The Truth They Are Telling

 

This is my second take on the subject of this piece … the first was when I was in graduate school in the philosophy department at UT-Austin. I think I was protesting the war in Vietnam back then. Now things seem much worse. I do not have a copy of that first piece but I imagine it was much better than this short one.

The truth they are telling may only be the truth that is selling. “What is truth?” Ruth asked Naomi in the Megilath Ruth, and truth showed itself in Ruth following Naomi. Truth shows itself in actions and decisions … it is what we do that matters … not what we say. Truth shows itself.

Is the near death beating of Paul Pelosi a democratic conspiracy? Was what happened at the capitol an invasion or a peaceful demonstration? Who lied about having forbidden documents?  Are immigrants rapists and criminals or are they seeking a better life in this troubled land? How much worse must their home countries be?

While it is freezing in Dallas can climate warming be true? Is sea level rising? Are species being killed off? Is racism alive and well? Are rain forests disappearing? Is there balm in Gilead. “Quoth the raven, nevermore”(my apologies to Edgar Allan).

Truth shows itself to those willing to look and think. But in the metaverse, what seems to matter is what is being sold rather than what is actually happening.

On a side note, I recall my esteemed colleague, Prof. Norbert Seel, criticizing efforts to turn education into entertainment – called edutainment. Norbert was a serious scholar. My reaction to his criticism was to invent what I call edunishment – educational punishment. My argument was that effective learning often required hard effort … the punishment of serious and sustained inquiry associated with attaining deep understanding. I even told about when I was publicly humiliated but then realized deep truths I had overlooked. That kind of punishment by my favorite Professors, Spicker and Bouwsma,  led me to deep truths about myself and my lack of respect for what was happening in those two instances and what others present were thinking. I am such a slow learner … so often reacting rather than thinking.

Thought is not properly respected or rewarded these days in some many instances. Edutainment rules over edunisment. So be it. Laugh a lot and learn a little. Love more and hate less. It is so hard to live up to all of those ten commandments. Living up to one or two is not sufficient. It is all ten that matters … especially the second five, which seem the most difficult to respect and follow.

What is truth? Is it what they are telling and selling or is it something else? I have more questions than answers.

Mike Spector, January 30, 2023

A violent world

 

We live in a violent world as the daily news in many places easily documents. In Europe, Russia’s unjustified invasion of Ukraine and mass killings of innocent civilians continues. In the USA, mass shootings of innocent people occur daily and pepper the evening news frequently. One can find examples of people killing other people in every corner of this planet, on every continent and in nearly every country. It is no secret that the human species has a long history of violence against other humans dating back to recorded time and stories of the origin of the species. That tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden turned out to be the tree of knowledge of war and acts of inhumanity.

Our species is now exploring space and the possible existence of civilizations in other parts of the universe. If advance organisms are found, I am curious to learn if they engage in such brutality against others and other members of their own species. Along with Edgar Allen Poe, I wonder if there is balm in Gilead as promised in the Jewish bible (Jeremiah 8:22). The Raven’s answer was “nevermore.” I honestly do not know.

However, the focus on people killing other people overlooks a larger threat to us all. Namely, the environment in which we live and occasionally thrive is deteriorating and threatening us all. Efforts to reduce gun violence and bring peace to our species overlooks the larger problem of our continued existence on this planet.

While I personally detest human violence and would like to see gun violence in my country and the state of Texas greatly reduced, I wonder at our inability to control or influence things within our potential control, such as gun violence and war, and our continued disregard to the environmental factors that influence our very existence. While the climate is at the far extreme of things we can influence, there are some things that could be done but are not even seriously considered. We are fighting the wrong enemy.

 

Mike Spector, January, 2023

And then I thought

I have been wondering about all the heroes and villains I have identified in recent times. First I thought that perhaps some of the heroes had done things not well known or advertised that were perhaps not so laudable. Perhaps, and I believe that some of their opponents are busy digging up such dirt to disturb or disrupt our beliefs. Then I came to realize that it is patterns of behavior and misbehavior that should be noted but that present trends and good deeds perhaps outweigh misdeeds of the past. At least I hope that is the case with retard to my own misdeeds. With that hope my attention turned to the ones I put into the villains groups … and there are many … including some noted politicians and entrepreneurs. I recall writing in an essay penned when I was in graduate school on truth that it is at times the truth that is selling that matters … at least to some of those unwilling to smell anything beyond their noses. It was then that the notion of patters of behavior re-entered my thoughts … it is who we have been and what we  have done that define who we are and who we are becoming. And I seem to recall Nietzsche’s criticism of Socrates that one is never in a position to judge oneself. Still, we hear very little of any misdeeds that Socrates might have committed, although there is a tendency to lionize and praise heroes and belittle and disparage villains. The truths they are telling about an ex-president leave me thinking I may have much less money and many fewer admirers, but I do have a relatively clear and clean conscience in spite of many misdeeds that seem small and minor in comparison to some I have seen in recent years by the one I still consider villains.

Mike

December 2022 with best wishes to all the many heroes for a better and happier 2023

Are the Russian people really that stupid?

Can it be that Russians do not see the horror that Putin has unleashed against the innocent people in the Ukraine?

The Shema – Hear O’ Israel …

 

The Shema is a cornerstone prayer for Jews and it is why we put a mezuzah (see https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/256923/jewish/The-Mezuzah-Scroll-and-Case.htm) on our doorposts … but the words that have stuck with me are these: “teach them thoroughly to your children”  … but what shall we teach our children … all of the commandments in the Torah? That was my father’s answer, and he made an effort, I suppose, but my recollection is that the focus of my parents was more narrow … focused on the 10 commandments and a few other things … and then there is the Al Chet prayer (see https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/confessing-our-sins/) on Yom Kippur in which each person asks forgiveness for any transgression that any member of the community has committed. I also asked my father, the Rabbi, why we ask for all and he answered that is what makes a community. If anyone commits that transgression, then the community has failed. Those thoughts from my upbringing have outlived my parents and are still with me.

