John Gray, dalam bukunya “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” menjelaskan berbagai sebab apa yg terjadi antara Pria dan Wanita. Di buku ini digambarin pria yang berbeda asal-usulnya dengan wanita. Ilustrasinya adl, pria sebagai Martians (makhluk Mars), dan Wanita sebagai Venusians (makhluk Venus). Mereka hidup normal di planet mereka masing-masing, sampai ketika seorang Martians melihat seorang Venusians melalui teropong (gile teropongnya pasti canggih abis, bisa ngeliat orang di planet laen ).

Cuman sekilas ngintip dari lensa teropong canggih tsb, timbul perasaan yang gabisa diungkapkan dengan kata2 (halah dangdut! ). Intinya para Martians jatuh cinta dan langsung bermigrasi ke Venus buat ketemu langsung ama Venusians. Disana, mereka hidup bahagia dan harmonik layaknya Galih dan Ratna di lagunya D’Cinammons.

“Though from different worlds, they reveled in their differences”

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Oke guys! itu pembukaan yang cukup serius, and gw ngerasa ga nyaman bacanya saking seriusnya hahahahaha gw cuma mw nekenin di quote-nya : “Though from different worlds, they reveled in
their differences“.

.

.

What kind of “differences“ ?

Salah satu perbedaan itulah yg akan gw tunjukin di komik singkat di bawah ini.

Firstly, gambar ini bukan gw yg bikin, gw nemu di internet tepatnya disini.

Kesamaan nama tokoh, sifat, kelakuan, dan tingkah laku dengan yang sebenarnya hanyalah kebetulan semata heheheheee

Oke langsung aja disimak

*repost from Kaskus

One of the most encouraging books that I have read on marriage and relationships is by the best-selling author Gary Smalley, who has  sold millions of videos on how to strengthen our vital relationships.  John Gray, the well-known author of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, comments: “If you want a lasting love relationship, I highly recommend Gary Smalley’s guide to forever love”.

One of the keys to his memorable books is that Gary teaches you how to fall in love with life all over again.  Everything he writes has to do with the age-old struggle between the life-giving principle of honour and the life-draining emotion of destructive anger.  The average person, says Smalley, has little or no idea how damaging that forgotten or ignored anger can be.  Worse yet, most people don’t even know how much destructive anger they have buried inside, much like unexploded landmines left in the middle eastern sands.  Once buried, our anger does its worst damage, wreaking havoc on our physical and emotional well-being.  Facing our anger is indispensable to Making Love Last Forever.

Anger, says Smalley, is a secondary emotion, not a primary feeling.  It arises out of fear, frustration, hurt, or some combination of these three.  Anger is actually a coping strategy to attempt to banish fear from our lives.  Sometimes our parents have non-verbally taught us that perfect anger casts out all fear, when the truth is that only perfect love casts out all fear.

Smalley comments that anger can be thought of as a sticky, bad-smelling dangerous substance that can be compressed and stuffed into something like a spray can.  Angry people tend to go around spraying their anger on other people.  The spray is felt by others as meanness, insensitivity, and general offensiveness.  Most angry people have no idea that their angry spray stings others like hydrochloric acid.  Unresolved anger is the No. 1 enemy of Making Love Last Forever.

Some of us as men pride ourselves that we are not as other husbands, who physically beat up their wives in drunken rages.  Yet even if our anger never turns violent or illegal, unresolved anger can still prove destructive.  All of us want to feel connected in our primary relationships.  But one of the most common results of deep anger is relational distance, an unwillingness and inability to let others get close.  It is as if we are living inside a relational box of thick plate glass.  Yet we keep wondering as men why our wives won’t become more intimate.

Unresolved anger, says Smalley, is not only destructive to our families.  It is also destructive to our personal health. Many of the backaches, neckaches, and headaches that send us complaining to our GPs are actually the outworking of buried anger.  Anger studies were done on medical doctors and lawyers over a 25 year period.  By the age of fifty, only 4 percent of the low-ranked easy-going lawyers and 2 percent of the doctors had died.  Lawyers who had ranked high on anger had a 20 percent mortality rate;  doctors 14 percent.  Studies are also showing that angry people are more susceptible to heart attacks – the leading cause of death in North America.  Hostile anger can boost heart rates, raise blood pressure and lead to increased clogging of the arteries.  What’s worse, says Smalley, is that the risk of heart attack seems to be greatly increased during the two hours following a bout with anger.

Why do we get angry anyways?  Smalley suggests that we get angry because either someone is taking something away from us that we don’t want to lose, or else we’re being denied something we want to gain.  By facing and grieving our losses, we break the power of anger to make our lives miserable.

Part of healthy grieving is the willingness to lay aside bitterness, the willingness to say like Jesus: “Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing.”  Another key to grieving, says Smalley, is to search for “hidden pearls” in any offense committed against you.  The idea here is that some good can come out of any bad situation – if you’ll just look for it.  That’s why the Good Book says that all things work for the good for those who love the Lord.  Grieving our losses is an irreplaceable key in Making Love Last Forever.

I recently watched a most disturbing and enlightening movie entitled “The Field”.  It was about an Irish farmer who dedicated his life to providing for his family’s future.  But again and again his anger rose up to destroy everything and everyone that he loved.  Given my Irish heritage,  it was a strong warning to me that I had to face the anger in my life, or it would one day destroy me.

Unresolved anger can cripple us in so many ways.  Anger keeps us distant from the very people we want to care for.  In contrast, love builds bridges of trust and forgiveness.  Sometimes anger even keeps us distant from God himself.  Smalley has found that the greater the unresolved anger, the more difficulty that person has in developing a meaningful spiritual life.  Studies after studies are confirming that a healthy spiritual life in a marriage reduces divorce rates, increases marital satisfaction, and lowers the level of relational conflict.

My prayer for those reading this article is that each of us may discover the keys to Making Love Last Forever.

The Reverend Ed Hird

Rector, St. Simon’s Church, North Vancouver

Anglican Coalition in Canada

http://www3.telus.net/st_simons

-previously published in the Deep Cove Crier

-author of the award-winning book Battle for the Soul of Canada

http://www.battleforthesoulofcanada.blogspot.com

Oprah Winfrey: Stock Photo 2004

What in the world will we do without the Oprah Winfrey Show?

As with any long-term relationship, the notion that the “party is over” can bring a pain that is not easily accepted.

I spent all of my teens with Oprah.  Watching every show and trying to tape the ones I knew I was going to miss.  I do believe her show topics and the people she had on her show led me to make the decision to live a better life.

There was Donohue that I watched, too and Gerardo and Jerry Springer (when he was legit)…I watched Dinah Shore, too, when I was a wee bitty…

But, no other woman on TV has had an impact on my life as Oprah has.

From “The Color Purple” with Madame Whoopi to “The Women Of Brewster Place” to everything that Oprah touched.

She had folks like Dr. Phil, Dr. Iyanla Van Zant, Gary Zukav, John Gray and the “He Just Not That Into You” guy, Greg Behrendt…and host of others.

Oprah made or broke a career…yes, she did…Yes, she can. (Wink, wink!)

Is she really leaving her infamous Oprah Winfrey Show?

Is the party really over?

Well, time will honestly tell if she may add just one more year…

But if she doesn’t, she will be sorely missed and never forgotten.  The legacy that a poor, obese, abused black woman left on the world is so profound that I don’t understand how anyone can ever doubt themselves and what they can accomplish in their lives.

Oprah was desinted to be nothing…a nobody, but her drive and determination led her above and beyond ever her own expectations, I suspect.

Bravo, Oprah, bravo!

Encore!

“After much prayer, and months of careful thought, I’ve decided that next season — Season 25 — will be the last season of ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show,’” Winfrey said Friday. “And over the next couple of days, you may hear a lot of speculation in the press about why I am making this decision now, and that will mostly be conjecture. So I wanted you to hear this directly from me.

Read the rest here!

 

El post anterior ha suscitado muchos y muy interesantes comentarios, y mi respuesta se ha ido alargando tanto (y a la vez retrasando, porque he tenido poco tiempo para escribir) que finalmente la he convertido en otro post: éste. Lo he reescrito para que sea legible por sí mismo, pero he mantenido algunas alusiones, en negrita, a los comentaristas a los que respondía (sin intentar ser tampoco exhaustivo en las menciones).

*

Resumiendo: John Gray defiende que los humanos somos sólo otra especie animal, y yo señalo que tal visión tiene consecuencias de largo alcance, y bastante sombrías.

El primer comentario, de Alberto de Francisco me llevaba la contraria en mi pesimismo. Puedo entender su postura. Es posible que en primera instancia no nos afecte que la ciencia diga que no tenemos libre albedrío, o que no hay tal cosa como la “dignidad” o los “derechos”. Al fin y al cabo, tampoco pasó gran cosa cuando Darwin dijo que descendíamos del mono, a pesar de que algunos agoreros tradicionalistas seguro que advirtieron que asumir tal cosa supondría “el fin de toda moralidad”, como he dicho yo aquí en relación a las ideas de Gray. Así que tendré que argumentar con cuidado y desde el principio, para que no se me acuse de ser…, yo que sé, un paternalista, un  autoritario, un personaje anclado en 1880… (huy, que ya lo han dicho ).

