A visitor to Cornell University encounters a professor on a crosswalk.


Visitor: This place has some great architecture. I like the law library in particular. I also like the commanding view of the lake.


Prof.: Yes, the physical plant has some aesthetic value, but our personal care for students and our research make this place great. Faculty members are especially keen on interacting with students. We want them to succeed. And I won’t deny that a successful Cornell student becomes a financial asset during and after a career. Many graduates donate.


Visitor: So, I see on the school's website a statement about student life. Here it is. It reads, “Experience a community that values critical thinking, encourages self-discovery and embraces all walks of life — all surrounded by natural majesty that will inspire your creativity and deepen your focus.”


Prof.: Yes, that’s the Cornell experience.


Visitor: I’ll buy the “natural majesty” part. The gorge on the campus is a great place to contemplate. And nearby, Taughannock Falls is an impressive site. The glaciers did some nice work in shaping the landscape of this part of the Finger Lake topography. But I have some trouble with the rest of the statement.


Prof.: Really? What part?


Visitor: The part that says “embraces all walks of life.”


Prof.: But we do. We have students from around the planet, and we have a diverse research program.


Visitor: Hmmnnnn.


Prof.: What?


Visitor: I just walked by a house occupied by Jews. There was a police car parked outside.


Prof.: Oh! Kids. They’re upset about the Israelis attacking Gaza and killing Palestinians. They want the war to stop, and as kids, they sometimes go a bit to the extreme, making some threats.


Visitor.: So, you don’t see a problem here.


Prof.: No. It will all die down. It’s just some individuals.


Visitor: You mean anti-Semites?


Prof.: No, there are many Jewish students on campus. Jews have long been welcomed into the Cornell community.


Visitor: Well, it’s not just the police car and police on watch. There must be a little more to what is going on at Cornell because I just read that an elderly Cornell graduate and contributor is threatening to pull his gift-giving.


Prof.: Who?


Visitor: The guy's name is Jon A. Lindseth. He says that “DEI has led to moral 'rot' at the university and 'dishonors' the principles of free speech.” * That’s the story I read. And I have to think that he might be onto something. That “equity” part seems counter to the supposed “critical thinking” proclaimed by the staff in the online statement I just read to you. And then there’s that “inclusion” stuff. How inclusive is a university that has to position police outside a Jewish residence to protect the students?


Prof.: Uh…


Visitor: Carl Sagan has to be turning over in his grave. Although he called himself agnostic, he was born into a Jewish family. If your protesting anti-Semites discovered this, they would probably deface the entrance to his home on Stewart Avenue, the one perched on the gorge and called the “Egyptian Tomb” or stand outside the Carl Sagan Institute on campus with signs that read “From the river to the sea.”


Prof.: No, no. We’re not experiencing any violence here. Besides, you can’t deny that the school has done more good than harm over the past 159 years.


Visitor: I’m sure there’s much to praise. But why the shift from excellence to equity? Shouldn’t a university be on the forefront of the battle against mediocrity? What do you think will happen if the university continues on its DEI path? Certainly, the students who have supported a terror organization haven’t given much “critical thought” to the circumstances of a country that has been attacked repeatedly and recently been subjected to a massacre that led to the current conflict. And certainly, the anti-Semitism shown on campus seems to indicate an emotional and not a rational student body—though I recognize that probably most students are wholly indifferent to world affairs, especially during college parties that seem to be rather endless, weekends merging into weekdays. And then there’s the DEI director guy, Derron Borders, of Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Management who publicly supported Hamas in a social media statement. ** Makes one wonder whether or not someone should rewrite the third verse of the school’s Alma Mater. Wait! Did I just say “Alma Mater”? Wonder whether Derron Borders has an objection under “inclusivity” to the Latin word for “mother”? “Alma Birthing Person”? Alma Procreans”?


Prof.: Look, Derron is entitled to his opinion. But “third verse”?


Visitor: Don’t you pay attention at graduation ceremonies? Everyone gets a pamphlet with the song on its last page. Everyone is invited to join in the singing:


Braving time and storm.
So through clouds of doubt and darkness
Gleams her beacon light,
Fault and error clear revealing,
​Blazing forth the right.

“Fault and error.” Won’t have much “clear revealing” under DEI, will you? If you know him, ask Derron about the anti-Semitism on campus and on the need for a police car outside a Jewish residence. And while you’re at it, ask him if his BLM stance evidenced by his lapel pin excludes WLM, ALM, or, after his statements about Hamas, JLM.    




*Major Cornell donor pulls funding over ‘toxic’ DEI culture, pens letter calling for president’s resignation. Fox News. Published online on Jan. 25, 2024, 7:31 a.m. ET


**https://nypost.com/2023/10/10/cornell-diversity-and-inclusion-director-slammed-for-tone-deaf-posts-on-israel-hamas-war/

An alternate title: La Soufrière,  Soufrière Hills, La Grande Soufrière, Soufrière Volcanic Center (aka Qualibou and Creole Soufwiyè): Stay or Move


If you’ve read the frontispiece to this website or the preface in the first volume of This Is Not Your Practice Life, you know the fundamental premise that underlies many of the 2,000 essays I’ve written for this website: Place is primary. And the argument, bear with the repetition here, is based on whether or not one can remember any “tIme” without place. * If you tell me about yesterday, or tomorrow, or ten years ago, you will make reference to place; it’s place where time occurs. No place, no time.


