For just a couple of minutes, I pull him into my breathing patterns, speak to him of maintaining calm, and constantly remind him to maintain eye contact. "Stay with me. Stay focused. Stay here."

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Sometimes I make funny faces. Or redirect his breathing down below his navel. But we stay together, and after the ding-ding, we do one of Coach Sonnon's Prasara Yoga forms (he really likes the one called "Spider Monkey.") For the last 2 1/2 weeks, we've been doing this, and having a 100% success rate at preschool. His attention and calm have sky-rocketed, and his teachers are breathing a well-deserved sigh of relief. Like I said, I don't know if this will continue to work quite so well, but I wanted to share it, just in case.

I hear "Drag Me To Hell" is absolutely fabulous, and can't wait to see it today. Pixar's "Up" is also supposed to be off the chain. Woof. Good weekend.

Answers to recent posts

2009-05-28T10:27:00.001-07:00

Christian--

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You need people to "stop making such an unholy, perverted mess of everything." All right, I can accept that. What are you, personally, doing? You point the finger at everyone, talk about how much smarter you are than everyone...may I assume that every day you are taking time to lift others up, to inspire, to add your light to the world? And you speak much of your career success, and athleticism. Great. How are your relationships, Christian? Have you learned how to have a lasting relationship with a good woman you can respect and love? You've spoken much of your transitory dalliances. What of relationships that actually engage your heart, that you are willing to sacrifice to maintain?

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I never said that sagging was positive. While not saying it is a "path to underachievement" (that may be a little strong--it is a fashion that celebrates underachievement, to a degree) what I was saying was that people are not dressing this way in a deliberate attempt to increase the pain in their lives. They don't believe that there is anything out "there" better than their current status and associations. This is, in my thinking, a terrible mistake that is due to crappy programming.

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You may be intelligent, but you have the tendency to overstate, generalize and stereotype ("our tribe is FUCKED. No one respects us and most of us shouldn't be respected.") that limits your ability to actually apply that intelligence. Your wounds are showing, man...you're bleeding all over your word processor. I honestly don't believe you love yourself very much--and that pain darkens your entire world.

Mike:

You don't grasp that logic is irrelevant here. You aren't engaged in a logical argument with ME about assimilation and so forth. I believe that we're all going to work it out. Quoting statistics about what is best in the long run is just fine. But again, tell a woman who has been serially raped that "the majority of men are good. It is damaging for the human race if men and women don't get along. Women need to look at the statistics of how their daughters will live if you don't get past this pain..."

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There is logic in this, but human beings aren't primarily motivated by logic, and never are, never have been. Rather than trying to lay out the logic of why people should forgive each other, stop negatively generalizing, and move on, try to understand how it feels to be them. Try to understand how someone might decide that it is a waste of time to separate "good Indians" from "bad Indians"...and that it is time to circle the wagons.

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If you can't see how an intelligent, sensitive, good person could feel that they have run out of willingness to assume good will...then you might be missing a lot of what has driven history: fear. Communities DO get wiped out. People ARE exterminated. Entire sub-groups ARE marginalized or enslaved. That is history. And a percentage of any group of people will keep extending the hand of friendship. And another percentage will close the gates and say: "I'm goign to protect my children. My women. Because you have not."

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I'm sure it hurts to realize that. I'm sorry, I really am. But that's life--after you burn your fingers a certain number of times, it is foolishness not to assume the pot is hot. It will take another generation, with unburnt fingers, to go further.

What can white people do? Just be decent, balanced people. The rest will happen naturally. Extend your own humanity to others that we meet. In my mind, assimilation is underway, and it's working well. Not perfectly--and there are people who can not, or will not assimilate on either side. Neighborhoods will collapse and individuals will fall in the cracks. And unless you believe that there are innate differences between black and white--it will all work out. There will be pain. Far more than I would wish on anyone. But it will work out, and is working out. This I completely believe, and have never seen anything to make me think otherwise. I really, really, love this country.

New Photos. Dear God.

2009-05-28T09:19:00.000-07:00

I feel like I want to cry this morning. The stories about photos of detainees being raped in Iraq are coming down the pipe, and I can't find it within myself to disbelieve. All it takes is the 10% asshole factor. I think that this was absolutely predictable, and largely preventable. Once decisions were made to "go to the dark side," either the Deciders were ignorant of human nature, or this is what they wanted to happen--they just didn't realize someone was going to be stupid enough to photograph it.

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Which raises another question: does anyone out there think that the very worst behaviors were documented? That this is the limit of it? I hope not. The problem is that once you begin to treat human beings as means, as objects, you are on the road to hell, and that is one slippery slope.

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Do you think the best and brightest, the most compassionate and emotionally controlled, will be the ones to implement the rough treatment? If so, then it might be possible to set limits, and trust that they won't be crossed.

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But if in the light of day, with the safety of distance and in civilized context people will approve simulated drowning, they are saying: "these are not people. Wring from their bodies what you need, and avenge our dead." And just as it is inevitable that innocent people will be swept up in mass arrests, it is inevitable that orders will be exceeded.

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We have had too many psychological experiments where people placed in power over others began to exhibit sadistic tendencies. Does anyone out there think that the guards were selected for their respect for Muslim culture, and clarity on the concept that Sadam Huessein had nothing to do with 9/11? Oh, please.

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Don't you think that people who enjoy controlling other people, people who want revenge, people who believe torture is expedient and justified...don't you think those people will find the jobs where they get to apply their theories and express their needs? Find each other, and collaborate in the shadows? Even if our armed forces are better than humanity in general, and we gave them the respect of, say, only a 5% asshole factor, don't you think those few assholes will find their way into the shadows?

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This is heartbreaking--not that it happened, but that so many intelligent people think that they can tip-toe up to a line, but even in the heat of action, with blood in their nose and a helpless "evil" enemy in their hands, no one will cross it. I want to believe that everyone who approves of "enhanced interrogation" has only the very highest morals, the very best intents, really, deeply loves our country and believes that such methods make us safer and better both short-term and long term. I really want to.

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But...to those who listened to Mancow's "waterboarding is torture" reversal and decided that whatever he experienced was insufficient to meet that standard, I want to add a thought. Is rape torture? There is no organ failure, after all (an asinine definition, one as cold-hearted as I can possibly imagine.) And to those who think that what the SEALs and others who use SERE-style training experienced under voluntary waterboarding (conducted by people who love them, who would place their lives at risk to protect them) is somehow equivalent to what we did to our enemies, I ask: what is the difference between rape and making love? One thing: consent. That single thing takes the most pleasurable, positive sensation human beings are capable of experiencing, and turns it into absolute horror.

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We all know this. But I think that because we do not extend our own humanity fully to the "other" this doesn't quite register. We don't quite "get it." Frankly, I don't think some of us want to.

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And this is where it leads...and worse. No one can believe this is the end of it, that this is the worst, or the only. Can they? Can anyone still be blind about this? Regardless of the original intentions, walking down this road was an unbelievably bad mistake, and I think we'll be paying for it for a long, long time.

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If torture were the very best means of obtaining information, inarguably superior to every other method, there would still be very serious questions. But considering that NO ONE with actual experience in this arena seems to believe that...just what the hell are we doing?

Answers to folks...

2009-05-26T10:20:00.000-07:00

1) Pagan Topologist: I believe that Greg Walker's work is somewhat fantasy oriented. If I'm wrong, and he is a science fiction writer, that would change things, but that isn't my understanding.

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2) Mike: I agree that assimilation is the best course. But then, I believe that whites and blacks are basically equal. If you don't share that belief (if, for instance, you believe that whites have left a trail of death and destruction every where they've gone...) then assimilation would seem like suicide. If you have extended your hand again and again and had it slapped down, or cut off, you might think it foolishness to ignore your experience and offer them the benefit of the doubt.

That said, if EVER, if one single time I had ever seen Steve treat a white man or woman as less than a human being, I could not model him with an open heart. No. He has offered the bounty of his life experience to anyone willing to treat him with respect, anyone willing to do the work. And he has many white students who adore him. But our life experiences shape us. The "tragedy of the commons" suggests that those who play fair while others cheat can suffer. And the reality is that Martin Luther King's non-violence wouldn't have been as successful if America hadn't been afraid of cities burning.

Those who would do violence, and have it in their nature, are often stopped only by the spectre of that violence being turned back upon them. A core aspect of male psychology is the "cross this line and I will kill you." You can find this attitude almost anywhere in the world you have healthy, un-colonized males. They will be polite, they can be loving and giving. But cross that line, threaten their families, and they will kill you. Two males of such temperament rarely fight. Warriors recognize each other, and can make parley. Steve is a warrior, and he has chosen his community. I have chosen mine. While they are not exactly the same community, we can communicate and understand each other. In a very real sense, because he is who he is, I am free to be who I am. Every generation should be just a little freer, shouldn't they?

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But someone has to be the guardian at the gate, or those of cold intent will take your village.