Se suele presentar la historia de la ciencia como un sucesivo destronamiento del hombre: primero le quitamos del centro del universo (Copérnico), luego deja de ser el rey de la creación (Darwin), finalmente deja de ser un hombre racional y pasa a estar gobernado por el inconsciente (Freud). Esta historia es muy simplista. El centro del universo era para los antiguos el peor lugar de la creación, y como ya expliqué, nadie vivió el heliocentrismo en su día como un destronamiento. Tampoco fue mayoritaria la reacción histérica contra Darwin: casi enseguida hubo clérigos dispuestos a ver la evolución como una manera de actuar de Dios. Y en cuanto a Freud…bueno, en realidad no tardó mucho en ser evidente que eso no era ciencia sino literatura.

Así que hasta ahora nos hemos podido mantener cómodos en nuestra autoimagen, con reajustes si se quiere, pero manteniendo lo esencial. Por ejemplo: somos animales, vale, pero no sólo somos animales. Tenemos autoconciencia, racionalidad, somos responsables… y al final por esa vía acabamos justificando una visión que tiene en lo fundamental las mismas consecuencias prácticas, en cuanto a la ética, la legalidad, etc, que la concepción cristiana tradicional.

Ahora creo que es distinto. La neurociencia y la psicología cognitiva son mucho más científicas que el psicoanálisis. Y parece que nos están diciendo que el papel de nuestro yo consciente es mínimo, que no hay libre albedrío y, en definitiva, que esos rasgos peculiarmente humanos que nos daban el estatus único (que nos había conferido inicialmente la religión) son una ilusión. Esto es mucho más fuerte que decir que descendemos del mono, porque habla de nosotros, no de nuestros tatarabuelos.

Tenemos a una tropa de divulgadores a la Punset presentando esto como si fuera un simpático descubrimiento que nos va a hacer incluso mejores de lo que somos. Pero si realmente estas ideas llegan a ser la visión generalizada de lo que es la condición humana, no creo que las consecuencias vayan a ser nada buenas.

Todos vivimos a la vez en varios esquemas del mundo diferentes: uno científico, otro legal, otro personal, otro religioso… Entre ellos puede haber ciertas incoherencias, pero esa idea de que no somos sólo animales es el cemento que las mantiene unidas. Si se acepta que, como dice Gray, ésto es un espejismo, tal coherencia es también ilusoria. Por poner un ejemplo, todo nuestro sistema legal se basa en que hay una diferencia cualitativa absoluta entre las personas y los animales, algo que sería incompatible con la ciencia.

Puede replicarse que tampoco pasaría nada en la práctica, porque, como dice Alberto de Francisco, “la mayoría vive de acuerdo a sus convicciones sin buscar más argumentos”, y, por ejemplo, nos basta tener la ilusión de libre albedrío, porque al fin y al cabo vivimos dentro de esa ilusión. Con esto no estoy de acuerdo. Es cierto que al principio no pasa nada porque vivamos según varios sistemas incongruentes. No se va a desintegrar la sociedad por ese motivo, ni siquiera en una generación o dos. Pero la historia de las ideas demuestra que tienen vida propia y esa dinámica propia tiene una exigencia de coherencia. A la larga esa incongruencia no puede mantenerse, y unos esquemas van afectando a los otros. No tanto porque se busque conscientemente una síntesis coherente como porque hay rozamientos mutuos. Son como guijarros que de vez en cuando van, inevitablemente, encontrándose, chocando en la corriente, de modo que todos van limando sus asperezas, pero no todos por igual: los más duros van erosionando a los más blandos. La ciencia es uno de los guijarros más duros, y probablemente convertiría en polvo a los demás.

Es cierto que podemos encontrar razones científicas para avalar un código moral “razonable”. Como dice josele, si en una sociedad todos los “actores” tienen información perfecta, lo mejor es cooperar. El altruismo puede explicarse así, pero hay un fallo. Lo mejor, ¿para quien? Para la especie en conjunto, quizá, pero no para mí. En el momento en el que me doy cuenta de que esa moral (como proponen muchos psicólogos evolucionistas) es un “truco” de los genes para propagarse, ya no tengo por qué hacerles caso. Es decir, tal imperativo biológico valdrá para un individuo no autoconsciente, pero si esa es la única base de la moral, no tiene ninguna fuerza coercitiva para mí, que voy a pegarme la gran vida siendo un gorrón (free rider). Por no pasar a casos en los que lo que el imperativo biológico impondría sería eliminar a los tarados, a los que ya no pueden valerse por sí mismos, etc.

En definitiva, la única moral que podría salir de la ciencia no tiene fuerza para obligar a los individuos autoconscientes, y además seguramente propondría la eugenesia y otras cosas que me parecen (a mí por lo menos) muy feas.

Mi idea es que la única moral satisfactoria es la que incorpora la idea de lo sagrado. Todavía tal idea pervive en nuestra sociedad, aunque esté muy secularizada, y subyace al espíritu de nuestro sistema legal. Por ejemplo, la Constitución Española dice (Art. 10) que la dignidad de la persona y los derechos inviolables que le son inherentes son el fundamento del orden político. Hablar de que hay derechos inviolables es decir que hay un territorio sagrado en las personas.

Pero el cientifismo que afirma que nuestra diferencia con los animales es sólo de grado y no de cualidad no es compatible con esto. Por ejemplo, hace poco Steven Pinker publicaba un artículo titulado The stupidity of dignity, diligentemente recogido en richarddawkins.net, cuyo contenido se resume bastante bien por su título (para ser justos, hay que señalar que no pretende tirar por la borda toda la moral, sino basarla en el concepto alternativo de autonomía personal; algo que sólo tienen, me temo, los adultos en una cierta franja de edades…). Pinker no hace más que desarrollar el punto de vista cientifista: puesto que el concepto de dignidad no aparece en la ciencia, tal concepto no es más una ilusión, un fenómeno de la percepción humana como la aparente profundidad que percibimos al ver dibujadas dos líneas convergentes. Para mí, Pinker ilustra cómo el cientifismo es incompatible con el concepto de lo sagrado y si se acepta (recodemos el choque de guijarros), a la larga lo reducirá a polvo.

¿Por qué creo que una moral satisfactoria necesita que haya cosas sagradas? Porque una moral tiene que tener la fuerza para obligar, incluso incondicionalmente. De otro modo, siempre encontraremos razones para hacer lo que nos conviene, autoconvenciéndonos de que en realidad lo hacemos por pura magnanimidad. Nuestra sofistería fabrica un nudo gordiano imposible de desenredar. La mejor manera de cortarlo de un tajo es introducir un elemento inviolable, sagrado.

Necesitamos un cortafuegos para nuestros autoengaños y por eso no creo que una ética utilitarista pueda ser funcional socialmente. Es imposible ser objetivo pesando beneficios y perjuicios. Lo único que conseguiríamos es una espiral de agravios. Curiosamente, el artículo de la Constitución que citaba antes lo reconoce implícitamente, al decir que esos derechos inviolables (=sagrados) de los que habla no sólo son el fundamento del orden político sino de la paz social.

¿Implica esto que la moral deba ser necesariamente religiosa? En sentido estricto, por supuesto que no. No hace falta ninguna religión para afirmar que la vida es sagrada, por ejemplo (y de hecho, un ateo como Fernando Savater ha reivindicado muchas veces la necesidad de lo sagrado). Pero sí que hay que reconocer que la idea de que la vida es sagrada es religiosa en origen, y más en concreto, cristiana (al menos, es cristiana la generalización de esa sacralidad a todos los seres humanos). Podemos aceptarla sin aceptar el cristianismo, pero en ese caso se convierte en un axioma en vez de ser un teorema. En el cristianismo, es una verdad que queda en el núcleo, protegida por un cinturón de otras verdades. En el humanismo laico, está en primera línea, más vulnerable. Como un gen en un cromosoma sin telómeros. Quizá por eso Gray califica al humanismo laico de religión “más inversímil aún” que el cristianismo.

Todo esto es, en cierto modo, una reducción al absurdo del cientifismo, como bien ha advertido instan. Reducción al absurdo pragmática, no lógica, claro está. Porque aunque a lo mejor el cientifismo tiene a la larga consecuencias muy desagradables, eso no implicaría lógicamente su falsedad.

*

Esta conclusión parece evidente, pero quizá no lo es tanto. El cientifismo es la pretensión de que el único conocimiento válido es el científico. Pero, ¿qué significa válido? Solemos asumir que significa “ajustado a la realidad”, y entendemos que es la propia ciencia la que suministra los criterios para verificar tal ajuste. Pero al hacerlo así, estamos aceptando unas reglas del juego puestas por la propia ciencia. Y eso es hacer trampa. Si vamos a juzgar la validez de todo tipo de conocimientos, deberíamos definir “validez” con un criterio más primario, uno que no fuera partidista.

Sugerir esto puede parecer irracional si, como suele hacerse, se confunden ciencia y racionalidad. Pero no toda la racionalidad es científica, ni la ciencia es enteramente racional. Si nos libramos de ese prejuicio, que ya es una forma de cientifismo, podemos definir la validez de un conocimiento de una forma genérica y trivialmente sencilla:

Un conocimiento es válido si es un conocimiento que vale

Es decir, el criterio primario de validez de un conocimiento es que funcione. El conocimiento se justifica por sus resultados más que por el procedimiento por el que se ha obtenido. Dicho con una expresión célebre: por sus frutos los conoceréis.

