HUMANITY – Page 24 – REVIEWS AND VIEWS OF LIFE

PEELED ONION

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The Human Stain

By Phillip Roth

Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris

PHILLIP ROTH (WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION, MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE AND MORE)

Figuratively, Phillip Roth skins an onion in his book, The Human Stain. He exposes the invidious nature of discrimination and truth’s distortion in a story about a college professor’s life.

In an ironic Buddhist’ way, Roth’s writing stings the eyes of wisdom and the material world; i.e. The Human Stain offers a nuanced explanation of human nature.

Roth exposes layers of who we are by recounting President Clinton’s contretemps with Monica Lewinski; stories of a “free” but tainted press, the many forms of discrimination, and incidents of sexual exploitation. Each peel of the onion reveals a stinging criticism of human beings and the material world.

Roth’s story is about Coleman Silk, a tenured professor, nearing the end of his career at a small university. He is seventy-one years old. His career is ended in disgrace. The disgrace is caused by the use of words, taken out of context, and given dishonest meaning by others.

Today appears no different from yesterday. Humans lie through conscious and subconscious selection of facts. People looking at the same event view that event differently. Each person creates their own story based on their life experience.

Silk resigns from the university. His wife dies. In general, he blames the world; more specifically the press and university, for his wife’s death. He has an affair with a 35-year-old woman; they die in a mysterious accident that is inaccurately reported by newspapers reporting rumor and colleague’ distortion rather than fact.

Phillip Roth implies objective truth is an oxymoron. Are good and evil in the world only defined by society’s acceptance? Is the same true for morality and amorality?

That is the basic outline of The Human Stain but Roth peels layers of life off twentieth century history with fictional characters who illustrate and argue that stains are an inevitable consequence of living any life. His hero, Silk, tells a white lie near the beginning of adulthood and is pilloried for a Black accusation near the end of his life. Roth’s story infers every lie leaves a stain and every human being is a liar.

PTSD -The veteran husband, now ex-husband, is stained as a soldier trained to kill by the military. He is expected to return from Vietnam as though the past is past. However, the past is never past; it lives in memory and acts on the future. It is his stain.

Silk’s lover, in Roth’s depiction, is a woman stained by abuse of a stepfather, and later in life, by a husband. The abused child, and wife, carries her stains and spirals down to a dark place filled with despair. The veteran husband, now ex-husband, is stained as a soldier trained to kill by the military. He is expected to return from Vietnam as though the past is past. However, the past is never past; it lives in memory and acts on the future. It is his stain. He is diagnosed with PTSD.

A colleague of Silk’s is stained by a failure to come to his aid when Silk is unjustly vilified by the University. Monica Lewinski’s stain is literal and figurative with a soiled dress and the public’s vilification. President Clinton’s stain is weakness of character, lying about an affair, cheating on a wife. Every human being in Roth’s story is stained by life and must choose to live with it or die from it.

By the end of The Human Stain, one is reminded of the biblical phrase, “he who is without sin can cast the first stone”. How ridiculous was it to impeach President Clinton? How stupid is it to believe returning from a war is like turning off a light? Roth’s story infers every lie, and we are all liars, leaves a stain; every human experience leaves an imprint, some of which are stains.

GOD’S EXISTENCE

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

36 Arguments for the Existence of God
By Rebecca Newberger Goldstein
Narrated by Stephen Pinker, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, Oliver Wyman

Rebecca Goldstein writes like Stephen Pinker on steroids. (Coincidentally, Goldstein is married to Pinker.) Goldstein’s novel is not the story one expects from its title because “36 Arguments for the Existence of God” is about denial; not affirmation of existence.

STEVEN PINKER (Cognitive psychologist, linguist, and author) — STEVEN PINKER (Cognitive psychologist, linguist, and author who wrote “How the Mind Works”, “The Blank Slate”, “Angels of Our Better Nature”, etc.)

A more apt title for Goldstein’s book might be “The Science of Human Nature Denies the Existence of God”.

Goldstein has done a masterful job of creating “fear and trembling” in believers. This is “fear and trembling” in the opposite sense of Soren Kierkegaard’s meaning. Kierkegaard’s meaning awakens believers in God. Kierkegaard, an author, theologian, and philosopher, argues one should fear and tremble at the truth of God’s existence.

SOREN KIERKEGAARD (1813-1855, DANISH PHILOSOPHER, AUTHOR, THEOLOGIAN) — SOREN KIERKEGAARD 1813-1855 (Kierkegaard, an author, theologian, and philosopher, argues one should fear or tremble at the truth of God’s existence.)

