Big Bubba's Big Question About Mainstream America
I am sitting here listening to Senator Schumer, D-NY, and Senator Cornyn, R-TX, being interviewed about the Judge Roberts confirmation. Senator Schumer made the statement that the progressive liberal demoracists were looking for a nominee who was not outside of the American mainstream. Question. How does your average pseudo intellectual progressive liberal demoracist know what is mainstream and what is not? The losers keep on losing oblivious to the fact that mainstream (flyover) America strenuously objects to their concept of what is mainstream and will continue to vote against them.
posted by BigBubba at 2:29 PM
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59 Comments:
See Duck, that's exactly what Big Bubba is talking about. The total failure of the two coasts to understand our mainstream values. We are God fearing believers that this great nation was established as a bright shining city on a hill, a beacon to the world. We tolerate homosexuals because we love all of God's creation. We do not, however, believe that our tolerance extends to openly gay people in leadership positions with our youth. Please excuse us dumb ol' hayseeds. We still believe that homosexuality represents an aberrant sexual behavior that is permissible to be condemned along side polygamy, sex with a minor, and any other aberrant sexual behavior. We do not believe that privacy rights extend to murder. You believe whatever you want, but, we do not vote for folks who talk like you.
Mr. Ducky, I was actually thinking of the specificity of the word pederasty, but decided against further inflamming your sensibilities. What's the difference? Homosexuality, pederasty, pedophilia and all the fine shades of meaning still can be very simply and to the point defined as aberrant sexual behavior.
I applaude your knowledge of your family history and suggest that you buy FTM 2005 and get busy. I have the discharge certificate, nicely framed, of a relative signed by Abraham Lincoln. It's a terrible burden that many of us Southern Gentlemen must bear in secret that some of our kinfolks fought on the wrong side in the War Between the States.
That's right Duck, the left is proudly contributing to this great nation. I personally have contributed to their efforts by voting against Hanoi John, William Jefferson Clinton, Tank Dukakis, Jimmy Carter, McGovern and many, many others.
I am sorry, but if by the left you mean today's pseudo intellectual progressive liberal demoracist whiners I fail to see any value to their contributions to our society. Actually the more they contribute, the more it seems like the nation is nearing derailment.
Stop already, Ducky, that little bit of whimsical fluff has brought a big tear to Big Bubba's big ol' eye. That's right up there on the same intellectual level as let's put gloves on Dear Leader Kim Jong-il and President Bush to work out our policy differences in the ring. Wake up and smell the coffee Mr. Ducky. It just isn't going to happen. We talk about men of goodwill however in most cases the only reason that goodwill exists is because of our M-16s, M-60s and F-15s. It is oh so easy to pontificate from the moral highground. Pontification becomes much more difficult when you realize that you have to come down off the mountain to get your feet muddy in the pig sty and whup a hog or two to get things done.
Wasn't H.G. Wells a Communist? If I remember correctly, the theme of "The War of the Worlds" was the futility of capitalistic colonization.
Just a few questions mr. ducky...
In your ideal world, who's going to guarantee your "security and freedom" from those who would find it easy just to waltz in and "take" the fruits of "ample living"? Do you expect these people to simple cease breeding one day?
Don't you know that without a "repressive" and "controlling" society, these "takers" are representative of what "nature" produces (or perhaps you can point to some peaceful and harmonious life form that gets on well with others and doesn't "compete" for space and resources???)
Or perhaps you'd favor the policies advocated by William Allen Chapple…
Unfit
-FJ
The problem is, Big Bubba, when the hog gets whupped, and you get dirty in the sty, but nothing "gets done." (The laundryman comes out pretty good though. He always does well when the hogs take a whuppin.')
I sure hope mainstream values aren't the ones espoused by the posters over at the nuthouse currently known as FPM. Those people have actually convinced themselves that there are teachers teaching that North Korea is oppressed by our racism. Of course, when pressed: "even if it doesn't really happen, it's still basically true!!"
mr. ducky,
Why do all those immigrants cross our borders legally/illegally? Don't most simply wish to join our "giant sinkhole of modern consumerism"? And doesn't adding "prosperity" to poorer countries just result in an "increasing" their opportunity to become mindless consumers? What is the status of female and child labor in developing countries?
What was it the caused America's (and western civ's) birthrate to turn around in the 1870's? Could it be that something happened in society that changed the status of children from being one of "boon" to one of "burden"? And then what happened in the 1960's when women became "equal"? Were there now more mindless "drones" in the workforce and mindless consumerism, or less?
btw - I'm sure your condo is pretty attractive to a guy who lives in a "ranchito" in the La Guira district of Caracas. What keeps him out of the quintas in California Norte? La policia? El Guardia National? Your .50? Isn't that "out-of-state"?
and you must not be very familiar Chapple's essay on what lowers the birthrate... 1) misery 2) vice 3) morals. You'd elevate them out of #1 into #2... Turn 'em all into conspicuous consumers too worried about their toys to bother with striving for #3. I agree that #3 is impossible to achieve... but why "stop trying" entirely? You eschew the "noble" in preference for the "base". Like Philebus, you optimize "pleasure" instead of "wisdom".
-FJ
mr. ducky,
In case you haven't read your Adam Smith lately, the manufacture of hard goods and agricultural products "adds" to the "wealth of a nation", but the payments to one's manservant and the providers of "services" subtracts from it. What do you think is happening in our American economy? Measured GDP keeps "increasing", but are we getting "wealthier"?
And do you think the Chinese care about trivialities like "intellectual property" and will continue to pay "royalties" once they've got enough ICBM's to ignore us? If their black market knock-offs are any indicator of where their sentiments lay...
-FJ
norm,
There are many teachers who'd like to think and publically espouse the view that America's foreign policy of "containment" of Soviet ambitions was really one of "domestic imperialistic ambition". You don't know how many times I've heard that about "Vietnam".
You may be able to draw rationale parallels and state reasonable arguments that this was indeed so, but regardless, intellectual honesty would force you to consider the "intentions" of BOTH Americans and Soviets... not simply the motives of a handful of people on one side (especially in a power-balanced state with many stakeholders engaged in a "cold war").
And given America's stated and recorded "history" and "goals", and those of the Soviets, you'd be very hard pressed to prove that America or her leaders had extended their limited moral aspirations beyond continental "manifest destiny". Some "leaders" may have wished this, but the people weren't biting and the internal political balance of powers still held... Public morals hadn't been corrupted enough then. Otherwise, explain the presence of a term which held a certain currency at the turn of the twentieth century, "isolationism". In other words, modern urban values weren't "mainstream" enough for "empire" yet.
And so, when you encourage the "masses" to "think globally, but act locally", does that further a policy endorsed by someone who seeks limited influence, equality, and peaceful coexistance amongst the family of nations, or hegemony for a certain subset of values? What about "think America, but act locally"? Does that ring better?
