Monday, February 12, 2007

The Darkest Hour is Just After the Dawn of Consciousness

I awakened with thoughts of Before the Dawn dancing through my head, so I suppose this is what I am supposed to continue writing about.

I hope my wisecracks about the author's metaphysical shortcomings are not taken to mean that this is in any way a bad book. As a matter of fact, it is an excellent book, and I wish I'd had it on hand when I was working on mine. It does an outstanding job of summarizing what we know about human origins, which is an udderly fascinating subject in its own right. My only beef is with the author's bovine reductionism and scientism, but this simply goes with the academic territoriality.

Scientists are not philosophers, much less metaphysicians, so we should not expect them to be grounded in realities that are above their play grade. Wade is actually a science reporter, and we all know what happens to anything that is filtered through the parochial cultural lens of contemporary liberal journalism. Plus, Dupree -- who exerts a "light" editorial touch on everything I write -- just enjoys sticking it to materialists as much as they enjoy sticking it to us. They're so cluelessly passive aggressive, so they're always surprised when someone hits back. Needless to say, Dupree is never unconscious of his aggression, the unfortunate incident with the non-existent murphy bed notwithstanding.

This is why I so value people such as Whitehead and Polanyi -- the former a gifted mathematician, the latter an accomplished scientist -- who only became philosophers midway through their lives, after having thoroughly seen into -- and beyond -- the inherent limitations of reductionism and materialism. Both Whitehead and Polanyi were well into their 50's when they became philosophers.

Another excellent philosopher of science is the Benedictine priest Stanley Jaki, but of course he comes at it from a specifically Catholic point of view. Speaking of which, Raccoon emeritus Teilhard de Chardin was one of the first visionaries to sketch out the Coon agenda, and in many ways he represents a Western replica of Sri Aurobindo's evolutionary vision. There are a number of books that draw out the parallels, including this one (now apparently out of print) by Beatrice Bruteau, who seems like a lovely person.

As I said, Before the Dawn goes into all of the fascinating research which uses the human genome to make all sorts of clever inferences about our origins. In this regard, it is quite separate from physical archaeology, and there has yet to be a synthesis between the two fields. As you might expect, archaeologists are loath to accept purely abstract genetic inferences if they contradict all of the physical evidence. And with the genetic approach, we are dealing mostly with inferences. It is not analogous to the way DNA is used in the legal system, for example, in the Simpson case, where it was statistically impossible that Simpson was not the murderer. It is more as if the genetic evidence could only place Simpson in the general vicinity of Los Angeles and the decade of the 1990s.

Having said that, some of the implications are rather mind-blowing to contemplate. For example, there is a good possibility that all living humans and infrahumans are descended from a tiny band of us -- as few as 150 -- who somehow, and for unknowable reasons, escaped Africa 45,000 years ago. This is -- probably not coincidentally -- when behaviorally modern humans suddenly appear, after having been anatomically modern for as long as 150,000 years prior to that. Again there is that mysterious gap between human beings and actual humanness.

But is the gap really so mysterious? Yes, I suppose it is. It is something of a black hole in which one is free to speculate as to what happened to facilitate that sudden transition. In my opinion, to simply say "the genes did it" is a major exercise in question-begging and ultimately tautology. It's like asking how Homo Gretzky suddenly evolved so far beyond any previous Homo hockius: his genes did it! Yes, but.... how? How did a hockey player with eyes in the back of his head suddenly arrive out of nowhere?

As a matter of fact, there is a major bit of speculation at the very heart of any program of strictly reductionistic evolutionary psychology, since no one has even a hypothetical clue as to any actual mechanism that might explain how a gene translates into behavior. It is just assumed that there is some link between the two, but no one has any idea how it might work. Nor can it account for the obvious exceptions. Let us say, for example, that man was "selected" for male-female pair bonding. If this were true, then there is no plausible explanation for homosexuality, for any genetic predisposition to this maladaptive behavior would have been weeded out of the genome tens of thousands of years ago. Likewise, it is easy to say that humans have a genetic predisposition to love their children, but how then to explain the universality of child abuse, which is more horrific the further back one travels in history?

You will also no doubt notice that, whatever the scenario, there is a genetic just-so story that can account for it. Homosexuals? Er, people kept them around because they were good at decorating the interior of caves. Music? Er, to get chicks. Same as now. Religion? Er, since it's all bullshit, it must have been for... for social solidarity! I see. Are you saying that man evolved delusions in order to cope with reality? If so, how did you escape this genetically fixed propensity to be out of touch with reality? I see. You didn't. You're a liberal.