On one level this is a story about a man named Cass Seltzer and his personal (sometimes romantic) relationships.

On a second level it is about human ethnocentrism. Characters, including Cass Seltzer, see through myopic eyes based on who they have become and what peer group they belong to.

On a third level “36 Arguments…” is about human nature and cultural memes (Richard Dawkins defines a cultural meme as an inherited learned behavior).

On multiple levels, Goldstein’s writing is about the elephant in the room; i.e. mankind’s belief in a Supreme Being.

The story of Cass Seltzer’s life is absorbing. The women he loves are monumentally independent, fantastically alluring, and maddeningly self-centered (as self-centered as Cass Seltzer). Each character believes what they believe with conviction that directs their lives.

The introduction of Felix Fidley exemplifies tribal ethnocentrism and conviction; i.e. a believer who says one way is the only way.

RELIGIOUS BELIEF — Goldstein’s introduction of Felix Fidley in her novel exemplifies tribal ethnocentrism and conviction; i.e. a believer who says one way is the only way.

Ms. Goldstein cleverly introduces the town of New Walden. Its isolated belief system reflects the heritability of good and bad genetic markers and memes that trap people in worshipful repetition. One might categorize it as a cult or, more politely, a commune.

Finally, Goldstein creates a straw man debate about God, The debate is conducted in the next to last chapter. It pits Cass Seltzer against a purportedly renowned debater. Seltzer beats his debate opponent. Believers in God lose. In the last chapter, 36 arguments for belief in God are stated and refuted.

SCIENCE AND RELIGION — One doubts Goldstein will change the world with her book but its rational arguments are a big add to the non-believing world’s arguments for a scientific theory of the world that explains everything about everything.

One doubts Goldstein will change the world with her book but its rational arguments are a big add to the non-believing world’s arguments for a scientific theory of the world that explains everything about everything.

PREACHER PREACHING — Faith is always a refuge but is it enough?

If you are a believer, “36 Arguments…” is a clear explanation of your battleground; it reveals the manifesto, strategy, and tactics of a non-believer. Faith is always a refuge but is it enough?

“36 Arguments for the Existence of God” is a fascinating piece of literature.

RISE AND FALL

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Asabiyyah: What Ibn Khaldun, the Islamic Father of Social Science, Can Teach Us About the World Today

Written by: Ed West

Narrated by: P. J. Ochlan

ED WEST (ENGLISH AUTHOR, JOURNALIST, BLOGGER)

IBN KHALDUN (STATUARY SYMBOL OF ISLAMIC HISTORIAN BORN 1332, DIED 1406 AT 73 YEARS OF AGE.)

Ed West offers a brief introduction to the life of an ancient historian. His name is Ibn Khaldun. Khaldun describes the first known evolutionary theory of human origin. West also notes this 14^th century scholar creates the first known socio/political theory of the rise and fall of civilizations.

Khaldun explains life’s origin as a aggregation of chemicals and minerals that create organic life and, in turn, evolve into different species.

West notes that Khaldun suggests humankind evolved from monkeys. This is four centuries before Darwin’s “Origin of Species”.

Ibn Khaldun is considered by some to be the first person to write foundational theories for modern sociology, economics, and demography. West notes that Khaldun explains how nations are formed, maintained, and destroyed by sociological, economic, and demographic forces.

Khaldun offers counsel to the great conqueror, Amir Timur (aka Tammerlane), who plans to resurrect the 13^th century Mongol empire built by Genghis Khan.

TIMUR AKA TAMMERLANE IS COUNCELED BY IBN KHALDUN (1336-1405–(Timur is said to have caused the death of over 17 million people in the effort.)

West suggests that Khaldun explains how Timur and other rulers, from the Roman empire to Genghis Kahn to Timur successfully conquered great areas of the known world. His explanation is “Asabiyyah” (aas-sah-bee-ah), a theory that all successful conquerors establish a social environment that creates solidarity among a group of people sharing understanding, purpose, and achievement.

West explains that Khaldun expands “Asabiyyah” to a theory of civilization’s rise and fall. Humans proliferate based on family affiliations. Religion widens family relationships to create tribes. Tribes become a congregation of different families with common beliefs. Tribes come into conflict and eventual settlements that grow into larger groups based on evolved common beliefs.

At each step of widening common interest, a leader rises from the ranks. With an accretion of social ties, villages, towns, and cities are formed with a leader at its head. As the ties that bind continue to expand, nation-states are formed.

Ibn Khaldun’s explanation is “Asabiyyah”, a theory that all successful conquerors establish a social environment that creates solidarity among a group of people through shared understanding, purpose, and achievement.