3) Christian: I can believe that you weren't a "loved child." In all honesty, my friend, you seriously need a hug. In my mind, saggy pants are not "based on a desire to not go to school or excel." That betrays a very two-dimensional perspective on human performance. I would say the following:

a) fashion creates tribe. By dressing in a particular way, these young men are declaring that they belong to a group bounded by certain social, racial, and economic boundaries. Human beings are tribal creatures, and we will do all kinds of stupid, self-destructive shit not to feel alone. We MUST have community.

b) "a desire not to excel." All right, ask yourself under what circumstance this apparent behavior is an avoidance of pain. Simple: if you don't believe that there is actually opportunity. If you believe that even if you do, you will be isolated and alone and vulnerable. If you believe that school will INCREASE the net amount of pain in your life, rather than reduce it. In other words, people who believe that they CAN and SHOULD "get out" or achieve...do. When you see people who are embracing the most negative stereotypes of behavior and dress, they aren't doing the best they can do in an absolute sense...they are doing the best they BELIEVE they can do. They are computers running really shitty, buggy social/psychological programming. They were programmed by people with corrupted software, who were themselves programmed by people with corrupted software. And they can't just program themselves with "white people's software" because that can cause you to ignore very serious differences in the operational environment.

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You can work around this by studying enough successful people with similar challenges throughout the ages, but how many people do that? Most people just follow the programming they got from their parents and immediate environment, screw up, get caught in the safety net, grow up, and then grow old. That pattern works well...if the system is designed for you.

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Most white people, male and female, would perform with the same problems as black people if you stripped their skin and memories away. To me, what we see in these kids with their baggy clothes is some fairly typical teen-aged behavior...with some serious and negative consequences. National dress code? No. But school-by-school dress codes? Maybe. I agree with Christian that it's terrible. Steve and I were watching kids in the shopping center parking lot, just shaking our heads.

4)Dan--you can communicate your experiences, as a human being. As an adult male. You really are a man, and many boys have never met one. Race isn't the only thing about human psychology, or I never would have been able to learn from my many, many white or Asian teachers. Teach by example, tell the truth. Race is no more of a barrier than nationality or gender, and we manage to learn from people of other genders, nationalities, and even eras. You could communicate with Steve Muhammad by using any entrance of shared experience: martial arts (you've boxed), raising a family, striving to excel as a human being, growing older. That doorway gives you the opportunity to share attitudes and perspectives. Of such things are sympathetic bonds made. Steve doesn't need to be told that things have changed: he's seen more change than you and I combined.

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I've dealt with hundreds of women who have been abused, raped, shattered. And I've had many of them tell me that my treatment of them with consideration and respect, seeing their humanity while encouraging them to find their strength...teaching them to protect themselves while giving them space to open their hearts....and them knowing, feeling, and sometimes SEEING that I will place myself between them and danger, and that I believe that there is a special circle of hell reserved for men who violate what I see as the divine mandate to both protect and respect women even at the cost of life itself...helped them to believe that men were human. Believe that they had somehow encountered more than their share of predators, and that their own behavior and attitudes MIGHT have contributed. This is the painful part: separating responsibility from guilt, blame, or shame. If you're not responsible, you can't stop it from happening again. And this is about human stuff--it goes way beyond race or gender. Men CAN communicate to women, and vice versa. Unless they are lying to me in both words and behaviors, I've seen it. Whites CAN communicate to blacks, and vice versa. I've seen it. But to do it, you have to be capable to truly, deeply seeing the humanity in the Other. To look beyond gender and race, and see the foibles on both sides. To do that, you have to be able to see beyond that within yourself.

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Some women will say men shouldn't write about them. Curious, but I've never heard one of these women say women shouldn't write about men. I've heard some blacks say that whites shouldn't write about them. Funny, but I've never heard anyone black say that blacks shouldn't depict white characters. It's all bullshit. People can absolutely love across racial, gender, national, religious or any other lines. Claiming otherwise is just fear masquerading as cultural pride.

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Give love and respect even where it is not returned. Be fiercely protective of your life and family and honor...but give the other person the respect of assuming they are just as willing to die to protect what is theirs. Start with honoring the child within you, and then seek to see the child within all others. Make peace with the old man or old woman within you, knowing that, from the safety of the death bed, they are watching everything you do, listening to everything you say. And understand that everyone around you is taking the same journey, heir to the same fears, filled with the same aching needs.

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It is reasonable for a damaged woman to blame men. But people heal, and good men help heal the wounds caused by bad ones. Just takes time (all wounds take more time to heal than they took to inflict. A rape happens in minutes, and it can take years to heal.) Whites and blacks with strength and open loving hearts help heal the wounds caused by weak, cold-hearted whites and blacks. And again, wounds take longer to heal than to inflict. So no, I wouldn't expect 400 years of damage to have healed in 150 years. Or 35 years, if you're counting from the Civil Rights acts.

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We're all in this together. Don't give up on each other, or yourselves. We need every good man and woman, black white Asian or whatever, to stand up and be willing to sing his song as loudly as possible. Not everyone will hear. But we only need to shift about 10% for the rest to follow.

Cultural and Personal Damage

2009-05-26T09:34:00.001-07:00

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I have to admit that I have some sympathy for the "prolonged detention" thingie. I mean...if you capture an enemy combatant, it isn't unusual for him to be held for the duration of the war. Otherwise, you'll see him on the battlefield again, and he'll kill some of your men. Well, to the degree that we're in a bit of a war here, if there is no nation-state to return someone to that we can trust to hold onto them, and no one to really make armistice with, that does pose a bit of a problem.

I remember watching "Once Were Warriors" about the collapse of the Maori culture after colonization. What struck me was that the women were holding the families together, while the males were engaged in drunken, irresponsible, often violently self-destructive behavior. And I thought to myself: wow. These guys are acting just like blacks I've seen in the Inner Cities. And suddenly, I started thinking about stories of Chinese in British occupied Shanghai, Africans in British or German occupied Africa, Mexicans in Spanish occupied Mexico, Native Americans, Irish in Belfast.

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What were the things I remembered hearing? Their women were sexually available to the conquerers. The men were criminal, alcoholic, violent, ignorant. Didn't take care of their families. Not all of these things were ascribed to all of these groups, but this was the general sweep. And if I come from a position that people are basically people, then a lot of the issues seem to be the result of natural cycles of social and interpersonal interaction interrupted by slavery, colonization, and conquest. The male destructive/creative impulse turns inward upon itself. Self-confidence and healthy aggression are replaced by self-loathing, fragile egos (propped up with meaningless sex, money at all costs, faceless violence) distort the reality map with alcohol and drugs, values scrambled. Trapped in a system in which the aggressor cannot be directly combated, and representatives of those aggressors can arrest and incarcerate you at will, watching your own children and women more attracted to the dominator than to you and your people...ghastly result.

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Women? Begin to change their hair styles, makeup styles, dress styles to make themselves attractive to the dominator males. Plastic surgery requests for "round eye" operations skyrocketed in Japan after WW2. Hell, Jackie Chan's had the operation. He knows where the money is. They form fire-sale relationships with the dominator males, creating relationships in which skin color or national origin by themselves are important bargaining chips, seeking a better genetic/cultural future for their offspring.

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Think of the spiral this creates. In every one of these cultures, females have less negative pressure than males (in certain contexts) because they are considered less of a threat. Incarcerated less, hired more, subjected to different levels of brainwashing--designed not to destroy them but make them pliable and available. An interesting wuestion on this: while "other" males die or are rendered neuter in the entertainments of the dominator group, females are either available (if casting choices are purely male) or obese/old and sexless. Would this change if the directors/producers/casting agents are female as opposed to male? One would suspect so. Women would tend to want to decrease the competitive advantages of "Other" females, as males would want to decrease the advantages of "Other" males.

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This would take more research than I've currently done, but the question is tantalizing.

Culturally, I'm very clear on the way the stats on survival and sexuality run in film. And just as convinced that the Hollywood types who make these decisions are actually MORE racially open than the average white males of their education and income across the country. A scarey concept, but I stick to it based on 57 years of travel across the country, and 30 years of working in the industry. A terrible thought. Deal with it.

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But what I'm actually interested in are two notes from students. Both are women, both dealing with deep-seated issues of self-love and self-deservement. One is new to me, but said that she "doesn't know what self-love looks like." The other was terribly abused in childhood by adults her mother trusted to protect her.

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This is just ghastly. It is clear to me that cultures raised in relative isolation will develop in patterns that produce stable families and children who accept the values of their grandparents. When those cultures come into competition they change as the must to survive and thrive...usually slowly.

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But when cultures encounter cultures that come from a thousand miles away, there are seriously disruptive differences. If the new culture is aggressive or violent, that adjustment must be rapid. If the aggressive culture was part of the Road of Silk, on the land-sea trade routes along which information spread like a virus, then it had a huge advantage over those moving more slowly. And the result enabled them to not merely dominate the less-developed (from a technological standpoint) culture, but also to play the standard "we rule, you drool" game primates love: we're better than you. Closer to God than you. Look how your men quake, and your women fall at our feet. We must be divine."

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Variants of this can be found in every colonized culture I've seen or heard of. Human beings as individuals play variations on this. Children dominated physically or sexually go into submission postures (often sexual) or self-destructive behavior (trashing themselves, their families, "their" women (not in a possessive sense, except in the same sense women would talk about "their" men.) "Using every fang and claw in the awfullest way you ever saw." If you don't love yourself, if that precious connection within has been sundered, then it is harder to connect with love at all. Love for your children, your spouse, your neighbors and community.

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Of course, as you love yourself you become harder for others to manipulate and control, because you don't need their approval. You may WANT their approval, but not need it. There is an enormous difference.

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Because I see no essential difference between racial or gender groups (other than things to do with testosterone and estrogen, and the production and/or protection of children and families) I look very carefully at disruptions. Violence, lack of responsibility, improper imprinting of basic social/survival rules on offspring, the channeling of basic reproductive/aggressive behaviors into patterns that allow proper nurturance of future generations.