Another thing the book confirms is that the idea of the "noble savage" is pure mythology. Rather, the human being is a bad citizen, an extraordinarily violent and bloodthirsty animal. Again, the further back in history you travel, the more violence and mayhem you see. Go all the way back to primitive man, and the rates of homicide vastly exceed anything seen today.

In my book, I referenced the work of archaeologist Steven LeBlanc, who wrote in his Constant Battles that the “cruel and ugly” truth is that in traditional societies an average of twenty-five percent of the men died from warfare. He estimates that the homicide rate of some prehistoric villages would have been 1400 times that of modern Britain and about 70 times that of the United States in 1980. Although roughly 100 million people died from all war-related causes in the twentieth century, Keeley estimated that this figure is twenty times smaller than the losses that might have resulted if the world’s population were still organized into bands, tribes and chiefdoms.

In my opinion, the human genome contains virtually limitless possibilities. It is not that our genes determine this or that possibility in a mechanistic way. Rather, depending largely on cultural factors, one will have the opportunity to actualize one's latent genetic possibilities or essentially waste one's life without ever having been psychologically -- let alone spiritually -- born.

Take the case of my son. Yes, he was born with a certain raw temperament that is undoubtedly rooted in genetics, but it couldn't be more clear to someone who has a thorough grounding in modern attachment theory that the temperament could develop in widely divergent ways depending upon how Mrs. G. and I interact with him. Our brains are not genetically determined. Rather, nature endows us with a vast overabundance of neurons that are either reinforced or ruthlessly weeded out during the first two years of life. All of the broad assumptions of developmental psychoanalysis are now being confirmed by neurobiological research, much to the surprise of scientists who had rejected psychoanalysis as an unprovable mythology.

It is this understanding that I attempted to bring to the analysis of our human origins presented in Chapter 3 of One Cosmos. Since it is possible that I am the first person to attempt this, and since I am hardly an expert in paleoanthropology, there is no reason whatsoever to believe that I am correct in all of the details. However, at the same time, I do not see how I could be completely incorrect in terms of the broad outlines of the argument, which is that the human interior co-evolved with the evolution of parenting. Indeed, it is only through intimate and devoted parenting that a human subject comes into being at all. It is not merely a function of big brains. Humanness must be "teased out" of the brain, so to speak. It doesn't just happen by itself, but emerges within the intersubjective space between mother and infant.

Nowadays, when I take Future Leader to the park, I never cease to be appalled by the unconscious manner in which so many mothers treat their children as objects. I can already see the roots of pathology in some of these children wth my Coon vision. And these are the "good" mothers. It probably sounds judgmental to the defensive, but I literally cannot conceive of subjecting my son to the cruelty of daycare. I'd sooner sell my house than abandon him in this way.

If a mother treats her baby like an object -- undoubtedly because she herself was treated this way, which in turn eclipsed her own subjectivity -- that baby will grow up with major "lacunae" within their field of consciousness. I am quite certain that you have encountered people -- it's a common experience, actually -- who are more "object" than subject. You can see it in their blank, almost dead, eyes, and hear it in their affectless voices that are devoid of "song." They will be limited in their ability to experience you as a subject. It is very much as if their mind can only extend into your consciousness to the exact degree that it extends into their own.

As a matter of fact, this is why most people are so boring. Did you know that boredom in the presence of another is pathognostic? This was an observation of D.W. Winnicott, who said that the analyst's counter-transferential reaction of boredom actually conveyed objective information about the patient's interior. A boring person is in some form or fashion a psychically dead person, which is to say he has become "objectivized." I believe this accounts for why we idealize artists who, despite their human flaws, appear very much alive. Marlon Brando, for example, was completely crazy, but could channel the otherwise unbound craziness into a dramatic role. John Lennon also comes to mind. Both struggled with deadness and depression in their personal lives, but there was a vitally alive and unbound part of themselves that survived and expressed itself through art.

From time to time people ask me for a referral, and I think this is a good rule of thumb for knowing whether or not you are in the hands of a good therapist. A gifted therapist will instantly be able to see within you more deeply than you yourself can see. Furthermore, if he is good, he won't tell you flattering things about yourself, but rather unflattering things in a "containing" way.