Today I have further proof that place is more important to us than time. It comes in the form of a reticence to move away from danger, danger as in earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, avalanches, tornadoes, and hurricanes. Specifically, that proof comes from St. Vincent, where La Soufrière is threatening a major eruption, its first since 1979. Some residents living in the shadow of the volcano decided to leave their places only after the ash started to fall; they were reluctant to leave when the government told them the volcano was showing signs of renewed activity and when their own eyes and ears confirmed the suspicions.


La Soufrière


Island hop in the West Indies and you’re bound to run into the name Soufrière. French, of course, dating back to the time of pirates and frigates, and Spain, France, and England in conflict over the New World, a back-and-forth series of conflicts that saw, for example, an exchange of St. Lucia some 17 times between French and English. Island Creole is evidence of the exchanges, and many islanders have two languages, one for tourists and the other for themselves. Among the Antilles—Lesser and Greater, Windward and Leeward—lying in a volcanic arc that began forming 40 million years ago, you’ll see either active or dormant volcanoes, or visit, as on Dominica, a town with the name that means “sulfur mine.”


And why sulfur? The element is typical of an area with volcanism. Volcanoes eject sulfur dioxide (SO2)—sometimes into the stratosphere to affect world temperatures. Because the Antilles are volcanic islands, sulfur is common; thus, the widespread use of the name Soufrière. Most of the volcanoes in the Antilles are sleeping, but every so often, even in modern times, one awakes to disturb human sleep. In 1999 Montserrat’s Soufrière Hills erupted, displacing residents and eventually killing nine of them who decided that they could determine their own destiny beneath an andesitic cone or stratovolcano. Whereas it’s true that a people might find a quiet and peaceful life in the shadow of such a dormant volcano whose soils provide a fertile farmland, it’s also true that any any time—not of the islanders’ choosing—the volcano can destroy anything or anyone at its base with a super hot and choking pyroclastic flow that descends from its summit faster than highway speeds (Think Vesuvius in 79 and Pompeii and Herculaneum and Mont Pelée in 1902 and Saint-Pierre).


Funny How Place Names Sometimes Reveal Realities


Pennsylvania has a town called Intercourse. No, it wasn’t named for what you are thinking though it would be foolish to think that the Amish don’t. (I’m ending the sentence with don’t to avoid saying the Amish aren’t not known for orgies). Sometimes names reveal something about the region’s geology, as Volcano, Hawaii (Duh, it’s Hawaii, isn’t it?), Rich Creek and and Poverty Stream, Virginia, the former running through limestone and the latter through shale, the former with permeable rock and abundant ground water and the latter with impermeable rock and less ground water, and finally, all those Soufrière places sitting in volcanic landscapes, one, for example, on Montserrat, one on the next island, St. Lucia, and one on St. Vincent, all volcanoes capable of erupting at any time and sending a nuée ardente (“fiery cloud”) of hot ash and poisonous gas down their slopes.


Move or Stay?


First Hypothetical: Take Poverty Stream in Virginia. The first Europeans who moved into the area of Virginia now crossed by Route 460 in the vicinity of the New River named those two areas on the basis of groundwater. The warping of rocks during the crush between Africa and North America had placed layers of shales and limestones on end in a “stack” like a piece of layer cake served with the top on the side. Some of those Europeans settled on land that was rich in groundwater resources (the limestone layers) whereas others settled on land that had little available groundwater. Now here’s the hypothetical. Given that you are a farmer and a second-generation resident, would you stay in the area of Poverty Stream to continue the family farm where groundwater was scarce or move?


Second Hypothetical: Take any of the Soufrière areas on the islands. Given that you are a “second generation resident” on an island with a history of volcanism, would you move or remain where the name Sulfur Mine indicates a potential for destruction and death? Recall that just as recently as 1979 St. Vincent’s La Soufrière erupted and Montserrat’s Soufrière Hills erupted two decades later. Would today’s 2024 eruption convince you to convince your children to move?


What is more important, the little time one has in a human life or the place where one lives?


Sure, Poverty Might Keep You in Poverty Stream, Virginia, but…


Obviously, moving isn’t very easy. Usually, there has to be strong motivation like a new job or a disaster that obliterates beyond repair or a strong desire to move coupled with financial freedom and a willingness to start anew. How many current Floridians were once residents of cold New York before they retired.


But even after a disaster, many choose to remain. New Orleans still has a large population after Hurricane Katrina, and San Francisco still has one after the Loma Prieta 1989 earthquake. It takes money to move, and those who are already poor find themselves even poorer after a disaster.


When Water Is Abundant…


In 1985 the Monongahela River flooded its valley, damaging homes downstream from Taggart Dam to Pittsburgh. It was an exceptional flood, occurring after an eleven-inch downpour. Many of the homes along the river had been hit by previous flooding, but this one was on the order of a 500-year or even a 1,000-year flood. You’ll still find people living in those homes damaged and repaired after the flood even though those same homes have been hit by floods on average every decade.


Recall that some 2,000 people died in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, during America’s most famous flood in 1889. Lesson learned? Nope. In 1936 two dozen people died in a flood that destroyed 77 buildings in the town and damaged another 3,000 structures. Lesson learned? Nope, again. In 1977 another Johnstown flood killed 85 and devastated businesses enough that the destruction initiated a diaspora of former residents who had little choice to move after the devastation.