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Any culture that does NOT do this will be out-competed by those that do. To me, much of this relates to the health of individuals, and the psychic health of individuals is connected to their self-love. Their commitment to their childhood dreams, and the sense that they matter in the universe. If we don't matter, why try? If we don't hold ourselves as precious, what does that say about the judgement of any who might love us?

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I hold individual women who have been raped or abused as responsible for healing themselves. Responsible for their relationships, and what they expose their children to. I hold women who have been damaged or abused to be responsible for healing themselves. But they are also responsible for their relationships, sexuality, and the care of any children they make. And I have no respect for men or women who suggest that the health and care of their children are not their responsibility--unless they have almost literally worked themselves to death, and have nothing left at all. But that's not what I see.

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Whether the damage is done by rape, incarceration, economic disaster, neglect, abuse, or colonization, the individual is still responsible. Why? Because there is no one else. If you don't pick yourself up, you will die in the desert. If you don't swim, you will drown. I didn't decide that life was like that: I'm just responding to what seems to be true.

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The difficult thing is to understand that we are all programmed by our genetics, our families, our cultures. That every one of us is doing the best we can, given the resources we have. And that we have to have a balance of understanding how we were harmed...and understanding how we were blessed. Often by the exact same social forces. This is how I can love my country absolutely...and accept that it damaged me and my racial group horribly. How I can love my mother without deifying her. When I see someone sprawled in the gutter in the street, I try to think of the child they once were. Where did the hopes and dreams go? What mistakes (which all children make) were amplified by a damaged family or an unforgiving culture? If I don't take the position that where we end in life is determined primarily by our innate capacity, then what the hell programmed these people, and what kind of intervention might have made a difference?

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Of course, I have respect for people who take the opposite view: that our status in life is the primary indicator of our innate capacity. I've merely noticed that most with that point of view are breaking their arms patting themselves on the back: they are in the upper 10%, and want desperately to believe that they are there because of their spiritual essence. They are doing well because God made them well, and loves them better.

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I see the connection between social groups and individuals , in terms of health and manifestation. When Steve Muhammad joins a group that celebrates black people, and encourages more love and community within that group than between racial groups, this is a simple reaction to 400 years of history: makes perfect sense, even if I personally have chosen another way. I get it. Just like I "get" women who have been abused having negative attitudes about men. Or Americans who have been attacked on 9/11 having a negative attitude toward Arabs or Muslims.

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I just think that all of that "Us-Themism" is useful in a raw survival context, and useless for emotional and spiritual growth. Of course, if you don't survive, you don't grow, so it's also obvious why these emotions are so powerful: survival trumps damned near everything.

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But with enough love, you can flow through these things. I personally had no support for myself as black, as male, as an American, as almost anything...as a child. And was forced to go through all of those ego-shields to find some bedrock. Mine was in my sense of existing. From there it was simply being a living thing. Then a spiritual being. Then a human being. And then an intellectual being. Then (probably) a Male human being. Nationality and race follow up. But I don't deceive myself that others share my priorities, and I won't let myself get seduced into "Us-Themism" without a fight.

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And I can't help but hold onto my belief that love is the answer for all of this. Especially the kind of self-love that is as fiercely protective of your heart and dreams as you would be for the life of your own most beloved child. No compromise on the safety of our children, but an understanding that long-term safety means being at peace with those around us.

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And that while we think our children are the most beautiful and precious in the world...everyone else thinks that as well. We have to get the joke, or the joke's on us. We are just as worthy of love and joy as anyone else. As perfect as anything else in the universe, as sacred as the stars.

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And yet, to make our way in the world, we also have to play games of "this versus that." "A" is higher in the hierarchy than "B." We have to, or insecticide is as good as mother's milk.

Morning Thoughts

2009-05-22T09:20:00.000-07:00

Anonymous: I am indeed in contact with Cliff. He's my current Silat instructor, and if it weren't for him, I never would have successfully renewed my relationship with Mr. Muhammad. Cliff is just a rhino on ball bearings. Anyway, you should be able to reach him at: CLIFFWAR@aol.com

On assimilation: I'm all for it, and have lived my life that way for 57 years. However, it is folly to extend the hand of brotherhood after you've been hurt too often, or discovered that others don't use the same definitions of "brother." In many ways, it's like working for a big company. They will encourage you to consider them "family" as long as it's in their interests...like guilt-tripping you into working extra hours or not quitting when they need you. But if they have to downsize? You are gone.

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Steve (let alone his grandfather) experienced racism like few people still alive today can believe. If that pain had a white face, it is unreasonable to expect him to have more flexibility and a more open heart than almost any man I've ever met. How many times would a woman have to be raped, or watch her sisters raped, before she no longer trusts men as much as she trusts women?ﾠ

I don't take the position that any group is better than any other group (by birth, gender, religion or major political orientation). But note that very large chunks of the population do. I would suspect that a majority of people believe that Right is better than Left--or vice versa. Men better than women--or vice versa. Christian better than Muslim--or vice versa. Straight better than Gay--or vice versa. You'll have to pardon me for thinking that anyone who thinks this way is more vulnerable to racism as well. You can only run into people who talk "brother" (especially: "brother, agree with me that group X isn't as human as we are...") and then say "nigger" (or "fag" or "towelhead" or "castrating bitch" or "Right-wing loon") when they think you aren't listening so many times before you get the joke. When a man has fought and killed for his country, and that country doesn't stand up 100% for his rights as a human being, it would be foolish not to have some defensive attitudes.

How many times do you have to have your fingers burned before you jerk them away at the mere sight of a flame?

ON being a warrior. I found a quote from Steve: "Being a warrior doesn't necessarily mean to physically fight against an opponent. It means that whatever you want to be in life, whereever you want to go, you have to have a warrior spirit in order to achieve it. Otherwise when there are obstacles set in front of you, you won't be able to go around, through, or under them."

So "going to war" doesn't just mean killing or dying. It means being willing to put it all on the line.

Personally? I don't think black people will ever "catch up" with whites in America. Too much damage over too much time, and there has never been, and will never be, the kind of isolation anthropologists tell us is required to create a separate "culture." I DO think we'll get close enough for all practical purposes, however, and more to the point, "races" just aren't going to mean as much in a few generations--too much genetic drift, too much travel and intermarriage. And I do think that blacks will continue to rise to excellence in every field, to a remarkable degree. But it will always take just a little extra to get there, and I think that, on average, my three big measurements will continue to lag:

1) life expectancy

2) Incarceration statistics

3) Net Worth

But "black" and "white" as concepts are shifting. "Black" has been a lie in this country for hundreds of years. You can have 25% black blood and you're "black"? Note that there are no dark-skinned white people, just light-skinned black ones. This horseshit is finally breaking down, and it can't happen too soon. Only distance and natural barriers protects racial "purity." As the world gets browner, the issue becomes moot. I'm not interested in a game I can't win. I'll concentrate my attention on helping those who can muster the extra 10% it will take to make it, without holding resentment. When people, white or black, expect me to take sides, I just smile.

There are a number of things we've assumed are inflexible that I suspect will be quite porous and flexible indeed in the future: the concept of "Nation-states." The concept of binary sexual identity (I already watch women shift back and forth across that line with apparent ease). "Family." "Neighborhood" (Facebook is just the beginning.) "Race." All of these things were (or are, by some) considered graven in stone. I'm watching them shift, and much of that shift is good. Some is not, I'm sure. And those attached to the old definitions are going to struggle. The definition "multiracial" makes major sense to me--it is the literal truth, rather than labeling someone "black" because they have "one drop" or even "one half."

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But there are political (small "p") reasons for a person of mixed blood to go ahead and associate with a major group. It's better than standing alone, and unless the culture GENUINELY embraces racial differences, you can get killed out there believing the "Kum-bah-Yah" mask. Human beings are tribal, and visual identification is a powerful. I get into this argument with Tananarive, who has had a deep, powerful, and meaningful connection to her African-ness her entire life. Me? Not so much. I would have ignored all of that if I could. It was only the desire to understand the playing field as it actually was, to maximize my chances of getting where I wanted to go, that forced me to re-examine much of what I was told.

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What an idiot I would have been if I'd thought that, as so many try to believe, there are few black images in science fiction, few surviving blacks in horror, few sexual black males in film, few black leads in television, or few blacks in the Senate because of some statistical blip. Being able to grasp that human beings in general prefer "their own" whatever "their own" is considered to be, has allowed me to work with insane focus for decades without taking defeat or disappointment personally. I can look at the huge difference between black male and female reading audiences and see that as some common expression of a single truth that also manifests in prison, education and employment statistics.

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But it's a balancing act, because I also refuse to fall into the "whites are evil" bullshit. That is so easy to do, and there's barely a political movement that doesn't demonize their opponents. Trying to maintain a perspective on my life and career that allows me to understand the landscape, and navigate it without resentment, self-pity, self-importance or fear has required every resource I can find.

What is my tribe? All humanity. The people who are interested in self-growth. Writers. Martial artists. Black folks. Maybe in that order. Maybe not. Depends on the day.

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This is one of the reasons why when Octavia Butler died, I was shocked out of my complacency. It's unbelievably lonely out here. In my entire career, stretching thirty years and hundreds of conventions, not ONE time have I ever been in a room with another working black male SF writer. (In fact, almost all of the black SF/Fantasy is actually fantasy. Why, I cannot say. But it seems to be true. Note that I believe Fantasy requires as much skill and intelligence as any other form. But...there's something odd going on, and I'd be blind to pretend it wasn't). Can anyone out there say that about their own profession? That in thirty years they've never met another member of their race and gender who practices it? Twenty years? Ten? If I don't associate myself with my African genetics, I can't see the underlying pattern. But identifying too strongly will keep me "stuck" there, when race is at least partially a cultural illusion.

