Oh Dark, Dark, Dark. We All Go Into the Dark.

We must all go into the dark, the place of not knowing, ­ the underground if you will, if we want to emerge as whole creatures. Our integrity, our wholeness, depends on this struggle in the darkness. Some make attempts to escape this travail by grasping at religious dogma or by following charismatic leaders who tell them what to do, and thereby think they can avoid the struggle. Some develop
elaborate theories of human behavior that claim that the kind of rigorous self­examination required in this place of anxiety and uncertainty is unnecessary, is even counterproductive. Every era has its preferred methods, or its recycling of older materials into new garments, to relieve the pressures of the dark. Two thousand years ago Paul of Tarsus formulated the problem in this way: “That which I would I do not:  but that which I would not, that I do.” (Romans 7:19) This is the nature of man, every bit as much a part of him as his reasoning mind and his wild heart. Dostoevsky’s underground man writes “reason, gentlemen, is an excellent thing, there is no disputing that, but reason is only reason and can only satisfy man’s rational faculty, while will is a manifestation of all life, that is, of all human life including reason as well as all impulses.” (p. 45) The underground man seeks wholeness, to live all of his faculties, but he becomes mired in his darkness, stuck in the power of his own spite.

Dostoevsky’s underground man insists that the determinism conceived of by the scientists and utilitarian thinkers of his day is incoherent. It cannot relieve of us the dark. The notion of rational determinism was gaining traction among the thinkers of Dostoevsky’s time. The underground man pushes back strongly against this theme, railing against the idea that man acts in accordance with the dictates of his reason to promote his own good. The utilitarian idea that if we can only calculate our

best ‘good’ we will choose to act according to that calculation is held up for examination and roundly defeated. The underground man is a keen observer of human nature and human history and will not be swept up in the utopian zeal that reason can solve problems of human behavior. This idea has returned to us clothed in the language of cognitive neuroscience where claims are made that it can be shown empirically that humans do not have free will. New window dressing for a new age.

The underground man insists that humans have this freedom of will, even to their own hurt. He cites the obvious historical truth that we often choose to do what harms us, clinching his argument that man has this freedom. He calls it man’s “most advantageous advantage”; “one’s own fancy ­ free unfettered choice” arguing that this “right to desire for himself... may be more advantageous than anything else on earth... because it preserves what is most precious and most important­­ that is, our personality, our individuality.” (p.43) This acting against our own interests is then not irrational at all. It preserves our sense of our own “quidditas” ­ our “thisness/me­ness”, something needed for survival. Man will stubbornly assert “What I do is me! For that I came.” (G.M. Hopkins) He goes further though. He thinks that man will choose against his own good sometimes just to prove to himself and to others that he has this freedom, that he is alive and not just a cog in a machine, or a piano key to hammer. Even at the price of harming himself man will choose against his own good out of sheer spite.

But spite against what? Against a sense of meaninglessness ­ of the absurdity of the universe? The underground man repeats four times that man is ungrateful:

“Or rather he is not stupid at all, but he is so ungrateful that you could not find another like him in all creation.” (p.43)
“But if he is not stupid, he is just the same monstrously ungrateful! Phenomenally ungrateful. I even believe that the best definition of man is ­­ a creature that walks on two legs and is ungrateful.” (p.46)
“... even then man, out of sheer ingratitude, sheer libel, would play you some loathsome trick.” (p.47)
“Man... would purposely do something perverse out of sheer ingratitude, simply to have his own way.” (p. 47)

But what is he ungrateful about? Who or what is he being ungrateful towards? And what would gratitude look like, if man was grateful? In “On the Shortness of Life” Seneca suggests a way of thinking about the gratitude man ought to feel. He writes:

“Of all people only those are at leisure who make time for philosophy, only those are really alive. For they not only keep a good watch over their own lifetimes, but they annex every age to theirs. All the years that have passed before them are added to their own. Unless we are very ungrateful, all those distinguished founders of holy creeds were born for us and prepared for us a way of life. By the toil of others we are led into the presence of things which have been brought from darkness into light.”
By looking beyond ourselves and beyond our own age, there is a connection to be found to those around us and to those who came before us. This is a profound gift from that same universe that tortures us. We may be reeling from life’s slings and arrows, but not to acknowledge this gift is both ungrateful and stupid.