West shows that Khaldun goes on to explain how civilizations decline. First, Khaldun notes that sons and daughters of great leaders rarely exceed their parent’s leadership success. Khaldun posits the current social and scientific belief of “reversion to a mean”.

Each subsequent offspring of a great leader comes closer to the average of a civilization’s population. Leadership diminishes in succeeding generations.

Second, Khaldun suggests diminished common beliefs lessen a civilization’s cohesion. Religious differences rise, economic circumstances change, social groups fracture, family ties reassert themselves as ties that are more important than community. The example that Khaldun gives is Rome’s decline as a world power. West suggests the same may be said of the United Kingdom’s decline.

Has the American Dream become a lie few believe in? Are elected officials withdrawing to their families at the expense of nation-state’ leadership?

West’s “Asabiyyah” makes one think of America. Does today’s political conflict reflect diminishment of commonly held nation-state belief? Is the increasing gap between rich and poor destroying the social fabric of America? Is the divisiveness of former President Trump a reflection of a nation in decline?

Is nationalism dead, or are we crossing a threshold where the principals of nation-state need to be expanded to include a wider community? Is the next step reflected by the E.U. or some similar congregation of nation-states?

According to West, Khaldun believes nationalism is critically important for a civilization to remain strong. In the time of Khaldun, there was no vehicle for common beliefs except a leader’s influence over conquered nations.

Today, there is an internet. It seems the human family may once again be expanded. Nation-states may not be prepared for “space-ship-earth” but there may be an interim step.

That interim step was tried during the cold war with the U.S.S.R. It failed. The E.U. is facing challenges today.

Trump’s America is regressing from comity to disparity with emphasis on making itself great again. A leading question today is whether civilizations are competing to be in decline or ascendance?

Of course, leadership is key to any future. Right now, there seem few leaders that can make civilizations grow beyond their borders. Khaldun seems as relevant today as he was in the 4^th and early 5^th centuries.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

By Frederick Douglass

Narrated by Walter Covell

“Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” is an original source of history; i.e. words written by a man ahead of his time who acted on new-found knowledge and lived to write about it.

One may question the veracity of Douglass’s words but the truth of his experience is corroborated by reports of others of his time and by America’s history of Black revolution.

Douglass was a slave in the early 19^th century, 30 years before the civil war. He became a self-taught reader/writer and scholar, reporting on himself as “a slave become free”.

Slavery and racial prejudice are truths of American history. Resistance is made real in Douglass’s auto biography. Racial prejudice remains evident in today’s memory of the Watt’s riots and Black Panther movement of the 1960s.

Frederick Douglass was a canary in a coal mine that presaged the future of slavery and resistance to unequal treatment in the United States. His experience in 1820’s Maryland is the experience of Black militancy in the 1960s.

Advances in racial equality could only be started through education. However, Douglass infers that some level of violence is inherent in the drive for equality.

He recounts his physical resistance to the abuse of an overseer when he is near 16 years of age. The quality of resistance seems like that of a younger brother that becomes too big to be abused by an older brother that has been able to control his sibling’s behavior.

It is more complex in Douglass’s explanation because the overseer may also have been trying to maintain his reputation as a reformer of recalcitrant slaves. Any hint of physical resistance would be a strike against the overseer’s reputation.

ca. 1860s, Near Savannah, Georgia, USA — Slave Family In Cotton Field near Savannah — Image by © Bettmann/CORBIS

Douglass goes on to explain that physical abuse is only one of many ways that unequal treatment was reinforced by a white majority; e.g. slave owners refusal to educate slaves, slave owners withholding of food and clothing, slave owners sexual exploitation of slave women; more ways than can be counted, seen, or understood.

Douglass, like Colin Kaepernick, is not condoning violence but his story is a reality check on the consequence of resistance to unfair or unequal treatment.

Without physical resistance, social change has no impetus, no accelerator. Douglass did not write about murdering an oppressor. He wrote about human equality and the need to become confident in oneself; not to be property of another but to be equally human. The logical extension of that belief is an assertion of one’s self; i.e. a bully can only be a bully if the put-upon fail to fight back. Douglass fought back and gained self-respect. Short of murder, that contextualizes the Black Panther movement and reinforces the credibility of Martin Luther King’s, and today’s football player’s efforts to raise Black self-respect through education and non-violent resistance to unequal treatment.

An irony that is sometimes missed in the fight for equal rights is the negative role that religion played in the unequal treatment of Blacks.