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I never wanted this. I just wanted to tell swell adventure stories, with some of the characters resembling me. That was about the height of my ambition in the beginning. But when I saw the resistance to such images, and realized that people tended to be utterly oblivious to the fact that the problem isn't "out there" but rather within us all, I realized that I could end up broke and in the street if I was wrong about the potential acceptance of black characters in the SF field. If I was wrong, if there was a problem...then all the people smiling at me at conventions, all of the editors who genuinely wanted to support my work, all the reviewers who said nice things...none of that would make any lasting difference. And I reached the point where there was literally no one whose career I could look at to find answers. Octavia didn't make any money until she was discovered by the Women's movement. Not much help for me there.

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But the trick is to navigate this territory without bitterness. I get frustrated at times, but as long as I remind myself that this is all a matter of universal human traits, I continue to consider all mankind my brothers and sisters. But if the day ever came when that began to change...well, frankly, I'm not sure I'd like the person I'd become.

Love and Fear

2009-05-21T09:43:00.000-07:00

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"The Unit" has been cancelled. Well, it had four seasons, and in many ways was the first successful dramatic series with a non-white lead...especially if you factor in "hour-long" and "alpha lead" to the equation. Yes, I was never happy that Dennis Haysbert's wife was literally the only woman on the show who wasn't slinky. Yes, I wasn't happy that the other black member of the unit died right after having a dirty weekend with a white woman. That kind of bullshit is just too obvious, and I've dealt with it entirely too long. Despite those things, "The Unit" had the kind of ass-kicking, smart, fierce lead I've been waiting to see for fifty-something years. And he had first billing. So regardless of anything else, it was history. Thank you David Mamet. And thank you "24", without which Haysbert would never have had the opportunity to develop the gravitas necessary to make him a plausible lead.

Speaking of "24" the season ended Monday. Really liked it, but sure felt sorry for Tony Almeda. And boy, is it obvious that the producers are in an internal fight over the significance of torture as an image system on the show. Still can't believe how many times I've heard people reference Jack Bauer in their defense of "enhanced interrogation." Next time someone asks me about the Ticking Time Bomb scenario, I'm just going to say I'd send for Superman. A fantasy scenario deserves a fantasy solution.

You know, I'm getting nervous about the "Terminator: Salvation" film about to open. I suspect that we're finding out that Cameron is even smarter than we thought, and that weaving together action, time-travel and genuine human drama on this scale is simply a master's-class in popular film making. Hope McG attended.

Tananarive is in Florida being famous. Jason and I will just have to muddle through somehow. Chili cheesedogs for dinner! Just kidding.

"Where Attention Goes, Energy Flows, and Results Show." This is a principle of Hawaiian "Huna" magic. And common sense. Of course, since there's nothing less common than common sense. We have to be very careful where we put our conscious attention. Believe me, the unconscious takes care of its own damn self.

I was asked about Sijo Muhammad, and how he deals with other human beings on an emotional level. This is an interesting subject, because in some ways he's carrying more potential damage than anyone I've ever met. His grandfather was a slave, and he has endured massive racial challenges: klan murders in Viet Nam, police harrassment, threatened with lynching as a child, unjust incarceration, being cheated in tournaments (Chuck Norris once had to stand up and scream: "will you give this man his damned points?" Good for Chuck, who has a well-deserved reputation as a gentleman.) As a result of these experiences, Steve was considerably radicalized, concluding in joining the Nation of Islam. I'll say a couple of things about that. First, that when I read Muhammad Speaks, the NOI newspaper, back in the 60's I saw things I disagreed with strongly. Second, that I've seen them do an immense amount of good in the inner city.

And yes, they have some attitudes I don't embrace. But if I don't criticize the Mormons, I'm sure as hell not going to criticize the NOI. People are allowed to believe what they want. Behavior is the truth.

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That said: Steve is absolutely polite, and warm to anyone who is warm to him. In fact, he has some of that: "I'll treat anyone 10% better than they treat me" that I aspire to. His specific attitude is "Never, never, never start a conflict. But if the other man starts it, fall on him like a thunderbolt." As survivor of over a thousand streetfights (probably a conservative estimate) his ability to actualize this theory is beyond doubt.

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Not only is he unfailingly courteous, but you really need to see the way people react to him. Women, particularly. I remember my mom seeing his picture, and she was unimpressed, thought him muscle-bound. Then one day she actually met him, and I watched Mommy melt. It was bizarre. Must be pheromones or something. He was absolutely catnip for ladies, but I NEVER heard a whisper of a hint of anything inappropriate at his school. Never. His attitude toward teaching women was simple, and pretty much the same as his way of approaching men. "Fight like a man, walk away like a lady" was his philosophy, and trust me, he had some girls who would break your heart on the mat. Ouch.

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The women I saw reacting to him in Atlanta were either reacting to him like Daddy (a role he understands well--the man has eight daughters!) or as mothers grateful that he treated their daughters like precious little jewels.

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I touched on the racism in his past because it's impossible to talk about someone who created the "Black Karate Federation" in the late 60's without considering his racial attitudes. What his grandfather taught him, specifically, was to NEVER let a white man treat him with disrespect, never bow his head. That whites might try to return blacks to slavery, (and that slavery really didn't end until almost 1900 in terms of the conditions blacks lived under), and that he must be prepared to die before he allowed that to happen.

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I was always interested in the way whites were treated in his school...and white parents sometimes brought their sons (rarely daughters, I noticed) in from the valley to train there. They had seen something in his physical performance at tournaments, and his comportment off the mat, and wanted it for their children. Whites often came down to spar, and train, and I never saw them given cheap shots, or treated like anything less than fellow warriors (BTW--Steve's definition of "warrior" is pretty damned simple. Someone who has been to war. Period. Not someone who has trained for it, or whatever. Someone who has actually been there. Now, I'm sure that he isn't actually that rigid. The term "War" would probably broaden to include people willing to sacrifice, or put it all on the line, for their families, communities, and beliefs. Probably.

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But there are definitely attitudes. When up in Canada with Wesley Snipes filming "Blade" (Steve is Wesley's bodyguard) one of the white technicians noticed how Steve would effusively greet black men on the set, calling them "Brother." The tech asked why he did that, and Steve said, "because they're my brothers."

"Am I your brother?"

"No," Steve replied.

Stunned and hurt, the tech asked: "can we be friends?"

"Absolutely," Steve replied. And meant it, too.

Looking at all of this stuff, I think that what we have here is a man who was told to keep his head up, no matter how people treated him. To be prepared to die before he accepted dishonor. And through experiences in Vietnam, the South, South-Central L.A., tournaments and full-contact bouts around the world...somehow got his feet firmly on the emotional/spiritual "ground" within him. Not that surprising...if seventy years of constant work can't provide the result of being an awakened adult human being, there's not much hope for the human race.

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So what we have here is someone who can tame gang members by beating their ass fairly. Turn thugs into military officers, police, doctors...and maybe nerds into science fiction writers. A horn-dog who became the safest man in the world to leave your virgin daughter with. I think he is so clear, and so confident in who he is and what he can do that he is able to release ordinary fear and let his heart fill with love for his tribe: black people, martial artists, and decent human beings. Probably in that order, too.

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There is a saying that love and fear compete for the same place in your heart. I believe it, and I've run into a handful of people who exemplify it. Steve is one of them. Damn, I feel lucky to be his friend. And student. And son.

Concepts of excellence applied to an "ordinary" life

2009-05-20T11:44:00.000-07:00

Recently, in comment on my discussion of Steve Muhammad's "four rules" for life, a reader offered not everyone wants high levels of achievement. I agree. But my attitude is that "not everyone wants to build the Sistine Chapel, but no one wants to sleep naked in cold rain."

In other words, the foundation of success on a large scale is success on a smaller scale--at the very least, an avoidance of pain.

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And here is where I draw the line. To my understanding, all motile life forms will move to avoid pain or gain pleasure. This means that when I look at human behaviors and beliefs, starting with "how is this helping this person to avoid pain? Or gain pleasure?" is one of my most basic thoughts.

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Steve's "four rules" are a grandmaster's approach to high achievement in a matrix of balanced living. Just one approach, but I feel that they map over quite nicely with other high achievers I've known. And what about people who aren't interested in "High" achievement? Of what value are such ideas to such folks?

In my mind, plenty.

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A) Body. Not everyone wants to be an athlete, let alone a champion. Not everyone wants an underwear-model body (or is even capable of it! Genetics do factor in). But (for all practical purposes) everyone wants a body that is not in pain. That has enough energy to do the things that are important to us. That is not continuously sick and weak. Most want a body capable of having passionate sex, and satisfying a partner. I believe that we also would like bodies that are equivalent to the bodies we are attracted to in others--but a sad percentage of people lie to themselves and others about this. The "Four Laws" would apply to these minimum standards (and trust me, I'm not saying "minimum" as if we should all want the Maximum. No. We have the right to juggle our priorities) in the following way:

1) Spiritual Law. Viewing the body as a temple has worked for countless people in maintaining discipline or overcoming negative body image. Viewing the body as a vehicle for performing good works in the world is also positive. Grasping the inevitability of death can motivate us to make the very most of the days we have, and the body we have while we have it. Why rush the inevitable?