Naturalmente, sería muy conveniente poder predecir que un conocimiento va a ser válido antes de tener que ensayar sus resultados, y por eso tenemos mucho interés en elaborar procedimientos que produzcan esos conocimientos válidos con ciertas garantías. Por ejemplo, cuando se trata de conocimientos fácticos sobre el mundo externo, sabemos que la ciencia da buenos resultados. Este éxito de la ciencia es muy alentador, pero no debemos poner el carro delante de los bueyes: la ciencia es válida porque funciona, no funciona porque sea válida. La primera es una afirmación de sentido común, la segunda es una petición de principio metafísica (otra cosa es que el éxito de la ciencia sea sugerente sobre cual es la estructura del mundo).

Cuando pasamos del conocimiento del mundo externo al conocimiento sobre nosotros mismos es cuando nuestro criterio de validez muestra su potencia. Hay muchas concepciones del hombre. Unas quizá parecen más científicas que otras. Pero el auténtico criterio no es ese, sino cuales dan mejores resultados. Cuales hacen la vida más plena, cuales hacen la convivencia mejor, cuales, por el contrario, llevan a la desesperación… Científicamente, el conductismo de Watson y Skinner parecía impecable, pero sus resultados fueron un desastre: no es válido. El marxismo era el “socialismo científico”. Fue un espantoso fracaso: no vale. Científicamente, el concepto de “dignidad” es un mito, pero hace la vida mejor. Luego es válido. Etcétera: por sus frutos los conoceréis.

(Incidentalmente, este criterio arroja luz sobre la cuestión de si sólo somos animales. Puede que la ciencia no detecte ninguna diferencia cualitativa entre nuestra constitución y la de los simios, pero no hay más que mirar a nuestros frutos y a los suyos para encontrar que son cualitativamente muy distintos. No hace falta mayor análisis para concluir que, por mucho que “entre un chimpancé y un ser humano no haya más de un 1% de diferencia en el material genético”, como recordaba Ozanúnest, no somos sólo chimpancés)

De acuerdo con este criterio, la reducción al absurdo pragmática del la visión del mundo de Gray (y más en general, el cientifismo) que intenté hacer arriba implicaría realmente su falsedad. Sostener lo contrario sería un empecinamiento a lo fiat iustitia, pereat mundus. Un empecinamiento muy metafísico y muy poco científico.

*

NOTA: Antes de que se me acuse de que estoy confundiendo verdad con conveniencia, intentaré repasar a William James, a ver cómo se defendió él .

¿Qué hacemos con todo esto?, decía al final del post anterior. Es decir, ¿qué hace uno después de que John Gray haya demolido todos nuestros valores en Perros de paja? No parece que uno pueda simplemente cerrar el libro y pasar a otra cosa.

Hay aspectos en los que Gray me parece particularmente lúcido. Especialmente, al señalar que, bajo su máscara, el progresismo secular no es más que otra religión, y una que requiere más fe que las tradicionales. Y que puede ser más nociva, al hacerse una imagen del hombre singularmente alejada de su verdadera naturaleza, que tiene poco de racional (es el tema del fracaso de la ilustración, del que hablaba aquí hace no mucho).

También son memorables muchas observaciones sobre el mundo actual, como ésta:

Los días en que la agricultura dominaba la economía hace tiempo que pasaron. Los de la industria casi han acabado. La vida económica no está ya dirigida primordialmente a la producción. ¿A qué está dirigida entonces? A la distracción.

El capitalismo contemporáneo es prodigiosamente productivo, pero el imperativo que lo mueve no es la productividad. Es mantener a raya el aburrimiento. Donde la prosperidad es la regla, la principal amenaza es la falta de deseo. Con las apetencias tan rápidamente saciadas, la economía pronto viene a depender de la manufactura de necesidades cada vez más exóticas.

Lo nuevo no es que la prosperidad dependa de estimular la demanda. Es que no pueda continuar sin inventar nuevos vicios. El motor de la economía es un imperativo de perpetua novedad, y su salud ha llegado a depender de la manufactura de la transgresión. El espectro que nos persigue es la superabundancia –no sólo de bienes físicos, sino de experiencias que han palidecido. Las nuevas experiencias se quedan obsoletas antes incluso que los nuevos productos.

Sin embargo, el libro me ha parecido, a la postre, fallido. Porque es a la vez demasiado radical y poco radical. Demasiado radical parece obvio: ya hemos visto que no deja títere con cabeza. ¿Por qué poco radical? Porque tras demoler todas nuestras certezas y proclamar que los valores religiosos, humanistas, tradicionalistas o progresistas son igualmente inanes, Gray parece renunciar a sacar las consecuencias. Y el libro, que debería terminar con una traca final en la que estallara toda la dinamita que ha esparcido por sus páginas, acaba en tono menor, not with a bang but a whimper:

Otros animales no necesitan un propósito en su vida. El animal humano, una contradicción en sí mismo, no puede prescindir de él. ¿No podemos pensar que el objeto de la vida es simplemente mirar?

A mi esto me parece escurrir el bulto. Gray ha descubierto que no sólo Dios es un espejismo, como dice Dawkins, sino que todos nuestros valores lo son igualmente. Pero tal descubrimiento, si llega al gran público, supondría el fin de toda moralidad, y seguramente la vuelta a la ley de la selva (algo muy apropiado, si realmente somos sólo animales). Una cuestión que debería abordar, entonces, es: ¿este peligroso conocimiento puede hacerse público, o debe mantenerse en secreto, confinado a un círculo de iniciados, los herederos del Gran Inquisidor de Dostoievski?

Gray parece que va a aludir a ello al final del segundo capítulo:

Los antiguos filósofos buscaban la tranquilidad de espíritu a la vez que decían buscar la verdad. Quizá nosotros deberíamos ponernos un objetivo diferente: descubrir qué espejismos podemos dejar atrás y cuales no podremos nunca eliminar. Seguiremos siendo buscadores de la verdad, más aún que en el pasado, pero renunciaremos a la esperanza de una vida sin espejismos. Por tanto, nuestro objetivo será identificar nuestros espejismos invencibles. ¿De qué no-verdades podemos desprendernos, y cuales nos resultan imprescindibles? Esa es la cuestión, ese es el experimento.

(he traducido “illusion” por “espejismo”, aunque sea un poco forzado, porque “ilusión” en español es algo muy distinto de “illusion”).

Esta es una idea sugerente y a la vez paradójica, que parece que va a acercarnos a Pascal y Vaihinger. Desgraciadamente, Gray no la desarrolla. O quizá lo hace oblicuamente: el tercer capítulo es un desfile de horrores, desde el genocidio de los tasmanos a los campos de Kolyma. Tener esa elevada moralidad, cristiana o progresista, no sirvió de nada para evitarlos. Es más, “el progreso y el asesinato en masa van de la mano”. Y, en realidad, las únicas virtudes dignas de tal nombre, las virtudes socráticas de justicia, prudencia, moderación, valor… derivan en el fondo de nuestras necesidades animales, y no de ningún código moral. La moraleja parece ser que quizá el fin de toda moralidad no fuera tan grave, porque al fin y al cabo la ley de la selva no es mucho mejor que lo que hemos tenido.

Digo “parece ser”, porque la idea no se formula así en el libro. A partir de aquí, más o menos en el ecuador, se va desarticulando y es cada vez más una colección de textos breves, brillantes casi siempre, pero que no desarrollan una tesis coherente.

¿Y qué hace uno con esto?, decía yo al principio del post. Para mí, lo más interesante de Gray es que ilustra espléndidamente lo que sucede si se toma en serio la visión cientifista del mundo. Gray aduce argumentos científicos para sustentar su rechazo del libre albedrío y su minimización del yo. En realidad, toda su destrucción de valores es la que practica la ciencia, en cuya visión del mundo no existen las nociones de “derechos”, “responsabilidad”, “moralidad”, “dignidad”, etc. Pero la ciencia no nos lleva a necesariamente a adoptar la postura de Gray, si caemos en la cuenta de que el hecho de que tales cosas no aparezcan en la ciencia no significa que no existan. Simplemente, la ciencia no trata de ellas porque así son sus reglas del juego, pero no dice nada sobre su existencia o inexistencia. Las excluye metodológicamente, no metafísicamente. Hay otros muchos modos de conocimiento válido que no son científicos, y que nos pueden convencer de la realidad de tales cosas.

Quienes no aceptan más camino al conocimiento que la ciencia, es decir, los cientifistas, sí deberían sostener que tales cosas, que presuntamente nos distinguen de los animales, no existen. Lo que ocurre (y por eso me ha parecido tan interesante este libro) es que normalmente no lo hacen. Con una incongruencia pasmosa, cientifistas como Sagan o Dawkins suelen, por el contrario, pontificar sobre cuestiones morales (se limitan, por supuesto, a regurgitar la moralidad convencional de nuestra época: véanse los diez mandamientos ateos de Dawkins, que son casi enternecedores en su naïveté). Gray es mucho más honrado (o mucho menos ingenuo) y ha ido en sus lecturas mucho más allá de Douglas Adams y Terry Pratchett. Conoce la historia y la filosofía de occidente, y sabe los valores “laicos” que estos autores cortejan no son más que cristianismo enmascarado. Y que si la ciencia desmiente al cristianismo, desmiente igualmente a esos valores (Gray publicó un demoledor artículo contra los “nuevos ateos”).

Admitida la premisa cientifista, creo que Gray es impecable, y sólo puedo echarle en cara, como dije antes, que a última hora eluda enfrentarse con el “bang” con el que inevitablemente su planteamiento haría saltar por los aires toda nuestra sociedad.