The same phenomenon of people living in the path of recurrent disasters can be seen in Princeville, NC, which is off the Tar River, a stream along which the government constructed a levee after repeated flooding. When hurricanes Dennis and Floyd hit the area in 1999, the flooding was severe enough for the government to condemn the town. Yet, there are still residents living on or near that floodplain.


Is it emotional inertia? Financial inertia? What is it that keeps people in the paths of repeated calamities? Is it the belief that one is so invulnerable “it can’t happen to me”? Or is it an adherence to place?


Back to the Sulfur Mines


Some of St. Vincent’s residents did not move when geologists warned of an impending eruption. Then the ash started to fall. Nothing like an ongoing disaster with a strong hint of further calamity to get us humans to act and abandon places. Now, even the most stubborn residents are moving away from the danger zone, but we can guess that many who leave will return when they believe the threat has subsided. Those nine who died on Montserrat are examples.


We can understand their reluctance because we know how attached to place we can be. We humans, cognizant of our short lives, still cling to familiar places, even when those places pose a threat to our timelines.


And that adherence, I believe, supports my claim that place is primary over time.


*Place includes the universe's various forms of matter, including "at the kitchen table," "with John and Mary," and "on Mount Kilimanjaro."

Having long admired Camille for his dreamy Aquarium and his powerful last movement (Maestoso-Allegro) of his Symphony #3 in C with Organ, I was primed to like his comment about the latter composition:


“I gave everything to it I was able to give. What I have here accomplished, I will never achieve again.” *


When I think of putting my life in perspective, I ask whether or not I can make a similar comment. 


How about you?




*The popular Organ Symphony appears in many iterations on YouTube. If you want a visually stunning version, see “Strauss & Saint Saint-Saëns Also Sprach Zarathustra & Finale of ‘Organ’ Symphony (Live)” posted by Benny Stefan and performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra accompanied by a light show. That video begins with Strauss’ opening phrases that Kubrick used to introduce the “Star Child” at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and smoothly and powerfully transitions into the Organ Symphony’s finale. Other notable YouTube videos include “Saint-Saens: Symphony No. 3 "Organ" - Finale (Auckland Symphony Orchestra) 1080p”; an organ-only performance: SAINT-SAENS "ORGAN" SYMPHONY - FINALE (ARR. JONATHAN SCOTT); and other performances posted on YouTube.

Packaging


If you take literature and art courses in college, you’ll encounter not only different genres, but also different styles, moods, or themes, such as “classicism,” “romanticism,” “realism,” “naturalism,” and “symbolism,” all associated with different “ages” and groups of like-minded writers either the product of their times or revolutionaries in their times. The realists, for example, rejected the moods and themes of their predecessor romanticists, making the former “revolutionaries” in a period leading to the revolutions of 1848. This type of literary classification and historical perspective is useful for understanding western writers, but might be useless for eastern culture writers and artists. For the sake of argument here, I’ll use the classification of Western trends as a context for understanding the United States in the twenty-first century, but I’ll admit that such classification schemes occur only in retrospect. Culture, and that includes intellectual culture, is generally organic because the appeal of any philosophy art or music or literature movement often relies not on rational contemplation but rather on emotional urges.


Our brains have a tendency to package thoughts and political and social movements. Packaging makes the world easier to understand. We’re all a bit Linnaean. Or, maybe a bit obsessive-compulsive. Thus, we speak of the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century even though there were many who were far less than enlightened than the writers and diplomats who ferried thoughts around Europe and the Colonies. As the old saying goes, every system or ideology, every movement, and every motivation contains the seeds of its antithesis—especially when carried out to its fullest extent.


The Progression within a Stasis


I think most of us realize that everything happens all at once. Peace here is countered by war there. You might live in a peaceful community at this time, but in January, 2024, more than thirty conflicts are displacing people and taking lives. Love and unity are offset by hate and disunity. Thus, the opening paragraph of this essay should be read in the context of historical and ongoing complexity. And whenever one human perspective seems to dominate—as the movement of symbolism did from 1890 to the beginning of WWI—one can be assured that a counter movement, if not exactly the opposite, then at least “different,” underlies the dominant perspective, much like the early mammals underlay the dinosaurs until the latter’s extinction.

​Like the mammals replacing the extinct dinosaurs, some forms of the earlier themes remain, though altered, just as the avian dinosaurs continue to this day (See that bird?). Some writers today could easily fall into the category of symbolists as they mimic the fin de siècle literary movement practiced by Oscar Wilde and explained by the pessimistic Arthur Schopenhauer. (In fact, if as some say, the pessimism of the fin de siècle foreshadowed the rise of Fascism, then today’s Antifa movement and government overreach and attempts at censorship, actually parallel much of what was going on during the Symbolist movement)


But given our penchant to place things in packages or categories, we have reason to see a progression of perspectives and movements within the past half millennium. The Renaissance and Classicism gave way in the early nineteenth century first to Romanticism, and then in sequence to Realism, Naturalism, and Symbolism. Characterizing today’s literature and art is more difficult, partly because we’re in the midst of it and partly because literature and art have borrowed from all the previous moods and styles, and finally, partly from the number of writers spread throughout the Web seeking to establish an identity.


Just as there are only about six or seven fundamental plots for stories, so there are only limited numbers of moods and styles. Mixing is inevitable, so there’s a blurry demarcation among the various approaches in all the arts and cultural perspectives. Think of classical music recitatives reborn in Hip Hop rap, or talk-singing as I call both. In short, all moods and styles, from politics to the arts, borrow from previous moods and styles and the milieu in which they are created—even when their stated purpose is to overturn the contemporary milieu.