2) Dietary Law. Well, this is obvious. Garbage in, garbage out, even if you want only basic health and enough fitness to not gasp when you walk up a flight of stairs.

3) Fitness Law. Given the most sedentary lifestyle, basic fitness can be acquired in less than an hour a week. The return in terms of energy and aliveness is staggering, even if you want only the minimum.

4) Skill Law. Not everyone wants to master a sport, but everyone wants to move through life without wasting energy, or banging their body up every day. A little efficiency in motion goes a long way. Dance, hike, yoga, boat, swim...walk. Do you want to throw out your back picking up a baby or reaching for a can of beans? Having a little sense of where your body is in 4-dimensional space is mighty useful.

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B) Mind. Career and education. Not everyone can or should aspire to making millions, or being famous or whatever. But I've never met anyone who enjoyed having bills they couldn't pay. Who did not wish they had the money to support the people and causes they care about. Who enjoyed begging the bank for extensions on their mortgage payment. So I'll go so far as to say that everyone wants control over their basic access to food, shelter, education and medical care. This is why most people work--not because they enjoy their jobs, but because they NEED to in order to have these things, and provide these things for their family.

1) Spiritual law. If you have to work every day, you might as well love it. You might has well find happiness there, if not deep personal satisfaction. Why? Again, basic animal behavior: we all move away from pain, and toward pleasure. When we can see the way. People behave as if they have no control over how they feel at work. Or in life. And I disagree with this seriously. One way to do this, that has worked for thousands of years is to find the service in your job. How are you providing for your community, your family, your sense of the order of the universe? When you can attach a mundane action to an evolved purpose, cleaning toilets or digging ditches becomes something to celebrate and embrace. If you have to do it anyway...why not have fun? If you're having fun, you change the entire culture in which you work. You also get better at it--because you don't withhold focus. That's a pathway to increased income in every field I know of. If you gotta do it...why not be the best you can be?

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2) Dietary Law. Mental efficiency is certainly influenced by diet. Powerfully, in the case of conditions like hypoglycemia. When and how you eat influences your time management, energy, mental clarity, and more. All of which influence your ability to learn or work.

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3) Fitness Law. Again, minimum fitness can be acquired in minutes a week. The only reason I can see to ignore this is if there is, literally, pain associated with engaging with the body. Biggest reason I see for that? Shame, and the Hawaiian Huna principle that the body becomes a "black bag" holding our negative emotions. If you ain't ready to process all of that fear, disappointment, shame, or whatever...if you're not ready to really face the fact that you are aging, that your body isn't what it was when you were 12...you might prefer to just anesthetize yourself with alcohol or food or psychological stupor (or SF/Fantasy novels and movies and trivia...) and pretend time hasn't passed.

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4) Skill Law. In any occupation or activity, the more skilled you are the less energy you expend achieving a given result. People often make the mistake of thinking that the only skill that matters at work is the specific intellectual skill. Then they are baffled that others who have greater skill in navigating social networks get ahead of them. Learning to connect with other human beings is a skill, people. Arguably the most useful skill in business, if what you want is good relationships with bosses, employees, and customers and clients. Once again, if you have to work to make a living, have to spend eight hours a day five days a week, why not have that time be as stressless as possible? As much fun? As rewarding as possible? Why expend one iota more energy than necessary keeping body and soul together, so that you will have the energy and aliveness to enjoy your family, or free time?

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Again, I believe that all animals, including humans, will try to move away from pain and toward pleasure. Whenever anyone suggests otherwise, I just start looking for reasons they might have to lie to me, or to themselves. And there are plenty of 'em.

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C) Spirit. As you know, I measure spirit in terms of our healthy relationships with other human beings, especially our significant others. And here, viewed in this way, the connections are obvious.

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1) Spiritual Law. Well--for believers, obviously there are always rules and principles that relate sin and blessings to a properly lived family life. Atheists and agnostics have never, in my experience, displayed a lesser commitment to their families, so if we view "spirit" this way, we're golden. In my own life, I try to live so that it doesn't matter a damn whether there is a God in the Christian sense, or not. Works for me either way. But "doing unto others as you would have them do unto you" is a central principle in every major religion (modified slightly), and seems to be a fine basic way to approach life. (Yeah, yeah, I know...there are limitations to the Golden Rule, but I can't think of a better general principle that can be expressed in fewer words).

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Whatever principles you use to drive your life, they should incorporate your thoughts about mortality, children, community, love, sexuality. What set of principles will enable you to live your life, and die your death, with maximum clarity, acceptance, and satisfaction? This stuff needs to be considered carefully, so that IF you can live according to those principles, you'll be able to lay in your death bed, look back over your life, and both the old man/woman you will be, and the child you were, will be happy with what you have done with your days.

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2) Dietary Law. Well, health, fitness, mood, sex drive, providing a role model for your children, ecological and economic concerns are all connected here. Personally, I eat today for how I want to feel tomorrow. But whatever you do, you should eat consciously, with the thought that if you eat this way, it will maximize your pleasure in life. And for most of us that means discipline. That's long-term as opposed to short-term pleasure. The discipline to control your diet is transferable to any other arena of life.

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3) Fitness Law. Our bodies should match our own values. When they don't, I believe that it triggers serious guilt and pain, which is often anesthetized--we don't want to feel the negative emotions, so we simply stop feeling our body. Healthy children and animals move more than sick ones. Everyone knows that. Considering that, if you proceed intelligently, it actually takes a tiny amount of time to create basic fitness (five-ten minutes a day, anyone?) I simply don't believe that people who can accept working 40 hours a week to pay bills can't find a single hour to exercise. Yes, there may be cases, but just as you can reserve the right to think I have my head up my ass, I reserve the right to think you're lying to yourself. Your body, energy, and aliveness are gifts you give to your lover, and your family. And the child within you, who holds the key to all of your aliveness and creativity.

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4) Skill Law. Relationships require insight, negotiation, emotional control, intuition, reading moods, evoking honest responses, willingness to openly express the content of our hearts. All of these things are related to skill development. Let alone being a skilled lover, or having skills we can pass to our children. Every morning, Jason and I practice yoga. We spend the first two minutes just sitting looking into each other's eyes while a timer counts down. I center myself, and speak to him of being calm and focused. Whenever his eyes shift away from me, I remind him to bring them back. I have to stay as deep within myself as possible.

And every morning that I've done this, his behavior at school has been perfect. Maybe there's no connection. Maybe it's just spending time with Daddy. But you know what? That's fine. I don't believe in Quality Time. Just Quantity. And if I ensure the quantity, Jason's little psyche will figure out what he needs from me, and extract it for himself. But I have to have things to show him, teach him, do with him. So even there...to be able to give my son a sense that excellence is possible, and THIS is the road. In any task. For any profession. Ten thousand hours. If you're not willing to spend 10,000 hours, you don't really want to do it--it's just a pipe dream. If you want it, it's there for you. He needs to know that. Nicki needed to watch her parents achieving--it separates the wheat from the chaff in terms of deciding what you really want to do with your life. And considering we spend about a third of our entire lives working, getting ready for work or depressurizing from work...the path of hunting/gathering must be addressed directly, or life is likely to be very unsatisfying. And don't you want your families to be happy? Your spouse or lover?

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And don't YOU want to be happy?

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Anyway, this is how I would apply these four principles, whether or not you wish high-level accomplishment, or just want to live life with minimum stress. And every time I've met someone who achieves at a high level without trashing the rest of his/her life, I pump 'em for information. I am absolutely fanatical about having a happy life I live on my own terms. I'm not fanatical about being famous, or rich, or a world-class martial artist. Geeze, I'd enjoy those things, but they are just games I play, dreams I see how close I can come to actualizing, given my limitations of time and ability. We'll see.

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But I will not believe that people don't want to be happy and healthy. And often get lost along the way. And then lie to themselves to ease the pain. Yes, I know it's possible, but I've simply had too many cases of people who lied to me about it, then later confessed. So now, I simply assume it's always a lie. Safer that way, I think.

4-Part Balance

2009-05-19T07:49:00.000-07:00

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I've always enjoyed getting close to that elusive Big Game--the balanced human being--and studying them carefully. Having the unique circumstance of observing someone for 35 years, and THEN becoming friends with them (heck, we darn near adopted each other. I've got a Dad!) gives me the chance to find structure within the chaos, and watch my own mental processes as a ton of information falls into pattern.

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I want to preface this: Steve Muhammad is as flawed as the rest of us. I have no doubts about that at all. He also lives in a mansion, runs his own successful business, has a houseful of kids with a beautiful, strong woman he's been married to for thirty years, and at 70 years old is still the finest karate man I've ever known or seen in action. (But man, I heard stories about Mas Oyama!) He's been a father figure to countless young men and women, and was one of the all-time Horndogs before he met his lovely wife, for whom he changed his entire life for the better. What men will do for the love of a good woman!

Anyway, it makes sense to look at the core of the way he sees the world, and the search for excellence, and try to map it over with what I've gotten from other people who operate at high levels. Or super-high levels. Isn't that the Holy Grail for ambitious types?

1) Spiritual Law

2) Dietary Law

3) Fitness Law

4) Skill Law

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There is an interesting "loop" going on here. I wanted to comment on these steps as I interpret them.