Afortunadamente, yo no soy cientifista. Y creo que la lección más importante que nos enseña Gray es que más nos vale no serlo.

John Gray, profesor de Pensamiento Europeo en la London School of Economics, es el autor de Misa negra y Perros de paja, entre otros libros. Pese a sus títulos, no son thrillers, sino ensayos. Pero se leen como si fueran libros de terror.

Perros de paja es una obra fragmentaria, de breves capítulos que alguna vez son poco más que aforismos (el más breve cabe en un paréntesis: En la prehistoria, la consciencia emergió como un efecto secundario del lenguaje. Hoy es un subproducto de los media).

En doscientas páginas, Gray derriba todos nuestros valores más queridos (nuestros: los de los europeos educados de principios del siglo XXI). El cristianismo, hace tiempo marchito, ha sido sustituido por una religión aún más inverosímil: un insustancial idealismo secular, que cree en el progreso y en la mejora social mediante la ciencia; que cree en definitiva que el mundo puede hacerse a nuestra imagen.

Todo un ingenuo wishful thinking para Gray:

Es una extraña fantasía suponer que la ciencia puede traer la razón a un mundo irracional, cuando lo único que puede hacer es dar otro giro a la locura habitual.

Lo que nos dice la ciencia, afirma Gray, es precisamente lo contrario: nuestra querida autoimagen, como seres responsables y racionales, no se sostiene. La psicología cognitiva y la neurología muestran que en nuestra mente casi todo lo que ocurre es inconsciente; el yo es poco más que una ilusión, y el libre albedrío una ilusión completa. No hay ninguna discontinuidad entre hombres y animales.

Sin embargo, los humanistas seculares se obstinan en no verlo:

Tertuliano, un teólogo que vivió en Cartago alrededor del año 200 d.C., escribió del cristianismo: Certum est, quia impossible (es cierto porque es imposible). Los humanistas tienen las ideas menos claras, pero su fe es igual de irracional. No niegan que la historia es un catálogo de sinrazón, pero su remedio es simple: la humanidad debe ser razonable y lo será. Sin esta absurda fe a lo Tertuliano, la Ilustración es un evangelio de desesperación.

Ni la historia tiene ningún sentido, ni podemos controlar la tecnología, que funciona por sí misma y es irreversible. Sólo nos queda adaptarnos a su caótico flujo de novedades.

Ese escepticismo sobre el progreso y esa fiereza destructora parece que llevarían a Gray a sentir alguna afinidad por Nietzsche, pero (¿lo adivinan?) Nietzsche también era un iluso: su superhombre, al ver a la humanidad caída en un abismo sin significados, la redimía por un supremo acto de voluntad. Zaratustra sucedía a Cristo como nuevo redentor. Pero la humanidad no necesita redención. Los animales no lo necesitan, y, no lo olviden, somos animales.

De todas las visiones del mundo, Gray sólo parece salvar el viejo paganismo de Homero y el taoísmo de Lao-Tse: “El cielo y la tierra son implacables, y tratan a la miríada de criaturas como perros de paja” es la cita que encabeza el libro.

¿Qué hacemos con todo esto? En el siguiente post contaré mi postura.

Disculpen que no me levante, digo, que no escriba en el blog… Estoy muy ocupado leyendo el absorbente Straw dogs (Perros de paja) de John Gray. ¿De qué trata? Tendría que dedicarle una entrada, pero de momento, estos párrafos lo resumen muy bien:

“Yo compararía a Kant con un hombre en un baile, que ha pasado toda la velada cortejando a una belleza enmascarada en la vana esperanza de hacer una conquista, hasta que ella al final se descubre y resulta ser su esposa”. En la fábula de Schopenhauer, la esposa que la máscara convierte en una bella desconocida es el cristianismo. Hoy es el humanismo.

Lo que Schopenhauer escribió de Kant no es menos cierto hoy. Tal como suele practicarse, la filosofía es el intento de encontrar buenas razones para creencias convencionales. En la época de Kant el credo de la gente convencional era el cristianismo; ahora es el humanismo. Y no son tan diferentes esos dos credos. En los últimos doscientos años la filosofía se ha quitado de encima su fe cristiana. No se ha librado del error cardinal del cristianismo: la creencia en que los hombres son radicalmente diferentes de los demás animales.

La filosofía ha sido un baile de máscaras en el que una imagen religiosa de la humanidad se ha vestido con el traje nuevo de las ideas humanistas de progreso e ilustración. Incluso los mayores desenmascaradores de la filosofía han terminado como figuras de la mascarada. Retirar las máscaras de nuestros rostros animales es una tarea que apenas ha empezado.

Otros animales nacen, buscan pareja, se alimentan y mueren. Eso es todo. Pero nosotros, los humanos, pensamos que somos diferentes. Somos personas, cuyas acciones son el resultado de sus elecciones. Otros animales pasan sus vidas sin enterarse, pero nosotros somos conscientes. Nuestra imagen de nosotros mismos se forma a partir de nuestra arraigada creencia de que conciencia, auto-identidad y libre albedrío, son lo que nos define como seres humanos, y nos eleva sobre las demás criaturas.

En nuestros momentos más imparciales, admitimos que esta visión de nosotros mismos es defectuosa. Nuestras vidas se parecen más a sueños fragmentarios que a los decretos de un yo consciente. Controlamos muy poco de lo que más nos preocupa; muchos de nuestras decisiones más trascendentes se toman sin que seamos conscientes de ellas. Y aún así insistimos en que la humanidad puede lograr lo que nosotros no podemos. Este es el credo de los que han abandonado una creencia irracional en Dios por una creencia irracional en la humanidad. Pero, ¿y si abandonamos las esperanzas vacías del cristianismo y el humanismo? Una vez que apagamos la banda sonora –el bla bla bla de Dios, la inmortalidad, el progreso, la humanidad- ¿qué sentido podemos hacernos de nuestras vidas?

Y ahora vuelvo a la lectura…

In my last post I wrote about why you should consider network marketing.

Now lets look at how to find the right network marketing company.  Most of us have GAPS in our lives.  On a scale from 1 to 10 (10 being high) rate the importance of your financial health/security, your physical health, and the importance of having the time to do the things you want to do.  Now on the same scale, rate yourself in these same areas today.  If you found that you too have GAPS in these areas, then you need to find a way to fill the GAPS.  For me the answer was Isagenix.

According to National Geographic, the #1 cause of illness, disease and obesity is toxicity.  Isagenix is known as the World Leader in Nutritional Cleansing.  Their formulator, John Anderson is known in the industry as the “mineral man”.  He created over 2,200 different products for over 600 different companies but he came out of retirement and saved his best work for Isagenix.  John created a no comparmise total body cleasning system which cleanses and replinishes the body offering profound results. If it wasn’t for the Isagenix Cleansing & Fat Burning Systems, I would be part of the statistic mentioned above.

Isagenix International was established over 7 years ago.  Along with John Anderson, Jim and Kathy Coover came out of retirement to form the company.  The Coovers bring over 60 years of experience in the industry to the table.  Isagenix is as well managed and capitalized company.  The company is expected to reach 1 billion dollars in sales this year and has created 37 millionaires since their existence.  Best selling authors Dr. John Gray, Jack Canfield and Jay Williams all endorse the company.  In addition, over 15% of the company’s Associates are made up of healthcare professionals.

It is so easy to get started with Isagenix.  For a little as $19 a year plus the cost of your products you can start your own business.  Isagenix has a team building income plan made up of 2 teams.  Once you personally sponsor 2 people (1 on your left & 1 on your right) you qualify as a Consultant and get paid on your entire organization.  The volume in your group is calculated daily and pays you weekly.  You also get paid introductory product bonuses and you can qualify for a 10% matching team executive bonus as well as a lot of other great incentives including healthcare benefits.  As a member, you get your own replicated website and Isagenix has the best cutting edge business building tools (CD’s, DVD’s, brochures, webinars, conference calls, etc.) in the industry to help launch your business.

A little over 3 years ago I was introduced to Isagenix.  I experienced life changing results on their products and with no previous network marketing experience I began to fill all the GAPS in my life.  My success story is at http://www.cleansebenefits.com

The timing is perfect.

Dad: ‘I Want My Kids Back’

http://www.kpho.com/news/21515980/detail.html

Cara Liu

Reporter, KPHO.com

PHOENIX — It was a high profile story four years ago — the death of 4-year-old Haley Gray.

Police said the child was found trapped in a hot van while her mother, Celene Gray, was passed out in her Scottsdale apartment. Investigators said Gray later admitted she’d been drinking.

Haley’s father John Gray said he had repeatedly warned Child Protective Services that his ex-wife’s drinking problem was putting his children at risk. Earlier this year, he won a lawsuit against CPS. The agency had to pay more than $400,000.

Gray also fought to get Haley’s Law passed, requiring CPS workers to check out-of-state records to see if there are allegations of prior abuse or neglect in other states.

“This was part of my healing process — to try to help others, because I realized this was bigger than us,” said Gray.

But the controversy isn’t nearly over. The parents are in the midst of an ugly custody battle over their surviving sons, now 9 and 11 years old. Gray said he lost custody of the boys in March after the state questioned whether he was a fit parent. He said right now, it’s his ex-wife’s boyfriend who has temporary custody.

“I want my children back. They’re in a dangerous situation right now,” he said.