So, Where Are We Today?


When I began thinking about this topic this morning, I assumed I could write a quick summary. That approach immediately proved to be just plain foolish because the United States now looks both west and east and past and future (consider AI) in its motivations. These motives have produced a simplistic dichotomy in the minds of many: Conservatives supposedly looking to the past and Progressives supposedly looking to the future. But in practice, these stereotypes of moods, themes, and styles are reductions to absurdity.


Those in tune with social media, the Web, and mass media fall into identifiable categories, don’t they? And I’ve been as guilty of reductionism as anyone on social media, the mainstream media, and the gajillion bloggers. I’ve labeled our times variously through these essays, and I might add Age of Whiners, Age of Doomsayers, Age of Snowflakes, Age of Indifference, Age of False Narratives, Age of Ideology, Age of Immigration, Age of Terrorism, Age of Petty Concerns, Age of Bitterness, Age of Gossip, Age of Overt Narcissists, Age of Artificiality (think AI; think gender fluidity), the Age of … (your turn)


Yet, not one of those suggested names is anything other than a reductio ad absurdum because of our fundamental contradictory nature. Nothing new here as Mary Shelley encapsulated in her famous novel; there’s a Hyde in both individuals and movements.


So, what would be the best way to characterize our times? No doubt you have your favorite goto characterization, but do you have it for all the age or for just select aspects of the age?


Pick a Topic, Any Topic


Today, I’ve convinced myself that only in the context of specific topics can we frame a characterization. Abortion is an example. The ethical conflict of our times centers on a definition and a value: What is human life? Then, given the assumption that we can define human life, we ask, “Does human life have an intrinsic value?”


Then we get into the nitty-gritty. Both sides have their contradictions. Those favoring abortion often oppose capital punishment. Those selectively favoring capital punishment oppose abortion. When the Obama Administration killed Osama bin Laden, many pro-lifers applauded. Seems that the value of an adult human is something to be earned, and bin Laden didn’t earn longevity. But the same Administration also seems to have been either pro-abortion or indifferent to it (on the basis of Democratic platforms, I’d guess the former). So, the official stance of Obama’s Administration seems to have been that those among the unborn who had no opportunity to work for merit and value were, in fact, valueless. But adults who had either earned value or not earned it were deemed either valuable or valueless, and bin Laden was the latter. I know that seems like a simplification, but remember that we’re trying to define an age by the perspectives, actions, and “moods” of its denizens. For abortionists, human value depends…


On what? Well, that depends on whom. For pro-lifers with ambivalent stances toward capital punishment, then the same can be said, except that for the youngest, those still in the womb, the value comes by fiat, not by deed, and the pro-abortion god doesn’t impart value. And then at the other end of life’s spectrum lies the similar problems of suicide, euthanasia, and war. Can one voluntarily give up human value, or have it taken away in as in the case of bin Laden? Can one voluntarily take away human value? Certainly, those who initiate wars, such as Putin in Ukraine, have little compunction about sending the innocent to their deaths, as tens of thousands of Russians have discovered their valuelessness.


Or, take the current problem with immigration. Before the crush of what is currently the population equivalent to a Cincinnati (300,000) entering the country every month, those who said, “Let’s open the border” maintained a symbolic value system, essentially saying, “All are welcome here.” The permission to enter the country en masse was a symbol of the tolerance and value that Democrats wanted the world to see while simultaneously being a rub-dirt-in-the-face of proponents of border security. And now? Well, overwhelmed with immigrants taking advantage of handouts like free transportation, phones, time to wander about the country uninhibited, food, clothing, and shelter, Democrat mayors and councils are beginning to rethink their policies—and they will continue to do so unless the Feds provide them with lucrative handouts. So, one has to ask, “Is this an age of Statue of Liberty Charity?” Is “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free” the defining ethical characterization of our age?


Could we characterize the age at the beginning of the immigration crush as one deriving from a Romantic View, one that praised the “noble savage,” the downtrodden, the destitute, and the persecuted? Could we characterize the age as one of unavoidable Realism framed in the questions, “Who’s going to pay for all this?” And “Where are we going to put all these people?” In the midst of the problem of immigration a new wave of crime has risen in neighborhoods housing tent-city immigrants, forcing a revitalization of a dark Realism. As Roland N. Stromberg writes in his introduction to Realism, Naturalism, and Symbolism, “…the ‘realists’ put aside a varieties of ‘unrealities’ such as …the cult of the exotic (medieval, oriental, the remote, and the fairylandish), or seemingly impossible political ideals, or idealism in philosophy” (xii). * The proponents of “sanctuary cities” seem to be turning away from a burdensome ideology and toward a realistic perspective. Are the Left's idealists becoming realists?


Take at least one more topic on this journey to defining our age: Modern Capitalism. Socialists will label it the bane of modern civilization and human dignity. It’s a system that makes the rich richer and that divides them almost continuously from the poor. Of course, we recognize that, as the saying goes, “I’ve been rich, and I’ve been poor. Rich is better.” (The origin of the saying is debatable, but seems to go on a trail from Beatrice Kaufman through Joe E. Lewis, Sophie Tucker, and a number of others) Thus, we find a new definition: The Age of Hypocrisy. I frame that term in light of the millionaire wealth of self-proclaimed socialist Bernie Sanders and a number of other Democrats who speak of distributing wealth while hoarding their own.