-FJ
Why have so many books about “fishing” been written throughout history? i.e. -
Angler
for I often wonder what the Schuylkill Fishing Company’s charter was...
From Plato, “Statesman”
STRANGER: You remember how that part of the art of knowledge which was concerned with command, had to do with the rearing of living creatures,--I mean, with animals in herds?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: In that case, there was already implied a division of all animals into tame and wild; those whose nature can be tamed are called tame, and those which cannot be tamed are called wild.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: And the political science of which we are in search, is and ever was concerned with tame animals, and is also confined to gregarious animals.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: But then we ought not to divide, as we did, taking the whole class at once. Neither let us be in too great haste to arrive quickly at the political science; for this mistake has already brought upon us the misfortune of which the proverb speaks.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What misfortune?
STRANGER: The misfortune of too much haste, which is too little speed.
YOUNG SOCRATES: And all the better, Stranger;--we got what we deserved.
STRANGER: Very well: Let us then begin again, and endeavour to divide the collective rearing of animals; for probably the completion of the argument will best show what you are so anxious to know. Tell me, then--
YOUNG SOCRATES: What?
STRANGER: Have you ever heard, as you very likely may--for I do not suppose that you ever actually visited them--of the preserves of fishes in the Nile, and in the ponds of the Great King; or you may have seen similar preserves in wells at home?
And now… from Plato’s, “Sophist”:
STRANGER: Then now you and I have come to an understanding not only about the name of the angler's art, but about the definition of the thing itself. One half of all art was acquisitive--half of the acquisitive art was conquest or taking by force, half of this was hunting, and half of hunting was hunting animals, half of this was hunting water animals--of this again, the under half was fishing, half of fishing was striking; a part of striking was fishing with a barb, and one half of this again, being the kind which strikes with a hook and draws the fish from below upwards, is the art which we have been seeking, and which from the nature of the operation is denoted angling or drawing up (aspalieutike, anaspasthai).
THEAETETUS: The result has been quite satisfactorily brought out.
STRANGER: And now, following this pattern, let us endeavour to find out what a Sophist is.
THEAETETUS: By all means.
STRANGER: The first question about the angler was, whether he was a skilled artist or unskilled?
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: And shall we call our new friend unskilled, or a thorough master of his craft?
THEAETETUS: Certainly not unskilled, for his name, as, indeed, you imply, must surely express his nature.
STRANGER: Then he must be supposed to have some art.
THEAETETUS: What art?
STRANGER: By heaven, they are cousins! it never occurred to us.
THEAETETUS: Who are cousins?
STRANGER: The angler and the Sophist.
-FJ
Perhaps the angler can lead us to the "mainstream"?
-FJ
mr. ducky,
Just an observation I wanted to pass on to you about homosexuals and recruiting. There are real "ways" to "create" more homosexual's. (However "Recruiting" is not as great a "myth" as you would lead us to believe, just ask a prisoner in the local pen or a member of the Theban "Sacred Band").
All you have to do is take "one sex" out of the home to be raised by "the other sex" alone to create conditions in which a child never has to confront and/or resolve their psychological "Oedipal" conflict. [It'll also raise the violent crime rate as well... for why should junior ever feel remorse for wishing to kill his mother's lover and have to develop a "conscience" (healthy repressive superego) as a result]?
The physiological Oral/ An_l/ Phal-Vag "subject" sexual transferences can all occur in a mono-sexual environmental cocoon, eliminating the environmental conditions necessary for a corresponding mental/ psychic "transferrence" of sexual "object" (corresponding neuronal pathway myelination accompanied by stimulous).
Why do you think the "Spartans" were so gay? The boys were separated from their homes at age seven. Had they waited until post-puberty to segregate, the Spartans wouldn't have ended up the only society in history to have "under-bred" themselves out of existance.
Monogamous hetero-sexual marriage is a vastly under-rated social institution. People tend to concentrate on nature alone, and not give nurture her due. It's "both".
-FJ
mr. ducky,
Just one question here. If you and I owned our "own" country, why would we have to move to the USA or starve? You mean to say that two reasonable people couldn't come up with a way of feeding ourselves (especially if one were a "farmer"?)
ps - You obviously didn't read Chapple... or Maltheus (and I thought that Marx was supposed to be a critique of both Smith and Malthus)
-FJ
Norm, I must have a fixation on "dirty" examples. I am also fond of telling others that when someone jumps in the mud puddle everyone around gets a little dirty.
You are certainly 100% right about the laundry man cleaning up after hog whuppers. If the Dear Leader and President Bush put on the gloves who would benefit? Probably Don King.
The Duck said, "Family income doubled between 1970 and the present by doubling the number of workers. Not that anyone's noticed."
Big Bubba said, "Huh?"
Farmer John said, "Monogamous hetero-sexual marriage is a vastly under-rated social institution."
Big Bubba said, "Farmer John, I highly recommend it myself since I have been married to a few women."
mr. ducky,
I beg to differ. Smith was an "explanation", THEORY, not a "critique". Smith wasn't making moral judgements" as to whether capitalism was good or bad... he was just stating what "was" economically, as he, a materialist, found it.
WoN Intro
Marx, also a "materialist", was the one who thought it wasn't "spiritually" "fair" and decreed that the surplus value of labor caused by efficiencies inherent in the division of labor should go to the "worker" and not the "capitalist". Smith didn't give a hoot "who" it went to, he only explained "why" the capitalist "ended up" with it (he was burdened in advance with all the market "risk" AND afterwards collected the actual cash from the sale).
Marx's solution (making the state, therefore the worker, the owner of the means of production) simply allowed the worker to become the de facto capitalist. He simply "applied" Smith's discovery in a failed attempt to create "equity". Too bad in doing so the "new capitalists" no longer had incentives to invest their own capital (in anything "other" than their own "happiness" aka vodka), for the state now refused to reward any independent/ non-institutional forms of capital investment, and had no idea what to invest it in to create "wealth". They couldn't afford to be "risk takers", for their "priorities" lay in things like providing "services" like "universal health care" and paying "doctors" the same as "janitors".... even though a doctor's education costs $1M and a janitor's $1K. Their monetary policies were the equivalent of the ancient prohibitiopns against moneylending and usury. Result - available capital approaches zero. Why save?
Smith wasn't "critical" of Laissez-faire capitalism. He simply wanted to "understand" how it worked, and "apply" that knowledge. The doctor shells out $1M up front. Shouldn't he make his money back over time during his career? The USSR and PRC pay for educating kids now, but do you think they'd shell out that kind of cabbage on untried, unproven "underrepresented minorities" or creating "gender equity"? Do you think that they cared what the "kid" might want to do, who they "told" HAD to be an engineer? Talk about being a cog. What was that old 20's silent B&W movie about the "city" as "machine"?