1) Spiritual Law. To me, this deals with your answer to the question: "what was the shape of your face before your parents were born? What will become of you after you are dead?" Answers may range from "dust to dust" to various Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Native American, Druidic and whatever answers. Believers, atheists...on one level, this has to do with the sense of intent in life, what you ultimately want it to mean. In a more practical sense, having a context for the days of your life is useful in adding meaning to every moment. In an even more basic way, focus releases a fountain of energy. Focus on the finite nature of life, and the need to make our time matter--at least to us and the people we love. Courage, from the understanding that death comes whether we reach for our goals and dreams and loves or not. Why not go for it? Why be afraid of anything in life, especially other human beings, when death is inevitable? Energy, courage, focus, clarity. However one deals with mortality, it should be in a fashion that empowers. Sijo Muhammad embraces Islam, and has found in the Nation a way to serve his community and save lives--something he has been committed to the entire time I've known him.

2) Dietary Law. Sijo uses a variant of Intermittent Fasting--he eats all his meals between 4 and 6 in the evening, and is a rail-thin vegetarian. Interestingly, this is what is referred to as the "Warrior Diet." This provides both a rise in energy, improved health, and incredible discipline. Anyone who can eat like this (and he has for 27 years! Been a vegetarian for 25) simply has a different order of discipline than the average human being even dreams of. I think it's one of the easiest ways to develop world-class discipline, the kind that can kick your life into overdrive. Again--great energy, and the focus to apply it.

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3) Fitness Law. Sijo exercises every day. Every day. Sometimes only for a few minutes. Sometimes for hours. Aside from martial arts, his routine is surprisingly mundane: pushups, rhythmic sit-ups (to a special 4-count beat), jogging (in place or on the road). I guess it works for him (!) but I prefer Coach Sonnon's increasing motor complexity approach. The mind is the edge of the sword, but the body is the sword. Many martial arts masters let themselves go physically, and it's sad to see. Physical fitness, again, gives energy and focus...there are other values as well (increased blood oxygenation leading to increased functional intelligence, for instance. Proprioceptive sense, much more).

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4) Skill law. Here's where the rubber meets the road. For Sijo, these are mostly warrior arts: unarmed combat, firearms, team combat theory. But it applies to the law, writing, the sciences, whatever. The intent: to be great. He and I agree on this. Greatness is a poor reward for having to die at the end of life...but it will have to do. Why the hell settle for anything less than greatness? Mastery of almost any human task can be acquired in just 10,000 hours of practice. If the task involves real-world application or competition, you get serious feedback to your efforts, which can help you avoid falling into illusion.

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What do we have here? An atheist or agnostic who wants to provide for his family or community, or just to make his own life meaningful to the max, can use this as well as any religious person. Total commitment gives grounding to all efforts. Diet and exercise give discipline, energy, health to invest in your chosen profession or activity. By going full-tilt boogie toward your goals, adjusting as you get results, always motivated by the urge to perfect yourself, find greatness, serve your community, God, or your own deepest emotional needs...well, it looks like a fantastic syntax for life success to me.

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I see this overlapping with many other approaches to life success, and since I've had the opportunity to watch Sijo more closely than I have many others. Burns the reality in more deeply. I treasure my exposure to excellent men and women, the opportunity to watch the way they live their lives. Wouldn't give up those memories at any price.

My Most Humiliating Moment

2009-05-17T09:01:00.000-07:00

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Another reason I didn't criticize "Trek" for the Uhura-Spock episode. (The first one being that I loved the movie, thought it worked well, and gave it a special dispensation). Ms. Saldana's mother, Theresa, and I have a small amount of humiliating history...

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Some of you may already be aware of Theresa Saldana's rather notorious history. If not, you will in a minute. Well, I was at a party at Norman Spinrad's house maybe twenty years ago. He hob-nobbed with Hollywood types, and there was a slender brunette who looked very familiar there. I introduced myself. "Hi, I'm Steven Barnes."

"Hi," she replied. "I'm Theresa Saldana."

I'm sure my brow wrinkled. "I'm sure I know that name," I said, desperately searching my memory. She seemed a little uncomfortable, and I was certain that she had a fragile ego, and needed to know that I knew who she was. Actress? Yes. But where...

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Finally, she sighed. "I was stalked by a man who stabbed me several times," she said.

Suddenly, the entire memory burst back on me. The headlines, the television stories, the whole horrible mess. But all I felt was relief that the question was resolved. "Oh, yeah!" I burst out. "Great!"

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I'll draw a veil across the rest of the evening. Leave it that that may have been my all-time low in social discourse.

All right--that was my most humiliating gaff. What's yours?

Watching "Transformers" with Jason, and...wait just a damned minute. Wasn't "Jazz", the Transformer with the black voice ("this looks like a cool place to kick it") also the only one to die? Damn! Even black robots can't survive SF movies. So we have sex less often, and die more often. The artistic equivilent of genocide, I'd think, brought to us care of the collective unconscious.

Starting to get back into the groove.

2009-05-14T11:30:00.001-07:00

An unbelievable amount of information from Steve to process. This man took a tiny section of a 4-dimensional dynamic sphere (any profound movement discipline connects with the rest of life so as to embrace the totality of human experience. But Ed Parker didn't give his commercial students the full sphere. He didn't even promote Steve directly. We won't go into the motivations for this here--except to say that Parker was an exceptional man, but a man of his times.) But as anyone who understands geometry can recreate a full circle given any three points. By a lifetime of experimentation, he not only found the way of fighting that works for him, but for thousands of students. But then he began caring passionately about his community, so he started lecturing us about how if you can learn martial arts, you can be anything you want. His spiritual connection to Islam takes him even deeper: he's aligned and congruent, "coherent" perhaps, with every aspect of his life supporting every other aspect.

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And he's balanced: a beautiful family, a thriving career (owns a security company), and an absurd level of physical efficiency. I know of no 70 year old man, anywhere, who can do the things he does. And still spars regularly with students a third his age--often experienced martial artists from other styles, and simply dominates them. It's ridiculous. His efficiency is so high that he can move SLOWLY and still destroy your position effortlessly. While he no longer explodes up and down the floor doing hundreds of martial wind-sprints a day, his initial explosion is just as volcanic, and his follow-up, in close range, is more like Wing Chun than Kenpo. Except with a kind of torquing power that had Chinese grandmasters looking at him and shaking their heads, I kid you not. In other words, he embraced the scientific method big time. He's had over a thousand street fights. Still has them--leading his troops into battle regularly, in a context embraced by by law and his church.

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What does this lead to? Well...I'm going to say this, understanding how it sounds. It is quite possible that Steve Muhammad is the best man I've ever known. I've watched him for 35 years, and watched the impact he's had on countless lives. He has the same flaws that the rest of us have, but somehow he has managed to walk his walk as purely has Harlan Ellison has walked the line of his career. And that is SERIOUS purity, let me tell you. I feel incredibly blessed to have a man like this in my life, and I suspect that the road ahead for me is going to be clearer than much of the road behind.

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Almost twenty years ago, Mushtaq asked me: "what kind of 70 year old do you want to be? Well, whatever it is, you'd better get started working on it."

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Steve Muhammad is almost EXACTLY the kind of 70 year old I want to be. In a world of boys, he is a man. By bonding his physical and mental skills (he is a kinesthetic genius, on the level of any genius I've ever known. The mathematical precision of his thought excels his ability to convey it with language. Hopefully, I'll be able to help him here) to his family life and his spiritual life, he has done exactly what martial arts masters and grandmasters have done for centuries: transformed an athletic activity into a holistic life path. An international panel of Grandmasters said that he had actually created a new martial art. I think what he's done is as significant as what Ueshiba did in transforming various Jiu Jitsu forms into Aikido. But more than that, at 70 he's still kicking ass, taking names, and saving young men from the streets.

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I walked one of the shopping centers that he protects in Atlanta. When he took it over, there were like fifty gangsters hanging around, chasing away the customers and killing business. He and his men took these guys out back, and...well, you can imagine.

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I met some of the guys he did this to, and they are all, like: "good evening, Mr. Muhammad. Can we help you, Mr. Muhammad? (to their friends, with pride:) This is Mr. Muhammad!" The shop owners adore him. Mothers thank him for protecting their daughters. It was amazing. They LOVE him. His men love him. His students love him. The damn gangsters whose heads he whipped love him.

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And dammit, I love him, right down to my toes. He and Larry Niven are the closest things to a father I have, and I feel like the luckiest guy in the world to have them. Maybe the best trip I've ever had.

STAR TREK (2009)

2009-05-11T17:20:00.001-07:00

Look, I'm just gonna say it: this is really the best "Trek" movie ever. Yeah, I said it. Better than "Wrath of Khan", which really only gets top marks because it had the original cast, and that was such an incredible blast seeing them get it right. If they'd re-cast it..? A decent space opera. but other than that, every other "Trek" had no sense at all of being a movie. All of them were blown-up episodes of the television show, with aging casts and no sense of wonder at all. Where were the monsters? Even on Trek they had beasties, within the limits of television budgets. Where was the romance? The Borg Queen was about as close as they ever came. They were never about the human relationships, really--they were about recreating the fun of watching television actors we enjoyed playing characters we loved, and frankly, many of the actors weren't really that good. Go ahead...tell me...how many of the core Trek actors really had much of a career outside those shows? They were decent actors, but lucky beyond belief to find roles so iconic that fit them so well.

