Nothing

It may not seem apparent to some as to why I should name this entry "Nothing." But when we see what the President's answer to the question of what the 9/11 attacks had to do with the war in Iraq, you'll see that the title becomes much clearer. Yes, we went to war in Iraq because it had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. How ingenious, Mr. President.
During a news conference last Monday, some irreverent reporter dared to ask the President a serious question. "What did Iraq have to do with that?" In response to the President's usual answer, "the terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East." Ah yes, all of the machinations of the Administration are unraveled here and now, in this simple little word- "Nothing." And so why is it that what happended on Sept. 11, 2001 must now reverberate in a country that had "Nothing" to do with the act of war comitted on our soil by Mr. Bin Laden? And why haven't we caught him yet? Maybe it's because we don't wish to catch him, and never did. We know that the Administration came into office itching to invade Iraq in January 2001. And yet the President makes use of twisted logic to this day. No, I don't believe that the President ever thought that Iraq attacked this country. I never heard such things mouthed in the media, though there were probably quite a few who did think so. But that isn't the point. What should galvanize every American was that the President sent us to Iraq precisely because it had "Nothing" to do with 9/11. Will he ever admit that he is wrong?

How Common Place the War has Become!

I am no longer frightened by the war in Iraq. I was frightened, however, during the lead-up to the war in late 2002/early 2003. What I thought would plunge America into an endless war of bloodshed has been true afterall, but why should I fear anything? I am in college, whereas I feared that I might get drafted to go and fight either this war, or some other one that the Administration thought expedient to start. But, alas, no draft has ever come. And I am in college! But should I think in so selfish a manner, when others no too older than I am have already died far more horrible deaths than I could imagine, who never had the chance to go to college, marry thier sweathearts, have kids, fashion a nice carrier, etc. ? OF course, we are lucky ones, those of us who are not left as charred remains, the lucky ones! But no! None of this dread matters at all. It is an illusion to deaden the conscience to the sufferings of others, kids even! Whether Americans or innocent Iraqis are slaughtered makes no difference. The rich man's war and the poor man's fight will never be inverted. It makes the entire meaning of human life absurd, even on the biological level, seeing as how those young men killed in the wars never had the chance to reproduce! But what am I to say concerning this utter absurdity, the fact that the young human male is starved for sex, but wastes his own species away in war? Perhaps this really is Darwinism playing out: the most masculine, the more virile, the most aggressive gender of species wiping itself out! Maybe the world will soon have more women than men. Has it ever occured that women account for so much less violence in this world? Perhaps we should have the added benefit of greater intelligence, seeing as how we have all heard the repeated mantra that women are smarter than men. Although I see an exception to this. I will name every man on my mind who revolutionized the way we think:

Plato
Aristotle
Epicurus
St. Paul
St. Augustine
St. Thomas Aquinas
Niccolo Machiavelli
Martin Luther
John Calvin
Galileo
Rene Descartes
Isaac Newton
John Locke
Voltaire
Leibniz
Kant
Hume
Nietzsche
Einstein
Hawking
(all geniuses)
And yet, NO WOMEN!
Ah, but I should at least count in Simone de Beauvoir (the only name apparent to me), who carried on an existential love relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre. They rejected all the conventional attitudes regarding romance and sexuality, and they lived in seperate appartments, leading seperate lives. But of course, i should probably include a section about the entire subject of the existential matter of the lowest, the seemingly lowest rung of the male gender being shipped off to war. It is because, I think, that young men are starved for sex, that they do not wish to die. But what makes them fight? I think it is only because we are viewing this current war in the age of the unbridled sexual revolution in which the idea of drafting young men could never work, all because the allurements of sexuality would create an aversion to sudden death, even gory and grusome death, where the frailness of the human body itself can be ripped apart, when our whole biology screams out for the "tenderness" of sexual gratification precisely because we live in the sexual age! I really think that there is an entire length of analysis, sociological, psychological, and physiological, that can go into the whole concept of machismo identity, and why it is that the human male may become extinct due to the lack of incredulity among so many of its members. Men are more starved, more urging for sex as a method of satisfying urges, seeing as how the female doesn't have several billion eggs looking for fertilization at the same time. Could this uniquely male trait of pointless aiming and aspiration be the explanation for his aggressive urges. Notice there being a unique allegory in the sense that the egg fulfills its purpose upon fertilization, while billions of sperm are wasted away in excess. There you have the male predicament. So little efficiency for the bulk of males, mainly young males. Perhaps, then, this really is their purpose in life, to be wasted away for the sake of those mature and older men at the top who are smart enough to rule nations and empires. At least some purpose is effectual. At least we take refuge in the fact that the military age male is bulky, strongly virile, and pumped up for action, ready to die if necessary.
But of course, I may sound too much like a feminist in saying of all these perceived anti-male things. But I realize that male domination may stem from a lack of existential consciousness, as Simone de Beauvoir noted in her book The Second Sex. Perhaps we should utilize her existentialism regarding the difference between sex and gender. Accordingly, gender roles are created through cultural conditioning, while sex is reduced to mere biological traits. Now, of couse, I realize that this runs counter to the thoughts I have considered earlier. But, if existentialism be true, then men can equally make themselves to be more feminine as women can make themselves to be more masculine. By this, I mean that males can end the trait of violence and domination given to them, while females can be of greater influence in the social and political sphere. I think that it is worth considering.
All that I have attempted to do is to show how I think that war and sex have somewhat of a deep relationship between each other. I have always considered unfair, in part, that in societies where men and women had greater equality, as in 1960's America, the young men fresh out of high school went to fight and die in Vietnam. We never asked women to do the same. Does this mean one is possibly condemned to death because of sex difference?
Of course, to think that men are as numerous in the world of academia as are women in most areas underscores the idea that all men are stupid or have a violent nature. Yes, there is that existential, as opposed to that biological element in that the poor men, the men at the bottom of the barrel are the ones sent to war. It is only a continuation of the western cultural attitude in ascribing to the male the virtue of courage, along with strength, which is nothing more than brute courage and brute strength, as opposed to the chivalry often credited to them. But yet, it is only on the condition that the male has more muscles than brains. But the whole culture is messed up.
It would be convenient for me to provide more Leftist cultural analysis stemming from all of the dominant academic circles, to include neo-Marxist, existentialist, psychoanalytic, post-structuralist, and critical theory views regarding this issue at hand in a latter entry.

The Systemic Infection- Does Emergent Evangelicalism Give us a More Accurate View of Sin?