And as for Malthus, he was like Smith. You might not "like" what he says, or think that it's "fair", but no one ever promised you that "life" would be fair now, did they? (Actually the progressives seem to think it's getting fairer... somehow... but I don't think mortgaging our kid's futures i.e. - Social Security constitutes real "progress"). Yes, liberals have "softened" the realities of laissez-faire capitalism. Yes, they've constructed a safety net. But the question becomes, what is the "limit" to which laissez-faire realities can be ignored before India comes along and rips a hole in the safety net and turns YOU into a third world country?
-FJ
BB,
I'm not talking about "serial monogamy" (unless it involves a death or two and not simply a couple of pen strokes)... I'm talking about the "till death us do part" variety that requires total and complete spousal and familial "dependence" ... that if violated earns you a nasty visit from your padre-in-law and all his sons... real social pressure.... real consequences for making "bad" choices (eternal misery)... not today's "no fault", government issued, walk away flavor.
-FJ
mr. ducky,
Marx's solution to the problem of "class struggle" was an idealogical attempt to eliminate all "class distinctions", as he saw them, and unify the classes under the banner of a single class he labeled the "proletariate".
And yes, some people may view the laws of "nature" as being the equivalent of G_d's laws (aka - atheists)and therefore "perfect", but then if G_d's believers REALLY did believe that, what was religious "charity" all about? Blasphemy? "IN YOUR FACE G_D!!!"
You should read Marvin Olasky's "The Tragedy of American Compassion". The religious right DID make distinctions between what they called the "deserving" and "undeserving" poor. Widows and orphans vs drunks and drug addicts. You think the "nanny" state is morally superior because they DON'T MAKE the equivalent distinctions???? Wow.
-FJ
Farmer John, I knew exactly what you were talking about and I agree.
Calling All Ducks. The Big Trucker Boy is outside Buffalo hauling California cookies to Chelsea. He will be coming to town on IH90. What is the insider (easy) route through (around) Boston to Second Street in Chelsea.
Big Trucker Boy's insider info can be a potential source of discussion. A Polish truck driver damaged his Freightliner at a North Platte Truck stop. The BTB tells me the road is full of Africans, Russians, Koreans and many other nationalities driving the big 'uns.
All right, Duck, get cracking. I have to go to a V.A. appointment this morning. I'll check back in this afternoon.
"Ted Kennedy called for Rumsfeld's resignation. This is interesting. This marks the first time Kennedy has ever come out against anything with rum in it." --Conan O'Brien
Thanks for the tip, Duck. I told BTB to stop at Sturbridge but he missed it somehow. He is near Cochituate hoping for a parking space at a travel plaza on the toll road. He is going to go into Chelsea around one or two in the morning for a delivery on Second Street.
BB,
I'd have to say that truckers, airline employees, railroad workers, bus drivers, and ship & tugboat crews represent life-forms from America's "mainstream". Everyone else represents different varieties of lake lurkers, pond scum, predators, and bottom dwellers that only occassionally venture into the mainstream when they feel an urge to feed on something more exotic. Those guys like BTB live it 24/7.
BTB might consider exiting the mainstream by selling his truck in Boston, and going into the cookie baking business in Chelsea. There's got to still be a few hold-out farmers in the area that will sell him wheat flour, eggs, perhaps a few sugarbeets or corn or maple syrup, and some fresh milk... and he can probably grow and dry his own "Concord" grapes and still find a few ancient walnut(?) trees in the Boston area for added local "flavor. But if he does so, I'd recommend he make sure that Big-Dig get filled in, and someone set fire to the docks so that none of these local products can get exported to or imported from California in bulk quantities.
The gropinator must be doing something right in California if he can export an essentially 90% "foreign" (wheat-egg-milk) product from a state that normally only produces some sugarbeets, and the fruits and nuts that get sprinkled in for regional "flavor".
But then, Bostonians are probably too busy training the next generation of pirates to worry about simple things like baking cookies. And I'm sure they prefer their cookies with "figs" over shrivelled "local" Concord grapes.
"Think globally and act locally", I always say as I wink. But then, I am a also a great fan of oxymorons.
-FJ
ps - I wonder why CAFTA only passed by two votes last night...
Last night Big Trucker Boy went across the Tobin Bridge and promptly got lost. He wandered aimlessly into a residential where he had to back up out of for about a half a mile. Residents were outside looking for entertainment. Back across the Tobin, and back across again, then Big Bubba the Navigator guided him to Second Street. He backed up to the dock and went to sleep.
Actually, Farmer John, California is probably one of the top five milk producers in the nation. I imagine they hold their own in egg production. They produce some wheat, but I am not sure of production figures.
Big Bubba, raconteur, boulevardier, bon vivant and world traveler is not daunted by what he encounters in foreign lands. My youngest son, the BTB, has led a sheltered life here in the South with occasional trips to his birthplace, California. The New England states are a foreign country to him. He has trouble with the language, landscape, urban areas and toll roads. He is always happy to point the nose of his Freightliner towards the Mason-Dixon Line.
Farmer John has so inspired Big Bubba with his talk of the joys of married life that he is going to get a marriage license this afternoon. Yes, Big Bubba and the little former little Ms. Bubbette are going to remarry. Of course Ms. Bubbette will live in her house on the opposite side of town from Big Bubba's southside house. Hey, so we are eccentric. My cousin, Maury Maverick, noted local attorney and newspaper columnist lived in the house next door to his wife's house. That is just the way it is with hard heads with issues.
BB,
Congratulations, to both you and future and former Mrs. - Ms. Bubbette. I may find your living arrangements a little non-traditional, but I'm sure that as time goes on you and your future spouse may tire of the "drive".
My father-in-law passed away a few years back, and my mother-in-law eventually found a new partner... who recently moved into the same house my wife had grown up in. They put up a "dormer" on that house, and installed complete "facilities" for independent living. Mrs. Farmer John thought they were crazy (being two with space that formerly sufficed for five), but believe me, every man (and woman) needs a little "space" he/she can call their own. Sometimes the "joy" of co-habitation can get a little too intense for modern sensibilities.
And I'm sure you're right about California. They've got regions and climates suitable for just about every type of agricultural product that can be produced, and the world's premier water distribution system to boot. The Roman's are surely envious.
I find it rather curious that mr. ducky bemoans laissez-faire economics, then brags about his local Italian and Brazilian bakeries. I seem to recall a time in Boston when they a wealthy man had to be careful about the amount of lobster his servants could be forced to consume...
more at history
...and limit that to only three times a week. But then of course, lobsters were to New England what coal was to Newcastle. And Boston being the “engine” behind the spread of lassaiz-faire economics and all. I thought an 1812 political cartoon summed up Boston’s role in the process summed it up rather nicely…
1812 Cartoon
And even the Revolutionary War (but more in “composite”)
1760's Cartoon
All hats off to the boys who met at the “Green Dragon”!