Gray admitted he hasn’t been perfect either. He’s been in jail and said he’s had anger issues, but he insists the same system that failed Haley could also be putting others at risk.

“Good thing they didn’t bet their (lives) on it. But they bet my daughter Haley’s on it, and right now I believe they’re betting my two surviving sons’ lives as well. I don’t want to have a repeat of what happened in the past,” said Gray.

CBS 5 News made repeated attempts to reach Celene Gray and her boyfriend for their side of the story, but were unable to reach them by deadline.

Court records for the custody case appear to be sealed.

Op het prachtige forum SOS MIE & S vanochtend, lees ik hoe 2 moeders een verdrietige start hebben met hun te vroeg geboren babietjes. Allebei de pasgeborenen hebben een herseninfarct gehad met als gevolg hersenletsel en epilepsie. Ik zie voor me hoe deze roze wolken exploderen.  De naar een onbekende planeet gelanceerde moeders en vaders, die te maken krijgen met nieuwe regels, vreemde medicijnen met de meest walgelijke bijwerkingen en met uitzicht op  een beangstigend ( voor) landschap.

Het raakt me, mijn Sem kon ook zo  huilen, en wat doe je dan, behalve eindeloos ALLES uitproberen om hem te troosten, tot voorbij je eigen tandvlees? In zijn koppie waren de lijntjes ook scheef of niet verbonden en had hij veel epilepsie. Mijn huidige man is heel beeldend. Hij zag een hoofdje met daarin allerlei rondrennende mannetjes, die verschillende knopjes indrukten, handeltjes overhaalden, oeps foute, stjengg, kortsluiting, drukdoende betere verbindingen te vinden. Voor mij een heel treffend plaatje, als Sem weer epilepsie had.

Wat er met mij gebeurde, was dat er eigelijk door zijn huilen ook bij mij allerlei knopjes (onzekerheid, wanhoop, weerstand, ed) werden ingedrukt, handeltjes werden overgehaald, stress ook in mijn hoofd dus, met op mijn schouder een huilend kind, allebei zoekend naar onze eigen verbindingen om weer rustig te worden.

Al doende leerde ik gelukkig, en de dwarsverbinding vond ik!  Met als resultaat dat ik nu sneller mijn eigen rust hervond of niet snel verloor. Sem begon minder te huilen, in ieder geval voor mijn gevoel niet meer zo eindeloos. We waren uit het kip of ei gedraai. Natuurlijk checkte ik alles wat er lichamelijk aan de hand kon zijn, maar daarna liet ik het los, wie ben ik om te bepalen of jij wel of niet mag huilen, dat bepaal jij zelf, en ik ben wel bij je, en soms ook even niet.

Waardoor kwamen wij uit het -Kip en het Ei- gedraai?

1. de uitspraak van een volwassene met epilepsie, het doet geen pijn;
2. mezelf antwoord geven op de vraag, wat heb ik nu nodig om zelf rustig te blijven;
3. als ik de mogelijkheid had, gaf ik daar eerst prioriteit aan ( soms zo simpel als een boterham, up jij bloedsuikergehalte!);
4. de uitspraak: deze kindjes krijgen ongefilterd alles binnen, kijk daar kon ik iets mee, op mijn gemoedsrust heb ik invloed, ik maak het hem niet extra moeilijk met mijn gedoe;
5. me te verdiepen in: waar wordt Annelies een blij mens van?;
6. dit mezelf vervolgens ook echt gunnen (week naar Oerol bv) nogmaals echt, zonder schuldgevoel (dit blog komt nog);
7. maar ook onder de loep nemen, wat zit me eigelijk nog meer dwars, en doe ik daar wat aan?;
8. gebruik maken van mijn geweldige ouders die altijd klaar stonden om Sem van me over te nemen, adhoc en om en om het weekend;
9. tijd en energie investeren in goed en stevig personeel, zodat ik met een vertrouwd gevoel Sem thuis kon achterlaten; (blog komt nog)
10. veel lezen in boeken die te maken hadden met persoonlijke ontwikkeling.

De nieuwe rollen van Mars en Venus van John Gray, met name het stukje over hormonen is goed toepasbaar. Handig om te weten waar je als vrouw, of als man van ontstresst, en ook elkaar hierin kan ondersteunen!

Wat ik ook wil meegeven, iets wat je voor elk onrustig kind of huilbabietje kan doen, maar ook zeker bij kinderen met epilepsie: zijn of haar grote tenen vasthouden tot je kindje rustig is. Dit kan geen kwaad, en er zijn allerlei wetenschappelijke onderzoeken vanuit diverse hoeken, die aantonen dat dit kalmeert. Je kunt het op jezelf toepassen, dan weet je hoe het voelt.

Lieve groeten,

Annelies

Writing in 1907, on the eve of the immense carnage that would sweep away the longstanding regimes and institutions associated with a more optimistic and more hierarchical epoch, the French engineer-turned political theorist Georges Sorel proposes a model for grasping sociopolitical change that treats “social conditions as forming a system bound together by an iron law which cannot be evaded, as something in the form of one block, and which can only disappear through a catastrophe which involves the whole” (Reflections, 11). Change is not an incremental process, in which social transformations are brought about by the deliberate implementation of political projects aimed at improving the general well-being. Instead, it is sudden, violent, and largely unwilled, carried forward by upheavals that invert established systems of value and dissolve cherished, long-held certainties. Otherwise, absent the force of such an overwhelming compulsion, a collective will have little incentive to develop new habits and cultivate new ways of life, for these only come into being from the stresses of adjusting to unanticipated dangers and unpredictable circumstances.

If any set of issues in the present drives home the inadequacy of incremental and gradual measures, it would be the challenge posed to the current sociopolitical order by the problems of global warming and resource depletion. Modifications of the political and economic status quo are woefully insufficient to avert a grim future marked by the uprooting of entire populations by rising sea levels, famines triggered by atmospheric carbon dioxide playing havoc with rainfall patterns, and the intensification of geopolitical rivalries over dwindling reserves of hydrocarbons. The lack of political will shown thus far by the United States and the major emerging industrial powers in addressing these dangers, coupled with a global economy that operates upon the expectation of unending growth, works steadily to cast such a dire prospect into our fate. But if the political process aimed at reducing carbon emissions appears stalled and flawed, the military has become sufficiently alarmed to issue bleak and urgent reports on the implications of environmental destruction for global security. The report issued by the Pentagon last August projects nightmarish scenarios such as catastrophic flooding in Bangladesh that triggers massive waves of refugees into neighboring countries and endemic drought in already stressed regions like Sudan. Retired Marine General Anthony Zinni states the alternatives bluntly: “We will pay to reduce greenhouse gas emissions today, and we’ll have to take an economic hit of some kind. Or we will pay the price later in military terms. And that will involve human lives” (New York Times, 8/8/09).

We are thus confronted by a staggering disproportion between the urgency of the crisis, along with the devastating consequences if we do too little or act too late, and our incapacity to translate our understanding into meaningful collective action. The act of undertaking such sweeping measures will transform the life to which the United States and other advanced industrial nations have become accustomed over the course of the half century following the end of the Second World War. These changes are made more difficult to accept or imagine because our predominant models of politics remain wedded to the promise of abundance and the expectation of never-ending growth. Even the primary adversary of liberal democratic capitalism, state socialism, fought and lost the ideological battle on the terrain of economic prosperity, as it failed to match the rising standard of living delivered by the capitalist economies. What this means of course is that intellectually and psychologically we are largely unprepared to take the measure of a reality in which scarcity becomes increasingly the dominant factor of social life. Our anxious position resembles that of the generic leftist opponent of British imperialism as dissected by George Orwell in The Road to Wigan Pier. The left-wing intellectual, in his outbursts of moralistic fervor, condemns the depredations of the Empire and snickers at the pretensions of the colonial officials of Raj, but fails to make the connection that his material comforts depend upon the desperate poverty of a hundred million Indians. There is no way to bite into a serving of strawberries and cream without eating the British Empire. The alternative, Orwell points out, of halting the exploitation of foreign peoples means “reducing England to a cold and unimportant island where we should all have to work very hard and live mainly on herrings and potatoes” (Road, 159-160). But where Orwell’s imaginary socialist fights, however confusedly, to bring about an egalitarian political order in which the benefits of prosperity are extended to all, our society is more likely to find itself in actual combat for far less idealistic purposes, straining instead to maintain as much of an embattled and unsustainable status quo as possible. The underlying challenge nevertheless is to make the transition to a society of diminished material expectations while preserving a modicum of the rule of law and preventing irreparable harm to the social fabric.