Douglass notes in his auto biography that his greatest ill-treatment stemmed from people who professed strong belief in a particular religion. Douglass writes that be believes in God and feels blessed by God’s existence but white men and women, in Douglass’s experience, distort God’s truth through their religion to justify abhorrent behavior toward slaves.

“A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” is worth listening to because it gives all Americans some sense of how bad we are, how good we can be, how far we have come, and how far we have to go to eliminate racial inequality.

HEARTACHES, HEARTBREAKS, AND BELIEF

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The Canterbury TalesBy Geoffrey Chaucer

Narrated by Charlton Griffin

What value does a 14^th century book have for a 21^st century person?

GEOFFREY CHAUCER (1343-1400) — GEOFFREY CHAUCER (1343-1400, AUTHOR, POET)

“The Canterbury Tales” is a rhyming entertainment (except for Christian preaching at the tales end) that recalls romantic heartaches, heartbreaks, and belief in divine justice that is as present today as yesterday. The unchanging nature of men’s lust for women and women’s superiority is comically and tragically told and repeated in Chaucer’s travelers’ tales. Though women play a primary focus in “The Canterbury Tales”, belief in Christianity and its power to heal and destroy is a paramount subject.

FIGHTING KNIGHTS — In the Knight’s tale, two brothers lust for the same woman. They plan to fight each other to the death but are interrupted by the King

In the Knight’s tale, two brothers lust for the same woman. They plan to fight each other to the death but are interrupted by the King. The woman wishes to retain her maidenhood and appeals to her deity to insure continued chastity. The two brothers and the woman have different agendas with each agenda appealed to a different god. The tale progresses with the three appellant deities determining the brothers and woman’s fates. It is an ironic pagan tale of Chaucer’s disbelief in many gods rather than the One.

In Chaucer’s tales, men are shown to be the weaker and dumber sex. Old rich men marry young beautiful women and become cuckolds. Powerful and rich young men choose poor and beautiful women to be their wives and treat them horribly to test their love and loyalty. Male insecurity and desire drive men to make foolish decisions about whom they should marry and how they might measure their worth through earth-bound pleasure. Men foolishly seek revenge at any cost while women seek justice through diplomacy and prudence.

WIFE OF BATH — In Chaucer’s tales, men are shown to be the weaker and dumber sex.

The incredible power of religion in Chaucer’s time is illustrated in the Nun’s tale of a chaste bride that convinces her betrothed to forgo conjugal relations for the sake of eternal life in heaven.

The husband asks for proof of an angel that visits his wife and, if he can see the angel, he agrees to forever forego sex with her. She refers her husband to the Pope.

The Pope convinces the husband to become a Christian; he returns home and sees the angel and agrees to his wife’s demand. The husband then convinces his brother to meet with the Pope and the brother also becomes a Christian. Her husband and his brother are executed because they refuse to obey their Overlord when he insists that they sacrifice to pagan idols.

After the brothers’ execution, the Overload summons the wife. The chaste wife is sentenced to be burned in her house because she also refuses to sacrifice to her Overlord’s deities. The fire fails to kill the wife so the ruler has an executioner sent to cut-off her head. The executioner strikes her neck with an ax three times but is unable to remove her head; a fourth strike is not allowed and she continues to preach her beliefs.

Neither mammon nor the Pope seem the equal of this wife.

Prejudice comes through Chaucer’s strong Christian beliefs; i.e. “The Canterbury Tales” endorses Christianity as the salvation of mankind with vilification of Jews which is presumably justified by Christian’ belief in Jewish betrayal of Christ.

It is perplexing to think that much of what Chaucer says about Christian believers remains true today but Chaucer’s understanding of women’s superiority to men in the 14^th century seems quite enlightened in the 21^st.

NUCLEAR WAR

Consider whether “The Last Train from Hiroshima” horrifies more than enlightens. “Last Train from Hiroshima” is not for the faint hearted. It is a gruesome reminder of the horror of war.

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough
(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Last Train from Hiroshima
By Charles Pellegrino
Narrated by Arthur Morey

Christopher Nolan’s remarkable performance in the movie “Oppenheimer” re-opens the terror of nuclear war. Consider whether “The Last Train from Hiroshima” horrifies more than enlightens. “Last Train from Hiroshima” is not for the faint hearted. It is a gruesome reminder of the horror of war.

Charles Pellegrino has written a story of Hiroshima and Nagasaki’s bomb survivors. Arthur Morey brings Pellegrino’s words to life. Pellegrino recounts survivor stories; i.e. what they saw, and what happened to them and their families in the aftermath of the world’s first use of a nuclear weapon.