-FJ
I'll try to give you a much more serious answer later (as I'm not familiar with the thoughts of several of the more modern economic thinkers you mention... and will need to do a little "research") but I think that most "ancients" perform an economic dialectic that follows something along these lines...
LRH
More seriously, are you at all familiar with gaming theory and a particular cooperative strategy know as tit for tat? I suspect most “conservatives” are tit for tatters, and socialists are not (they believe... cooperation uber alles but morally oppose tit for tat). Different moral values, one rural, the other urban.
Gaming Theory
Tit for Tat
-FJ
If the Democrats are right, that they are in the "mainstream", that must mean that "mainstream values" have nothing to do with the number of people that hold them...
Tony Snow Column
-FJ
mr. ducky,
I still haven't done my economics homework, but I've been reading a "series" of articles at JWR about the Cain and Able bible story that might shed some light as to my beliefs regarding the "nature" of the "values" split between liberals and conservatives, urbanites and rurals, red states and blue states, ancients vs moderns, and Adam Smith and Karl Marx.
jwr article
btw - I think that Adam Smith is about as obsolete to economic theory as Euclid is to the understanding of geometry.
-FJ
afterthoughts...
and so... when one reads a "more modern" understanding of something like "needs" and "desires"...
Maslow
...one can't help but notice that the "modern" interpretter isn't necessarily creating "greater" or "deeper" understanding... just as modern economic theorists or "social utopians" might be betraying a loss of subtlety in understanding the nature of economics...
I'm not saying they, or Maslow, is completely wrong in their analysis, only that the "form" selected to convey their message (i.e. - Maslow's pyramid) detracts from understanding, for it involves a particular "moral judgement" as to the "order" and "ranking" and "desirability" of its various elements.
-FJ
mr. ducky,
I wasn't trying to justify Snow's argument. If 78% of people say they "believe" something (i.e. school prayer should be allowed in schools) does that make the "school prayer" value "mainstream"?
Or might it be something else? I agree with Isaiah Berlin that many values are incommensurable and not adequately addressed in a one-sided question like "Do you believe that prayers should be allowed in schools?" It may reflect the fact that 78% think that religious freedom should supercede government control. It may mean that the respondents thought that their child should be allowed to "privately" say grace before eating his lunch. Or not (maybe they thought it meant teacher led prayers). How did the respondents interpret the question?
And so, if you asked the question "Do you believe in separation of church and state?" I bet that 78% or even more of people would say "yes" to that question too.
How is it that many people believe BOTH, seemingly "opposite" values hold true? Are they stupid? Or is context also important? Or are values like "religious freedom" and "separation of church and state" not values that can be readily or easily compared?
So, if I asked the question, "Which is more important, life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness?" and 90% said "life", does that make it a mainstream value? Does that mean liberty and the pursuit of happiness are NOT? And what about if I asked the question, "Do you believe in a woman's right to choose?" (and don't try and tell me a fetus is not yet "life"). I'm sure I'd get a majority "yes" response to that question too. How does that square with "life" being a "mainstream" value?
I think that people who try and define mainstream values are in-artfull "fishermen", looking to snare their dinners. It's not the simply the "value" that's important. It's how that value relates to other, possibly incommensurable values. And it's the context in which they compete, too.
And so, yes, I know that you don't want the North Koreans to acquire WMD's anymore than I do. But Snow can make the argument that you "don't care" by pointing to the Carter DPRK appeasement mission pursued by the Clinton Administration.
Mona on DPRK nukes
And you and I will spend a week over at FPM arguing about it. I'll fish from the right bank. You'll fish from the left. Never in the twain shall we meet.
Plato argued that "laws" were "good", but would never be enough. It takes "virtuous" leaders too. I only wish we could come to some agreement as to what those "virtue" is. Because courage and temperance are BOTH virtues. And they are also opposites.
-FJ
Farmer John, do you know that Maslow is beloved to the US Army. We learned about Maslow's Hierarchy of Human Needs in Drill Sergeant Academy. What I was taught back then made sense and it still makes sense today. The triangle terms were more like food, shelter, clothing followed by self actualization. I do not remember the exact terms, but I know they were slightly different from your link.
Duck, you can sputter and spew all you want about God, values and patriotism. These issues have absolutely nothing to do with red state politics or political affiliations. The demoracists deserted the red state folks, not the other way around. The Republicans just happen to have been the beneficiaries of the demoracist's lapse of good sense. The flyover rubes, and red state hayseeds go with those who respect their values and God.
I regret being so seriously sidetracked the past few days because this looks like a great thread!
BB,
I'm just saying, does Maslow distinguish between a "need" and a "desire"? It seems to me, he kinda treats them the same. And can't that be a "road to ruin" or "fatal" mistake, under certain circumstances?
What's the difference between a courageous soldier, and a perhaps a reckless one? A prudent retreat, or a cowardly rout?
Does Maslow's hierarchy help me to resolve those differences in any "constructive" way? Should I make it my rule to always "err" on the side of "safety" over "self-actualization" (or visa versa)?
-FJ
mr ducky,
I would modify your points as follows...
1. A belief that markets fail, but hey, getting rid of free markets makes the economy fail faster (i.e. Russia/China/ and now Europe)
2. A belief that firearms can be licensed and managed as any other potentially lethal product, but that they will STILL be sold to law-compliance avoiders, who won't bother to register them when they transfer their guns. And once those guns are put to criminal use, the government will confiscate the guns from all the law abiding registers users. Then only criminals, non-law abiding people, and the government will have guns. And the decent law-abiding people will be in no position to "remedy" the situation.
3. Belief that homosexuality is a reality that should be "publically" discouraged, but not "punished" as a crime. It should certainly never be accepted as "normal" unless the population grows so large that something has to be done short of killing all the surplus population. In other words, "Don't ask, don't tell....and if you ask me, the answer will be 'no!'"
4. Dependence on religious icons to reinforce and help understand spirituality. Themis as "justice", blindfolded, holding scales and a sword. Christ on a cross, suffering for the sins of the world. Mary, Mother of G_d, intercessor for the humble and advocate for compassion.