I learned very early in my career that it is very easy to comfort the afflicted, which is what lame, "hand-holding," overly maternal therapists do. Rather, the hard part is afflicting the comfortable. This in my view is actually a higher form of empathy -- or at least it must go hand-in-hand with the other kind -- almost exactly parallel to the differences between mother love, which tends to be unconditional, and father love, which tends to have conditions attached. Both are needed. Much narcissism and sociopathy is bred where there is an abundance of the former and an absence of the latter, as in "urban culture," where fathers have been deemed unnecessary by our liberal elites. (Not to mention their belief that there is no difference between men and women anyway).

Contemporary liberalism itself is a gender identity disturbance that revolves around a rejection of masculine virtues and the adoption of a unisex feminized personality as normative. But of course you knew this already.

Speaking of the world's casual cruelty to children and the left's almost definitional moral confusion about it: The Real Children of War. And the Identification With Murderous Aggressors goes gland in hand with the deficient masculinity of the Bill Clinton-Barack Obama type of girlish seducer. You will notice that only liberals are seduced by their likes. Of course Osama would celebrate the election of Obama. He's a little more clued into gender differences than the average liberal.

41 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Much narcissism and sociopathy is bred where there is an abundance of the former and an absence of the latter, as in "urban culture," where fathers have been deemed unnecessary by our liberal elites."

Sad to say, I can confirm this from direct personal experience, Bob. It describes precisely the process by which my estranged daughter - raised by my ultra-liberal 'ex' and her mindlessly like-minded, same-sex partner - evolved from a delightful, engaging and brilliant child into a self-absorbed, universally inconsiderate trollop. Having grudgingly spent considerable time amongst her social "peers" and their families over the years, I have come to understand that she is the rule, rather than the exception, as produced by that social mindset.

And to your other point regarding genetics and behavior (as opposed to, say, innate musical ability), so far she has yet to exhibit any evidence of the genes that make me "me", as it were.

Anonymous said...

Your comments about unconscious mothers rang a bell with me.

I was subjected to a series of unecessary dietary and health regimens by my mother. ("Munchausen by Proxy")

Now, I'm full grown and it seems that I have urges to harm people that I can barely control.

What the heck should I do? I don't want to add to our societies crime statistics.

PS What does "infrahuman" mean?

Anonymous said...

I sometimes wonder if homosexuality might be a trait passed down by the x chromosome, which would explain why it hasn't been weeded out. After all, gay men are far less likey to reproduce, but gay women are another matter. I've known people in life who seem to be gay because of childhood trauma or other social reasons, but I've also known people who from earliest childhood were clearly not like the other boys and girls (often in spite of their parents attempts to guide their kids in the right direction). Like the nature/ nurture debate, I would guess that the Truth lies somewhere in between.

Anonymous said...

As to your comment about child-rearing, I would be curious about what things most people consider to be good mothering that you think are apalling? I have to agree with you about day care, by the way. I was blessed with a mom who was a trdaitional type of mother, and so never experienced day care. When I have kids, I plan to be the same way. I'm hoping to start my own family before long, so any advice you have on that front would be particularly welcome.

Anonymous said...

frk a zoyd,
Wow - you have my deepest and most sincere sympathies. I hope that something you read here will be helpful to you.

NoMo said...

"...I literally cannot conceive of subjecting my son to the cruelty of daycare. I'd sooner sell my house than abandon him in this way." You're right -- that IS judgmental -- and soundly so.

What seems so very obvious to me --that our children are OURS, not just to birthe, but to nurture and raise -- has become the exception in our culture. I fear we are raising whole generations of pathological citizenry as a result. Job security for leftists?

Already, 25 years ago, my wife and I were judged "religious nuts" for making the material sacrifices it took to actually raise our own sons. And don't even mention "home schooling!" -- which we also did for their early years. Isn't parental orientation versus peer orientation vastly preferable for establishing a self? It certainly has proven to be so for our sons --and now for our grandchildren who we are privileged to also help raise. So far, so good.

Anonymous said...

The vertical push, pressure was so intense in 1648, The Peace/Treaty of Westphalia is ratified and there you have it, like that.


Those AT links, great reminders which we need all the time. Stockholm Syndrome, ef that, shoot me, they did. heh heh HEH Cus!;~)

NoMo said...