Is this an Age of Failed Ideologies? Is this an Age of Confused People?


See the Problem Here?


As I wrote above, it’s difficult to see the whole when one is part of a part. We can surmise the shape of our galaxy, for example, but we can only do so by some  observations that reveal a similarity to spiral galaxies seen through telescopes. We’re in the midst of an “AGE,” but as in all previous “ages,” we can’t see ourselves from an outside perspective. We live in a galaxy not just of stars but also of moods, styles, and movements.


I would like to think that right now there’s some primordial never-before-seen and therefore wholly original movement taking place in a mind-pond like those one-celled organisms of 3.8 billion years ago that eventually evolved to become multicellular. But I’m inclined to think with Qoheleth in Ecclesiastes 1:9 that
    
        What has been will be again,
        what has been done will be done again;
        there is nothing new under the sun.


And one of the reasons I am so inclined is that analogously, those early life-forms took their existence from a “primordial soup” that, if it were today’s Earth environment, it would decimate the life that has evolved. I’m sure you don’t want to live in an environment of sulfuric acid, acetylene, and formaldehyde, all compounds suspected to lie on the pathway from an abiotic to a biotic world. Once life formed and began its journey toward consciousness and us in particular, the fundamental stuff of life couldn’t be reused to restart the whole process again, producing an entirely different life regime on the planet. And the same seems to apply to the rise of any age. The stuff of culture that makes up ages—movements, ideologies, actions, moods—already kick-started the current culture and the possible forms it can take. Ages are like phyla, they are the possible forms that human endeavors can adopt. The phyla can be linked, as Fascism, Socialism, and Communism can be linked, but they do retain their forms and are recognizable as separate “entities.” We humans still retain that “reptilian” part of the brain. This “age” is still linked to past “ages” in many ways, physically, intellectually, and emotionally.


Admitting Failure


So, I guess I have done here what I would never have advised college students and colleagues to do in an essay: Write from beginning to an indefinite end. My advice was always to write an essay from end to beginning, that is, to know where one was going and to end there with the reader. **   


But as usual, I’ll suggest that something good can come out of my failure to define our current age: At least I’ve given you some food for thought.


So, I leave you with the question: How would you define your times?




*Sromberg, Roland N. 1968. Subtitled Modes of Thought and Expression in Europe, 1848-1914. New York. Harper Torchbooks.


**A bit of advice: As you write, ask yourself if the reader knows how he’s gotten to where he is in the piece, that is, if he knows why you are saying what you’re saying in a given sentence or paragraph. Advice I ignored in the above essay.

In Der Wille zur Macht, Nietzsche foreshadows twenty-first century victimization through group association. We call his prescient description “identity politics.”


First, here’s what Nietzsche wrote:


    “Fundamental mistake: to place the goals in the flock and not in particular individuals! The flock is means, no more! But now people are trying to conceive the flock as an individual and ascribe a higher rank to it than to the individual—deepest mistake” (203). *


Second, here’s an example in a headline:


    “Georgia DA Fani Willis says accusations of affair with Trump prosecutor are racially motivated.”


Third, here’s the point:


    The pressure of DEI forces a groupism onto American culture that contrasts with the concepts of individual responsibility, capitalism, and free speech. Nietzsche was among the first to warn western civilization about the trend toward “equity,” and others since have echoed his thinking, notably Orwell and Rand.


Fourth, here’s the consequence:


    Those who do not strive constantly to maintain their individualism will be herded along in some flock. Being an individual is a constant challenge that requires truthfulness, self-reliance, and personal responsibility. 

How are you doing?


* Translation in Morgan, George Allen. What Nietzsche Means. Harper & Row, 1941, p. 123.

** Alex Oliveira. New York Post. Online at https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/georgia-da-fani-willis-says-accusations-of-affair-with-trump-prosecutor-are-racially-motivated/ar-AA1mXYER

When representatives of the United States speak, they should command an audience. The country is, after all, the most powerful nation to this point—Sunday morning, January 14, 2024 at 9:30 AM Eastern. Somehow, over the course of the last fifty years, the words have had little effect, and only military action has garnered the world’s attention. This seems to have been the recent case of the bombing of western Yemen’s Houthi stronghold. In case you haven’t been paying attention, note that western Yemen has a strategic location for anyone wanting to stop a large portion of world trade, and the Houthis, at the behest of Iran, have used their location and Iran’s weapons to attack shipping. When the attacks began, the US said, “You better stop that.” Then louder, “You better stop that or else….” Finally, the US and the UK bombed Houthis (who had virtually nothing to gain by the attacks).


I’m thinking that Uncle Sam needs some calling. I mean a Calling, Biblical Like, something like the call Samuel got in the dead of night. The First Book of Samuel, or the First Book of Kings as it is also known, relates that Samuel was asleep when he heard his name. He went to Eli (or Heli) to say, “Hey, whad-you-want?” Eli said, “What? Go back to sleep; I didn’t call you.” Story goes that this was repeated until Eli said, “I haven’t been waking you and calling you. It’s gotta be God. So, next time, say, “Whad-You want, Lord? I’m your servant.” (I have no idea what the dialect would have sounded like, sorry; don’t take this for an exact translation)


But the big point here is what comes in Chapter 3, verse 19. In the Douay version of the Bible, the passage reads, “and Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him, and not one of his words fell to the ground.” Kind of an odd idiom, but the Douay version predates our modern idiom. Instead, think “and not one of his words was without effect.”