Pellegrino is a wordsmith. He uses words that blow torch images on a listener’s mind. His words capture the horror of nuclear war; the physical and mental effect of a nuclear detonation on human beings.

hiroshima - ant walkers — The aftermath of Japan’s nuclear blasts left thousands of people with few apparent injuries. They wander in a fog of confusion, like ants in long lines following each other, single file to nowhere. They were, as Pellegrino explains, the “ant walkers”.

Hiroshima - Burnt to Ashes — Hiroshima – Burnt to Ashes

After Nagasaki’s bomb, a young girl walks out of a tubular bomb shelter and sees a shadowy figure that she presumes is an escaped zoo animal. It has rough, blackened, mottled skin, and is crawling on four limbs. It is a human being, exposed to the flash and burn (pika don) of the bomb.

Pellegrino describes the aforementioned crawling man as one of the “alligator people”, a classification that repeats itself on the skins of anyone that survives direct exposure to the bomb’s flash and burn. He tells the story of a “tap dancer” running down a street in Hiroshima; tap, tap, tapping the hard-surfaced street because he has no feet. Pellegrino recounts the story of a father greeting his lost daughter by asking “…do you have feet” because a Japanese aphorism believed ghosts are recognized as apparitions with no feet.

nagasaki bombing aftermath — Nagasaki bombing aftermath. Survivors are the “ant walkers”. Days later, the “ant walkers” are stricken with fever, vomiting, loss of appetite, and internal bleeding. Some survive to go through the same symptoms weeks or months later.

The aftermath of Japan’s nuclear blasts left thousands of people with few apparent injuries. They wander in a fog of confusion, like ants in long lines following each other, single file to nowhere. They were, as Pellegrino explains, the “ant walkers”. Days later, the “ant walkers” are stricken with fever, vomiting, loss of appetite, and internal bleeding; some survive to go through the same symptoms weeks or months later; some become crippled for the remainder of their lives; some die after the first onset of sickness; some die years later from leukemia or other maladies traced back to those two fateful August days in 1945.

RADIATION EXPOSURE DAMAGE FROM CHERNOBYL DISASTER IN THE FORMER U.S.S.R.

The survivor stories in Pellegrino’s book are so vivid that one wonders where real history ends and his imagination begins. Regardless of the veracity of Pellegrino’s survivor facts, his description of nuclear weapon damage and radioactive exposure is verified by later scientific experiments and accidents.

Once again–Iran, Russia, and North Korea threaten peaceful coexistence. “Never again” has been said before. One is left with thought and fear.

Addendum: I am writing this from the Vista Hotel in Hiroshima today. I will post an essay of the trip sometime later this year but this addendum is to reveal a comment from a survivor of the bomb blast in 1945.

Something not mentioned in Pellegrino’s excellent book is that those who survived the bomb were discriminated against because of the fear they had of contamination from those who were victims of the event. It is a reminder of the tragedy of the bombing but more importantly the ignorance of humanity’s discrimination.

INDICTMENT

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Tears We Cannot Stop-A Sermon to White America

Written by: Michael Eric Dyson

Narrated by: Michael Eric Dyson

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON (AUTHOR, BAPTIST MINISTER, PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY AT GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY)

Michael Eric Dyson is a graduate of Princeton who teaches at Georgetown University. “Tears We Cannot Stop” is an indictment of white America. The indictment accuses white Americans of serious crimes stemming from today’s bigotry, neglect, permanent injury, and murder of black Americans.

Examples of police violence against black Americans, a history of ethnic isolation, forced conformity and denied equal opportunity strongly support Dyson’s accusation.

Each accusation and the evidence gathered by Dyson confront the conscience of every white American. What he writes rings of truth. The more Dyson explains, the greater is white America’s guilt. It is a message missed by white Americans because they do not live the life of black Americans. White privilege is taken for granted in America because money, power, and prestige are held by mostly white American males.

RODNEY KING (APPEARANCE 3 DAYS AFTER BEATING 3.6.92–KING DIES IN JUNE 2012 @ 47 YEARS OF AGE)

The institutionalization of racism makes black Americans afraid. Out of that fear comes distrust, anger, apathy, and isolation. Black mothers and fathers fear for their children whenever they leave home. Regardless of education, fame, or fortune, Dyson notes an honest and law-abiding black American is subject to a different set of social rules. From birth, black Americans are told by their parents not to disagree with police for fear of being beaten, arrested or shot.

Truth does not matter in a black person’s response to accusation. Most black Americans live with fear; most white Americans do not. When stopped by the police, a black American thinks–what can I do; where can I go; what can I say; who can I trust other than myself and my race? When unjustly accused, black Americans have limited recourse. Those limits are tinged with frustration, and/or anger. No wonder some feel disrespected and alone in America.