Juliec - Boiling it down IMO -- love, care, attention, and firm boundaries. I almost hate to emphasize that last one, but man is it important - and its probably the one that takes the most work.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

GLASR said...
"The vertical push, pressure was so intense in 1648, The Peace/Treaty of Westphalia is ratified and there you have it, like that."

Sometimes...well, actually, more than that, I wonder what you are saying.
In other words:
Whatchoo talkin' 'bout GLASR?

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure I ever understand. It's like a private language.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Cousin Dupree-
Apparently that last message was meant for you. Heh, heh HEH!

ximeze said...

Cuz & Ben:
Whew, thought it was just me.

Anonymous said...

In the reviewer's comments at Amazon of "Parenting From the Inside Out" one reviewer wrote: . . ."For optimal integration many of the exercises seem best done with the guidance and reflection of a psychotherapist."
After reading that remark, a flood of memories came rushing in.

In 1980 I entered therapy with a spiritually grounded
psychotherapist who employed Gestalt, T.A. theory, "A Course in Miracles",Eckhart, de Chardin and Zen.

In one dream I had during the first year, I was invited by a friend to come to her house to help her with renovating projects. When I arrived at the house and we walked into the kitchen (the hearth being the heart of a house), I immediately was horrified by the sight of hundreds of exposed, tangled electrical wires coming out of the island; many led to nowhere, many were non-functioning conduits; many extension cords hanging from ceiling fixtures were overloaded. It was a dangerous clutter that made little sense. It was hard for me to miss that the well-being and safety of the family was in peril of a melt down and "we" had mensch more work to do.

Five years later I emerged - re-parented - resurrected.
My final dream was beautiful evidence, but that's a story for another day.

In my own case, I don't think I had poor parenting, even if I was raised in the era of 'children should be seen and not heard'. No, I myself, adopted a mind parasite at age four. I was in pre-school at the time, and one day I overheard my teacher talking to the principal: 'Yadayada - "Ms. e's *cousin* sure is smart" -yadayada' From that day forward I proceeded to build a life on the lie of inadequacy.

Thanks to the Grace of God, My Levi discovered I could make peace with the Wranglers.

Anonymous said...

juliec:

I'm hoping to start my own family before long, so any advice you have on that front would be particularly welcome.

May I offer some thoughts from the perspective of someone who's spent the past 18 years watching what didn't work?

Day care is a non-starter. Literally. It replaces what should be a period of parent-child bonding with a period of (at worst) the child being daily passed from one caregiver to another. In-home caregivers (e.g., 'nannies') are also inadvisable unless they're family, and even then...

Homeschool if you can. It's not easy, as I understand it. My brother and his wife have been able to do it with their girls though, which indicates to me that anyone can do it with the right motivation.

Cancel your cable services as soon as the child is old enough to turn the T.V. on.

Insist that the child be responsible for some aspect of his/her "livelihood" as early as possible. Coons, I think, will understand what this means. Allowances, much less endless streams of gifts, activities and other amenities should never be "free". IMHO, objectivism is not a bad philosophy for dealing with the horizontal aspects of life.

Let children play. Today, an almost rigorous schedule of extracurriculars seems to be some sort of 'requirement' for kids. My gut tells me that most parents support their child's "full schedule" just to keep them occupied (i.e., out of their hair).

That's just a few. I'm guessing everyone has their favorites - and possibly some corrections/additions to these.

Anonymous said...

Goy,
Thanks for the advice - to be honest, I have already planned (though of course, we all know how God feels about "plans" ; ) on doing most of those things. When I was a kid, my Mom's method of getting us out of her hair was to say "Go out and play. Or you can clean your room..."

I'd like to try homeschooling. I know for a fact that I have a broader knowledge base to begin with than many teachers I've known. On the other hand, I don't know if I would be disciplined enough to put in the requisite work. That is a question that will have to wait until the time comes to be answered, I suppose, though I'm already doing the research.

Ms. E,
I had a similar experience once, in a British primary school (about kindergarten age) - a teacher actually said to me "Your mother said you were smart, but she was wrong." (I was bored and distracting the other kids, most likely). Fortunately, what stuck for me was that my Mom actually told someone she thought I was smart (it had never occurred to me before).

Anonymous said...

Writing this one from the 'O', so here goes.

On the subject of daycare, it may seem like an unfathomable choice to some, but there can be positive aspects as well. Especially for people like my husband and I who are not blessed with a large or close-knit extended family or even a group of friends with small children, day care in a small setting has given our daughter a chance to interact with other children of varying ages. Kids learn to be kids from other kids as well as from their parents.