Some will dismiss these notions as extreme and unduly alarmist. Perhaps such pessimism is excessive and unwarranted in an interdependent global economy. But as British philosopher John Gray points out, scarcity and the attendant evils it brings, such as wars fought over access to rivers and fertile land, are in fact the norm in history. What is exceptional and an aberration, in historical terms, is the incomprehension with which we greet such developments, not least their recurrence in our own time. Gray writes, “if we find the emergent pattern of conflict unfamiliar, it is because we are still haunted by nineteenth-century utopian visions in which the spread of industry throughout the world ushers in an age of perpetual peace” (Heresies, 115). He observes that the “great game” for access to the vast energy resources of Central Asia has resumed, with the United States jockeying with China and Russia for favors from the corrupt and brutal oligarchs who control the region (Heresies, 119). The world’s largest remaining reserves of cheap oil, that is, supplies of petroleum that are relatively inexpensive to extract using existing technology, are to be found in regions where political instability is rife, such as the Niger River Delta, and where authoritarian regimes, like the House of Saud, hold power. As is often the case in oil-rich states, the wealth generated by the sales of petroleum have flowed disproportionately to a tiny elite while the masses continue to suffer in dire poverty. Moreover, the rapid rise of the economies of Brazil, China, and India has exacerbated the competition for oil, natural gas, and other vital resources. Although the emergence of these nations as economic powerhouses has succeeded in lifting millions out of poverty, the world’s energy output must, according to Michael Klare, “increase by 57% over the next twenty-five years,” a highly optimistic prospect, to avoid the onset of a severe global recession or depression (Rising Powers, 11). The emergence of these countries as world powers means a worsened predicament for the smaller nations that not only lack vital resources but also the geopolitical and economic muscle necessary to acquire them. The process of extracting oil from the alternative sources that offer the best hope of keeping pace with demand, such as from shale in the Rocky Mountains and the tar sands of Alberta, uses up massive quantities of an even more vital resource — fresh water.

If Gray, a supporter of Margaret Thatcher turned critic of neo-liberal globalization, is a most compelling intellectual guide to our unwilled sociopolitical realities, it is because he is a thinker most avowedly at odds with the prevailing spirit of the times. Gray charts a rigorous and idiosyncratic course that makes its way to the tragic insights about the problematic nature of human beings forsaken by the progressive left and the capitalist right alike in their embrace of the idea of progress. His book Straw Dogs (2002) was the object of a vehement denunciation by Marxist critic Terry Eagleton, who called it a “dangerous, despairing” work, the product of a “full-blooded apocalyptic nihilist” under the sway of a “virulent misanthropy” (Guardian, 9/7/02). For Gray contends that the humanitarian sentiments and liberal sensitivities that have become commonplace in contemporary society are unthinkable without the affluence and security created by the cruel and unjust politics they denounce. Eagleton must surely find unforgivable such statements as the following: “Humans thrive in conditions that morality condemns. The peace and prosperity of one generation stand on the injustices of earlier generations; the delicate sensibilities of liberal societies are fruits of war and empire” (Straw Dogs, 107). But what Eagleton’s outrage causes him to miss is the exacting thought experiment that Gray undertakes in this book. Proceeding in a non-linear fashion, through aphorisms and anecdotes, he unravels the therapeutic illusions that modern humanism has deployed between itself and the harsh Hegelian formula that history is a slaughter-bench. Whereas the conventional opinion in the West clings to the idea that economic and cultural interconnectedness fosters the spread of liberal values throughout the globe, Gray questions whether we have pulled free of the orbit of history, with its cycles of anarchy and tyranny. Although such a question might strike one as an eminently sensible one to consider, given recent events, the vituperation aroused by his act of exploring it attests to the stubbornness with which the Enlightenment belief in progress and human perfectibility endures even after the ideological projects it inspired have become discredited.

In that sense, Gray’s project must be considered alongside the work of a kindred spirit, the recently deceased novelist J. G. Ballard, whose writings share the conviction that the affluent societies which emerged in the postwar years are to be defined largely as extended exercises in delusion. Like Gray, Ballard’s overriding theme is the fragility of modern liberal societies, which operate according to the assumption that they have overcome, through their economic productivity, the afflictions that have plagued human beings across the ages, while subterranean yearnings for “a more passionate world” boil over into the consumption of illegal drugs, the practice of S&M, and the liberation and release granted by war. Ballard’s final novels cohere into a series with striking thematic continuities, as they explore the perils of a leisured existence and its apparent opposite, a life of ceaseless work. In Cocaine Nights (1996), a former professional tennis player named Bobby Crawford wakes an entire resort out of its sedative-induced stupor through a therapeutic regimen of crime and other forbidden activities. He organizes the residents into shooting pornographic films, arranges for the trafficking of stimulants like cocaine and methamphetamines into the resort, and goes off on nightly jaunts during which he vandalizes houses, smashes car windows, and shoplifts while charming all those he meets. Far from turning him over to the police, the residents actually regard him with gratitude for rescuing them from an empty and tedious existence, even after he deliberately sets a fire that causes the deaths of five people (220). Millennium People (2003) features a violent insurrection against the state carried out by middle class professionals living in a gated community, who have become fed up with parking fees, maintenance charges, and the other high-priced expenses of the affluent life. They set off firebombs in a video store, and vandalize a travel agency, actions in which the regressive glee of destruction is never far away from the high-minded aim of edifying the public: “Travel is the last fantasy the 20th century left us, the delusion that going somewhere helps you reinvent yourself” (55). The sheer incongruity of rioting middle-aged professionals, who do not want to brawl with the police unless they’ve had their morning cappuccinos, might be regarded as a limit case of consumerist pathology, yet the grotesque nature of their wanton acts of destruction is rooted in a bitter historical insight — the narrator, entering the residential complex for the first time, observes, “Most revolutionaries in the last century had aspired to exactly this level of affluence and leisure, and it occurred to me that I was seeing the emergence of a higher kind of boredom” (77).

In short, the work of both Gray and Ballard is marked by a shared preoccupation with the afterlife of dead ideas, with the compulsions that decaying dreams continue to exert over us, because we find it unbearable to lay them to rest. As the subtitle of Gray’s recent book, “the death of utopia,” would indicate, the sociopolitical paralysis of our time has a cause far deeper than the failure to reform crucial political institutions or to reorganize economic life around egalitarian principles. Rather, Gray and Ballard demonstrate how the impasse is to be found at the level of the imagination itself, from our inability to extricate ourselves from the horizon of expectations that has outlived the collapse of state socialism and has now been claimed by the defenders of neo-liberal capitalism. Thus, as belief in political action has waned, science and technology have become invested with the hopes for a “transformed world” that were formerly associated with revolutionary political programs (Heresies, 20). But more than that, science has mutated into a religion, offering to its adherents the same things that believers of all stripes have always desired, namely “salvation from themselves” (Heresies, 23). Gray is that rare atheist who holds that the followers of traditional religions, like Christianity and Buddhism, are less deluded and argue from more solid philosophical basis than contemporary secular atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. For religions transmit in poetic form the truth that human beings are intrinsically flawed and radically disordered entities. Humanistic atheists, on the other hand, inherit from Christianity what Gray regards as the religion’s most harmful aspect, the belief that human beings possess a unique significance in the cosmos, while jettisoning its most profound teaching, the lesson of human fallibility found in the story of Eden.

Secular humanists are thus prone to exalt and overrate human capacities, especially the power of reason. Furthermore, their faith in science proves to be quite a tenuous and unstable construction, something embraced out of exhaustion and default rather than with any genuine enthusiasm. As Gray writes, “If people cling to the hope of progress, it is not so much from genuine belief as from fear of what may come if they give it up” (Straw Dogs, 19). The idea of progress thus serves as a sort of platonic medicinal lie for the terminally disenchanted, holding together social bonds and enabling individuals to go on making the sacrifices and compromises necessary for sustaining the existing order: “For the men and women of today, an irrational faith in progress may be the only antidote to nihilism. Without the hope that the future will be better than the past, they could not go on” (Straw Dogs, 28). Along these lines, the key task for art and culture is to confront this fear and see what emerges once one has extricated oneself from it. What is thus needed is an art that incorporates the trauma of relinquishing an essential element from our horizon of expectations, an art that registers the amputation of a limb from the body of the ideas to which we have become long accustomed.

A common feature of contemporary narratives that undertake this task is the portrayal of the reversion of society to the Hobbesian state of nature, evoking the ubiquitous fear and violence that results from the dissolution of civilized restraints. Michael Haneke’s film Time of the Wolf and Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer-winning novel The Road concern the survivors of an unnamed catastrophe, who are cast into a dangerous world where death might wait at any corner or behind any tree. But it is Ballard’s own autobiographical novel Empire of the Sun that remains the far more resonant work for rendering, with a vertiginous attention to detail that borders on the uncanny, the downward journey from the heights of colonial privilege and luxury to the brutal, predatory reality of a Japanese prison camp near Shanghai during the Second World War. Young Jim, separated from his parents when the Japanese intern the city’s British residents after the outbreak of hostilities, is forced to endure hunger during the weeks following Pearl Harbor and nearly sold into slavery by a scheming companion. But the novel’s most troubling sequences have to do with how readily Jim becomes acclimated to his new circumstances, and how he comes to derive a powerful sense of liberation once the rules that governed his former life of luxury and privilege have dissolved. Watching an elderly beggar scrub out a toilet near a fetid canal, Jim suspects that his own method of coping with hardship is similar to that of the destitute Chinese, the dead bodies of whom have been for him an ordinary, everyday sight:

A strange doubling of reality had taken place, as if everything that happened to him since the war was occurring in a mirror. It was his mirror self who felt faint and hungry, and who thought about food all the time. He no longer felt sorry for this other self. Jim guessed that this was how the Chinese managed to survive. Yet one day the Chinese might come out of the mirror (Empire, 77).