Last time, I discussed the Ignatian spiritual discipline of seeing God in all things. This time, I think it would be appropriate to view a modern evangelical perspective regarding the worldly impact of that oft misunderstood word "sin." Of course, the common evangelical view of sin in recent years has had something to do with the evils of our personal behavior. Indeed, it seems that many skeptics think of sin as a horrid provincialization of the interests of the Deity. That we should be inordinately punished because God has a personal grudge against some private infatuation seems obsolete and unenlightened in this world of modernity. But according to the view of one author, we have gotten the message of the "Kingdom of God" completely wrong in this day and age, and for quite some time prior.In the March 2006 issue of the progressive Christian magazine Sojourners, the cover article featured an excerpt entitled "Found in Translation," which was taken from Emergent Church leader Brian McLaren's most recent book The Secret Message of Jesus: Uncovering The Truth That Could Change Everything. Not much of a fan of the title (it smacks too much of religious enthusiasm, in my opinion), I thought, however, the central thesis of the article to be poignant to the future of evangelicalism in America, and indeed the whole of Christianity throughout the world. McLaren describes how the Lord's Prayer can be paraphrased to make the message give the relevancy it has for this day and age. When we say, "Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven," we too often ignore the literal meaning of these words: what happens on Earth is as important as what goes on in Heaven. I too often think that the word "Heaven" is more indicative of a place beyond any conceivable place in this cosmos, that is, it is in the sky, beyond the universe, whatever you may wish to say of it. But the question is not about heaven, but about the Kingdom, the reign of God's perfect justice. But of course, there is a problem manifest with the world "will", which as McLareren says, "...can take us down a trail of control, domination, and coercion, and since I don’t believe those ideas are in Jesus’ mind, I have looked for other words." He goes on to describe the literal Greek word for will as "wish". But as McLaren complains, this word "... sounds fairy tale-is and creates other problems. But I have found the idea of “the dream of God for creation” does the job nicely." May Your Dreams come true for Creation- as he puts it? Perhaps this is not a bad way of saying it, but here is a better one, "May Your Love and Justice reign on Earth as it already does in Heaven"- in other words, what is characteristic of the heavenly state, which I don't think has one single physical location, but is a condition of the very abstract of justice, peace, and love, is supposed to manifest itself in the earthly realm. And so I guess it is safe to say that Christians no longer have to remain "heavenly minded", in the sense that the entire life of the Christian person ought to be spent on what I recall one author, a virulent critic of all religion whom I have recently read, describe the goal of benign religion as even a waste of precious time, say, when we write, print, and read thousands of volumes of exegesis on the "disordered thinking of ignorant men," or when we devote our time to building a church or a mosque instead of another school, hospital, or library. Indeed, when theologians gather to debate miniscule points of theology, which all amount to a paucity of hairsplitting when compared to the real problems we are facing in this world, we have every right to be critical of our beliefs, that is, when they are divorced from any real and concrete concerns of the here and now. I could care less, say, if theologians gather to debate whether the other church has a valid Eucharist because they disagree over transubstantiation, or whether justification is a juridical act of God in which you are declared to have Christ's righteousness imputed to you, or whether it is actually infused into you, or whether or not communion should be distributed in the hand or put in the mouth. We could argue day and night over what music to use, what our response will be to pro-choice politicians regarding the Eucharist, and whether we damn those who disagree with our partisanship in the political realm, whether or not gay civil unions should be allowable, on and on and on. All of this legalism is the same as the Pharisees practiced in regards to ignoring the weightier matters of the law. What McLaren gives us in the wake of the bickering is what matters most, and it is not working together in evangelistic efforts to fill the pews on Sunday. Ignore all of that, and ask whether or not it is more important that the church, more than being a refuge on Sunday mornings, is a force for healing and reconciliation in this hurting world. Forget the pulpit, the pews, the organ, the altar, the bell, and the spire. That is not the church. The church is the people of the New Life, the Way. It is community of the Resurrection, the force in the world which attempts to do all that is humanly possible to reverse the tide of life to death to death to life. And so I go on to describe some of the unique metaphors used by McLaren to describe how the healing power of the Gospel can be applied to our modern world.The first instance involves the idea that the world as it is is a "totalitarian regime", in which lust, power, racism, sexism, nationalism, and all the ideological and exclusionary "isms" reign. In the midst of all of this, God is recruiting a "revolutionary movement of change," as McLaren describes it. Now some disgruntled theologians might describe this idea of "revolutionary change" as being akin to liberation theology, that oft hated system in which it was claimed that certain political partisans in Latin America wanted to use Christianity as a cloak for their neo-Marxist agenda. Never mind that they faced the horror of genocidal and repressive regimes that the whole church should have been in opposition to. I think that while it is safe to criticize various aspects of liberation theology that have a worldly and partisan political agenda, one must also recognize that the church's mission is not to be a refuge from the fears of this world, and neither is it to be an accommodation to the power structures of this world. The church must understand itself as a counterculture against the prevailing tides of evil and sin in this world, whether it be personal or social. McLaren also uses the conception of the Gospel as a medicine meant to cure the evil in each person and in all of society, and he also uses the analogy of a party, in which people leave behind all the troubles of this fallen world to join in the eternal celebration of the love and goodness of God. What I think describes the kingdom of God most philosophically is the account McLaren gives of the eternal dance of the Trinity, which was used in the early church. As he describes it,

"In the early church, one of the most powerful images used for the Trinity was the image of a dance of mutual indwelling. The Father, Son, and Spirit live in an eternal, joyful, vibrant dance of love and honor, rhythm and harmony, grace and beauty, giving and receiving. The universe was created to be an expression and extension of the dance of God—so all creatures share in the dynamic joy of movement, love, vitality, harmony, and celebration. But we humans broke with the dance. We stamped on the toes of other dancers, ignored the rhythm, rejected the grace, and generally made a mess of things. But God sent Jesus into the world to model for us a way of living in the rhythm of God’s music of love, and ever since, people have been attracted to the beauty of his steps and have begun rejoining the dance."

As far as I can tell, this rich symbolism indicates a sense of Christianity being a force for good in the world, rather than how many critics have underscored it as a force for evil, misery, and ignorance. It is true that there has always existed a form of apostasy within Christendom, but nothing else really matters than those "red letters" in the New Testament, the words of Christ. What others may say is only of use insofar as they agree with those red letters. This is way in which we rid the church of hypocrisy and superstition, because Christ did not come to establish a church full of hypocrites and sorcerers. Indeed, for the church to become as its Lord is, it must be a force of moral progress in the world, which means that it must speak against and offer alternatives to the prevailing evils of poverty, greed, war, abortion, and sexual immorality by offering conversion to change hearts and minds, and not a simple political program on how to change the world. We are simply the prelude, the beginning, of things to come which will reveal the splendor and enlightened truth of the Infinite, the One and Living God and the Lamb.