Without Effect


Words alone don’t do much to quash the actions of bad actors. Words supported by actions do have an effect. Words supported by actions do not “fall to the ground.” They linger as long as the actions linger and maybe longer if the actions are very decisive.


The problem appeasers have is that their words typically fall to the ground. They have no effect. The most famous instance of ineffective language is that of Neville Chamberlain, whose “peace in our time” statement after a meeting with Hitler proved to be worthless. The bad actors acted in spite of the words. Hitler invaded Poland, and, well, the rest is as they say, history.


For days, and luckily during those days without much effect, the Houthis launched drones and missiles at ships passing their way—even mistakenly at a Russian vessel. The “words” of the West fell to the ground, just as the words of the West fell to the ground prior to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and previously of Georgia.


Uncle Sam has under the leadership of appeasers become a target for terror and disruption by foreign agents, the Houthis being one group of such agents.

Some Action Is Better than No Action, but Does It Garner Attention?


So, the US and UK have bombed Houthi encampments and weapons. Do those acitons speak louder than words? Have the falling bombs kept the words from falling? Will they keep future words from falling on the ground?


Apparently, the secular leaders of the US don’t put much faith in a divine calling. And that, I suppose is all right in a humanitarian philosophy sort of way. Whose “divine calling” would whisper in Uncle Sam’s sleeping ear? What if, for example, the divine calling came through an Imam? A Buddhist monk? A Satanist? Obviously in a plural society there wouldn’t be much agreement on the nature of the calling. “You were just dreaming, Sammy." Or, "What you heard was just a random blending of sounds from the local highway or road construction that “sounded” like your name. There’s nothing divine in your calling. You know, that separation of Church and State thing.”


But if we are governed by the ethics of humanitarianism and not religion, don’t we still have an obligation to speak and act on behalf of the people threatened by malevolence for what seems to be malevolence’s sake? What purpose do the Houthi attacks serve except to further the will of Iran and disrupt civilization? Do the attacks further the Houthi cause? Consider that in light of the Houthis being a military force so inferior to the military powers of the West, that they could only suffer grave consequences by continuing their attacks on western interests. Like bullies, the Houthis have acted without considering the possible consequences, but who can blame them? They heard repeatedly “If you don’t stop these attacks” without any followup response. Bullies and bad guys seem to respond only when they suffer some punishment, if not the wrath of God, then certainly the wrath of the offended.


These Aren’t Biblical Times, Obviously


When the Book of Biden is written, will it note, “And no words of his were without effect” or “Nothing Biden said ever fell on the ground”? Has Joe been called in the middle of the night, when he’s sleeping during the middle of the day, or when he’s been wandering aimlessly waiting for someone to usher him off the stage? (Well, I suppose the last one, maybe a call from an assistant: "Mr. President, this way, Mr. President; walk this way)


Uncle Sam needs a Samuel to voice its interests. it needs a strong voice that will be heard before there's a need to act.

Most trouble comes by chance and time and leaves the same way, too.
But leaving differs from the coming all because of you.
Your choice is plain and just depends on what you think to do.
But worry will not make it go, as worries will accrue.
You have to act and never quit till trouble you subdue.

Are their mistakes forcing Democrats to become political positivists? Probably not, because their adherence to ideas seems, in the face of all that is contradictory, to be unshakeable. But what if…?


A Fundamental Question


Do you find interesting the reaction of Democrat Mayor Adams as he faces growing crowds of illegal immigrants, now draining billions of dollars from NYC’s annual budget? Are the numbers becoming the message that will change his and other Democrats’ minds? The numbers, you say?


Positivism in Physics as the Analog


From the rise of “scientific inquiry” in ancient Greece to the Renaissance, most “science” wasn’t what we moderns consider to be “science.” It was largely metaphysics based on concerns about “the nature of” or “the source of” concepts like force, mass, and motion. Before ancient Greeks and Romans, as far as we know, most explanations of natural phenomena rested in myth and religion. True, there were exceptions. Archimedes comes to mind, and so do his predecessors Pythagoras and Euclid. But then the approach to understanding changed—thank you, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, and others—to mathematical ways that describe and explain natural phenomena. As Menas Kafatos and Robert Nadeau explain in The Conscious Universe: Part and Whole in Modern Physical Theory, “a number of nineteenth century physicists and mathematicians …[concluded] that true, genuine, and certain knowledge in physics is revealed in the mathematical description and that all metaphysical concerns should be excluded in both principle and in practice” (18).* That conclusion is what has become known as Newtonian physics and sometimes even “classical” or deterministic physics as an acknowledgement that effects have causes, clearly defined causes.


The new approach made sense because experiments and inventions seemed to operate on mathematical principles. Think force applied, motion produced, for example. This development in how people “did science” prevailed until the goofy quantum world was discovered, that is, the time when observer and observed could no longer be separated.  But there’s no denying that Newtonian physics produced explanations and measurable results: Thus the physics of cars and banked curves on highways, of rockets lifting off, and of birds falling from the sky.” Yes, the numbers revealed the secrets that those earlier explanations failed to reveal. Motion, Mr. Aristotle, isn’t an inherent component of a rock or baseball. Force, some kind of force is necessary , and that force is quantifiable: It’s all numbers, numbers, well math, really…


Physics before and even now during the era of quantum mechanics allows us to invent engines, heat pumps, and roller coasters with the confidence that our results will be consistent and workable. We don’t need the why as much as we need the how. As Kafatos and Nadeau put it, “This view, which came to be known as positivism, stipulates that [in Ernest Rutherford’s words] ‘true, genuine, and certain knowledge in physics is revealed in the mathematical description, and that all metaphysical concerns should be excluded in both principle and in practice’” (18).