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So J.J. Abrams comes along and shakes things up. Gives us real full-screen spectacle. Sensuality. Tragedy. Dynamite action sequences that are genuinely breath-taking (nothing in any of the 10 previous movies has anything CLOSE to that sky-dive sequence.) Leonard Nimoy, back as Spock and just wonderful. I could complain that most of the fight scenes looked under-rehearsed, but hey, nothing's perfect. Hell, I liked it so much I'm not even complaining about Uhura and Spock, and don't think for a moment I couldn't. This is just the most fun I've had at a movie in ages, my second-favorite "re-boot" after "Casino Royale." And the topper? The absolute topper? I saw it with my karate instructor, Sijo Steve Muhammad. Half way through the movie, I was crying, and realized that it felt like seeing "Enter the Dragon" with my father, back in the day. The kid inside me was happier than I've been in quite some time. Yeah...this is real movie-making, real entertainment, and it will make more money in its first week than any other "Trek" in its entire run. Deservedly so. I enjoyed the original "Trek." It was genuinely groundbreaking, and wonderful entertainment, and I've seen 'em all. But this movie pays more honor to the original than any of the other films, which just kept trying to re-capture the same old lightning in musty, small-minded bottles (when they broke out the go-carts in "Nemesis" I just wanted to hide.)

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Trekkies, rejoice. The thrill is finally back. When I saw "Casino" I realized I'd been faking it for years with 007. That I wanted so badly to be entertained by Bond that I was willing to make happy noises as genuine as those emitted by a fifty-dollar hooker on the fourth day of a Shriner's convention. This is the real deal. Enjoy. Oh...for Trekkies? An "A+". For the rest of us? A solid, solid "A."

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

2009-05-08T07:09:00.001-07:00

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Wolverine (2009)

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Well, it isn't as bad as I'd heard, which is definitely damning with faint praise. Hugh Jackman makes a terrific hero, but the movie, dealing with the origins of this nearly immortal, rapid-regeneration, feral X-Man is just "meh." After a terrific credit sequence showing how Jim Logan and his brother (Liv Shreiber, terrific) fought in every American war from the Civil War to Vietnam, Logan is recuited into a secret military unit composed exclusively of mutants. After a massacre in Nigeria (which a Nigerian friend of mine took offense at) Logan quits and tries to live a normal life, falls in love...and of course, the government comes after him. The story deals with the issue of Wolverine's indestructable adamantium skeleton, his loss of memory, etc...while never really dealing with his blood thirst (oh, come on...WE know why he fought in all those wars!) and a few other things. Some of the effects are a bit tacky, but others are terrific, and the overall feeling was "popcorn movie." Before "Dark Night" and "Iron Man", before people started expecting Comic book movies to be quite so good, it would have been perfectly acceptable. As is...

Meh.

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WARNING! SAMBO ALERT!

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Kind of interesting here. A couple of black women I know considered Wolverine to be extremely sexist. I watched it, with that in mind, and maybe I missed something. So a woman he trusted betrayed him. Half the characters in the movie are betraying each other, and most of 'em are men. So what?

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And a couple of women die. So? Anyone notice that ten times as many men died? And what puzzled me is that 100% of the non-white mutants died. One black, one white, one native American. And the one black mutant died specifically because he was trying to help the white guy. All surviving mutants: white. Check. Female mutants survive? Yes, an important one. Females behaving as badly as males? No. A woman does a bad thing, but for a reason even Wolverine ultimately accepts. Maybe I'm missing something here.

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I actually appreciate the reminders of Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of the Germans, and can see how that historical cowardice could be seen as "and therefore, it is not always better to speak to your enemies." I get it. I consider it reasonable to count this as a case in which it hurt. I don't AGREE with this, but I do consider it reasonable. I would look at this as a case in which it was foolish to give an appeaser control over whether or not England went to war. A person who will not fight under any circumstances isn't much better than one who will not communicate under any circumstances. But as I accept this as reasonable and rational, it seems to me that the number of cases where people talked, and then went to war, are innumerable. And the cases in which people talked, and averted war, are also innumerable. And that the statistics go WAY in that direction. "Speak of peace, but prepare for war" would be pretty close to my motto--and having spent forty years of my life learning how to hurt people, what I know is that the people I respect most in the world are the warriors who can kill you with a touch...but will strive with all their power to have peace. They will speak to you, or to anyone, without fear. It is their teaching I have followed my entire life, and I have seen vast positive results in my own life from the attitude of communicating from a position of strength. I honor those who disagree with me--but those who believe that someone who disagrees with them must be ignorant is likely to have far more conflict in their lives than one who seeks common ground. In fifty-seven years of life as a black man in an often racist culture, I have NEVER failed to find common ground, even when those around me swore there was none. That common ground has not always been enough to prevent conflict, but it has always reduced it. Always. My attitude is clear: "I will kill you if you hurt my family. But you can kill me, as well. Is there not some way for us to coexist?" I see no reason to change it, or to think it does not work for nations as well as individual warriors.

"January Magazine" review of SHADOW VALLEY

2009-05-06T05:15:00.000-07:00

Readers familiar with Barnes’ work before 2006’s Great Sky Woman (released in paperback just last month) will have an understandable challenge in knowing what to do with Shadow Valley (DelRey). On the one hand, Barnes is best known as a genre writer. That’s actually an understatement: Barnes is an esteemed and much awarded author in the twinned worlds of science fiction and fantasy. And since he’s also married to yet another esteemed author of speculative fiction -- Tananarive Due -- it’s a sort of familial thing. We have our expectations of Barnes. But does he deliver? Well, yes. But in unexpected ways.

Like Great Sky Woman, Shadow Valley holds not the merest thread of SF/F. No matter how hard you try to find it, it just isn’t there. This is straight up historical fiction, but more Jean Auel than James Michener: this is creation historical fiction. Or maybe most accurately prehistorical fiction. In Shadow Valley we go way back to ancient Africa where Sky Woman and Frog Hopping -- first encountered in Great Sky Woman -- are dealing with life beyond the devastating eruption of Father Mountain that concluded the last book.

This is exciting stuff. Epic, page snappingly thrilling, not to be missed. The literati have a way at holding their nose when they sense the faintest whiff of SF/F nearby. My hope is that Barnes’ literary pedigree won’t overshadow the excellence of this work. It’s a worthwhile book that has the potential to help a lot of people gain an understanding of their distant roots.

Talk is Cheap. War is expensive.

2009-05-05T06:15:00.000-07:00

1) I say it's better to talk to enemies or opposition. Mentioning cases in which it apparently didn't help doesn't change that. Since there are many cases in which negotiation or conversation (communication) DID help, that's a positive. Those in which it DIDN'T help are a zero. The average result? Positive, unless you can identify cases in which conversation HURT. Since you can't possibly know what the outcome will be until after the conversation, I maintain that the best policy is communication. Communication between leaders, even during war, can help minimize casualties. And there is an entire type of person who plays the game "let's you and him fight" where for their own reasons, they will carry corrupt messages back and forth, or deliberately lie about the intentions of the other side, because it profits them for there to be war and conflict. I see no downside to communicating.

2) Frank, I didn't mean to be slippery, but I can see what you mean. Here's my contention: people who think we shouldn't talk to the other side ARE MORE LIKELY to believe that the people on the other side simply are "different" from us, usually in a way that is inferior. Yes, it is possible to believe someone is equal, but unreachable. But just because someone else says that the opponent's logical foundation is immovable and irreconcilable doesn't mean it is. It might well mean that they are merely as inflexible as the other side. I can't even count the number of times side "A" has said: It's "Heads!" while side "B" screams "it's Tails!" and I managed to say, "wait a minute, it's a half-dollar!" A major fallacy I've seen my whole life is that if someone can't see an answer, they often believe one doesn't exist. Or more specifically, that the limits of their perception are the limits of possibility. Arthur Clarke had a saying something like: "when a distinguished and elderly scientist says something is impossible, he is most likely wrong." The capacity to resolve apparent dualities to find a new option is a mode of thought I've prized all my life. And I see no practical limits to it, unless the other side is actually deranged. The right Jew might very well have been able to negotiate immigration for the Jewish community rather than extermination, even though co-existence might have been out of reach. In retrospect, I'm sure a LOT of Nazis thought "we should have just let them go." While not an ideal solution, it might have been a better deal for both sides.

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People often take what seems the best option, but under fear and stress, develop tunnel vision and only see a fraction of the options available to them. Unless you can mention a shit-load of cases where the situation was WORSE because people engaged in polite communication (yes, I'm qualifying that, assuming that our communicators are actually skilled), then I have to think that the net result is positive.

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Note, for instance, that merely the insistence upon polite discourse has made this site a place where people of opposing views can express themselves without being attacked personally (usually). Just a tiny tiny example of what I'm talking about. I just don't believe that human beings are that different. I believe that by far, most of the sane ones want the same thing (and even most of the unsane ones--their mechanisms are just too screwed up to function right.)

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Convince someone that their behavior is likely to end with their own children and grandchildren exterminated, and you usually have their attention. Give them a way to surrender with honor, or negotiate with dignity, and most people will at least open themselves to discussion.

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There is a Bell Curve of human ability, and the ability to create rapport, read expressions, find common ground and so forth is just as open to genius as any other. I'm no genius at it, but I've completely lost track of the number of times I was told a group or individual was beyond discussion--only to discover that the person saying that had a hidden agenda, or just wasn't good at reading/communicating. They then assumed that they WERE (like everyone thinks they're a better driver/lover than average. Can't make your girlfriend come? Why, it's HER problem!) and can't believe that maybe, just maybe, they have blinders on. Unless you can demonstrate lotsa cases where it was a NEGATIVE value to communicate, I have to repeat that the net result is positive, and we should always go for it.