Why Ignatian Spirituality is the Most Relevant

What some disgruntled anti-Catholics have in the past termed a "Jesuitical" conspiracy against Protestant lands sounds paranoid in this day and age. Of course, we cannot but see the truth that the Jesuits were an outgrowth of the Catholic Counter- Reformation, and they have been termed as the foot soldiers of the pope, because their founder, St. Ignatius of Loyola, was a soldier before experiencing conversion. Yet, it is important to see that the Jesuits have always been the fathers of the fields of human excellence, such as education and the advancement of human rights and social justice in the world for the sake of harmony and peace. This became a prime concern after the murder of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador in November 1989 for their work among the suffering poor. They were labeled subversives, but other would call them prophets. It was for this reason that the order itself became noteworthy for its teachings regarding the "preferential option for the poor." Of course, we may take this as all a method of politicking, but the Jesuit understanding of the cosmos seeks to "find God in all things." That is, all things are a reflection of the harmonic nature of the Godhead itself, the ultimate Absolute which gives unity and diversity and diversity in unity the entire framework of the meaning of God and the world.Now, if all traditional Christians hold that the purpose of the redemption of Christ is to reconcile the world with God, may we not see the further meaning of this as a continual process of making the world a more sacred place by treating as sacred the human being? Of course, as the life of St. Ignatius points out, he was cautious of all things in latter life, often with a frail and sensitive demeanor. He was not the stern, iron- willed soldier figure which many think of him as being. The purpose of the Jesuit life is to be on fire, on fire in a sense that the fire of love burns bright within each person. And so why can we not see the immance of the divine Power in even the most miniscule object in existence? That is why the Jesuit way is the relevant way, because the world and the Absolute are integrated, the former revealing God and the latter giving meaning to the world. And this is why I think Ignatian spirituality is one of the most effective ways of cleansing Christianity from the lethargy it suffers in this present day. The perceived narrowness of the religion is coupled with its provincialization as a predominantly white and American religion. Furthermore, what I find most disturbing is the secularization of the religion as being a tool at the disposal of the individual or of the state. But alas, the Ignatian path sets us on the right path by helping us to realize the cosmic dimensions of the meaning of the faith, and that, as the notable theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin described, Christ is the Personal and human Power, God reconciling the cosmos to Himself. In this sense in which we see the presence of God in all things, we begin to see that no longer are there distinct dichotomies between sacred and profane, natural and supernatural, because we understand that there is all existence, everywhere we look, and that the whole of existence is that which involves the Creator and creature being swept away in a dance of perfect harmonic magnitude. As St. Ignatius put it, the Christian "loves God in all things and loves all things in God."I would furthermore like to comment upon the teachings or St. Ignatius regarding detachment to the things of the world, or as he called it- "indifference." By this, we mean that there is no longer rich or poor, healthy or unhealthy. Regardless of which state one finds himself in, we can be certain that the ultimate possession of man is God and God's ultimate possession is man and the universe. Thus, we can see the transience of the evils and toils of this world, the senseless death and suffering which pervades our lives. Is there not complete reconciliation in the suffering and death of Christ? Imagine looking at a crucifix and seeing that the Figure on it comes alive, gasping and groaning for release from the turmoil of his pain and impending death. And when we think about His suffering in Real Time, we are given a greater understanding of what it means to see God in the world, because we are no longer worshiping an image or word known as "Jesus." We encounter the meaning of God Himself in the course of linear time, which is the hallmark of human consciousness itself in that the linearity of time for us points to a unique teleological expectation of the final reconciliation of all things to Ultimate Reality, whether we call it God or not. Of course, the Christian believes that God is a Person, but also that He is beyond a Person. God is Ultimate Reality and Being. There is far more than being a Person to His essence. It is mysterious as to how this could be so, but we accept it because we cannot limit the conception of God in our minds to a person Who is only like us. Of course, we must affirm the Incarnation and to realize that God did become "just like us." But the Trinity as a whole is beyond human comprehension in the same manner as a glass cannot contain an ocean.But let us go on to the popular devotion known as the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It was supported by the Jesuits as a means to communicate the love of Christ for all people, in opposition to the strict moral rigorist and denial of divine love to all people, which was taught by the Jansenists. And in some way, I think that the Jesuits promoted a form of Incarnational realism, as opposed to the nominalism of Reformation soteriology, which saw the sole purpose of Christ as that which was to make possible a mere path for depraved sinners to get their tickets to heaven. What was the meaning of the Incarnation, if not to make God known to man, and to teach man the way of obedience to the perfect will of the Creator? And furthermore, by the infatuation of the Reformation thinking on how to get "saved", a fundamental component of reality was missing: the very existence of the day-to-day life of the world, and also of the God of the universe partaking in the lot of humanity as a poor and obscure rabbi, and ultimately as a vagabond Who was executed by the great powers of His time for going against what they thought was the "right way" to understanding the predicament of man and the nature of God. And this all amounts to the Ignatian teaching regarding effective love as the only true love as opposed to affective love as a fanciful sort of sentimentalism, which means that God must not be an obscure Vantage Point which transcends all things in order that the only love we may express towards Him is a nice feeling of awe and reverence, or of a tingling of sorts regarding how much Jesus loved us so that we could merely play a harp on a cloud. Effective love demands the sacrifice of self, indeed the death of self, to the glory of God and to the realization that in heaven, we shall have no possessions, but God alone. Heaven is not a place in the sky, but more than a place, it is the consummation of the redeemed into the very life of God, which is the fountainhead of all existence. As of now, we merely experience the stream of life running down the valley. In eternity, nothing matters but the unity of the eternal song sung by man and God. And this is where I shall pick up tomorrow by discussing the nature of the work of Christ as pointing the way to the Kingdom of God as the harmony of the dance set in perfect order.

Why The Misery Must End

If we are to believe the enthusiastic reports of our government concerning the situation in Iraq, then we are only ensuring that the killing shall continue unabated into the next decade, perhaps. I say this because the direct combat phase in Vietnam for the United States lasted from March 1965 to January 1973. Thus, if we were to imagine that this war will last just as long, we are only in August of '68- at the very height of the brutal slaughter, and it won't stop for several more years. We might think that the decline in U.S. casualties is a sign of better days, but that is only because of the significant spike in Iraqi army deaths. And even these units are incapable of controlling Baghdad, which means that we may once again see a significant rise in U.S. battle deaths, that is, unless we resort to the only method which works: total and absolute resistance to the tyranny of this government which has wasted our blood and treasure for a frivolous, damnable reason (and I mean, quite literally DAMNABLE, that is, if you believe there is a hell). And if you think there is a solution to the problem of Iraq which will originate from the infinite wisdom and prudence of Bush & Co., just look at the facts:

-The skirmishes and battles fought between coalition and resistance forces has increased from an average of 70 to 90 per day.

- There are an estimated 20,000 resistance fighters in Iraq to this day, and their ranks will be perpetually replenished by thousands upon thousands upon thousands of more enraged young men willing to die for both God and country.

-Apart from Baghdad, Kirkuk, and Mosul, there is little, if any, violence which would erupt due to sectarian strife. It is only when coalition forces attempt to recapture a city that violence erupts. Otherwise, much of Iraq would be relatively peaceful without us getting in the way, seeing as how it is controlled by local authorities. But this is not a rosy picture in the least bit: As long as Baghdad continues to erupt in sectarian violence, and as long as we continue in our quest to gain control over more of Iraq, the insurgents will continue to keep mobilizing all their efforts with ever-more sophisticated IED and sniper attacks. Should we not also include on our part the never-ending use of tank and artillery fire which demolishes homes and kills scores of innocents, which only further recruits indignant locals to the ranks of the insurgency?