5. Belief in the efficacy of military power despite its apparent failure in the second half of the twentieth century onward, for it's failure to be effective in this century is largely due to the failure of modern politicians to sustain or persevere in the pursuit of "unpopular" policies (being perceived as using force on helpless innocents...LOL! Like a poll is the best means of determining a law or a what some future policy should be)
Just my $.02
-FJ
HUMAN NEEDS In 1954, psychologist Abraham Maslow published his extensive research on human needs—work now known as the hierarchy of needs. Maslow’s thesis is that humans have five levels of need. As one level of need is met, the individual works toward meeting the next most important level. The foundational level is physiological needs, which include such survival basics as air, water, and food. The next level is safety and security—reflecting the human desire for protection and stability. Maslow divided the third level, which includes social needs, into two parts: the need to belong to a group (affiliation) and the need for acceptance, caring, and affection. Here is where I believe Maslow got it wrong. My experience and dissertation research indicate that what Maslow saw as the third level of need is in fact the level to which people give the highest precedence. During the Vietnam and Gulf wars, I saw soldiers give up, at least temporarily, physiological needs such as food, sleep, and shelter in order to accomplish their mission. I also saw them relinquish the need for safety and security, willingly putting themselves in harm’s way and risking death in order to retain their status in and acceptance by the group to which they belonged. So soldiers would pass over the first two levels of need to meet the third, social level of need. The worst thing that could be said to a soldier after a firefight was, “Where were you when the chips were down?”Soldiers depend on one another for survival, and if a soldier doesn’t pull his weight he jeopardizes the others in his unit. Not only that, but the soldier can be blackballed by the group, thereby threatening his own survival. In military situations, therefore, the need for belonging to the group and having its approval and respect takes precedence over Maslow’s first two levels of need. This principle has been reinforced by my experience at CCL. An assessment instrument called FIRO-B, used in most of CCL’s pro-grams, employs a questionnaire on which participants report their expressed and wanted needs in three categories: inclusion, control, and affection. Participants routinely give the highest scores to their desire for open and honest relationships. This indicates that people place the high-est priority on emotional connection, open and honest communication, and close, strong relationships. It also backs up my theory that the strongest human need is the need for group acceptance, affiliation, and affection. There is a simple yet profound leadership lesson here. If leaders help followers meet the need for affiliation, acceptance, appreciation, validation, approval, respect, and under-standing, there is a high probability that the organization will achieve its mission and its vision—even, or per-haps especially, when the work force is changing. THE BEDROCK OF SUCCESS The Army’s handling of its changing workforce in the post-Vietnam era was guided by enlightened leader-ship. The Army’s vision, values, imperatives, personnel selection, leadership development, and diversity—all tied together by the new appreciation for meeting basic human social needs—provide a model for civilian leaders that is filled with practical principles. Despite all the Army’s success, however, it has not completed its work. Key issues—such as recruiting and retention, women in combat, sexual harassment, and gays in the military—remain as challenges. There is little doubt, how-ever, that the Army’s evolution into an organization whose leadership treats individuals with respect, trust, and dignity will be invaluable in meeting those challenges.
Excerpt from ”Leading a Changing Workforce. Lessons From the U.S. Army” by Gene Klann of the Center for Creative Leadership , in LIA • VOLUME 21, NUMBER 3 • JULY/AUGUST 2001
I am not in total agreement with Gene Klann's statement that "Maslow got it wrong." Like most of life's judgements, assessments or values there has to be a baseline. Once that baseline has been identified it is not like a field sobriety toe the line test. There will be variances. I value human life, but I would not hesitate to kill to protect the lives of those important (starting with Big Bubba) to me.
Maslow was not writing to the military community, but rather the world at large. I do not believe that Maslow would be surprised at what Klann reported in the context of the military experience. After all Maslow was basically addressing the individual in his heirarchy of needs. Placing the individual in a team changes the dynamics.
Some of Klann's reported behaviors, in the team setting, seem predictable, not contradictory, to Maslow's theories of behavior. The variables are to be expected if not in some instances to be be encouraged. Playing to the variables, rather than being constrained by the absolutes has always been the very best trait of our military.
Duck, you need to consider the faulty nature of your favorite argument technique. You cannot argue what you say that others believe. You are essentially talking to yourself. Since you define all the parameters you delude yourself into believing that your argument prevailed. Nice try.
BB,
On Maslow (my interpretation), the "base" of his pyramid are physiological needs. Yes, we need to inhale every few seconds. We need to blink every few seconds. We need to drink every couple of hours. We need to eat three square a day. We need to sleep every 8 of 24 hours. We need to have sex every 23(male) or 28 (female) days. We need to maintain a body temperature of 97-98 degrees. It's at the base and the needs are "frequency" dependent. Most of the mental processes associated with this activity are automatically regulated in the brain without having to apply conscious thought.
The "safety" level covers basically "instinctual" needs. To dodge the oncoming obstruction. To avoid the predator or harbinger of "death". Again, one typically reacts "instinctually" and doesn't really "think" at all about this.
The "Affiliation" level has to do with fitting in with the herd. To develop "rules" and "group norms" that instruct the "superego". To learn to collectively face threats to the herd and operate "jointly". This is partly conscious, partly subconscious (repressive) thought.
The fourth is a need for achieve dominance amongst the herd. This will enhance one's mating opportunities and help deal with those "longer term" physiological needs. One is mastering the phsioplogical limitations of the body, and learning to "control" them.
The fifth is the "alpha" dominant male. Your will becomes group law. You are "above" group norms and have become the "master of your domain". You think it, the herd does it.
But regardless of where on is on Maslow's scale, for I would say that people exist on ALL FIVE LEVELS simulataneously, it would have been simpler to state that there is a mental realm that opposes the physical realm. That the "purpose" of the mental realm is to offset physiological deficiencies. And the best way to do that, is to develop both physical toughness and mental toughness, to test yourself and your your unit and acquire "confidence" and "mastery" of you and your unit's minds and bodies under all circumstances you are likely to encounter.
And so when a threat to "safety" arises, the adrenalin doesn't overwhelm you, but aids you to utilize your physiological toolset... to delay and defer satisfaction of your thirst, your hunger, your need to sleep and rest, and "extend" your periods of activity and deal with the threat.
Ancient commanders didn't worry about Maslow. When Cortez arrived in America, he burnt his ships. Why destroy the only means of "retreat"? To toughen his own soldiers mental "resolve". Horatio at the Bridge (the bridge was cut down behind him). The Spartans at Thermopylae (?) after the Persians outflanked them and got into their "rear". The Japanese in their caves at Okinawa, not surrendering.
Maslow would never have an American commander think of using these tactics. Of "pulling the rug" out from under his men's "safety" needs, thereby making his unit commit, and fight harder. Like I've hinted at before, a commander may not necessarily have a very "Christian" moral code.
And so the French Army unit under Napoleon marched with a three days ration on his person and had to "forage" for his supper.... had to "conquer" to eat, take the town or go hungry. His men typically covered 20 miles a day. The Austrians, with their wagon and supply trains, could barely make 10 miles a day.
What would have happened had Cortez NOT burned his ships. Perhaps the result would have been similar to the fate of invaders in BoB
Yes, Maslow IS useful as a reminder that a unit has physical and psychological needs. But the "goal" of somehow moving up the ladder, and that being a "good" thing, is somewhat misleading if you exist on all five levels at the same time. The "goal" should be to be able to become the "mental master" of ones physiology. To be able to act so that one's physiological needs do NOT impair or impede one's mission, to NOT become a "slave" to the body, but to make the body a slave to the determination present in the mind of the totally self-actualized commander.