But the underground man is not stupid. He sees the gifts there to be grasped, but he cannot yet grasp them. The absurdity of the universe has driven the man underground. He has observed that
events are often random, that some men prosper and others do not, and that the causes for this are impossible to determine, and explanations unsatisfactory. Life is not fair. The wicked prosper. Those who do good are not rewarded. There is no certainty of any meaning to be found in these random incidents ­ or to the seeming patterns that men desperately construct to try to make meaning where
there is none. He sees this and so he is forced underground because he will not turn a blind eye to what he sees. He has tried to find meaning in work and in relationships, in building a life for himself. But he keeps crashing into this wall of meaninglessness, of ennui. The traditional forms of self­interest leave him bored and unconvinced. Absurdity (randomness) can strike anyone at anytime, regardless of their virtue. The proverbial bus could run him over at any moment. And so he falls into listlessness and futility and nurses his sense of spite. This is preferable to living in mimicry, as one supposedly ‘should’ live. It is more authentic to live underground in a kind of despair than to play act on the world’s stage. 

But is there no other way than to persist underground? Can one emerge from the darkness as a whole being, living authentically in the outer world? Can one grasp the gifts that are there for the taking? Dostoevsky does not illustrate an answer for this question in Notes from Underground, or at least not in the novel as it comes to us. He did write a section that was heavily censored by the Russian authorities, which purportedly (as he wrote in a letter to his brother Mikhael) offers his ideas on a way to emerge from the dark. He wrote that the “swine of a censor ... suppressed all the passages where I drew conclusions that faith in Christ is needed." (Roberts, James)

The underground man has succumbed to a sense of his own importance/unimportance. He is trapped in a strange play of narcissism. He is no monster, his suffering is not more than that allotted to any of us, his behavior no worse than what is common to all of us. He behaves badly, and then compensates for this by indulging his own sense of pathos and futility as he remains mired in self­hatred. This is moral laziness of a very desperate and determined kind. It is not the illness of depression that can swallow a man up. It has too much energy and determination, too much self­indulgence rather than the self­abnegation of those in the grip of a killing depression. His refusal to connect to others, to see the “quidditas” of others, which he insists on for himself with his freedom to choose, traps him in his darkness.

Dostoevsky illustrates for us, in the parable of the Grand Inquisitor, a choice which has radically different implications for what freedom means. The Grand Inquisitor lectures the imprisoned Christ on His error in leading humans to freedom. In his compassion for mankind, the Inquisitor wants only to alleviate their suffering, the greatest of which comes from this freedom and the burdens of responsibility that it implies. We can see that the underground man is suffering from his freedom as well, mired in his spite and anxiety and self ­absorption. But Christ, and Alyosha after him, show in one gesture that a different choice can lead to a greater freedom. Each of them approaches their adversary and kisses them. A simple gesture of connection, signifying both love, acceptance and forgiveness, this kiss has profound transformative power. It brings us outside ourselves, connecting each to the other, when we give the kiss. It connects the adversary to their own humanity when they receive it. The underground man also receives a form of this kiss ­ this kiss of gratitude ­ from Liza, even after he mistreats her. We do not get to see if the underground man will be able to grasp this gift. The Russian censors have left us with a mystery. Dostoevsky left his readers with an empty tomb. We don’t get to know for certain if there is a resurrection into the light for this man. But I am hopeful. And I think that there is.