RUDY GIULIANI (FORMER MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY)

RUDY GUILIANY (FORMER MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY) Dyson attacks pundits who suggest black Americans are their own worst enemy. The white pundit’s argument is they kill each other. The argument ignores two monumental facts. One, the toll that poverty and unemployment play in poor communities; and the truth that whites murder whites nearly as often as blacks kill blacks.

Dyson attacks pundits who suggest black Americans are their own worst enemy. Some white pundit’s argue blacks kill each other more than whites kill blacks. The argument ignores two monumental facts. One, the toll that poverty and unemployment play in poor communities; and two, the truth that whites murder whites nearly as often as blacks kill blacks.

Dyson notes that victimization is a community problem; not a black or white issue; i.e. if you live in a black community, blacks murder blacks; if you live in a white community, whites murder whites.

Blacks victimize blacks because alternative ways of taking care of their families are limited by socio/economic isolation. Blacks become invisible to white America.

The real difference between black and white victimization is whites have more opportunity in America. White, mostly male, Americans write the history of America and create the rules for “democratic” governance.

Dyson encourages white Americans to become more involved with black Americans. The social disconnect between races promotes ignorance of common goals and aspirations. Who does not want to live in peace, provide for themselves and their families, raise their children to be better off than themselves? Part of the difficulty is that there is little trust between black and white Americans as is noted in the following social experiment.

Leaders in America, consciously or subconsciously, treat non-white Americans as “others”. When humans treat someone as an “other”, they become less human. Minorities and other nation’s populations become “gooks”, “spics”, “towel heads”, “niggers”; i.e. something identified as less than human. This human categorization institutionalizes discrimination. It leads to this American dilemma and to world wars.

Leaders of America, who are mostly white males, ignore the plight of black Americans. One wonders how many white Americans thank their God for not being born black. That is Dyson’s reason for concluding black Americans shed “Tears We Cannot Stop”.

ANOTHER AMERICA

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The Harder They Come: A Novel

Written by: T. C. Boyle

Narration by: Graham Hamilton

T. C. BOYLE (AMERICAN NOVELIST)

“The Harder They Come” is a novel about another America; not the America of idealized history but the America of three generations coping with loss in the twenty-first century.

T. C. Boyle creates three characters who feel beaten down by American life. Boyle reflects on their disappointments and perceptions of loss. A young man in his twenties loses identity, a fortyish woman loses faith in government, and a seventy year old loses self-confidence.

Boyle’s imagined characters live in America today.

JOHN COLTER (1774-1813, MOUNTAIN MAN, MEMBER OF THE LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION)

Adam, a 23-year-old changes his name to Colter, the name of a member of the 1804-1806 Lewis and Clark Expedition. Colter explores Yellowstone National Park and the Teton Mountain Range in the 19^th century. John Colter is considered by some to be the first American mountain man.

Historically, a mountain man is a hermit-like explorer that exchanges fur for the necessities of life and lives off the land. Adam’s assumption of the Colter name is a trans-formative event for Adam. He uses drugs and alcohol to escape the frustrations of his 21^st century life. He uses the Colter identity to give him an anthropomorphic purpose in life. Adam becomes a mountain man.

Sara is a fortyish divorcee who adopts the philosophy of the sovereign citizen movement. She believes the 14^th amendment of the constitution proffers absolute freedom to American citizens.

Sara, like Nevada’s Cliven Bundy, believes she is above the law and a federal level of government that interferes with her right to do as she wishes is an infringement on her independent sovereignty.

TIMOTHY McVEIGH (MEMBER OF THOMAS ROBB KLAN, PERPETRATOR OF THE OKLA. CITY BOMBING 1995)

Though Sara considers herself non-violent, she appreciates actions of domestic terrorists like Timothy McVeigh who murdered 168 men, women, and children in Oklahoma City
on April 19, 1995 .

Sten Stenson is a veteran of the Vietnam War. He is now 70 years old. As an ex-Marine and former high school principal, he is retired. Sten is a big man; over six feet in height.

Sten dislikes getting old but has a brief turn at fame, as a hero, when he kills a robber in Latin America that is threatening fellow tourists. In looking back at his life, he is reminded of American ridicule of Vietnam vets when he returned from war; he becomes unsure of his purpose in life and regrets having killed anyone either in Vietnam or the recent event in Latin America.
Sten realizes every human being has a father and mother. He questions the usefulness and value of his life.