And on top of all this, lies the very great possibility that one will mistake a "desire" for a "need" at the wrong time... to break the mental discipline it takes to accomplish the mission. To rape, sack, and pillage at an inopportune time... characteristics of mentally undisciplined troops.
-FJ
Sorry, bad link...
BoB
-FJ
BB,
Your "1st" link in the series was dead. You have to get through to the article "indirectly"(?).
Hopefully, you can get to it here...
Article
-FJ
PS - It's hard to believe that the U.S. Army has become a "business". Take away their massive technological edge and weapons superiority, and the modern commander would bury his unit in logistical supplies before believing himself capable of engaging his enemy. We've become the "Austrians". Sorry BB, but IMHO, this kind of political correctness is going to get a lot of people killed one day.
Farmer John, I believe that your interpretation of Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs is out of kilter. Yes, your assessment of the physiological needs is correct. The very first point of attack by those who would break the human spirit is the physiological followed closely by removing any possibility of safety. Think concentration camps, reeducation camps, pow camps, et al. When that base is attacked and destroyed it makes love of your fellow humans difficult when now you are thinking strictly about maintaining your own miserable life. Even familial love can be destroyed in weak individuals. This leads to the total collapse of self esteem. Self actualization is out of the question.
I am an Abraham Maslow true believer. I think that for awhile he worked under contract for the military. I remember well the lessons learned about Maslow’s hierarchy in the Fort Ord Drill Sergeant Academy. I also do not see any contradiction with Maslow’s theories and my Judeo-Christian beliefs.
Farmer John, the first link may well be “dead.” I didn’t check it since it is a pdf file and time consuming to check. Point. Hernan Cortez de Valle did indeed burn his ships behind him. I submit that when the U.S. 82nd (All-American) and U.S. 101st (Screaming Eagles) Airborne Divisions jumped into the night skies over France they may as well have been leaping from burning ships.
The nail in the coffin of the Austro-Hungarian Army was the multi-lingualism of their pluralistic, diverse nation. They did have a failure to communicate that proves fatal in combat.
Please go to this link to sign the petition to your State’s Senators to confirm Judge Roberts to the Supreme Court.
BB,
Yes, if you keep putting a plastic bag over a man's head every three minutes, granted, he may not be physically self-actualizing "in the moment". But he may even (in the initial stages of torture) be with-holding the desired data or being tortured as a result of NOT cooperating with the enemy. Does this mean he is not mentally "self-actualized" because he has no control over his physiology at certain times?
And when you throw him into his cell that night... he'll be in pain, he'll soil himself, but he'll dream of home, his wife, his kids, and that "trip" they took to Disneyland together. He will be totally self-actualized... until morning when the torture begins again...
Yes, his worries about having group members seeing him cooperate will "bother" him. Yes he will still identify with his fellow prisoners and wish to commisurate with them. But the hierarchical "level" on which he pyschologically exists might vary with every passing thought through his brain. But do the thoughts travel up and down the Maslow pyramid in sequence, or more "randomly"? I suspect the latter, even though it might be more desirable that they didn't.... that they stayed "focused" on the "group", once the immediate safety threat had passed. But they won't. Desires and Needs will become "confused".
And again yes, given enough torture, the enemy can turn you into his Pavlovian lap dog. But even the lap dog occassionally bites. And who knows what's going through that dog's mind?
I never said Maslow was wrong. I'm just saying it's not cut and dried as to whether the hierarchy has only five levels, and one must satisfy all the needs at the "lower" level before stepping up. It's possible to train your soldier to "occassionally" go 48 hours without sleep. Ops don't HAVE to stop after 24 or morale comes crashing down and the army comes to a grinding halt. And also, Maslow doesn't seem to address the "dangers" of mistaking a desire for a need. One needs to interpret Maslow very "loosely". His KISS approach may help certain commanders maintain their normal op tempo priorities, but it may confuse a few as well when the mortar rounds start droppin' in for the first time on his chow line. That's when you start having to "unlearn" Maslow.... as you run in search of a fox-hole. The chow can now "wait".
ps - Blucher and Wellington might disagree with your assessment of the language barrier....especially when the former arrives in Napoleon's "rear" at precisely the right moment at Waterloo.
pps - Your judeo-christian values serve you well in a democratic, technologically superior society. But if you ever find yourself in the situation the Russians faced at Stalingrad (Enemy at the Gates) could you place a Guard Battalion at the rear of some raw untrained conscripts, and herd them into battle with orders to shoot all deserters? Or would you let them break and run the moment the Germans opened fire? Or would you not use them at all and wait 12 weeks for them to receive some elementary infantry training? Or would you "surrender"?
I read 1776 a couple of weeks back. You'd be surprised how many times Washington and his generals had to advise their troops that they would personally shoot deserters (especially militia).
-FJ
BB,
82nd-ers and 101st-ers are specially trained "volunteers" that train especialy for that kind of insertion mission/challenge.
Cortez's men, I'm sure, had no idea what their crazy commander was up to, or they likely wouldn't have gone.
Green berets are "volunteers" as well.
In our affluent democratic society, our armed forces are all "volunteers". Under those circumstances, you seldom need compromise your Judeo-Christian values.
But that may not always be the case. And commanders need to know, that that will not always be the case.
-FJ
Remember, Farmer John, Maslow's Heirarchy as taught to military leaders was an interpretation of its relationship to military reality. In that context self-actualization was merely being free to do what you choose rather than only being able to do what you were obligated to do. With that simplistic standard Big Bubba feels self actualized.
Read some more about Maslow. Especially down towards the bottom about what Maslow actually was speaking of in relation to self actualization. Few truly attain the exalted standards of Maslow's self actualization. Nevertheless within the petty realities of my life I have attained about as much self actualization as I ever should hope to receive.
Maslow’s Self Actualization
Farmer John, I don't remember the exact Army Doctrine, as of as late as the sixties, concerning persons caught in the act of desertion. Obviously you would tell them to halt and return to their positions. To the best of my memory if they failed to stop and return to their positions a warning shot would be fired and they would be ordered to halt again. If that failed, you could shoot to wound.
BB,
After you've wounded your deserter, would you now tie up a medic and two stretcher bearers to treat and get your deserter to safety... or would you put those "stretcher bearers" to use moving to your new firing position and having your medic go in support of them and the rest of your unit? It seems to me that "wounding" your deserter is going to make your tactical situation a little more "difficult" unless you leave him for your enemy to deal with. I doubt you're going to let your wounded subordinate retain his weapon and try and get him to assist you after once you've already shot him once. Where did you wound him, by the way? Arm? Shoulder? Leg? Back?
And why was he deserting? Did his need for "safety" overcome his need for "group affiliation"? Was "his" a problem of "need identification" or "need Mis-identification"? Why did the deserter "fail" in properly identifying his REAL "needs"? Didn't HE read Maslow?