- If we are facing enough turmoil with the Sunni areas of Iraq that are facing sectarian violence, imagine the incredible risk we are taking to gain control of the Shia areas. So far, such insidious weapons as IEDs have been used sporadically in the south, but that could all change. If U.S. and coalition forces are over-extended in the Sunni areas, dealing with internecine warfare, just imagine how much more terrible things could get in the near future.

- About 40,000 Iraqis are dying on a yearly basis as we continue to deny defeat. Is there any justification left in 2006 for what was lauded by the Bush stenographers, that is, the mainstream media, in 2003 as a great war to "liberate" Iraq? Every single justification, even the remotest one, died before they could be acted upon.

I remember the headlines which started in August 2002 about the impending war. Did we think that we were going to war, say, in early 2002, despite Bush and Co. labeling Iraq with the "axis of evil"? Needless to say, all of the hype simply started at once in that fateful August, and the world has not yet recovered from the trauma suffered. To simply fathom the fact that over 100,000 Iraqis are dead, and 18,000 of our soldiers are dead or wounded shatters the conscience and silences every voice which still supports this war. We came to bring "liberation" to Iraq, but we have only brought death- more death than Saddam did. And we still continue to think to this very day and hour that we have a "duty" to continue this senseless and brutal war. 2,592 American soldiers are dead- and for what? Did Iraq attack this country? No. Did Iraq ever intend to? No. Was Bush & Co. lying to us? Yes. And for this, we must expel all of them from office, even if we are reduced to using brute force to expel these criminals from the White House and Congress. Do I advocate violence? No, for that would only show that we are no better than these war criminals. What I mean by using "brute force" is that if impeachment fails, then we must take to the streets every day, every moment, to force this regime to end the war right this instant. We must mobilize a huge grassroots effort comprised of civic, business, and religious leaders, not to mention intellectuals and celebrities who shall speak their minds. And most important of all, ordinary people must make the bulk of this movement. Can we be so sure that this nefarious regime will not resort to the draft- taking our own children, our flesh and blood, to fight, kill, and die in a senseless war which will never end as long as they are in power? This is why I advocate the streets as our forums. We must start marching, say, every weekend in the Capitol, all day long. We must harass Bush and his ilk- not with physical violence, but with the truth. We will shout, we will scream, and we will rage in defiant anger against the ruthless bastions of power in Washington and beyond- all of the Congressmen and Senators who supported this war will be punished to the greatest extent possible by not re-electing them. We will throw every one of them out of office, and we will not support anyone who will still give credence to the war. We will lay down a strict orthodoxy to supplement our orthopraxy of working for peace and justice in this land. We will revolt against big oil and all big business which puts profit ahead of human lives and dignity. We might like the thrill of war while playing a videogame, but this is no game: real lives are being lost daily, and the world suffers in agony while we continue this dangerous charade of arrogance and brutality masked as benevolence. We have as much luck bringing our style of democracy to the Middle East as we do a snowman that will not melt in the summer heat. Our only hope for peace is to leave Iraq this very instant- and no one is justified in thinking otherwise.
As for the detractors to our case for withdrawal, and for the apologists of the stupidity and incompetence of this regime, I do not wish to engage in name-calling, because while all of you are responsible for this war by letting your leaders go about executing it, you are not guilty of starting it. Only the Bush regime is guilty. And so for the remainder of this message, I would like to share some personal reflections on why I will not be an Army officer after all. In September 2005, I entered college ROTC as a freshman. I never really wanted to be there, but I felt forced by a desperate father who felt I had no other options for going to college (as of now, I do). But I forgive him for the myopia he suffered then, and the hypocrisy of opposing the war while still letting his son go into the military. And he also understands now my utter incompetence of being a soldier, much less an officer. But while I was there, I had a hard time fitting in with the rest of the cadets- all of them prospective officers, or working their way to that goal of earning their gold bar at the end of their four years in college. I honestly thought that by 2009, I would be a second lieutenant, possibly leading troops into battle. However, due to the fact that I was the lowest scoring cadet on the physical fitness test straight for an entire year, and that I couldn't even handle an M-16 rifle properly, I grew more and more despondent as time went on. I had no idea about what was going on in any of the battle drills we went through, and thus I was simply the cannon fodder who would be stationed, waiting for the order to go and get killed. I honestly had no idea how I would be able to memorize the complexity of leading a squad through one of these drills, which I had to do by the time I was supposed to enter summer training camp before graduating. Needless to say, I won't have to worry about that. But I think I was determined that I would not make it through my first year of ROTC somehow when I did the worst at firing that M-16. I hate this weapon, because its only purpose is to kill people. That's it. It can't defend human rights or bring democracy to oppressed peoples. It is a nihilistic instrument of destruction, pure and simple. I couldn't even zero in a target because I was too nervous to have enough common sense to fire with my right eye instead of my left. The same was true for the pop-up targets- forty of them in all, and only one which I shot down. And so there you have it, the futility of me even using a weapon to defend myself. And I send a special apology to MSG Coe for having put in his precious time and talent to train a dud, and also I send an apology to LTC Hilton for having made his Battalion look a little worse for having me in it. And I apologize to anyone whom I might of offended for stating my case, especially to the families who have lost loved ones in the war, and yet still support. Honor your loved ones by pushing for them and for all the rest of the military to get out, so that more lives are saved. And to everyone- honor the necessity of peace in the world by doing whatever is in your capacity to help end the war. I know I have only spoken, but I remember a saying by the philosopher Sartre that commitment is not a word, it's an action. May this be just as true for us who value peace as it has proved so terribly and fatally true for those who gave us this war.

Is the Therapeutic Worldview Tenable?

Therapy and addiction- two words that have captivated the modern world's outlook on human disorder. Now we have a new "disorder"- Internet Addiction Disorder. I do not hold to this idea because I think that once we start putting human follies and actions at the level of disorder, then everyone is addicted and no one is held responsible. Will our society hold that because a man died after spending fifty hours on his computer playing an online game that anyone who spends more than a few hours online is addicted? Or can we say that perhaps because we have a computer in our room that we are simlpy drawn to its enticements? What if we had no choice but to stay outdoors all day? I think it is pretty sure that most of us would just adapt to what is given to us. Now I hold that spending too much time on the Internet is not a good thing, but addiction is not the word for it.
If man had a greater sense of the fact that some of his follies are from his sense of laziness or unwillingness, we would see a lot more money saved in therapeutic expenses. We are simply saying that every idiosyncracy is an "illness" that must be treated in order that we may become "normal"- whatever that means. Now I know that I said earlier that I have asperger's syndrome. Am I really right? I don't know for sure. But I can say that some of my own shortcomings are not the results of mental illness. I think we need to sometimes give ourselves a good kick in the pants every now and then.