Title: Eliot, T.S. The Four Quartets
Hopkins, Gerard Manley, “As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame” Roberts, James L. Cliffs Notes on Notes from Underground. 25 Sep 2014 

How To Become Porous - by Molly Pope

Start off ignorant. Deflect provoking topics and questions. Don’t take anyone too seriously - especially not yourself. Be thick-skinned. Avoid vulnerability. When your rough exterior prevents you from seeking support, fantasize about comfort but never pursue it. Learn what the word ‘fester’ means. Brush it off. Impose your emotional harshness on the most vulnerable people around you. You will resent yourself for this later. For now, mistake hardness for strength and criticize your desire for introspection. Recognize how your ignorance limits your sphere of influence in the world. Stop taking yourself so seriously. Maintain your ignorance.

Shatter your ignorance. Experience a life-altering event. Consequently develop what has been described to you as an ‘isolated sensorimotor memory track.’ The frequent short-circuiting to this dangerous mental territory is like a series of emotional concussions. Flashback-induced headaches give you the sensation that your skull is resisting the expansion of a black hole in your brain. The unpredictability of these outbursts is fascinating and terrifying. In an attempt to condition yourself, flex your entire being and intentionally inundate yourself with triggering stimuli. Unfortunately, you learn, this is the physiological equivalent of picking at a bad pimple. Stop doing it. The frailty of the human psyche continues to fascinate you and terrify you. Weep. If you clench the wound in your fist, it will bleed through the cracks. You are incredibly vulnerable. Ignorance is no longer an option.

Notice how the shattering of your ignorance has expanded your sphere of influence in the world; you’ve learned something you always wanted to know in a way you never wanted to learn it and people listen closer than they ever had before. Embrace this but struggle with it. Every day, the world will break your heart a little more. You have to let it. Open your eyes. Recognize the suffering that surrounds you daily. Don’t look away; the life you’d be living the moment you choose to avert your eyes is infinitely darker than the one you see looking forward. So keep looking. Be a source of light in the world; share every hidden pocket of sunshine you stumble upon with those who surround you. If somebody’s suffering is too great for consolation, remain present. Learn to carry others with you, and learn to cry for them. It will probably take you most of your life to be strong enough to do this. For now, at least understand the value of your tears. Refuse to let the world make you hard; hardness is not strength.

This is what it is to be porous. Breathe through your entire soul. Do not fool yourself; this way of living will not eradicate your suffering. You may never stop aching for the return of those you lost too young, too soon. But maybe someday you'll have seen enough through this porous lens to paint the whole world for them. Maybe someday you'll be able to paint it all so intricately and so authentically for them that they’ll feel like they were right here with the rest of you all along.

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Is it Ever Permissible and/or Obligatory to Intervene during a Genocide?

Genocide has come to the fore in the minds of 20th Century peoples.  Since the Shoah of World War II, the killing fields of Cambodia, the purges of Stalin, the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, the wholesale slaughter of Rwandans, and on and on, it can be said that no one is ignorant of the fact of genocide.  Samantha Powell has called it “The Problem from Hell” and that is perhaps an understatement.  After each genocide the rallying cry is “Never again” and “Never forget”, and yet genocide continues unabated.  The world comes up with new phrases to describe the indescribable: ‘killing fields, purges, ethnic cleansing,’ and one wonders if this is not the human minds’ willed confusion to avoid the naming of a thing so as to not have to come to terms with it.  In the same way the United Nations took decades to agree upon a definition of genocide, so unwilling is the human heart to look into that particular abyss.  

And when the world is willing to appropriate the name of genocide and attach it to ongoing events in a part of the world, still very little is offered in the way of an intervention.  Those enduring the slaughter wonder if no one knows, or if the world does not care.  Yet, one can find numerous private groups and organizations mobilized to help the helpless and to bring about an end to the suffering.  The world does care, and yet fails to offer an effective response.  Genocide reaches into our neighborhoods and living rooms when we see how people who look just like each other, who have lived for generations as neighbors, can become involved in a slaughter of innocents.  It permeates countries and cultures and political frameworks.  We too, if we are human, are at risk for genocide.  Yes, and our neighbors too.