Hear, fellow Americans, fellow worlizens, hear ye, hear ye … we must rise about hate and violence … we must, or our community will not survive … we must end poverty and prejudice, we must, or our community will not survive, we must tolerate and respect each other, we must, or our community will not survive … we are losing our community … our humanity … we are losing to the purveyors of hate, violence, poverty, prejudice, intolerance, and ill will … we are losing, we are lost.

Hear ye, hear ye. The silence is deafening. 

 

Thoughts That Come And Go

 

Thoughts That Come And Go

 

Hillel	Trump	Anyone Else
If I am not for me, who will be?	I am for me …	Family, friends, free people
If I am only for me, what am I?	It is who I am …	A selfish bigot
If not now, when?	Me first … always …	Yesterday

 

My get up and go moved to Bali about five years ago … unfortunately, my body was left behind…

My brother used to say that the history of humankind could be told as the history of war … of course he was right but my personal understanding is that the history could also be told as the history of self-interest starting with that first apple and all those who not only followed the money but grabbed as much as they could for themselves along the way …

We are born innocent … few remain in that pristine state …

Where was I when the mountains were formed … “a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas” …

How does hatred develop?

Why are we suspicious of those who seem different from us?

Is there balm in Gilead? Tell me, tell, I implore. Quoth the raven … nevermore.

Who would win a debate between DJT and Abou Ben Adhem?

Which comes first – self-awareness, self-interest, greed, ego-mania? Which comes last? Which can last?

Why can I not stop these thoughts from trickling out? I bite my fingernails but not my fingers … ouch.

Who am I? Someone who denies facts? Denies elections? Who admits to doing no wrong? Admits to limited knowledge? Admits to being all too human? I once got lost in a large department store? I am still lost … no direction-home-finder.

When I was thirteen, I read these words in front of the congregation … comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith the lord … well, I read them in Hebrew … na-hamu, na-hamu, ahmee, omar el-lo-hay-hem … of course with a Southern accent and four part harmony …

My professor asked, after discussing and dismissing the notion of substance as what properties got stuck in, what is love? I said it was what people got stuck in and others laughed … he said he thought it was the glue that binds us together … no one laughed …

What do I know about learning, technology and teaching? Not a lot … nearly everyone else in this department and other similar places knows a lot more about such things … I just try to ask questions and search for answers and tidbits of meaning … crumbs are what I usually find … old and forgotten crumbs … perhaps remnants of a big bang long ago … crumbs in a crumbling world … in the beginning there was chaos and the void and not much has changed since … just more stuff for a privileged few … more stuff and less substance …

I know so little yet I wanted to know so much … what has happened along that wayward path? Many a friend has come and gone and I am left with one hand waving free … the other hand pounding on a keyboard … it is all I know how to do …

Mike Spector

October 2022

Voting Advice

 

What advice might I give to those prior to the 2022 elections. Here it is, plain and simple: Do NOT vote against someone or something … Vote FOR someone or something in which you have confidence and deep agreement. Avoid bias and prejudice and vote what you genuinely believe is right … especially in the long run.

Mike Spector

Untimely Reflections

 

An unexpected thought just occurred to me … I may have learned more from my students than they have learned from me. Once that thought entered, it was followed by many more, confirming the original thought. What a surprise for this old man. Then I started thinking about my kids and grandkids and had a very similar thought. What have I been doing all these many years as a teacher and parent??? Learning it would seem. What a surprise.

Civil War Redux – An Uncivil Uprising

 

Seems like folks are all in for another civil war … this war even less civil than the last one. North versus South. White versus non-white. Richer versus poorer. Self-centered versus selfless. Who will win? Who won the last one? 

Odds are on those who lie the most and lie the least believably. Odds are we will all lose. The bigots are on the rise and the fall of the shining city on the hill is imminent. 

I am so sorry to say that my older and wiser brother, rest his soul, was right: what happened in Nazi Germany can happen here … is happening here. 

I feel so helpless to do anything. And then I remember Franz Jäggersätter … see In Solitary Witness by Gordon Zahn – see https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/1500357.In_Solitary_Witness. 

I want to do something positive beyond contributing to the campaigns of those dedicated to peace, love and kindness but I am not sure what I have to offer at this late stage of my life. Three governors who manipulate those seeking asylum in this country from tyrants have treated innocent persons to a taste of American tyranny. Woe is me.

Memories

 I find phrases popping into my mind as I reluctantly (habitually) listen to the news, which is generally quite disturbing. Phrases like “civil war” and “war between the states” came to mind as I listened to the President’s address yesterday.  But those phrases seemed totally out of place … out of tune. More appropriate would be “uncivil war” and “war within the states.” It is not north versus south or free states vs. slave states. Maybe it does involve the soul, or more simply, character. Whatever happened to other phrases that also came to mind, such as “love your neighbor” and “be kind to strangers.” It did not matter if your neighbor was black or white or stranger than Corporal Klinger. I was taught that love and kindness should be boundless and, while trying to live up to boundless love and kindness is often a challenge or even repugnant, that is what we are charged to do … my father was referring to a higher power, of course. I found those sentiments embedded in writings that led up to the founding of today’s western democracies, and implied in the President's repeated use of "we the people." And yet … and yet … I am feeling old and my thoughts seem stale and passé. I have a grandson who is fascinated by dinosaurs … I will have to let him know that I am among those lost beasts.

Mike Spector

2 Sep 2022