Some Relevant Views

Does anyone ever wonder why the right wing is so anti-intellectual when it actually comes to looking at the reality of things? The answer is that these authoritarian personalities- whether we're talking about Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reily, or Sean Hannity- are pathological personalities who are dreaming for a world that never was, and that never will be this side of the grave. They are simply trying to construct a view of the world that is void of nuance because they are the "intellectual" (ditto) heirs of Plato and Aristotle. The thinking of these two men plagued Western society for so long that it led to justifications for every social evil imaginable- from slavery to conquest to the oppression of women and those of other religions- all because the society is built upon an absolute and ideal ordering that can never be challenged or removed. Things must be the way they are, because the "ideal" ( whatever that is) presupposes it. So there you have it. Right wingers are presuppositionalists, and furthermore, they are direct-casue presuppositionalists, meaning that they think that all the problems of society are caused directly from other root problems, thus creating a simplistic view of the universe and of man. I don't deny that there are simple answers to many evils (mainly human selfishness), but I don't think that they are caused by such a simple factor of other antecedant causes so as to make one prima causae the whole reason for why crime, poverty, or terrorism exists in this world. Talk to any right wing reactionary, and you will find that there can be no other solution to crime than locking away more misfits. Poverty is caused by laziness. Terrorists are simply blind nihilistic fanatics who hate America because they hate America because they hate America...ad infinitum, ad nauseum.
Everything which America does is all-good, by the way. We are God's chosen people, a city on a hill- to use the popular phrase of Puritan John Winthrop. Never mind that the Right has bastardized Christianity to the point that Jesus might someday be the new posterchild for recruiting by the U.S. Army, where He owuld probably be seen as encouraging the next generations of young Americans to lay down their lives for the sake of others (the oil companies). Ane never mind that the religious right spews forth its rhetoric about being a moral force for the Christianization of America, in order that we can "win the world for Christ." I hate their musings about how American culture has degenerated so much, and that only the Right can save the family. Of course, families are being ruined when we cut funding for those who are poor, or when a father, son, or brother has just been senselessly killed in Iraq because of the blind and stupid actions of this Administration, which is such a "friend" of Christianity and "moral progress."
The problem with the Right of today is that it's an authoritarian belief system which can only behold one way, the One, the Absolute, the ultimate synthesis, to borrow some Hegelian jargon. They have a similar worlview as did the German philosopher Hegel- that history is running to its climax, and the grand synthesis will result when America establishes itself as the global hegemonic hyper-power. I shouldn't use the term "synthesis", because of the fact that these neocons don't believe in "synthesizing" America with Al-qaida or any of its other enemies for that matter. America is the great thesis- all else that opposes it is the antithesis. The pendulum must end swinging on our side alone, but that can't happen anyway. I think that soon we'll see that neither America nor the terrorists will win. We will only see something different in the future. What it is, I don't know.
Those of us on the Left must be passionate about using the tools of reason to accomplish our ends. This is why we are not to emulate the Right in any of its tactics, because its ends are so closely intertwined with its means that they are almost one- to see their absolute authority as established against all else, and to bomb the living f@#$ out of those who are in the way of our plans. Liberals stand for reason, fairness, and tolerance- those oft hated values which the right thinks will only lead to weakness and fuzzy thinking because they don't just dogmatically state the Truth of All Things, that Absolute One which is the ideological guidepost for everything the right does. Thus, the right is for conventional wisdom, meaning that they simply want to live their whole lives on a set of rules that can never change concerning how they're supposed to interpret the world. Liberals value the splendor of the universe, the amazing capacities for humans to love one another, and for the amazing possibilities of the future for creating a better society based off of peace, love, and justice. Is there something so horribly impractical about this idea?
AS FOR THE FIRST VETO OF OUR 43RD PRESIDENT, I should perhaps be a little indignant that it had to involve a ban on stem cell reasearch. That my own family members suffer from diseases that could be cured makes this personal. But I am not the only one to see that this presidency is just a bit too despicable for rational minds to digest. I hate everything about George's legacy in the White House, and I don't care if we have 2 1/2 more years until he leaves. I want him gone. He is not pro-life at all. He is pandering to the religious right for orders as to how to vote regarding these vital issues, and I don't care to hear how stopping stem cell research is going to usher in a postmodern "culture of death", where the "dignity of human life" will somehow be threatened by a cadre of elite scientists who are godless moral relativists. With all of this said, I don't hold to embryonic stem cell research as the salvific panacea that others have idolized. But because we don't yet know the effects of this type of testing doesn't mean we shouldn't pursue it; after all, if it does work, we will see cures to our most dreaded diseases. If not, we will simply have to find another way, and then it would be permissible to vote against this type of research. But unlike this excrescence of a president has done, we are to base our objections to research on grounds that are empirically verifiable, not on some speculative theological/metaphysical theory ground in a particular religious viewpoint which holds that one cannot seperate human personality from an entity that may have the genetic material to develop into a human person with thoughts, feelings, volition, etc. But instead, Mr. Bush sought the easy way out. It isn't damaging to society to think that God has a Mother and to pray and go to church. But we live in a pluralistic society, and if we make rules, we use legal and practical necessity in our deliberation, not theology.

More views will be offered later on why America may not survive the next 2 1/2 years.

Some Observations on my Weakness as a Blogger

Maybe the title of this blog is too much for some to fathom, but I think it gets the point across. Let me first begin by saying that I have never wished to use fifty dollar words for the sake of becoming the next George Will, but perhaps I have stumbled upon a huge stumbling block, in the sense that my own wish to present things as I see them is much too obscure a way of making my thoughts known to others. In that sense, I apologize for not being impressive enough. I created this blog to let off the steam in my head, and anyone is free to be as vehemently opposed as humanly possible to any and all of the ideas and viewpoints presented here. That is the purpose of democracy itself, and I am a great proponent of that Enlightenment ideal of irreverence, even if that means I have the right to challenge some of the assumptions of the Enlightenment itself.
I should also comment on my stance regarding the fear of nuclear war and impending death. I do not live in constant fear of it, and it's a good thing that I think less of it now than I did even a year ago. I simply wished, by means of poetry, to express the angst of impending doom as a means of art.
I think that a good amount of what some critics of mine have made clear to me comes out of the fact that I do suffer from Asperger's syndrome, which involves a level of high-functioning autism where my mind can be encapsulated at times in a condition in which it simply wants to hear itself talk. I am trying to combat this urge without losing the unique writing style which I possess. Which leads me onto my articles discussing human nature, which some might view as a pessimistic outgrowth of my Asperger's syndrome.
I was at a loss of ideas to discuss, and thus I chose that topic to start out with. If it was wise to do so or not, I leave that to my readers to decide. I am not misanthropic, but rather a confessor of sorts who simply wishes to confess the angry inclinations of my mind which have occurred from time to time, and to tie in those thoughts with the innate possibility that anyone could act them out. There is much goodness and sorrow in life, and if we are live it to the greatest potential which Providence has bestowed upon us, it is better to live in the light of day while there still is some left.
With this clarification, I shall try to use better consistency and writing style in future posts.

Sacred Rock

This poem is somewhat enigmatic in its love for nature. The immutability of nature is emphasized.

I saw the lake

And it was beautiful.

What is the meaning of life?

That the Rock of Ages gave us life.

And the lake was there.

And the land was there.

I saw all that history kept

For me here is the present.