And given your definition of self-actualized... being able to choose what you want to do... you probably don't want many "self-actualized" soldiers in your unit. They may choose to go AWOL and desert in the very moment you "need" their support. The self-actualized don't "take" orders. They "give" them.
Napoleon himself was self-actualized only to the extent that he didn't "need" to conquer Europe. Like the Prussians, Austrians, Italians, Russians, and Brits were going to leave him be...
BB is self-actualized only so long as he "chooses" to limit his action to those permissible by law. Was President Clinton more self-actualized than BB, since he was free to "take" whatever women he wanted for himself?
In the link you provided, Maslow himself states that self-actualization only "really" happens to the "very young". Perhaps that is because they don't have any "thoughts" for anything other than themselves. Terry Schiavo must have been "self-actualized" to Maslow.
He then contradicts himself and says that "Lincoln" and "Jefferson" were self-actualized and that 2% of the population can achieve it. He then states that if someone actually were self-actualized, they would achieve stasis, and never move again...
Self-actualization sounds like another name for "wisdom"... but unfortunately it's a kind of wisdom that "believes" that "truth" and "justice" can be the same thing i.e. (one person's "life in prison" is the equivalent of another person's "being murdered").
Does "Eastern Mysticism" belong in Science or does it suffer from a certain "truth deficiency"?
-FJ
Ooops,
Re-reading the article, Maslow states that the very young "Rarely" achieve self-actualization... it was Rogers who thought that "babies" achieved it.
Maslow is an attempt at defining "wisdom". And any wisdom that equates "needs" with "desires" and "truth" with "justice" is bound to fail. I wonder if Ghengis Khan was self-actualized in Maslow's mind?
-FJ
Farmer John, I did not say that I would shoot to wound. I said that was the doctrine. I would shoot to kill without further discussion or a vote. I cannot recall any recorded incidents in the U.S. Army where discipline broke down so badly that men would throw down their weapons and run. Runners do not carry a heavy weapon. They run.
On a totally unrelated side note one of the fun things I have done in my lifetime was taking down a psychotic armed with an M-16 on our Korean DMZ compound. The thought did occur to me to use my pistol on him, but, we felt an obligation to take him down uninjured other than his beating. Just joking. We took the lad out and sent him far, far away for medical treatment.
Was your mother frightened by someone named Maslow when you were in the womb? My simplistic definition of self actualization was the wherewithal to do as one pleases. Let me make two points about that concept. Point one is that while one is fulfilling one's obligation of Duty, Honor, Country the ability to do as you please will be limited, for most of us. Point Two, on a more complex level let’s consider Maslow's definition of self actualization of certain elite individuals. General Douglas MacArthur may well have been one of Dr. Maslow's twelve study subjects, living but unnamed at the time of his study, that he thought had achieved self actualization. Hence the author of the famous "Duty, Honor, Country" statement would be self actualized while fulfilling those obligations.
I see no contradiction between a simplistic interpretation of Maslow versus the actual complexities of his theory of the Hierarchy of Human Needs. Look at the wide interpretations of “a ride.” Everything from a go kart to a Cadillac. You can sit in any one of the numerous interpretations and ride from point A to point B. Some will never ride in a Cadillac and others never will ride in a go kart yet all arrive at point B.
BB,
Actually, I earned a "gentleman's C" in my undergraduate "Leadership 101" course and still haven't regained my self-esteem... hence the origin of my "need" to attack Maslow.
Good points and I agree for the most part. But let me once again stretch the analogy a bit. Let us say that some US government officials decide that every person "needs" personal transportation, and in our increasingly socialist system, a "right" to one. (From each according to his ability, and to each according to his Need). Is the government going to provide "volks-wagons" for everyone, and will they more closely resemble go-karts or Cadillacs? Don't people's rides "need" heat? air conditioning? Tunes? Power Steering? Air bags? Side-impact air bags? Satellite Nav? GPS? Fuzzy dashboards? Rear-view-mirror Fuzzy Dice? Organ pipe speakers? Built in refrigerators? Neon running lights?
Or will Hitler's stripped 1930's love-bug do?
How much does a modern GI's backpack weigh today? How much of THAT is based upon his "need"?
Duty, Honor, Country. Are these sacred concepts REAL-WORLD "need" based? Or are they "noble" for other reasons?
I gotta run for the rest of the afternoon... but as the man once said, "I'll be back."
-FJ
Farmer John, you need a lot of work to upgrade that C. We need to try and work on limiting your widely off the mark tangents and narrow our focus.
I also must run for the rest of the afternoon. The former Little Ms. Bubbette has already become enraged at Big Bubba and wanted to postpone the wedding until March. Now she wants me to talk about the events leading up to her enragement. Will this woman ever leave me alone?
Cephalus: How well I remember the aged poet Sophocles, when in answer to the question, how does love suit age, Sophocles--are you still the man you were?
Sophocles: Peace, most gladly have I escaped the thing of which you speak; I feel as if I had escaped from a mad and furious master.
Cephalus observed: His words have often occurred to my mind since, and they seem as good to me now as in the time when he uttered them. For certainly old age has a great sense of calm and freedom; when the passions relax their hold, then, as Sophocles says, we are freed from the grasp of one mad master only, but of many. The truth is, Socrates, that these regrets, and also the complaints about relations, are to be attributed to the same cause, which is not old age, but men's characters and tempers; for he who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden.
Big Bubba: Alas, and alack, will it ever be possible to explain these thoughts to the former Little Ms. Bubbette? The calm and happy nature of my youth has indeed carried over into my anecdotage, but, that same happy nature is under serious assault by that woman.
BB,
A few “mixed” thoughts from Emerson and Plato…
“Beauty.
Was never form and never face
So sweet to SEYD as only grace
Which did not slumber like a stone
But hovered gleaming and was gone.
Beauty chased he everywhere,
In flame, in storm, in clouds of air.
He smote the lake to feed his eye
With the beryl beam of the broken wave;
He flung in pebbles well to hear
The moment's music which they gave.
Oft pealed for him a lofty tone
From nodding pole and belting zone.
He heard a voice none else could hear
From centred and from errant sphere.
The quaking earth did quake in rhyme,
Seas ebbed and flowed in epic chime.
In dens of passion, and pits of wo,
He saw strong Eros struggling through,
To sun the dark and solve the curse,
And beam to the bounds of the universe.
While thus to love he gave his days
In loyal worship, scorning praise,
How spread their lures for him, in vain,
Thieving Ambition and paltering Gain!
He thought it happier to be dead,
To die for Beauty, than live for bread.”
"I listened in admiration, and wanting to draw him out, that he might go on --Yes, Cephalus, I said: but I rather suspect that people in general are not convinced by you when you speak thus; they think that old age sits lightly upon you, not because of your happy disposition, but because you are rich, and wealth is well known to be a great comforter.