Public Policies without the Numbers Deny the Realities That Numbers Reveal


So, here we are, centuries after Galileo, using “feelings” and “metaphysics” to make public policies that affect millions of people—like those in New York City and Chicago, and Washington, D.C., all “sanctuary cities” and all now with mayors complaining about the product of their beliefs and social philosophies. Those Democrat leaders invented their problems on the basis of metaphysics and not on the basis of mathematical descriptions. If they had only run the numbers…


But in their arrogance, they relied on belief and on impractical theory with no regard for the way the world really works in the sense of physics and invention. In their effort to rule by virtue signaling and socialist policies led by the Far Left, they have uncorked Pandora’s bottle (Yes, the ancient tale involves a bottle and not a box).


Sure, Temper the Positivism with a Little Metaphysics, but…


Is it heartless to say that the numbers matter? Is it unrealistic to say that the “force” moving millions toward the American border doesn’t lie within the migrants. It’s an outside force, one applied by the Biden Administration and sanctuary cities that pulls in migrants the way iron filings move toward a magnet or balls fall toward the center of gravity.


There were ways to thwart the current migrant crisis affecting the cities. But total open-door policies were not among them. And offers of free housing, education, food, shelter, transportation, and even phones only make the numbers punish the legal residents and taxpaying citizens—now to the tune in NYC of billions of bucks per year in addition to the displacement of residents and tourists, and increased crime.


The sanctuary cities and the border are now overwhelmed with migrants. Who would have guessed? Maybe someone with a Newtonian mindset, someone who could crunch numbers without relying on virtue signaling or unproven hypotheses. But the Left left the door open providing little choice right now as the masses crush toward and over the border. Migrants have crowded into NYC and other sanctuary cities. Now there’s little choice other than to deal with the numbers and to care for them as promised. Sure, it’s humane, but it still has its detrimental costs.


The Left could use some political positivism. They could still keep their hearts, but they need to consider what their minds objectively tell them. And mind, not heart, runs numbers, sees cause and effect, and makes predictions based on commonsense and previous experiments. Heart—even the “heart” or emotions that derived from hatred of the Right and Trump to open the border as a “we’re better than you” policy—is incapable of practicality, of real scientific thinking grounded in quantities. The quality that the Left thinks it has provided has been overwhelmed by demonstrable quantities.


* New York. 1990, Springer-Verlag.

People-watching is a common behavior in airports and bus terminals. Variations in human shapes capture our attention for various reasons, but primarily because of our need to compare as a mechanism of self esteem. If we are curious about the variations in form among members of our own species, then our curiosity about other life-forms that differ in shape, size, and habit seems unavoidable. That interest in form and function of objects that are unfamiliar reveals itself in a walk upon a beach with shells and in a store with shelves of toys.


Who among us has walked on a beach with shells and not stopped to pick one up? Our curiosity extends beyond just looking as we do in plane and bus terminals. On the beach we touch, pick up, and hold for examination. (Caution: Do not do this in a terminal regardless of your curiosity about the strange and unfamiliar shapes of humans) Mollusks are especially interesting because they offer a seemingly indefinite variety of shapes, colors, and sizes in tens of thousands of living species that produce hard parts mostly made of calcium carbonate minerals.


Shell variety is fascinating. Don’t have the time or wherewithal to travel to a beach to collect? See photos of shells online as posted by The Natural History Museum Rotterdam. Be warned: I think the museum has more than 100,000 of them to see. That’s a rabbit hole of time consumption. I know because I’ve looked through many genera and species in an effort to identify shells for a collection I put together for a friend’s high-end resort. * 


Although I am not a conchologist, I did make an A in a graduate course on mollusk zoogeography that piqued my interest in their worldwide distribution and habitats, and I learned a little more about them in studying and eventually teaching invertebrate paleontology and in collecting fossil invertebrates on many field trips with my college students. But even after having garnered a modicum of expertise, I still find myself as curious on a beach as a little kid who picks up a shell and says, “Look, Mommy.” 


Thus, I deem my own and many others’ curiosity about shells to be nearly universal, especially for those who don’t live near a beach. See a shell? Pick up a shell. Someone is doing that as you read this, and another person is in a shell collector’s shop buying one as a souvenir or as a personal ornament like earrings, bracelets, and necklaces. Remember that wampum, essentially shells, served as currency in pre-Colonial and Colonial America, and wampum had other uses significant in the cultures of Native American tribes. Shell collecting? It’s not just a kid’s thing or a hobby gone wild among conchologists; it’s a people thing, even, back centuries ago, an economic thing. Go to Sanibel Island in Florida, where shells are so abundant that shoes are preferable to bare feet on the beaches, if you need proof. You’ll find shell-collecting a primary draw for Sanibel’s tourists.


All Marginally Interesting, but What’s the Point of the Preceding?


For most people, the shells are pleasant distractions and aesthetically pleasing. The iridescent insides of abalone shells reflect light like car oil on a puddle provide an example. What captures the eye captures the brain as both shapes and colors stimulate the production of dopamine. We’ve been naturally engineered to derive pleasure from seeing.