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And yes, I think there is overlap between the assumption that the other is "different" and the group that thinks that that difference is inferior. The group that thinks that, say gays aren't worthy of marriage and the group that thinks blacks aren't worthy, period. The group that thinks that Islam is evil, and those who think Arab extremists or leaders cannot and should not be talked to. Yes, I absolutely believe that the TENDENCY to believe in differing value between groups is related to the tendency to racism, sexism, homophobia, cultural eliteism, and so forth. Now, I've never met a person who didn't believe that there were differences--but there is, again, a Bell Curve with this. As I've said before, I think that the "disease" of the Right is too MUCH of this, and the "disease" of the Left is too LITTLE of it. Too much cultural relativism: "everything is o.k."

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I would bet anything that if you surveyed the group that believes we should not speak to our opponents/enemies, you would find a disproportionate number of those who disagree with gay marriage, opposed civil rights, a woman's right to choose, and think Islam is evil. Not that every member of that group believes those things, but if anyone can find stats demonstrating I'm wrong, I'd love to see them, I really would. In other words, some people just have more of the "we're right and good, they're wrong and bad" voice in their heads, and that voice looks for opportunities.

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For instance: anyone who thinks that Liberals or Conservatives are inferior, stupid, blind, etc. is falling neatly into that category. And that's damned near anyone who is seriously politicized. The tendency is a survival trait in one context, and the source of a fantastic amount of human misery in others. I like the middle range far better. And from the middle, it looks like a damned good idea to talk.

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Or to put it simpler: I am having a VERY difficult time thinking of cases in which I would be worse off for having spoken to someone. At the age of 57, I've yet to have a single instance of that, and I've dealt with violent criminals and the insane. And unless the number of cases where it was WORSE to have spoken to the opposition outnumbered those in which value was produced. The logical answer is to speak whenever possible, but expect the opposition to do everything possible to twist the discussions to their own end--much like you're doing. The difficulty with "Crazymakers" isn't listening or speaking to them--it is accepting their map of reality, or value structure in place of your own. THAT is indeed a problem. But it's a problem awake adult human beings shouldn't have.

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What's the fear? That the opposition will learn more about you than you will about them? That they will convince you of their point of view more effectively than you will convince them of yours? But isn't that the risk in any conflict? Isn't it better to work this out with words rather than bombs? To lose at the negotiation table rather than on the battlefield? Either you have confidence in your people, or you don't.

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Unless...there is some benefit that accrues from NOT understanding the other person's point of view. If I want an oil pipeline, and can convince the American public that the opposition to our presence in a given region is based on religious extremism, and not the fact that, oh, say Halliburton assassinated a group of local chiefs, it makes damned good sense to keep our people from ever talking to theirs. But what possible downside is there to communication? Worst case scenario seems to be that you get nothing. Best case is that you stop a war. No comparison.

Speaking with the Enemy

2009-05-03T10:20:00.000-07:00

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ﾠﾠI do enjoy the conversation about copyrights. Someone saying I was "frightened" by the situation was just wrong, however. I am concerned, partially that good creative people are going to suffer because they cannot control the fruits of their labor. And since almost all the people who argue that such duplication should be legal are NOT members of the group who might be hurt by it, this strikes me as self-serving. Because technology makes something easy doesn't make it right. The "loaf of bread" thing is irritating. If you want to make loaves of bread, DO IT. Just don't duplicate a loaf of Wonder Bread complete with packaging. Create your own recipe and duplicate THAT. Or are you afraid you aren't smart enough? I think people are absolutely smart enough to create their own creative works. When they don't, and use technology to duplicate someone else's, they are inviting everyone to simply make up the rules the way they want to. If you can justify what you want to do with my stuff, then I have the right to justify what I want to do with yours. I will have exactly as much respect for your boundaries as you have for mine...and trust me, I'll make up rules that make sense to me, not to you. Societies can't operate like that.

Frank--it could be that as I learn more about finances, I'll be less happy with Obama. But here's my thought on that:

1) He moved into a burning house, and is draining the swimming pool to put it out. I don't like it, but I don't blame him for shallowing the pool somewhat.

2) With any number of subjects, I don't know enough to make a direct judgement. So I sit back and look at the judgements of people I respect. There is enough disagreement among those people for me to realize that NO ONE can be said to know "exactly" what to do in this instance. But I notice that the criticisms pretty much balance between he's "doing too much," "doing not enough" and "doing the wrong thing" and "doing the right thing." When it all evens up, he seems to be going down the middle. And the worst critics are people who started criticizing him before he even took office. So when I discount the obvious partisans, what I'm left with is: "looks very interesting. Sure hope it works out."

3) You guys, quite reasonably, talk about people who can't be reasoned with or communicated with, whose views on the world are simply so different that you can't find common ground.

a) All my life I've had people tell me that group or person X, Y, or Z can't be communicated with. I didn't believe them, went ahead and tried, and 99% of the time found that the problem was that the person who said that had either a vested interest, or wasn't as good at communication as I was.

b) I'm supposed to take someone else's word for this? The President should be someone who can form his own opinions about people, hope to God. Meeting them face to face is the best way to take someone's measure. Note that I never said "placate" or "give in to." How in the hell is talking to someone giving in to them? Unless you speak directly to someone, how do you even know if either of you have been lied to by your councelors, advisors, and others who would manipulate the situation. You think I don't know people will lie? Christ, that's something we know by the time we leave the playground. All I can figure is that people who don't want communication believe that they lose something in the process. If that has been their experience in life, I respectfully submit that they are lousy at communication and judgement of others.

c) To restate "b" above, one of the most important things anyone would want from a leader is the capacity to communicate and make judgements of others. I would want the very very best person on my team at this critical quality, and would NEVER turn over communication entirely to those who were inferior to his judgement. People often make the mistake of thinking "if I can't do it, no one can," not realizing that they are limited by their own prejudices, inadequacies, rigid belief systems, fears and angers. But I've met people who are so good at reading people, and so good at building consensus, that they are almost magical. When the same side that says "we shouldn't talk to them" also has a disproportionate number of those who say "Islam is evil," I have to suspect that THOSE people would never think communication will help, because at their heart they believe their opponents are critically, basically different. This is why Sting's song about "if the Russians love their children too" was so important.

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Every government trying to mobilize their population for war uses the simplest way to rile up their people: the "Others" are different than we are. Worse than we are. More godless than we are. They are baby-killers and monsters. Both sides do it. In boxing matches, martial arts matches, the fighters have to be very careful not to veer into negative emotions, hatred, dehumanizing their opponent. It is the absolute easiest, default position, and you see it at Pep ralleys between different high schools.

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It's that Octavia Butler thing: we see the world hierarchically, and we place ourselves high on that hierarchy. All my early life, I watched an entire culture saying that about my people, saying many of the exact same things white people now say about Arabs or Muslims. The exact same things I heard said about the Japanese in WW2. The exact same shit I hear people all over the world saying about any group they are in conflict with: especially if they want their land or resources. They aren't like us. They're not as good as us. They can't be reasoned with.

Remember that I don't think 99% of people communicate with THEMSELVES honestly and elegantly. Otherwise, they'd have better careers, relationships, and bodies. People who ARE balanced in all three arenas tend (not always, but in the majority of cases I've seen) to be FAR less likely to believe other people, other groups, those in opposition to them are just intrinsically different, and can't be communicated with, only controlled or exterminated.

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That belief is the raw seed of so much human evil I just cannot believe it. It is the belief pattern not just of good people I believe are mistaken (as I think about those on this blog) but literally every monster I've ever known or heard of. I've never ever known of a monster who didn't believe in some version of this delusion.

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So the question for me is: how do I gather information about my opponent without weakening my own position? If we do not include this capacity among those things we want from our leaders, that is a grave, grave mistake. And about people who lie? I have a pretty simple solution.

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Trust no one. Instead, rely upon them to do what they perceive as being in their best interests, and concentrate your attention on determining what that might be. Pay more attention to their actions than to their words, but pay special attention to the GAP between what they say and what they do. Assume that every human being feels alone and afraid...and look for what they do to deal with that loneliness and fear. All violence except in the tiny percentage of the human race that is functionally insane arises from these emotions (in my way of thinking). If you think that those "other" groups have a higher percentage of actual crazies, the burden of proof is flatly on you.

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I got so sick of people pointing to black rioters and assuming that there must be something wrong with them, like no rational white people have ever rioted, as if there was something intrinsically sick about dark-skinned people that from time to time, for no discernable reason, they would just erupt. Insane! Childlike! Primitive!

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It was decades of this that pushed me to develop global theories of human behavior that could help me explain this without hating white people. And the attitudes I have come right from this: you want me to believe that Arabs and Muslims are intrinsically just less than us? That they cannot be reasoned with? Then I'd have to believe that there really are basic, innate differences in quality between groups. And trust me. Believe me when I say that were I to believe that, my very next thought would be that white people are just as sick and evil. I mean that. And all the way to my toes, I don't believe that to be true.

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So there it is, and there we are. I believe that most violence is a matter of miscommunication, fear, and tribal hierarchicalism. And that we are just as vulnerable to it as anyone else. Women are as vulnerable to it as men. Whites as blacks, Christians as Muslims. It's hard-wired into our survival mechanism, and you have to stay constantly aware and alert to prevent it.

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And, not to put too fine a line on it, the same people who want me to believe Muslims or Arabs are somehow inferior are vastly more likely to think the exact same thing about any other group that doesn't look like them. Including me. I'd be a fool to fall into it.

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That doesn't mean I believe what people tell me. It means that I have the capacity to judge for myself, and would want nothing less from my leaders.