You are right, he replied; they are not convinced: and there is something in what they say; not, however, so much as they imagine. I might answer them as Themistocles answered the Seriphian who was abusing him and saying that he was famous, not for his own merits but because he was an Athenian: 'If you had been a native of my country or I of yours, neither of us would have been famous.' And to those who are not rich and are impatient of old age, the same reply may be made; for to the good poor man old age cannot be a light burden, nor can a bad rich man ever have peace with himself."
Farmer John suspects that convincing the former Mrs. that you have changed, but not changed, will be an extremely difficult task, for in the 1st round of the Bubbiliad…
“We say, love is blind, and the figure of Cupid is drawn with a bandage round his eyes. Blind: — yes, because he does not see what he does not like; but the sharpest-sighted hunter in the universe is Love, for finding what he seeks, and only that; and the mythologists tell us, that Vulcan was painted lame, and Cupid blind, to call attention to the fact, that one was all limbs, and the other, all eyes. In the true mythology, Love is an immortal child, and Beauty leads him as a guide: nor can we express a deeper sense than when we say, Beauty is the pilot of the young soul.”
Farmer John believes the former Mrs. wants to go in more “scientifically”, and with her eyes “open”this time. He only hopes that in doing so, she does not close her mind to “beauty”, to be lead like an immortal child.
…and on another topic…
“The Greeks fabled that Venus was born of the foam of the sea. Nothing interests us which is stark or bounded, but only what streams with life, what is in act or endeavor to reach somewhat beyond.”
Farmer John feels that since Maslow felt no compulsion to limit human "need", he feels no compulsion to limit his criticism of him. Perhaps Zeus, lord of limits and just boundaries can help FJ settle his dispute with Malsow, but I doubt that anyone else can. Defining life and wisdom in terms of unlimited need strikes FJ’s nose with an scent of "socialism" and "determinism" and its odor weighs upon his belief in the exercise of free will. Maslow would not let FJ attain such a status of “self-actualization” until he had completed Maslow’s "program" of need fulfillment, whereas FJ always thought he had a capacity for exercising it much earlier in the process.
“Beauty rides on a lion. Beauty rests on necessities. The line of beauty is the result of perfect economy. The cell of the bee is built at that angle which gives the most strength with the least wax; the bone or the quill of the bird gives the most alar strength, with the least weight. "It is the purgation of superfluities," said Michel Angelo. There is not a particle to spare in natural structures. There is a compelling reason in the uses of the plant, for every novelty of color or form: and our art saves material, by more skilful arrangement, and reaches beauty by taking every superfluous ounce that can be spared from a wall, and keeping all its strength in the poetry of columns. In rhetoric, this art of omission is a chief secret of power, and, in general, it is proof of high culture, to say the greatest matters in the simplest way.”
FJ see’s notes the absence of beauty's lines in Maslow’s theories.
From JFK's inaugural address...
"To those new States whom we welcome to the ranks of the free, we pledge our word that one form of colonial control shall not have passed away merely to be replaced by a far more iron tyranny. We shall not always expect to find them supporting our view. But we shall always hope to find them strongly supporting their own freedom—and to remember that, in the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside."
Methinks Maslow's theory resides in the tiger's belly.
-FJ
Farmer John, what you don't know is that the former Little Bubbette and I have never really parted company. We have always been best friends.
I did ponder on, "they think that old age sits lightly upon you, not because of your happy disposition, but because you are rich, and wealth is well known to be a great comforter."
The thought about wealth's possible contribution to happiness gave me pause. I have been blessed with very comfortable circumstances. When I start to draw social security I will also officially retire from Federal Service. My comfort at that point in time will almost seem obscene for someone non-productive. I think G-d for the provision of his bounty in my life. I know the source of joy that eases my anecdotage. It is truly the joy of my salvation,
Psalm 51:12 (NIV) Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
BB
Then there should be less questions and regrets, for it sounds as if you both have seen and experience the same vision of beauty now. It's a shame people can't sometimes drink of the cup of "forgetfullness" about certain events and start afresh.
And I didn't mean to "imply" anything about "wealth" specifically, so much as state that your life-long happy disposition originates in the virtues of your character, the beauty which guides your life, and that not all people share that same (or have a "fixed") vision of that beauty (some weigh wealth or ambition more highly), and that the former Mrs. might have held some "other" "quality" in her vision of beauty in "higher" esteem... and/or visa versa. In other words... your visions got out-of-sync.
Besides, every individual's life has its tyrannies, monarchies, aristocracies, oligarchies, timocracies, democracies...and then one reaches the "family" or "mid-life" and the "cycle" CAN (but doesn't have to if the vision can be "fixed") begin to "repeat". Like states, we destined to be born and to die "tyrants" and are constantly subjected to the forces of "change".
Only a shared vision of "beauty" can intercede at some earlier stage like "timocracy" and keep the it from degenerating into a democracy and keep Ixion's wheel from completing her "revolution. If it doesn't, the cycle immediately repeats as democracy moves directly to tyranny (as your 1st "divorce" might have represented the completion of one revolution of Ixion's wheel).
So it goes with the life of nations. So it goes with the lives of individuals. (Plato, "Republic" - with minor alts on Ixion's wheel being able to "stop" or be "delayed").
That your service to self and country merits "wealth" and some "provision" for your anectdotage speaks well of the remaining virtues of our Republic. Virtue may be its' own reward, but in a virtuous "state", it should also BE rewarded.
Only I would rather see them reward you with "very public honors" and "more responsible civic duties" than curse you with superfluous "wealth"... for I would wish others to follow and emulate your example, and not lose the services of an honorable "statesman" and role model.
And I would fear that the wealth might become a "corrupting" influence on your children.
-FJ
BB,
Reading your comments to mr. ducky about public "honors", which both you and your father disdained... if your examples are not honored, then it will be "other" examples that will be held up. Michael Jackson. Brittany Spears. Snoop Dog.
You don't have to "want" them. You certainly should never have to "write your own citation". But you should HAVE to accept the "triumphs" held in your honor and the new duties and responsibilities that come with it.
It isn't FOR you that honor is bestowed... it's for THEM. You already have it... THEY need it. Or more coorectly, THEY need the "inspiration" of it.
-FJ
What greed? What hubris, Mr. Ducky? I served my country for seventeen years and left military service in poor health. I don't deserve something? I have a newsflash for you genius. Tinker around with VA benefits and you will find yourself attempting to defend Boston with your .50 caliber without a standing Army. The benefits are not so much for me as to show all the young heroes that Uncle Sam will take care of them should they become damaged goods. No one is going to sacrifice for a government that doesn't care "for those who bore the brunt of battle."
As for my disability retirement from the government I don't know what to tell you. Most major employees have such a plan for their employees. Would I somehow be more noble after serving my government for twenty-nine years if I were to spurn my governments care and money? Is that what you would do oh noble one?
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