Boyle brings these three characters together. Adam is the son of Sten. Sara becomes Adam’s lover. The extreme behaviors of Adam and Sara are compatible on some level, but Adam’s violence and drug habit compel Adam to completely break from society. Sten loves his son but they have become completely estranged and evidence mounts to show Adam has become a lost boy.

The denouement of the story reveals a great deal about another America; i.e. “another America” that is a consequence of a capitalist culture that breeds psychotic murderers, deluded fringe groups, and psychologically broken seniors.

PARADIGM SHIFT

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Your Deceptive Mind: A Scientific Guide to Critical Thinking Skills

Recorded by: Professor Steven Novella

Produced by: The Great Courses

STEVEN NOVELLA (AMERICAN CLINICAL NEUROLOGIST, ASST. PROFESSOR AT YALE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE)

“Your Deceptive Mind” offers lessons for two paradigm shifts occurring in America today. One is gun control; the other is sex discrimination. Professor Steven Novella’s lessons apply to other important issues, but none seem to have the same political momentum for change.

Novella begins by inferring we all deceive ourselves. Novella explains it is caused by the nature of human consciousness. Novella argues that human brains are designed to make coherent sense of remembered experience; not to necessarily recount accurate details of events. We often add facts and change details to improve coherence of our memories.

Memory does not work like a film clip. It is not caste on celluloid that can be replayed as a memory. Memory is re-invented by reconstruction of facts to fit a story that makes sense to the person who remembers.

AR-15 (Type of semi-automatic rifle used in Florida High School shooting.)

As of April 15, 2021 there have been 148 people murdered and 485 injured in mass shootings. The most recent is at the Indianapolis FedEx facility that killed eight people. One is reminded of William Butler Yeats:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

The 17-people murdered in a Florida high school in 2018 raises the issue of gun control in America one more time. Americans see this incident from three views. One, from the perspective of people who heard it on the news; two from the perspective of people who responded to the event; and three from the perspective of victims. Based on Novella’s assessment of critical thinking, all three views distort reality.

The 17-people murdered in a Florida high school 2018 raised the issue of gun control in America one more time.

JOHN F. KENNEDY ASSASSINATION – Memory does not work like a film clip. It is not caste on celluloid that can be replayed as a memory. Memory is re-invented by reconstruction of facts to fit a story that makes sense to the person who remembers.

Novella tells a story of a woman accompanying the John F. Kennedy trip to Dallas, Texas. Soon after Kennedy’s death, she explains that she did not see anything that happened. As the years pass, she recalls seeing smoke from a grassy knoll near the shooting. Novella explains that each time she tells the story more details are revealed. No evidence is ever found to suggest a shot is fired from anywhere but the Dallas, Texas book-depository. What she is doing is creating facts to improve the coherence of a memory.

Facts of Florida’s murders and other gun-related incidents are remembered differently. All who heard of, responded to, or are victimized by guns tell different stories. There is no singular consensus on what caused it to happen, who is responsible, or what can be done. Facts seem not to matter. In Florida, seventeen human beings are dead. One person killed them. One automatic weapon is used by a troubled high school student who used a gun designed ONLY to kill people.

Victims of the school shooting ask why America cannot protect their children. A flood of responses is given but each person at the school is influenced by a subjective recollection of events. In many cases, facts are ignored because they do not fit the narrative of the person telling his/her story. It has little to do with facts; i.e. except as those facts fit the re-created memory of a horrific event. Like the woman seeing smoke coming from a grassy knoll, some facts just fit a reconstructed story; not the truth.

Critical thinking skills mean addressing facts, using those facts to create a constructive analysis, a plan of action, and implementation. Seventeen people are dead in Florida from one shooter. They are dead at the hand of a troubled teen. The weapon used is only designed to kill people. Everything else is irrelevant. Those are the facts. That is the truth. What is needed now is constructive analysis, a plan of action, and implementation.

As far back as the oldest laws of government written by a Sumerian King in 2,050 BC, women have been singled out with human rights’ violations.

The same can be said of sex discrimination. An example is the King’s law that particularly applies to women who speak insolently. They are to have their mouths scoured with salt; i.e. a law applying only to women slaves. Of course, the law begs the question of why women are slaves.

Novella’s argument that every memory is a subjective recollection may mean testimony of women who are abused and/or discriminated against are misreading the facts of their recollection. However, many facts are independent of recollection.

There is overwhelming evidence; i.e. fact-based films, recordings, physical examination records, and statistical studies that show women are abused and discriminated against all over the world. Those are the facts. That is the truth. What is needed is constructive analysis, a plan of action, and implementation.