And I sought the Sacred Rock

On the beach as I walked.

And I walked ten miles to see the glimpse-

And the glimpse gave me the ages there and then.

Personal Reflections on Life (or Delirium) at the University

Having just completed my first year at the University of Michigan and now about to begin my sophomore year, I thought that I should take the time to reflect on the nature of the great transition from a life of obscurity to a greater life of obscurity. I mean this by saying that the college life is one with little direction from outside factors. The major transition comes with the fact that one must partition responsibility on his or her own- and this is all very much true and necessary. But the poignant factor comes when we misunderstand the ordeal that we are about to confront. And so I say these words with a somewhat sobering tone of humility as I reflect on my first year of college.When I came to the university in September 2005, little was I prepared for a transition from the mundane academic tasks of high school to the advanced level of real scholarship, or at least having to deal with one's professors as scholars and erudite intellectuals rather than your run-of-the-mill high school teacher. This is the greatest hardship faced by incoming freshmen, and I am no exception. When we talk about the truths of common knowledge, we are dealing with people who are light years ahead of us in erudition. This is not bad, and is necessary, because whatever we mean by "common knowledge" ought to come under scrutiny by those with greater character as something that is never supposed to rise above the ordinary conventions of society. But how do we square the intellectualism of the university with the common lives of every day people? I think this should be done by the simple linking of each person with every other. There is none among us in his daily routines and responsibilities who can say that he washes his clothes or takes care of his children in a more "erudite" fashion than the rest of the people do. But because we cannot judge the personal characteristics of any individual whom we do not know personally, it is best to leave this subject as it is.But let us consider the incredible pace of work involved in college. I confess that I had lost the spirit to excel at times, all because of a lethargy that had entered into me. It is most likely that I was discouraged because of the massive amount of work required, and I believe that I had somewhat of a cynical attitude about simply "getting by" without being the same type I was in high school- a somewhat masterful academic who scored mostly all A's during the last four years. But now you are one among 38,000 individuals, and there is nothing that anyone will do to notice how great one's achievements were in the past, and there is little hope for your recognition unless you are among the elite class of intellectuals. And so I shall admit that I still carry this sort of cynicism, albeit refined in a way that does not evolve into despair and failure, and I confess to have having senses of the latter categories.I did not think that my character could handle the fast-paced environment of the classes I was taking. My two English classes, along with being enrolled in college ROTC (which I have now thankfully divested myself of), were the cracking points. I was more worried about my achievement in ROTC, and this shaded my entire college experience. Having felt the pressure to at least pass my PT test, there seemingly wasn't even enough will for me to do this- and I admit that I never wanted to be there, but felt that my father would not want me to trade in a free scholarship in turn for having to take out college loans. But the fear that accompanied the prospect of becoming an army officer was too much to handle, largely because I was in an environment of type-A personalities imbibed with the military spirit, and I was not one of them. I felt that the responsibilities of learning to be a military officer and a college graduate were too much to handle, and I really thought that it was too much.Now I will say that I didn't do too bad with my first semester, but the second one was worse than I expected it to be. It is all in the fact that now the elite school of the elite school in all the state of Michigan (the Residential College) required of me that I learn a language, and so I chose to start as a true beginner with German. If I could only see the weaknesses of my talent for learning a new language, how much more sober would I have been! I feel that I am at a supreme loss because of the fact that the pace of learning a language that would have taken an entire year in high school now only takes half that long in college. I don't blame the rigor of college studies for my own unprepared ness, especially after I had done so well previously learning Spanish in high school. Maybe I should just blame myself for the lack of character that I had when going into this course- thinking that the German language would come naturally. As for the upcoming semester, I will have to take the second level of this course before having to pass a proficiency test. Pray for me, whoever reads this blog, that I may do better in German this time!As for the course in logic which I also took, I will be honest in saying I failed the mid-term exam. Although I ended up getting a C- in the course overall, this is my shame. Maybe it was to be expected, seeing as how I still lack that all-important trait of erudition. It is enough for me to know that A is not non-A and non-A is not A- the law of contradiction. As for the rest of the material- I leave it up to the logicians in pontificating over symbolic logic. I prefer the logic of simply using arguments with sentences.And as for ROTC in the second semester, it had a happy ending: I was gone. The outcome of my dismal failure as a prospective military man was plain for all to see: I cannot pass a basic marksmanship qualification, I cannot pass a PT test, and I cannot learn how to lead men into battle. And for all of this, it was apparent that my superiors would have had it better if their professional battalion of soldier-cadets would no longer be marred by this excrescence. And so I am gone, and good riddance.As for my roommate, he had better character than I did while living together. I asked the stupid questions, I sequestered myself from his friends and social activities, I borrowed what was his without asking, and I was of the more childish disposition while he had greater maturity and a sense of realism. I apologize to him for having been his roommate.Now I shall prepare to redeem that which was lost this coming September, and by then, I will add one of my book-length works to this blog.

Deluge of Fire

This work of poetry is a creative, spur-of-the-moment type of reflection on the existential terror of impending nuclear annihilation. I think that it employs the usage of instant rushes of terror within the human psyche.

Nothing less than innocent musings

Accompanied a day of banal enjoyment

And then the blast of the tone that travels

Far from the horizon of the sky and land-

"This is not a test", and so I am raptured into fear

That I am at a terrible end.

My ear drums shall burst, and my innards shall be flinged into ash,

My head as the tip of a missile I cannot fathom.

The chards of glass that shall puncture my most frail frame

Keep me terrifyed of the indignant burial I shall suffer at the hands of fate.

My hair shall become frazzled by the fire.

My face shall melt until my blackened skull shall burst,

All into a thousand pieces at once- with stupifying rapaciousness

Of the fire that shall reign down from the abyss of hell.

The sirens scream to my delerium and I wish that it is but a dream.

The promises of a kiss now put to fuel the fire,

Humanity the extinct shall never suffer a love once more!

The wave has hit me, and the deluge has swallowed the damned on this earth.

The television makes that screeching noise of doom,

And thus the thunder of the sun booms as the greatest sound man shall last hear.