There are benefits to having a working mother (as well as downsides). There is a certain kind of security that comes with knowing that if one parent got sick or died, we would still be okay. You never know what life is going to throw at you, and you have to be able to weather those storms.

Part of the reason that our family worked the way that did was that we also had a strong spiritual foundation. I have friends and family members who had mothers at home who did not fare as well, because their own mothers had nothing to give to them in the spirit and had no interest in fixing it. No amount of bonding and no amount of time would have helped their children. You can only give of yourself if you have something to give.

My situation is not ideal, but we do what we need to do to be self-sufficient and to give our daughter a future in each axis.

Anonymous said...

Zoyd, or Trout, or whatever, said:

"I have urges to harm people that I can barely control. "

Funny, cuz that's how I feel about you every time you show up here.

Jamie Irons said...

Bob,

I was extremely excited by Nicholas Wade's Before The Dawn when I first read it about five months ago, but shared some of your reservations.

Perhaps the most exciting finding related by Mr. Wade (assuming he is correct!), is the notion that all of us have evolved (devolved?) from this tiny original band of, as it were, "Eritreans," who made our way around the southern rim of Arabia and thence to India, Australasia, and everywhere else.

This notion more or less puts paid, in my view, to the arguments of the "diversity" people. Yes, we are indeed "diverse," there are indeed many varieties of us. But then we all come, on the other hand, and not so very long ago, from one and the same very tiny extended family.

I very much like your idea that humanness needs to be "teased out" of the human brain. As a psychiatrist and a father, I am completely convinced of that.

Jamie Irons

ximeze said...

Bob said:
I never cease to be appalled by the unconscious manner in which so many mothers treat their children as objects. I can already see the roots of pathology in some of these children with my Coon vision.

You can see it in their blank, almost dead, eyes, and hear it in their affectless voices that are devoid of "song."

Spot on DL. Appalling & profoundly disturbing. Or is that Coonvision?

What I don't get is that the parents appear to be totally unaware of what is in plain sight. Although I have no human futureleaders, I can "read" Beaky & Simon better than they can their own child. Perhap that accounts for my "success" with animals.

I find the whole experience very Kafka-esk. As tho the adults are somehow not "present" & the kid isn't "there" to them, either.

Observing them "interact" elicits a screaming NO NO NO inside my head. Keep thinking: can't you see what you're doing, how this will all turn out?

Up to a certain age, it seems, those kids are "reachable" with eye-contact. As tho they're looking around for "someone" out "there": eyeballs lock on & follow mine - I've experimented with moving around, as a test.

How frustrating & literally maddening it must be to "find" no "one" out there, especially being trapped inside a pre-verbal body. No wonder humans resort to animalistic behavior: brute-ish & stupid, with those vacant eyes.

I've been putting off an expedition to shop for jean, because the experience leaves me depleated & exhausted. As tho I've just fought a great battle. Now I know why.

"Humanness must be "teased out" of the brain, so to speak."

Anonymous said...

Since we all can be traced to people in Africa, doens't this make us all African-Americans? Now black people can't tell me that I can't play jazz because I'm not black. Plus we all won the Times Person of the Year. It doesn't get any better than this.

Van Harvey said...

Defensive? argh... more like, you're right & we knew it & didn't see an escape from it. We relocated to St. Louis, no friends, no family and one child on the way. When my wife went back to work, day care was a necessity for one to three days a week, depending on our schedules. It was tough, and it felt horrible, and like the only solution at the time.

I like to think that because we didn't see it as a desirable solution, but a foul necessity, we were able to make it up with the boys when we were together (we're at a point in life now, that our daughter doesn't go at all) and by being Parents, not buddies, as so many... many? nearly all the other parents we've met here behave.

I was stunned by what we found here in the 'traditional heartland' that passes for parental supervision, discipline and manners. "Hi Van" is the norm greeting from kids out here, from the earliest ages; ours on the other hand knew that if I ever caught wind of their addressing another kids parent by their first name... well, it was to be dreded. Not because of spanking, but because That Was Not Allowed. Period.

We have neighbors now who argue with their kids, not late teens mind you, kids, 4 & 6 years old... screachingly, shoutingly, ARGUE with the kids about what the kids should or shouldn't do, and at least half of the time, the kid WINS! The 6yr old will literaly slug the Mom in anger, which produces more yelling, and the Dad if feeling really parental, will grab his arm and join in the shrieking "Don't hit your mom! You want time out!". The kid knows, we know, damn well no time out is coming, no punishment is coming, no spanking, no boundaries exist, except for what can be pushed past the current mood of the parents.