Genocide is not a new problem.  History can be gleaned for instances of this particular mode of man’s inhumanity to man. It can be described as mere tribalism, now multiplied exponentially.  Modern weaponry, modern communications, the confusion of multitudes, all these lead to this relic of tribalism, but on steroids.  The world is not, I believe, uncaring, or unwilling in these matters.  But the world has not found a way to craft an appropriate response, and is as helpless as the helpless we would hope to save.  Can this change?  Can there be a creative, effective, carefully crafted response to genocide?

The world once transitioned from systems of tribes to systems of city-states, and from there to nation states.  The modern challenge comes as a transition to a global state, politically following what is already in effect economically.  More than ever we are subject to John Donne’s pronouncement that “No man is an island’.  Indeed no country is an island either.  In this period of transition, we must ask, what are the rules?  Are they the same?  Do we still apply the theories of just war, or of realism?  Is it possible in the face of slaughter to remain a pacifist?  The problem of genocide sidesteps some of the cautions that might adhere if we are wondering about whether to intervene in civil wars, or military coups, or dictatorships.  We are no longer asking only about the rights of a people to be left alone to determine their welfare.  This is a question of a peoples’ right to existence, and what is permissible or even obligatory to those who, if they did act, could make a difference in preserving those lives.

I am not arguing here for a particular decision, but for a new discussion regarding what the framework should be for permissible and/or obligatory intervention on the part of the worlds’ more powerful actors.  The precept, borrowed from medicine, of “first do no harm” may be, on the face of it, the most difficult hurdle to pass.  In an increasingly complex world it may be vanishingly improbable that enough information is ever at hand to be able to anticipate the unintended consequences that all actions are susceptible to.  Where it is impossible to know beforehand whether more harm may ensue can there still be a moral argument to take action?   Here I would argue that, even after events unfold, the complexity of our modern world is such that we still can not with certainty claim that less or more harm would have ensued had we taken a different course.  Therefore we must answer this question from a moral standpoint, rather than a utilitarian standpoint.

The criteria of “The Probability of Success” fails in the same regard as the first.  We cannot know beforehand, or even afterwards, regarding the effectiveness of our action in relation to if we had not acted at all.  Therefore again, this question must be answered from a moral standpoint.  But this does not mean that we cannot also make arguments toward what we hope will be more effective courses of action.  And information of this sort might not be available until the world has had more experience with intervening in genocides.  We have simply not intervened often enough to be able to collect enough relevant data to make empirical statements about what works.

Intervention would not conflict with the criteria of ‘Just Cause’ and ‘Right Intentions’, for what could be a more just cause than that which has the sole purpose and intent of stopping the deaths of innocents?  The difficulty seems to lie in the criteria of ‘Competent Authority’ and ‘Last Resort.’  Here again, the global nature of the modern world creates a scenario not unlike that which social scientists call the “bystander effect”.  Each authority is waiting for another authority to step in, with no nation wishing to take the first act.  And this is not easily overcome when there is always the suspicion that not everything has been tried, that we need not yet take intervening action as a Last Resort.

Perhaps some of the modern difficulty is an artifact of where the world finds itself in the modern arena, with discrete nations which are nevertheless economically intertwined, but which have not yet developed any kind of effective and agreed upon central authority with which to bring problems of the nature and magnitude of genocide.  The United Nations ought to be this kind of central authority, but has not yet developed or been invested with the ability to respond to the question of intervening in a genocide.  My hope is that a discussion around these issues can lead to a consensus concerning the criteria that would be sufficient to permit intervention and necessary to obligate an intervention.  Through such means it may be that the world will find itself less able to remain frozen in the stillness of a bystander.

‘Thinking: Fast and Slow’ - Lessons in Certitude

I have a bias.  I admit this.  I have a bias against certitude.  And I have a great fondness for Daniel Kahneman’s book, because it absolutely confirms my bias.  I am annoyingly fond of quoting William James:  “Objective evidence and certitude are doubtless very fine ideals to play with, but where on this moonlit and dream-visited planet are they found?”  In the same spirit I am committing many of Kahneman’s statements to memory.  His work as laid out in this book helps us to understand how we might respond to James’ rhetorical question.  