The True Sense of Man's Moral Being

What I have considered yesterday about the evils of human nature are true principles that are rooted only in human experience, which means that anything which I have raised for discussion is something which we can have true knowledge of by simply observing the motives of man to be violent, or to have any other urge of compulsion within his psyche which would spur him onto violence, or any other evil which is selfish in nature. But the same must also be said concerning the validity of evidence if we were to look at man's noble and gentle attributes which cannot be said to be in doubt at all. With the current affairs of war in the world, however, we should not simply imagine that what is, in actuality, an inconsistency, is little more than a difficult dilemma or dichotomy in our thinking, especially if we are moral realists in contrast to moral emotivists.The difference between realism and emotivism is simple enough, in that those who are moral realists believe that when man commits evil, we have the right to label those actions as such; the emotivist, on the other hand, will claim that whatever action carried out, whether it is good or evil according to preference, is nothing more than an excitation of the moral sentiments of man, without affecting a metaphysical or ontological outcome regarding the state of the good and evil with any given action. But this idea must inevitably be part of a positivism of sorts, because good and evil do not register according to logic which is mathematical, or pure. In pure logic, one has only what available to his senses, and nothing more or less than that. So everything else which is not subject to the laws of empirical and rational observation must have some other source which is non-rational and not truly real as we conceive of something to be real. With these abstract concepts such as good or evil, right or wrong. We see this phenomenon of positivistic thinking in popular culture to such a large extent, that we can see that many people (and no one ought to pretend to know how many) seem to have a mindset in which understanding the truth of man and of the universe is of little importance, as is evidenced by the crass nature of popular culture and what defines "enjoyment" in this age. And so I shall go with the great dictum of Socrates that "the unexamined life is not worth living", while I should manifestly reject the saying of Protagoras that "Man is the measure of all things." This was the unique understanding of the sophists of ancient Athens who needed a Socrates and a Plato to respond to their charges that there are no universal truths. We see this in all of the modern forms of philosophical thought, which include existentialism, logical positivism, and linguistic analysis. The inherent flaws within each of these systems are that they either elevate man to a position of being where he is not supposed to be, or that they deny man's own biases and his flawed nature where they are evident. So thus, I am a moral realist.I find that many moderns of this day and age refuse to discuss the concept of evil because there is nothing to which there can be ascribed any positive definition concerning what the nature of an action is. There is always recourse to criticizing philosophies and institutions because they do not live up to the standards which they believe to be the ideal ones, or they think that a certain way of life is less sophisticated than are others; we see this sort of criticism leveled by secular humanism against the religious right. These two groups never stop waging a war of ideas, and for my part, I could find several serious flaws in both schools of thought. Secular humanism only looks to the positive aspects of human nature for anthropological and ethical guidance, while seeming to downplay the real fact that humanity has a flawed nature. The religious right is probably worse off in the sense that it has no real and substantial intellectual base to validate its philosophy, and thus it wages its war of ideas on a high level of emotionalism and a shrill use of language against its opponents. For this reason, I cannot ascribe my thought to the religious right because it does not set out on a holistic level to validate the truths of human dignity and morality as much as it should, and I vehemently disdain much of the tactics of secular humanism to use itself only as a polemical tool against religion. To say this simply, I am not afraid of what people do in their private abodes, but neither am I afraid that there is a conspiracy to create a theocracy in this society. I will not hold to either extreme, but what I have said earlier concerning my fundamental doubt about the inherent goodness of human nature has come from that fact that man's nature is inclined to do evil as much as it is to do good, and that regardless of which side he is inclined to do so, left to his own devices, man would no doubt think in a way which has more to do with the good of the self than with the good of the community or society at large. If we ever had a universal ethics, it would seem to say that man's responsibility is that moral actions ought to be done with the inclination to duty rather than to happiness. This is taken to its extreme in the sense of having society built on a radical communitarian and communistic ethic, and it is the basis of much of what came to be Marxism in the 20th century, where the individual had little or no rights. This idea clearly will be bound for failure when it is put into practice, but so will radical individualism which stresses the isolation of each person from one another and which places little sense of social responsibility into its ethic. This too must be rejected in favor for the balanced approach of the concept of subsidiarity, which owes much to the doctrines of Christian ethics and social thought which are derived from Roman Catholicism. According to this via media approach, communities are divided into the smallest groups possible in order to ensure that local units of society, along with individuals, are cared for in the obligation to social responsibility, while yet respecting the freedom of small groups and the individual from unnecessary encroachment from a large centralized government. Would this somehow mitigate the problem of how to integrate individual rights with the necessity of social obligation in man? Would it somehow serve as a base for how we treat the human condition and limit the effects of its more troubling aspects? It is certain that when philosophers discuss the prospect of human progress, they are taking a dangerous turn on the wrong path of assessing the problem of human evil by imagining that more action on the part of governments and societies can eradicate human evil, in the sense that individuals will somehow no longer be selfish and evil. St. Augustine saw the inherent problem of human depravity when studying the contrasts between Christianity and the ethic of the Roman Empire, and he said that the differences between a real and ideal world are too irreconcilable for us to assume that each could naturally arise out of its antithesis. This is the central theme of his book The City of God, and thus, instead of trying to find the perfect society, we must anticipate the eschatological reign of the City of God, which is beyond this frail life. Some may see this as a pretext for withdrawal from the world, but it is not to regarded as such, but rather as an understanding of the doctrine of impermanence regarding this present life. Jesus describes this sense of impermanence in His parable of the wealthy landowner. The wealthy landowner had amassed his wealth by honest means as far as the story's account goes, but that he later dies and must give an account to God for how he lived without any real concern about death as the rite of passage where we carry absolutely nothing with us into the grave, and thus we own nothing in this world. But this is not how moderns of this day and age think anymore, in that they have no concept, especially if they are young, of their approaching death. The issue is thus not the fear of death, but the reasons why we fear death, and subsequently try to ignore it. With this in mind, there is no reason to assume that there is nothing beyond this life which we should either cherish or fear, all as the safeguards to man's true moral conscience while living in this world. And so it is rightly said that human depravity and evil can be traced back to the primal urge to put the Self on the throne of this universe, and that whenever we indulge in the passion to spread violence and to kill, we have truly deadened our nerves to the pang of death and suffering. And as I think it good to keep such a fact in mind, I think it is better to ponder on the eternal significance of good and evil insofar as they relate to the immutability of the City of God, and of how subsidiarity best takes into account the need for man to focus on eternal significance.