Gun control and women’s rights: Has America reached the tipping point for acting on critical thinking? Have we finally reached the threshold for a paradigm shift in gun control and women’s rights? Doubtful.

WHEN CIVILIZATIONS COLLIDE

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Things Fall Apart

By Chinua Achebe

Narrated by Peter Francis James

NIGERIAN NOVELIST, POET, AND CRITIC (1930-2013)

Chinua Achebe explains what happens when civilizations collide in “Things Fall Apart”. Achebe lived a life that reinforces hope. He was born in Nigeria but educated in English at the University of Ibadan, the oldest university in Nigeria (founded in 1948). Achebe wrote “Things Fall Apart” in the 1950s (published in 1958). It sold more than 12 million copies and was translated into more than 50 languages. Sadly, Achebe died on March 21, 2013.

african society — Two thirds of “Things Fall Apart” explains life in an African village that is untouched by a white man’s world or any civilization outside of its clan and their related communities.

Without knowing Achebe’s background, a first reading of “Things Fall Apart” begins in confusion but as the story progresses its meaning becomes clear. The listener is being offered an understanding of a 1950s African village’s culture.

V0016256 An African shaman or medicine man dressed in ritual mask and

AFRICAN SHAMAN: This clan’s insular existence creates an independent patriarchal culture that believes in many gods, supernatural forces, and rigid rules for life. Being a man means following rules of the culture. Any transgression is considered womanly, a cultural euphemism for cowardice.

Women are respected but only within the context of their duty as the source of tribal growth. Women have restricted roles in this society as maternal caregivers. In all respects women become property of men. They may be beaten and treated with near impunity. Boys are raised to be tough, outwardly unemotional, and obedient. They are expected to revere and emulate their fathers. Wrestling prowess is a measure of male respect in the tribe. Farming productivity and honor of tribal tradition are measures of value to the tribe.

War among the villages is rare because negotiated peace and village interdependence make war too wasteful. Violation of communal laws can be mortal offenses. A story is told of a father murdering his adopted son because he is told it is necessary to please the Clan’s gods. Though this murder troubled the adoptive father, he accepts the Clan’s admonition and rationalizes his grief by knowing he has other sons.

OLDEST HUMAN SACRIFICE DISCOVERED IN CENTRAL AFRICA (A negotiated peace between clans may mean the sacrifice of children to nearby tribes for transgressions of communal laws but overt war between tribes of the same clan is rare.

The most serious consequence to a violator of Clan’ law is banishment from the community. Banishment can be either permanent or for a number of years, depending upon the gravity of the violation. Murder out of anger means permanent banishment. Murder by accident means 7 years banishment.

Achebe explains women having twins are ordered to kill them at birth because twins are unnatural and a curse of the gods. One woman has twins three times; all are murdered.

1950S JEEP (Achebe explains the fear that causes natives of one tribe to murder a white missionary and tie his iron horse to a tree.)

As Achebe explains these local customs, he describes how an intruding civilization is introduced to his village. The intruders are Christian missionaries. The first intruder is a white man riding an iron horse. This is the first white man who native villagers have ever seen. The engendered fear causes natives of one of the tribes to murder the white man and tie his iron horse to a tree. The murder is revenged by returning outsiders that destroy the population of the village. Neighboring villages hear of the massacre. They choose to respond to the next intruder more circumspectly.

New intruders come with plans to build a church on tribal property. They ask for permission and tribal leaders meet to discuss the request. The decision of the tribal leaders is to offer land in the worst part of the village; i.e. land that is used to bury evil shamans, tribal criminals, and diseased bodies. The tribal leaders believe the Christians will die from their location in this forbidden human and mystical dumping ground.

The irony of the tribal leader’s decision is that it strengthens the Christian movement. The Christians do not die and the church begins to attract tribal followers that begin to believe Christian’ beliefs are stronger than Shaman’ beliefs. The woman who had been told to kill her twins joins the church.

One culture is replaced by another culture; first with small steps, and then with generational leaps. The good and bad of one culture is replaced by the good and bad of another. One guardedly hopes cultural change moves humanity toward a better life; not just cosmetic change.

Over many generations, some tribal members have become outcasts from the tribe. Their outcast position draws them to the Christian movement because they wish to become part of a community again. Some women turn to Christianity because it offers a refuge from the violence of their husbands. Some sons turn to Christianity because it offers escape from the iron rule of their fathers and the tribes’ cultural laws.

Donald Trump is a rule breaker, a main stream outsider.

From the perspective of any individuated culture “Things Fall Apart” when change comes from the outside. Has Trump changed America into two tribes–one Republican and another Democrat?

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