Kahneman’s use of a ‘two minds’ model in order to understand our own cognitive defects is enormously helpful.  He illustrates through careful and well thought out experiments the many ways in which we are not the rational beings that we think we are.  When the realization that we are vulnerable to the availability heuristic, the affect heuristic, confirmatory bias, ego depletion, loss aversion, the exposure and the priming effect and all the thousands of natural deficits that the human mind is heir to, then we might finally come to the realization that ‘humility is endless’.  (T.S. Eliot)

There often follows a question about the dangers of acknowledging that we do not, and perhaps can never, know anything with the certitude required for action.  Therefore there is a profound discomfort with this admission about our mental deficits, as if the admission itself will hamstring our ability to ever affect our world in a positive way.  Here I think that we must first make a commitment to what is true, as Socrates did.  Hopefully we will not die for it, but I am sure that we will be discomfited by it.  Until we acknowledge our human frailties of mind, emotion and reason, we will be forever mired in a kind of Hegelian purgatory, with one persons certitude polarized against another’s until they can beat out a kind of compromise that suits no one.

I believe that it is only when we accept our limitations, and come to understand what methods might be used to challenge ourselves to a greater clarity of mind, even knowing that we cannot approach as close to certitude as we would like, that we can most effectively work for improvements in our own lives and in the world.  It takes humility of spirit and intention to listen to and fully hear the stories of those with whom we disagree.  And I think it is this kind of listening that will lead to the culture shifts that are necessary before policy and platform changes can emerge.  The philosopher/poet/animal trainer Vicki Hearne wrote “The stories we tell ourselves are enormously important.”  When we become mindful and attentive to our stories and the stories of others, we might just have a chance.

What does it feel like to lose a child?

What does it feel like to lose a child? It feels like giving birth, but instead of bringing a child into this world, it is the giving of the child to whatever is beyond this world. And instead of a single event, it happens again and again and again. It hijacks you in the middle of a concert, or while listening to a lecture, or while driving to the grocery store. First you realize that it is harder and harder to catch your breath, and a vague panic sets in as your body takes over and you recede as an observer to a process that you cannot stop. Then the pains begin, waves of contractions, intensifying, then receding just long enough so you can gasp at the air before they come again. Then as they circle in, more and more intense, there is the need to bear down, to push and push, and to grit your teeth against the screams that will not be stopped, but grow louder and louder, til there is no voice left. It only comes to a close when exhaustion sets in. But it will come again. It comes unbidden, without thought, and keeps me always in this middle place, between worlds, never wholly here nor there. 'Stayed by what was, and pulled by what would be'. That is what it is like.

Tiling Metaphysical Space with a Trinity of Principles

Celtic Knot Anisohedral Tiling (Tessellation)

It is my precept and understanding that the teachings of Jesus can be refined down to three basic principles: 

1) Everyone is included
2) Don't judge others
3) Treat people right

These form a kind of twitter like shorthand (mix those metaphors, Tess) that are easily remembered, easily understood and well, not so easily lived out.  My evidence for #1 comes primarily from the parables.  I do not think it is by accident that Jesus told stories, that he created narrative to communicate ideas.  Stories weather the ravages of texts and culture and abuse, retaining their coherence and power across the ages better than many others forms of teaching.  The scholar John Dominic Crossan wrote "Cliffs of Fall: Paradox and Polyvalence in the Parables of Jesus."  Those who know me will realize quickly that I came to love this book first because of it's title.  The reference to Gerard Manley Hopkins "Dark Night of the Soul" sonnet  "No worst, there is none" is a soul catcher for me.  And then the alliteration in the title, including the word polyvalence which rolls so trippingly off the tongue, grabbed at my aesthetic sensibilities.  But I stayed for the content.  I do think that the parables are the closest that we can come to the "ipsissima verba", the very words that Jesus spoke.  And so I weight them more heavily than other texts.