What's so Wrong with Human Nature? I remember reading a unique quote by the most illustrious of philosophers, Immanuel Kant, who noted that, "Everyone almost hates the other, tries to raise himself above his fellow men, is fully of envy, jealousy, and other fiendish vices. Man is not a god, he is the devil." Does Mr. Kant's idea raise itself to reality? Simply look at the evening news once in a while, and what shall you find? The most nefarious excrescences which could be imagined by any mere mortal in his own capacity apart from acting on them in one single instant, as if he were a rapacious beast rather than a man! When we see the rockets fall in the Middle East, what ought to be our response to those foolish men who think that humanity has a great innate element of perfectibility at the core of its nature? This is the question which must be raised and answered. When I was going through the tumultuous change of worldviews which came about in the summer and fall of 2003, I had brought into the Enlightenment's understanding of the possibility of perfecting human nature. One such man who captivated my thinking was a work by Marie-Jean-Antoine-Nicholas de Caritat- the Marquis de Condorcet- in his Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Human Mind (1793). I now consider it to be one of the most naive and foolish writings ever made about man's state of nature during the Terror of the French Revolution, which, alas, would claim even this beloved author while yet needing to finish the very work! As the Marquis went on to say, "Our hopes for the future condition of the human race can be subsumed under three important heads: the abolition of inequality between nations, the progress of equality within each nation, and the true perfection of mankind. Will all nations one day attain that state of civilization which the most enlightened, the freest, and the least burdened by prejudices, such as the French and the Anglo-Americans, have attained already?" While this may sound like a valid hope for the future, we should not be taken captive by the arguments of misguided men who think that humanity is inherently good, but yet struggling because of bad social policy and education. Along with this litany of mantras that supposedly bring about the most noble sentiments in man, let us not forget what the Marquis thought concerning the necessity of the Europeans in the New World to bring about perfection by enacting policies that will either "civilize or peacefully remove the savage nations who still inhabit vast tracts of its land." Of course, racism was prevalent in the Enlightenment as it is in our own time. There is never a society which can say that it has a perfect record of never fostering intolerance and racial bigotry among its several members- and not even Fidel Castro's Cuba is immune from the ubiquitous disease, despite legally imposing that it is otherwise. The problem with any school of thought that does not take an approach to the study of man's inherent nobility and cruelty is that it will miss the full synthesis of human nature as it is in reality, which seems to suggest that man has the original nature of his benign aspirations which are always corrupted by his wicked aspirations. Certain ideological notions may say that we are in the birth pangs of a new era, and that we find this teaching especially true in our own time. Why else would we see a rise in both the splendor and goodness of the modern world in the technology and science it offers for the good of human advancement, along with the same hatreds and prejudices which lead men to kill? This question cannot be answered by merely saying that religion or politics robs man of his true spirit of humanity, because every society must have a political and religious base in order to give a full anthropological account of the community in its essence. And we cannot merely think that there is a cognitive dissonance of sorts in the enactment of evil by men when we think of them as not acting out of an evil impulse in itself, but from any other outside mechanistic impulse, thus giving the impression that the modern doctrine of man must be sought in a form of behaviorism championed by such notorious social theorists as B.F. Skinner and John Dewey, who implied largely in their teachings that man is a sort of epiphenomenon, an aggregate of forces derived from his physiological constitution into a center of gravity referred to as the "conscious self", or whatever you wish to call it. We could imply that many instances of human depravity were done in ignorance to the sufferings of others, such as the bombing of North Vietnam by B- 52 pilots who knew nothing of the thousands they slaughtered from on high. Of course they knew they were killing people, but the suffering of death is beyond their reach as the mission demands total fidelity to the mechanistic processes of releasing the bombs at command. No tense insight of hatred would be likely to befall anyone in the bomber cabin. But we are facing the fact that hatred is yet the animus that leads so many over the precipice to the most horrid acts of insanity imaginable. I would like to think that all of these acts are simply the excesses of man's passions which act upon his brain because he has let his muscles become too tense, or that his mind is only at the mercy of some greater demagogue of violence. All of this is true in many cases when we confront the acts of terrorism, which, regardless of whether or not we hold to behaviorism, attests that the theories of the great moderns lie in ashes. There is no relenting of the depravity of the mind, and anything remotely similar to what was experienced with the horrors of such madmen as Ted Bundy and John Gacy would show that human nature does not have any sense of innate perfectibility within it, or else we would see some evidence that certain individuals are living lives in accordance with consistent altruism and goodwill towards everyone. But the moderns refuse to see this, partly because they think that their conceited philosophy of man applies to them as well, and nothing could hurt their false sense of self-esteem more than a thorough realization that every one of us has the inclination at some point in our lives to wish for evil to befall others- and we even have the urge at times to kill others, although we are only restrained by the sense that we cannot justify our acts before the rest of society, (which seems strange, because if murder is illegal, then why is war not?) But nonetheless, we would strive to think otherwise than what I have just noted above. the fact that every one of us has had, at least once, the urge to enact murder- whether out of hatred or anger- shows that no one is totally immune from the potential to make those urges actual. It is evident that if society had a more liberal view towards adultery, it would happen much more often than it does at this present time; I think that same could be said if we had public executions, in the sense that many of us would probably be there to witness the death of a man, for not other reason than because we have the instinct of revenge built into us from an early age, especially when we are raised in a society that teaches us that justice ought to be retributive rather than medicinal. I hold that this idea of the justice of the death penalty would have to depend upon the ferocity of the murderer's intent; no man imbibed with justice and reason would wish that innocent men ought to be executed, and so I would hold that the extent of "revenge" can only go so far in the case that only those who have been charged as being guilty in murder of the first degree would really deserve death in the sense of a moral principle. In other words, I would hold that there is nothing morally reprehensible in putting such a man to death, but that it would be of a greater moral excellence to keep even a man such as this in a life- long state of penance for his sins. They are too deep to simply justify immediate death by execution as the greatest punishment to be enacted. The problem over the death penalty arises when we think that it is to be a gleeful occasion to witness the death of a man, because if we think so, then we are in the same set of mind as the man who committed murder. We may think that our glee is just, but we are nonetheless guilty of partaking in bloodlust instead of mourning for a man who has strayed so much from the path that he, along with all of us, were originally meant to follow for the moral good of mankind.As for the possibility of the moral reform of mankind, I would hold as scant that progress can be made in the sense of making him above and beyond the state in which he currently resides as a distorted creature because of the fact that education consists in the whole of man's experiences, rather than only the indoctrination received in the classroom. To hold to the view that an education of morals will solve the crisis of human evil is to be premature in judgment, for we know that human nature dictates to the mind the desire to live out the passions of the flesh in such a manner as to make it the will of man that deliberately takes the initiative of inducing itself into following such a course of action. This must be the case, seeing as how the will of man is paramount to his decision making, although I would not hold to the libertarian view of freewill on the basis that it cannot be substantiated that an individual would suddenly wish to do one thing or another on the basis of pure arbitration, and hence man's will would only be nothing more than an analogy of a matter particle appearing and disappearing within a total vacuum. There must be a principle of the character and the personality to make a man will to do one thing or another, and in this sense man cannot be free, but neither can any other man claim to be in a more exalted state- if we hold to the Augustinian view of human nature as having a sinful tendency to be self- gratifying. Quite frankly, I would find little apparent departure between Augustine and Kant on the reality of human depravity, and Augustine is especially vivid with regards to his early youth:" Where was I, and how far was I exiled from the delights of Thy house, in that sixteenth year of the age of my flesh, when the madness of lust (to which human shamelessness giveth free licence, though unlicensed by Thy laws) took the rule over me, and I resigned myself wholly to it?" (Confessions, Book II, ch. II), and is it yet not even more apparent that those who would defend man's supposed innocence should postulate that his will does not always wish evil, but also good? To this objection, I would have to reply that human evil does not take hold of every person in the same manner, and that some shall indulge evil less frequently and less intensely than others will. This does not prove that man's will is free in the sense that we always hold it to be in tradition. It may be the case that the will of man may not always have the same opportunity or inducement to act in the full potential of evil, but it is less likely to be the will of man that this should be the case than it is the nature of his circumstances on an individual basis.With the sense of the human will being in fetters, we would think that there would be little hope for the improvement of mankind's constitution. But this is not the issue, because we are faced with the problem, every one of us as an individual, and thus there can be no thought that anyone can think of himself as better or inherently endowed with greater moral faculties that let him condemn others as being less moral and less civilized. If only we could see this, then a universal love and friendship among men would take root, and such consciousness would lessen our evil nature to a great extent.