Corporate Crap and Other Dubious Wisdom

s hot as it is today the sand feels cooler as he digs his bare toes deeper down.  This is one of his favorite things to do in the desert.  He stands with his naked back to the sun looking towards the high rock wall he had scaled wondering if today is the day.  Turning slowly towards the sun he begins walking again.

With the sharp curious eyes of the young,  he sees the jackrabbit ahead turn and stand motionless watching him.  With a twitch of its ears, the rabbit dashes behind a small dune barely visible once again behind a scrub bush.  Careful to avoid the thorns on the brush and unconsciously stepping around the devils claws half buried in the sand, the little seven year old continues his slow walk into the desert.  Glancing over his shoulder he notices that the jack rabbit has risen to its hind legs, nose twitching in the air, ears erect, perhaps testing the boys passage.

A small lizard rushes from his path towards a clump of tumbleweed, its tail like a little rudder in the sand leaving a track in the lizard's wake.  If the boy wished to he could probably catch the lizard as he had several before, but he really had no desire to harm the creature.  Others he had captured had not seemed happy to be taken home to share with his mother and sisters so he had returned them soon to their desert.  He remembered one whose tail had been left wriggling in the sand, remembered thinking it must have hurt.  Then his teacher had told him that some lizards left their tails behind to distract predators while they escaped.  Still, it must have hurt.

Carefully smoothing the sand and brushing the debris aside with his foot, the boy remembers how his mother had complained about the sand he tracked into the house.  Sitting now in the sparce shade of a clump of brush he slowly empties each cuff of his jeans of their load, listening to the sound of the hot wind through the dry branches of the brush.  Closing his eyes he wonders if the wild Indians his mother says he is related to ever sat where he is and rested.  Daydreaming now, pictures of Cochise and Geronimo remembered from his books float through his mind and drift off again with the wind.

Through the whisper of wind and imagined voices of his heroes another sound draws his attention.  A sort of buzzing sound, but more like a stick quickly shaken in dry leaves.  Slowly opening his eyes he searched for the source of the sound settling finally at the base of the bush a few feet away to his left.

Apparently, the young rattler had also taken its rest in the shade of the bushes, away from the scorching hot sun, or perhaps it was simply waiting for its evening meal to wander by.  Either way it doesn't seem pleased to share its refuge with the boy, yet also doesn't keep up a constant buzzing tail but pauses as if uncertain, its tongue flickering, tasting the air between them, the few rattles on its small tail alternately quiet then vibrating.

The boy remembers the look on his mother's face the last time he had brought a snake home to share with them.  His father said even the babies could make him very sick although they hadn't seemed inclined to bite him.  This one isn't acting very friendly but at least appeares to be willing to keep its distance, although the boy knows that could change.  As the sun is falling closer to the horizon and dinner time nearer, one of them will have to make a decision. (more Crap…)

s the killing of another human being really justified?  Those whom Saddam Hussein terrorized obviously have a different take on that issue than those he supported.  Here's a different point of view:

I don't pretend to be an expert either on Islam, Christianity, or any religion, so I won't insult anyone with arguing the point on a religious basis.  What I will do is to wonder if we, as a world society, believe in individual freedoms.  If this is the case, then the court of Iraq has exercised the ultimate freedom for Saddam Hussein.  Let me explain.

No matter what culture a human belongs to there are certain rules, laws that we are expected to follow.  We have the freedom to choose to live in peace with the rest of huimanity within these rules.  Although the laws may be different in various parts of the world, there are also what we could call global laws that apply no matter where we live.  Break these laws and you have committed a crime against humanity.  Genocide and torture are a couple of examples, serial killing another. The point here is that we have a choice to exercise our freedom… in either case we can have what we want, the only difference is in the consequences of our actions.

lthough I think we can all agree that human society often fails us, hence the growing numbers of innocent homeless and starving people in the world, the fact that there are fewer homeless and starving people in comparrison to the world population should be an indication that as a population we tend to reward such values as hard work and honesty.  In addition, when we treat other people well, we are rewarded with friendships and allies.  Simply put, we work hard and treat others well and expect the same in return.  With the results being a happier and more successful life you could reasonably say that the formula for success in life is:  treat others in the same way which you expect to be treated and you can reasonably expect to get what you're asking for. 

Following this logically to its conclusion, what are people like Saddam Hussein asking for?  Apparently, what made him happy was torturing, and killing, or being responsible for those activities.  One could reasonably assume that he would therefore expect the same treatment in return.  This was not society's choice for him but one he himself made.  We (meaning society via the court system) rewarded him by giving him what he was asking for.

I'm all about freedom, so I think everyone should be free to choose what they want out of life.

Those of you who reguarly read my blog will remember that I am studying to be a teacher/instructor, so I have to be able to explain in detail. Let’s see if I can write a coherent analysis for statement #2.

Let me start out my analysis of Statement #2 with this—I feel that everyone should be treated equally.

"Reverse religious/racial discrimination (the discrimination of one race or religion against another based upon historical precident, in reverse.  Ie.- Protestant vs. Catholic, Black vs. white) in order to "pay back" the original target for past transgressions, is justified."

This statement actually does have some basis in ancient philosophy, although the initial idea has been corrupted by its current use.  The philosopher Aristotle felt that, in order to lead a "virtuous life," people should always walk a median path leaning neither to far in one direction nor the other.

An explanation of this theory;  If we think of the two extremes of an attitude towards money, the high extreme might be greed, and the lower extreme might be "stinginess" or perhaps being overly thrifty. Either extreme would not make us virtuous people according to Aristotle.  An analogy of this would be to imagine yourself on a boat going down a river with rapids and trying to keep the boat from grounding on either side.  At times you would have to stray slightly from the center of the river towards one side or the other to avoid rocks and currents, but for the most part you would try and keep the boat in the center.  The center of the river would be the "virtuous path" and keep you safe.

To understand today’s corruption of the theory, remember that I am speaking of an attitude.  It is your intention (attitude) to keep the boat in the center of the river, not the actual activity of rowing the boat.

Discrimination is the activity (rowing) that results from some sort of prejudice (attitude).  It is our beliefs that form our attitudes, which result in our actions—or, to follow-up with our boat analogy, it is our belief that if we don’t keep the boat in the center we’ll ground the boat, which we don’t intend to let happen—so we act to keep that from happening (row).  However, if we stray to far in either direction or extreme, we ground the boat.  In the case of prejudice, if we allow our beliefs to form an attitude that tells us that our way of thinking, living, worshiping, etc. can be the only way, we then feel justified in acting on that attitude by discriminating against others.

So, to complete Aristotle’s theory, although we sometimes have to stray from the median or midpoint of an attitude to overcome obstacles in either direction, we should never reach either extreme.  In the case of prejudice in our society today, it is quite possible that we have strayed so far in one direction that we are now discriminating rather than practicing tolerance of each other and our beliefs.  The excuse and justification for this has often been that because one group has been discriminated against in the past they should have preference now to make up for it. 

Our society is simply now practicing the activity of discrimination against different groups rather than changing the beliefs that cause the attitudes to begin with.  We have encouraged the original groups who were the target of prejudice to demand and recieve better rather than equal treatment. I don’t begrudge anyone equality, however, I do object to any group receiving preference over another.  We can’t reasonably expect to repay one group by penalizing another and attempting to do so merely reinforces a negative attitude in one or both groups.