And the evidence for #1 comes from the The Parable of the Wedding Feast.  There is an ever widening circle of invitations, ending with "Go therefore to the main highways, and as many as you find there, invite to the wedding feast".  Ultimately, everyone is invited.  And in stories from the activities of Jesus, he included the tax collectors, the prostitutes, the lepers.  Why, he even included the children!  The invitation is for everyone, without exception.  Those who participate in exclusionary dealings with others are not following the actions and words and example of Jesus.


The evidence for #2 comes from the story of the Woman taken in Adultery and from the Sermon on the Mount.  In his Sermon Jesus is very clear about judgment.  “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.  For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."   And in the story of the Woman taken in Adultery, Jesus refuses to cast judgment, even as the Pharisees are trying to put him in a difficult position.  He uses the same line of thinking as he gave us in the Sermon.  He tells the accusers that whoever among them is without sin, he may cast the first stone.  There is the apocryphal story that as Jesus was saying this he was writing the sins of the accusers in the dust.  Jesus refuses to participate in the dialogue that the Pharisees are trying to control.  He sidesteps their intentions by answering their question with a question of his own.  And thereby goes straight to the heart of the problem of judgment.

The evidence for #3 is known generally to us moderns as "The Golden Rule".  "Do to others what you would have them do to you."  It is also called the "Ethic of Reciprocity" and exists in some form in almost all belief and philosophical systems:

Brahmanism"This is the sum of Dharma [duty]: Do naught unto others which would cause you pain if done to you". Mahabharata, 5:1517 "

Buddhism:"...a state that is not pleasing or delightful to me, how could I inflict that upon another?" Samyutta NIkaya v. 353 

Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful." Udana-Varga 5:18

Confucianism:  "Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you" Analects 15:23

Ancient Egypt:   "Do for one who may do for you, that you may cause him thus to do." The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant, 109 - 110 Translated by R.B. Parkinson. The original dates to circa 1800 BCE and may be the earliest version of the Epic of Reciprocity ever written.

Hinduism:  This is the sum of duty: do not do to others what would cause pain if done to you. Mahabharata 5:1517 

Islam:  "None of you [truly] believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself." Number 13 of Imam "Al-Nawawi's Forty Hadiths."

Judaism:  "What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man. This is the law: all the rest is commentary." Talmud, Shabbat 31a.

I like to simplify it to "treat people right", because I have a core belief that each one of us really DOES know how to do that, if we only spend a little bit of time thinking about it.

Now, it cannot be ignored that I have not included any of Jesus' directives about love among this trinity of principles.  The reason for this is because I think that there is an inversion that has taken place and reigns supreme in our culture.  And this inversion makes it difficult to use the word love in a way that communicates what I believe Jesus meant when he used the word love. The inversion is that love is a feeling.  Love is not a feeling.  Love is an action.  Love is played out in the act of refraining from judgment.  Love is played out in all acts of inclusion.  Love is played out each time we treat another person well.  It may be that a wonderful feeling follows upon these acts and even helps to perpetuate them.  Or it may not.  But it is in carrying out these acts that we are doing the work of love.

Imagine our lives if we can live each day with these three principles in mind, just 3x3 words:

Everyone is included.

Do not judge.

Treat people right.

Each principle is a tile that we can use to pattern the metaphorical plane and create a tessellation; a pattern or behavior that makes a work of art from out of the actions in our lives.  This is loving the Lord with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strengh and with all our mind.  And this is loving our neighbor as ourselves.

Tessellations in the Garden

I think that this would be called an irregular, three dimensional, Euclidean space, tessellated natural structure, otherwise known as Sedum!  And it is from my garden!

This is a salt water tessellation.

And this is a complex tessellation from nature., a tessellation on the water caused by the refraction of the light from the sun.