This is in a good neighborhood. This is with otherwise clean, articulate, respectable looking families. And they don't go to day care. They get all they need at home.

Bob, I'm curious, any positions on the spanking issue you've got in mind at this point?

Our boys were spanked when the occasion demanded, something like blatant disrespect or negletful of danger, but not a daily occurance, and more so with our first than the second, the third has I think required three token swats and that's it to date (7 yrs old). My wife's sister & husband have been able to manage parental control without spanking at all - they've got the 'look' & the 'voice' down pat, and the kid's, now 16 & 14, are well mannered, good kids.

Curious.

BTW, if I could manage homeschooling, I definitely would, as it is we have to do home-reschooling continually. The schools are sad, and again, we're in a good area.

Anonymous said...

Luke:26 "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple."

Was Peter the only disciple married with children?


Dougman

Anonymous said...

In re: the "deadness" of some people...

"...a frightening number of people in the world are unaware of the actual living reality of the human beings around them. It is the complete absence of empathy in action. They believe themselves to be real, of course, yet they merely lack the imagination to see that other persons are also real in the same way and on the same terms. Thus, even though they go through the obligatory social forms and personal relationships, all other people are objects rather than people. If all other people are objects, then there can be no psychic trauma involved in treating them as objects. [...] In a sense one can envy them because, unlike you and I [...] they cannot identify, they cannot project. We can, and so we do a lot of bleeding." -- John D. MacDonald

NoMo said...

Anonymous (Dougman) - Not sure what you are up to, but skeptics often quote Luke 14:26 to show that Jesus preached hate -- completely missing the context of the ancient world, and the Jewish culture in particular. When using hyperbole, such extremes are not meant to be taken literally. To do so is gross misinterpretation -- thinking out of time and out of mind with the text, i.e. reading with nothing but wooden literalism.

I will assume that's not where you're coming from.

Anonymous said...

Nomo
No evil intent on my part.
Just trying to understand.

Dougman

ximeze said...

Dougman:
My take on that verse is that it's about awareness of O, in the scheme of things.

Pre-dates, comes before, transcends, is above, made it all happen, is the genesis of, is unchanging, is omnipresent, is the foundation of....

That the things of this world are, by their very nature, transitory.

NOT so: O
Alpha & Omega

JC is asking: do you GET it?

Anonymous said...

Ximeze
I'll have to do some deep thinking on that.
Off the top of my head, or the front of my,.. whatever you call it, a-priori?
I think it connects to the first commandment, "Love thy God with all..."
Putting nothing between my ego and God.(?)
But i really want to know, was Peter the only one with a family dependent on him?
I'm in the process of a divorce and try to console myself with the first commandment.

Anonymous said...

Damn,
that was me Dougman.

Anonymous said...

I want to see "24" in a few minutes. Please excuse the brevity.

Luke 14:26 has the unfortunate translation of the Greek word miseo as "hate", when it should be rendered "love less by comparison." We are not to hate our parents and family!

Beautiful book: "Embracing the Beloved" by Ondrea and Stephen Levine.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous,

Thanks for posting the John D. MacDonald quote.

In those words he was essentially describing a sociopath. Many of the villains in MacDonald's Travis McGee novels fit that profile, and were as a result far scarier than the stereotypical bad-guyz of suspense literature because of that eerie "deadness" they projected.

For an interesting real-life case-study of this sort of soullessness, read Kent Walker's SON OF A GRIFTER. Not for nothing did the villainess' three attorneys -- top-flight criminal-defense lawyers who'd spent decades dealing with the scum of the earth -- call her the most evil person they'd ever met.

PSGInfinity said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
PSGInfinity said...

Of course, Glasr!

The Peace (Treaty) of Westphalia marked an epic milestone in our vertical ascension because it asserted that an extended set of tribes constituted a people, a people could create a nation, and the nation had an inherent right to exist.

Although it had modest beginnings, it's a fundamental statement of human dignity and diversity. Just to cite one example, the Founding Fathers would have been well aware of the Peace of Westphalia, and although I haven't seen it mentioned very often in their context, it had to have influenced their thinking.

PSGInfinity said...

frk a zoyd said...