Jim’s response to his own sufferings provides the vital reminder that the loss of privilege is not necessarily accompanied by an increase in compassion or empathy. Indeed, the opposite proves to be more often the case. He finds something of a surrogate father in a British doctor, who grows concerned that the boy has learned too well to adjust to the war. For Jim readily takes to a strange new role. He is well-liked by the other prisoners, but their congeniality does not prevent them from placing bets on how far he can walk away from the camp to set traps for birds before being shot at by the guards (Empire, 172). The doctor thus makes a point of making Jim perform impractical tasks, like studying Latin, in order to keep him anchored to the memory of the civilized world. As the war nears its end and supplies to the camp become drastically reduced, and Jim comes under the sway of strange dreams and reveries. He dwells on his fantasy of growing up to become a fighter pilot for the Japanese air force, and gives himself over to the thought that he can raise the dead. Lying in a field among prisoners dead and dying of starvation, he grows angry when a few still capable of walking form a party to be marched into the countryside, so that they will die outside his view (Empire, 209).

It is often noted that Ballard’s experience in the prison camp was formative for his career as a writer. For his later novels, though set in vastly different surroundings, revisit the perennial question of what human beings become once they find themselves freed from normal social restraints. The self-induced upheavals in a gated community and the imposed ordeals of the prison camp provide the mirror for the future of a world being transformed against its will, while discovering the forbidden pleasures that a sudden change of fortunes makes possible. The fiction of Ballard and the philosophical writings of Gray chart the paths through which history resumes its course. They show us that whereas capitalism was lauded at the end of history as the system best suited for human capacities, it now names our helplessness, our continuing inability to take collective action against catastrophic dangers.

Texts cited:

J. G. Ballard, Cocaine Nights. Washington, DC: Counterpoint, 1996.
J. G. Ballard, Empire of the Sun. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984.
J. G. Ballard, Millennium People. London: Harper Perennial, 2004.
John Gray, Heresies: Against Progress and Other Illusions. London: Granta Books, 2004.
John Gray, Straw Dogs: Thoughs on Humans and Other Animals. Granta Books, 2002.
Michael Klare, Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2008.
George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1958.
Georges Sorel, Reflections on Violence. Ed. Jeremy Jennings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Here is link to the mp3 file of the talk I gave on October 23 at the UWM Center for International Education, retitled “The Ethics of Scarcity,” which focuses on the work of John Gray and J. G. Ballard.

Am auzit demult de cartea “Barbatii sunt de pe Marte, Femeile sunt de pe Venus” Dr. John Gray, dar la momentul respectiv nu aveam deloc incredere in carti de genul asta care promit sa-ti schimbe viata. Poate aveam prea multa incredere in gandirea mea ca sa accept ca altcineva s-ar putea sa aiba dreptate in chestiile astea psihologice.

De curand am auzit niste idei interesante de la dl. Andrei Pitis la cursul de SOA despre diferentele dintre femei si barbati. Subiectul m-a intrigat deoarece nu credeam deloc in existenta unor diferente psihice care ne fac sa reactionam diferit la aceleasi lucruri.

In concluzie m-am apucat sa citesc cartea mai sus mentionata. Surprinzator ideile prezentate par sa fie adevarate pe cazurile generale. Ramane de vazut cum imi va schimba aceasta carte conceptia despre barbati si femei. In orice caz, cartea merita citita.

Desi intotdeauna m-a fascinat psihologia, nu am crezut ca se poate face o diferenta doar aplicand niste concepte generale in mod practic. Totusi, m-am razgandit.

At the head of everything is God, the Lord of Heaven.
Everyone knows that.
Then comes Prince Torlonia, lord of the earth.
Then come Prince Torlonia’s guards.
Then come Prince Torlonia’s guards’ dogs.
Then, nothing at all.
Then, nothing at all.
Then, nothing at all.
Then come the peasants. And that’s all.

~ Ignazio Silone, Fontamara (1931). (via @ndy)

Debates and arguments: David Cesarani, Marek Edelman and Michal Kaminski - click the link from Engage, then return to read the comment thread.

From the magazine rack: 1989 Timothy Garton Ash (NYRB); What Is to Be Learned? Thinking about 1989 Mitchell Cohen (Dissent); The Memory That Will Not Die: Exhuming the Spanish Civil War Julius Purcell (Boston Review); 100 Years of Servitude: Gabriel García Márquez’s Infatuation With Castro and Other Dictators Enrique Krauze (New Republic); Terry Teachout on the Congress for Cultural Freedom (Commentary).

Book reviews: John Gray on Robert Service’s Trotsky; Jonathan Yardley on Kati Marton’s Enemies of the People; DG Myers on two Lionel Trilling biographies; Colm Toibin on Sheila Rowbotham’s Edward Carpenter.

Some Irving Kristol obits I missed: Christopher Hitchens, David Brooks, Myron Magnet,  Eric Alterman , Michael Lind, Justin Vaïsse, Kevin Mattson, Seth Lipsky, John Guardiano, Christopher DeMuth, Mary Eberstadt, Joseph Epstein, Danny Finkelstein.

Archival: Walter Lacquer on Why the Shah fell (1979).

Love Rules

Here is what relationship experts think about the tried, but not always true, love sayings.

by Stacey Colino

1. Say “I Love You” Every Day

Barbara De Angelis, personal-development expert: Say it as often as possible. There’s no reason to be emotionally stingy with the person you love.

Nancy Kalish, psychologist: I agree that it should be said often, but it should be said sincerely, so it means something. Not just “Good-bye. Love you.”

2. Play Hard to Get

Sam Yagan, dating-website cofounder: Playing hard to get starts the relationship off on a deceptive foot. If you want your relationship to be based on trust, honesty, and communication, why would you begin it like that?

Greg Behrendt, coauthor of He’s Just Not That Into You: You shouldn’t play hard to get; you should be hard to get, because your life is so busy and fulfilling. My wife and I call it being a MOD―a moving object of desire.

3. Your Spouse Shouldn’t Be Your Best Friend

Pepper Schwartz, sociologist: I agree. I think you’re asking a lot of your marriage to have the level of confidentiality, truthfulness, and disclosure that a best friendship has. Your marriage can fulfill only so many roles.

De Angelis: I disagree. If your spouse isn’t your best friend, then what is he? I think it’s important that you not only love him but like him a lot, too.

John Gray, author of Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus: I have no problem with partners who are best friends, but you should have other close friends to confide in as well―especially when you are having relationship difficulties and need time away from your spouse. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

4. Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

De Angelis: A little bit of absence can help you appreciate your partner. Too much is dangerous. Relationships need connection, and it’s challenging to stay connected when you aren’t spending time together.

Schwartz: To a point―and then absence makes the heart go roaming. You need a steady diet of intimacy and the other person’s presence to remember why you’re in the relationship. If you don’t see each other often enough, you can start to lead parallel lives instead of lives that intersect.

Yagan: Absence can make the desire and lust for your partner grow. But it can also lead to stress in a relationship, because phone calls or text messages aren’t substitutes for real conversation.

5. You Can Learn to Love Someone

Judy Kuriansky, sex therapist: That’s true, depending on how you define love. You may not have the love-at-first-sight kind of love, but the deep companion kind of love―in terms of trusting each other and being a team―can develop over time.

Behrendt: No, that sounds like settling. I don’t believe in settling, because it’s not fair to the person you’re with or yourself. It’s not like settling on an apartment you don’t love but can live with.

6. Never Go to Bed Angry

Barbara De Angelis, personal-development expert: I disagree. Most of us don’t do well discussing emotional topics late at night, when we’re tired and less emotionally articulate―and your well-intentioned desire to kiss and make up is likely to make him angrier. Let your partner get some rest and things will be easier to resolve in the morning.

Howard J. Markman, psychologist: Most of the relationship issues that people argue about at night can wait for another day. However, if there are urgent issues that need to be discussed, partners should talk things through earlier in the night, then try to spend what is left of the evening relaxing.

Nancy Kalish, psychologist: You shouldn’t go to bed angry, but that doesn’t mean you have to solve every problem before you nod off. Even if an issue isn’t resolved, people who love each other should be able to put it aside and get some sleep, but with the understanding that it will be addressed in the near future with a time specified.

7. Having Kids Will Bring You Closer

Pepper Schwartz, sociologist: Children are an extraordinary source of joy, but they also bring conflict and difficulty into any relationship. You lose time, privacy, and intimacy. An otherwise easy relationship can be tested in a whole new way.

Kalish: The more family members you have, the more friction you have, because there are more relationship issues to work through. And if you focus exclusively on the kids, it takes away from your togetherness as a couple.

8. There Is Such a Thing As Love at First Sight

Ellen Wachtel, couples therapist: False. Often it takes time for love to develop. For some people, physical chemistry plays such a big role at the outset that it is mistaken for love.

Schwartz: It’s a romantic story when it works out, but you don’t hear about the relationships that end badly. Relationships start slow and build; they aren’t necessarily wonderful from the start.

Markman: You’ll quickly know if you’re attracted to each other, but not if you’re compatible or fit to stick together through tough times.

9. Always Keep Him Guessing

Greg Behrendt, coauthor of He’s Just Not That Into You: No, that’s tactical game playing, not love. It takes a lot of calculated effort and is dishonest.

Schwartz: It’s powerful and mysterious to be unpredictable, but it is also manipulative and can build resentment and anger and erode intimacy and respect.

Sam Yagan, dating-website cofounder: There’s good guessing and bad guessing, and it’s really about what kind of guessing you’re making him do. Try to keep the relationship fresh by being unexpectedly romantic.

10. You Can Never Be Too Close

Wachtel: False. Many marriages are damaged by partners thinking that closeness means not having to censor what they say or do. Some couples take each other for granted: Metaphorically speaking, they never get out of their sweat suits at home. If you don’t make an effort to be well mannered or attractive to your partner, then you’re too close.