But in this Age of Social Engineering Gone Wild, leave it to the socialists to force us into an unnatural world in which seeing isn't personal, it's communal and directed by government authorities. "Look here, and not there. See this, and not that." And there’s no better place to start than with redirecting the curiosity of children.


Toy Sales

I suppose that each of us could be accused of social engineering to some extent. We choose our friends, for example, our clubs and churches, and new neighborhoods because we believe we can “fit in,” possibly benefit from, and contribute to the micro-society, in some way bending each a little to our will. And, of course, I need to include families: We socially engineer our offspring, more or less since rebellion in ensuing generations is a constant. Social participation of all kinds is a means of engineering for all but the shyest of wallflowers. Once embedded in the group, each contributes to the makeup either through leadership or compliance. But our lives also have a natural underlayment that is the product of evolution, and with color vision and the ability to distinguish shapes and functions, we have a difficult time suppressing our curiosity and desires just because the government says we should. 

Say what? Where is this going? 

It's going to the recent law in California that requires big box stores to have gender-neutral toy aisles. 


Social Engineers Aren’t the Scientists They Believe They Are

In this Age of Social Engineering, Left-leaning politicians seek sameness through differentiation. And nowhere is this more evident than in California, where a new law requires big box companies to add a new aisle to toy sections, an aisle devoted exclusively to “gender-neutral” toys.

Are you wondering what I’m wondering? Does a ball fit into the Venn diagram of toys in both separate and overlapping sections? What about Legos? Chemistry sets? Models? Paints? Toy ambulances? Toy computers and sound equipment like microphones and baby pianos? Wonder Woman and Superman statues? Board games?

Anecdote: I remember carrying my first granddaughter into a large grocery store/pharmacy and seeing her eyes open widely when she saw all the colorful boxes. The shapes and colors were a feast for her young brain. Think computer games, modern video slot machines, and art museums: Our brains are attracted to and feast on visual experiences. That happens to children in toy stores, where not just the products, but also the toy boxes attract attention. 

Question: And who in the history of department stores' attempts to make money from toy sales has said to a customer, “No, you can’t have that baseball glove because you’re a girl”? Or "No, this aisle is just for gender-neutral people." 

Who among us has walked in a department store and not picked up a toy? What child has not been attracted to a toy in a store?

Do Stores also Have to Carry Age-Neutral Toys?

Believe it or not, some adults buy toys for themselves. I have, for example, a bobble Einstein sitting on the windowsill beside my computer at this very moment. It’s solar powered, so it bobbles only in the daytime. His head and body are fixed, but his hand with a raised index finger keeps pointing to his head as if to say, “Think.” I bought two of the little statues, one for me and another for a granddaughter who is majoring in astrophysics. Is my bobble Einstein a gender-neutral toy? Is it age-specific? Would my great granddaughter not be attracted to the moving hand repeatedly pointing to the disheveled head even in the absence of knowledge about physics or Einstein? Would that toddler not be intrigued by the moving hand? 


It Doesn’t Take a Toy Scientist…


If I ever run into Democratic California Assemblymember (I didn’t know the term assemblymember until I read the article) Evan Low or Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, I’m going to ask about the new law. CNN reports that Evan Low introduced a bill that requires department stores with 500+ employees to have separate aisles with gender-neutral toys (Cheri Mossburg, CNN). Low was inspired by an 8-year-old girl who asked, “Why should a store tell me what a girl’s shirt or toy is?” 


What is a gender-neutral toy? I’m at a loss. Children play with whatever attracts their attention and interest at the moment. And then they abandon one kind of toy for another, as attics and closets and storage rooms in homes attest with all those piled up and forgotten toys.


Toys, like shells, attract because of their form and function, because or their cultural association, and even because of their potential worth, call it toy wampum. Collectors trade them, make money from old toys and new.


What prevents any parent with sufficient means from buying whatever toy interests a child? The department store? Certainly not. The goal of a department store is to sell for profit. The money is gender-neutral. More than a few commentators have pointed to the new law as an example of government overreach burdening commerce and free speech.


Imagine a Trip to the Beach


Imagine taking kids to a beach and pointing to the shells with the admonition that you can’t have that one. It’s not gender-specific or gender-neutral. Silly stuff, right? (I suppose one might note the hermaphroditism of gastropods) But isn’t silly stuff the norm for most social engineering in the twenty-first century. Pronouns? And now toys? (Not to mention electric vehicles and lawn mowers, gas stoves, and even house plants, all-Black sororities, sororities with trans women, all, and more, falling in the grand plan for social engineering and all with the purpose of re-engineering what previous generations engineered) 


Should California’s department stores move around toys as a conman moves around shells? Which one is female? Which, male? Which, neither? Come on, kid, make a choice.


Did Newsom play with toy wrestlers or super heroes when he was a child? Would he consider those "dolls" inappropriate for boys? Evan Low and Gavin Newsom need to go back to their childhood homes and look in the attic. How many different toys over their childhood years attracted their attention like shells on a beach, toys that they played with for a time and then abandoned for other toys? Those toys in the attic are like those many shells collected during vacations to the beach. 

People take toys of all kinds home, put them on shelves, move them around for a couple of years till dust accumulates, and then throw them out or store them in some box to be forgotten. And during all that collecting, displaying, and storing, no one asks, “Is this a gender-neutral thing?”



*Plug: You can see the collection at Nemacolin Woodlands Resort in the Laurel Highlands of western Pennsylvania.