"... Now, I'm full grown and it seems that I have urges to harm people that I can barely control.

What the heck should I do?" ...


Get help. Now. Through your companies' employee assistance line if you must, but get help...

...Bob? Petey? Coons? Any further thoughts would be most appreciated, by me if no one else.

PS What does "infrahuman" mean?

AFAIK, it refers to a person(s) who has cut themselves off from the vertical plane of existence, to the point where they can't reach their fully human potential. See Goy's sad comment, or Anna Nicole Smith, or, or, or ... (sigh)

Anonymous said...

Master Chief, Cus, ximeze, it's really rather simple, give copious amounts of benefit and credit, pares the verbiage.

Specifically Westphalia? It was the dawn of the modern era. Nation states, rules of warfare. The "vertical" played a critical roll. Christians were killing Christians and anybody else in the barbaric way everyone has been used to. Overran a city, killed everyone, burned it to the ground. Merciless. The question became, yes, we will wage war on each other, how would GOD have us do this? THAT is a GREAT oversimplification to say the least. Research the Treaties leading to the Peace, ya know, check it's wiki be the quick way, like that. Should give you my connectivity to the post without much ado. I'm not much of an author, writer or typist - wanna make my point, have it taken. You hold the applicable background, historical perspective and GK, no? I'm not trying to add anything other than - I got it, appreciated it.

Does that help? Try reading them out-loud paying particular attention to the punctuation. I'm typing the way I speak. Trying not to be boring or boorish. I won't even wait till tomorrow and put this comment where you'd be more likely to see it, manners would prevent that. Really though, only here to use the WoVeri as entertainment, like cryptograms. ;~)

Anonymous said...

psginfinity,
Thank you. Ya got in there while I was typing assistance. Really appreciate your taking the time. Very cool pics at your Web Log. Struck a chord of familiarity. The temptation to use Google Earth is overwhelming. See how my self discipline withstands the onslaught.;~)

NoMo said...

Anonymous (Dougman) - No, Peter was not the only apostle (or disciple for that matter) that was married. There are various NT references to other couples who even traveled together. No mention of kids that I'm aware.

You're right to seek consolation in the 1st -- you'll find it there, and much more.

Anonymous said...

Here are some aphorisms on our topics:

Children must consent to be parented.

Bring your children into contact with nature if you want them to be whole.

There is a portion of sociopathy in each of us.

You can't fix what you don't acknowledge.

Only the gay can speak of the value of gaity.

Let he who is without stones cast the first sin.

Cousin Dupree is the real Bob, the other is an alter ego.

Long live President Bush.

Anonymous said...

Loooong may he reign!

Gagdad Bob said...

Van--

Re spanking-- I am philosophically and constitutionally opposed to it in any methodical and premeditated form. However, I can well imagine a spontaneous wack on the butt if he does something truly dangerous and frightening. But my feeling at this juncture is that if someone feels spanking is a necessary, its a reflection of the fact that they've already lost control of the situation long before that.

Van Harvey said...

"I am philosophically and constitutionally opposed to it in any methodical and premeditated form."

Hmm, I wonder how much of it, the ability to maintain parental control relies on that mindset going in? I know my sister in law & her husband had that conviction from the start, and managed quite well with it, without any loss of parental control or manners on their kids part.

Frankly, it never crossed my mind or my wife's. When I was growing up, if I crossed the line, it meant a spanking from either my Mom or Dad - and by spanking I mean being turned over the knee and 3 to 5 stiff swats on the butt. Worked pretty well with my brother & I, certainly left no broken psyche or ill will.

There is that period, particularly between 3 and 8 where 'NO', your manner, rules & conversation may or may not have an affect on the childs behavior, and yes when other attempts to control the situation have failed, an attention getting swat on the butt does wonders.

I wonder how much is the parents skill, how much the childs will, and how much a mixture? Our three kids are very different personalities. Our first would let his immediate interest override what was allowed, and there weren't too many weeks that passed without a spanking in that 3 to 8 yr old period. Our Second was far more likely to listen and spanking was infrequent, and with our third, a girl, its not been an issue at all. Did we get that much better Parenting? I don't know...

Best of luck to you with it!

Anonymous said...

GLASR-
Thanks for the clarification.
A few additional words worked wonders for my understanding.
:^)

Not that there is anything wrong with cryptic statements as such.
But I'm an operations specialist not a cryptologist.

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