Markman: That’s absolutely true. Closeness―emotional intimacy―is the heart of a good marriage, so it’s important to talk about what closeness means to each of you.

11. Love Conquers All

Barbara De Angelis, personal-development expert: Unfortunately, this is not true. Love is a big part of a lasting relationship, but shared values and commitment are still required.

Pepper Schwartz, sociologist: Sadly, it’s a myth. Love won’t conquer poverty, addiction, or abuse.

12. Everyone Experiences the Seven-Year Itch

Schwartz: The itch is true, but it doesn’t necessarily take seven years to get there. Some people get divorced within a year or less if they’re convinced the marriage isn’t salvageable.

Howard J. Markman, psychologist: Most partners will at some time think about divorce, but not necessarily in seven years. The data show that most people who thought about getting divorced were happy they stayed married when surveyed five years later. When things are tough, focus on increasing friendship and sensuality in the relationship.

13. The Way to a Man’s Heart Is Through His Stomach

De Angelis: The way to a man’s heart is through his heart. Men want a woman who is going to be a great friend and companion―and if they have to order takeout, so be it!

Judy Kuriansky, sex therapist: It’s true if he loves food, but that part about having to feed the needs of his heart is true, too. Still, don’t lose sight of your own needs. For a relationship to be successful, both partners need to feel pleased and fulfilled.

John Gray, author of Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus: You’re off by about six inches. Sex is the direct way to a man’s heart.

The Panel

Greg Behrendt is a comedian and a coauthor of He’s Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys (Simon Spotlight Entertainment, $15).

Barbara De Angelis, Ph.D. , is a personal-development expert and the New York Times best-selling author of How Did I Get Here?: Finding Your Way to Renewed Hope and Happiness When Life and Love Take Unexpected Turns (St. Martin’s Griffin, $14).

John Gray, Ph.D. , is a family therapist and the author of Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus (Harper Paperbacks, $14).

Nancy Kalish, Ph.D. , is a professor of psychology at California State University, Sacramento, and the author of Lost & Found Lovers: Facts and Fantasies of Rekindled Romances (iUniverse.com, $18).

Judy Kuriansky, Ph.D. , is a clinical psychologist, a sex therapist, and a TV and radio personality. She is the author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to a Healthy Relationship, Second Edition (Alpha, $19).

Howard J. Markman, Ph.D. , is a professor of psychology at the University of Denver. He runs relationship-enhancing workshops (loveyourrelationship.com) and is a coauthor of Fighting for Your Marriage (Jossey-Bass, $17).

Pepper Schwartz, Ph.D. , is a professor of sociology at the University of Washington in Seattle and a relationship expert for Perfectmatch.com. She is the author of Prime: Adventures and Advice on Sex, Love, and the Sensual Years (Collins Living, $16).

Ellen Wachtel, Ph.D. , is a psychologist in New York City who specializes in couples therapy. She is the author of We Love Each Other, But…: Simple Secrets to Strengthen Your Relationship and Make Love Last (St. Martin’s Griffin, $15).

Sam Yagan is a co-founder of OkCupid.com, a free online-dating site.

From:  http://www.realsimple.com/work-life/family/relationships/love-rules-00000000008114/index.html

Whenever a group of people get together and become more honest with each other, one of the first thing to happen is that they realize how much we all want the same thing.  It happens in marriage guidance counseling, we come to the recognition that we both want love, we both want to be seen and acknowledged.  It happens in any kind of business intervention: we come together as a team and realize we all want and need the business to succeed, we want the workplace to be inspiring and relaxed.  Ultimately it happens politically, when the leaders of nations recognize that they are more likely to get their own needs met when they can also recognize the need of the other.

The greatest area of split and misunderstanding, which I discover among my friends and other writers and teachers is the split between the longing of the spirit and material desire.  To paint the picture in broad strokes, I am aware of two categories of people I know.  On one hand, I’ve spend a lot of my life in “spiritual circles.”  I lived with Poonjaji in India, I’ve lived in community in other parts of my life.  When we make our home in this camp life is about liberation.  We mediate.  We do Yoga.  We chant.  We disassemble the structures in the mind because we have fallen in love with a deep sense of spaciousness and peace.  When you live exclusively in this camp the desire for money becomes a hinderance to be avoided, not a goal to be pursued.  Relationships are okay-ish, as long as they don’t get too co-dependent.  Frequently, our relationship with our parents is something to be “completed” and “resolved” rather than celebrated.  When you live in this camp, wanting to make it in the world is the greatest symptom of ego-entrapment.

But there is also another camp, where I equally enjoy setting up my tent from time to time.  This camp is much better decorated, has better food, and everyone has an i-phone.  In this camp the emphasis is on worldly success of every kind.  Making money is a good thing.  So is having great relationships, great sex, better health and, in fact, having better anything is good.  When you hang out a while in this camp and look back to the other side, the spiritual people look like a bunch of losers. Meditating on their navels and letting go of attachments, you can see from here that they can’t pay the rent, their relationships are often messy, and they often have health problems to boot.

This kind of split has dominated humanity for thousands of years.  In many cultures you are faced with a choice.  If you want to know God or oneness with your true self, you become a monk or a recluse or a priest of some sort and leave the worldly things behind.  The alternative is to embrace the world full on.  Get married, buy a house, have kids and the whole nine yards, but forget about liberation until another life.  You may remember that the outcome of Buddha’s life was very uncertain, when he was born.  The astrologers said he would go one way or another, and his father did everything he could to make sure he went the worldly route.  To no avail, of course.  The shift in consciousness that we are seeing these days looks very different from either of these camps.  In one way it seems like more and more people are waking up, and the spiritual camp is increasing its numbers.  The other camp waves copies of The Secret proudly in the air announcing, “Look, now all of humanity is going to learn how to manifest the best of everything.”

But come now, take a little hike with me, up onto the hill overlooking these two camps and let me show you what I see.

Both camps have grown so big in recent times, like villages that overflow their boundaries and merge into one another.  We are coming to discover an interesting thing.  The split was never necessary.  In fact, when you look from this perspective, exactly the opposite of the split is the truth.  Lately, in preparing my new multi-media series “Living Awakening,” I interviewed some of the most wealthy and successful people I could find.  Jack Canfield has sold 120 million copies of Chicken Soup for the Soul.  John Gray’s Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus has sold 50 million copies.  Again and again I have discovered that people who are truly successful in a multi-dimensional way have a deep and abiding access to expansive states of consciousness.  Awakening is not the opposite of material success,  it is the essential foundation.  At the same time, I looked around to find who is rested most deeply and stably and relaxedly in expansiveness.  To my surprise I found that the “spiritual seekers” actually tend to go on seeking: the more you run after the golden egg of enlightenment the more elusive it becomes.  There are plenty of people around these days who are resting very comfortable in an unbroken sense of expansion and freedom, but generally speaking they have discovered that by being the very best they can be at whatever they love, whether it is music, film making, business, or farming, spaciousness and freedom of consciousness is the inevitable by-product.

Stewart Emery was the original CEO of EST and started that organization with Werner Erhart back in the 70’s.  For most of his life in the intervening thirty something years, he has focused on the question of what are the components of “greatness.”  He has interviewed everyone he could find on every corner of the planet to discover the natural attributes of human excellence.  He’s got a lot to say about what makes people great, and you can read more about it in his book, Success Built To Last.  I think the best is yet to come in his next work, Whatever You Do, Be A Good One.  When I interviewed him for “Living Awakening,” he had an interesting perspective to share with me: that doing something well, becoming a master at what you love, is not just a way to create beauty, art, and wealth in the world, it is also a spiritual discipline akin to meditation.

“If I look at what’s always mattered to me, I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t deeply moved, sometimes to tears, being in the presence of human excellence in any field. I get moved, obviously, at art museums and great symphonic performances, great jazz performances. I’ve had the privilege to interview and photograph people like Oscar Peterson, who has passed now, and Ella Fitzgerald, and Dizzy Gillespie – they’re all gone.  But I’ve talked to these people, interviewed these people, and being involved in their kind of brand of seeking and I’ve always been moved by that.
“I remember being in China recently where I was doing a course on business leadership for Beijing University, and  I went down to a Starbuck’s, who I don’t even think make great coffee here in the United States, and I’m into coffee.  There was a young man, a punk rocker, with lots of product in his hair, and tattoos and body piercing. And that particular Starbuck’s had a wonderful Italian La Marzocco espresso machine, really the world’s best machine. He poured me a latte that was just a God shot. I said,“Where did you learn do that latte, lad?” He said, “I learned to do that on from YouTube, from YouTube.” He had watched the World Barista Championships and had taught himself to do this at a Starbucks in Guangzhou in China. I was a little bit teary about it. He just moved me. He was so into it.  Wherever I go, and the people I talk to, when they’ve found their passion, they’ve learned how to get good at it, it’s life changing. It certainly has been for me. I recommend it for you.”

Please join me for two Tele-seminars this week.  Tuesday at 6pm PST I will be giving a tele-seminar titled “Getting Clear about Work and Money.”
REGISTER HERE.

I also have an upcoming tele-seminar with Siona van Djik, the Director of Gaiam Community, this Thursday October 15th at 6pm .  We will be talking about how we create sustainable  relationships, in marriage, at work and in community.    Uur dialog is titled “Love That Lasts.” 
REGISTER HERE.

I hope you will join me for one or both of these events!