A suicide bomber thought to be tied to al-Qaida managed to murder Bhutto as she was leaving a political rally Thursday in Rawalpindi, the very headquarters of Pakistan's military.
Running for prime minister, Bhutto had openly vowed to defeat al-Qaida and deny it the sanctuary it had gained in Pakistan under President Pervez Musharraf.
Benazir Bhutto, assassinated Thursday, votes for the first time in 1988.
"I am what the terrorists fear most," she said.
Her assassination was a tragic blow to her party's bid to check Musharraf in the Jan. 8 election, a contest that is now meaningless. She was the leading opposition candidate.
Musharraf, who had twice placed Bhutto under house arrest, no longer has to worry about an increasingly frustrated West using her as leverage to force democratic reforms or action against al-Qaida.
The former prime minister told CNN upon returning to her country that the risks of her assassination were worth it to save Pakistan from Islamic extremism and to stand up for democracy.
"I know the dangers are there," she said, "but I'm willing to take that risk."
Bhutto, 54, showed uncommon courage, and a genuine love for country, despite charges that she and her husband were corrupt and embezzled public funds.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai praised her as a "very, very brave woman" who "sacrificed her life for the sake of Pakistan and the sake of this region."
Karzai, no fan of Musharraf, had hoped Bhutto would grant what Musharraf has refused — U.S. boots on the ground in the tribal areas where the Taliban and al-Qaida are staging cross-border attacks on Afghan and U.S. forces.
In his recently published memoir, Musharraf had some nasty things to say about Bhutto, the first female prime minister of a Muslim country. He called her a liar who brought "sham democracy" to Pakistan while plundering the treasury.
But Musharraf, who seized power in a military coup, has been doing some plundering of his own. Congress is now probing $5 billion in U.S. military aid that has gone unaccounted for.
The funds were intended to help the Pakistani military attack al-Qaida in the tribal areas, but reports say they were diverted instead to help buy weapons designed to attack India.
It's more evidence that Musharraf has been taking Washington for a ride. Even now, no anti-terror metrics are tied to the annual $1 billion they are sending to his regime.
Bhutto personally asked Musharraf to beef up measures, such as providing jamming devices to thwart bombs, after she narrowly escaped a similar assassination attempt in October.
By all accounts, Musharraf ignored her pleas and never mounted an investigation of the earlier attempt on her life.
In an Oct. 16 letter to Musharraf, Bhutto reportedly shared information she'd received about three officials within his military intelligence services who wanted to kill her. And she asked him to help secure her safety ahead of the election.
That request, too, apparently fell on deaf ears.
The fact that this successful second attack occurred in Pakistan's military headquarters signals that "there may be some low-level military involvement," terror expert Peter Bergen said.
Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton agreed, telling Fox News that "radical elements of Pakistan's military" may have had a hand in the attack.
Despite Musharraf's denials, it's well known that Pakistan's military intelligence — the ISI — is infested with al-Qaida sympathizers. And Bhutto tried to push ISI out of politics in her first term as prime minister.
Musharraf also has been the target of at least nine assassination attempts since he signed on to our war on terror seven years ago. But it speaks volumes that Bhutto, back in the country just a few months, would be killed before him.
Al-Qaida, we hear, took credit for the murder. And who is the bigger threat to al-Qaida?
We have to wonder if under Bhutto, Pakistani authorities would have allowed the mastermind behind 2006's trans-Atlantic sky-terror plot to escape from custody.
Last week, Rashid Rauf, who has ISI connections, went missing from a mosque after police let him pray there. He escaped just days before he was due to be extradited to Britain.
Earlier this year, Musharraf freed from jail an al-Qaida lieutenant who plotted to hit U.S. financial and government targets. U.S. officials privately protested the release of Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, but to no avail.
Even so, being realists, we understand Musharraf is still in control of Pakistan. While the terrorists just seem to get stronger under Musharraf's rule, he's probably still the only thing standing between Pakistan and chaos — or worse, a fundamentalist Islamic regime that would have access to nuclear weapons.
A faithful opposition leader and true friend of the 'West', Benazir Bhutto showed herself to be courageous in a way few leaders are.
Her death is a tragedy not just for Pakistan's fledgling democracy, but for all of us. We only hope that Musharraf has the strength and resolution to fight those who would drag Pakistan back into the Middle Ages.
Friday, December 28, 2007
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
ABOUT WILLIAM
William’s mind tried to outrace his heart. The clock was ticking too slowly and the dog next-door moving too loudly. William thought it was the dog, but he wasn’t sure. Maybe it wasn’t the dog. Maybe he should check.
William checked.
It was the dog.
It was always the dog. William was sick of anxiety attacks. He was sick of pills. He grabbed the pills from his top drawer. He emptied the bottle into the neighbour’s yard. William hopped back into bed. Outside he could hear the dog munching on the pills. At least he thought it was the dog.
But maybe it wasn’t the dog. Maybe he should check…
William tried harder to get to sleep. Unfortunately for him the clock still ticked by too loudly and the dog still moved too slowly, and William was cold. He hopped out of bed and switched on his radiant heater, standing with one leg either side like you’re apparently not supposed to do. William got warmer and sipped on water.
The water was old and William stared into it, looking for some sign of contamination.
After some time, William’s bare skin brushed up against the hot metal on the heater. William screamed and pulled away, knocking over the heater. He clutched his injured leg hysterically.
When he calmed down William took a peak. Festy-pus oozed out from the burn-mark. Maggots crawled in and out of the wound. William screamed again and curled up crying on the floor.
William’s mother came running in. When William calmed down he showed her the wound and the pus and the blood. William’s mother placed her cold hands on the pink skin where he had brushed the heater. There was no pus, there were no maggots. She checked outside. It was the dog. William’s mother turned off the heater and moved it away from the smouldering carpet. She sat with her thirty-three year old son and cried too.
She couldn’t save her son, just as he would probably not be able to save her.
Mary had to dodge the cow crap when baby Jesus was born. “Not enough room in the inn…” they all told her. So the Son of God spent his first night squealing from a trough. It wasn’t a very regal beginning for someone who would later be called the king of the Jews, but there was just no room in the inn. At least not enough room for a pregnant young girl about to give birth to a bastard child, even if that child was the messiah
Two thousand years later Williams’ life started in a similar way. Not the same, just similar. There was plenty of room in the maternity-ward for those with private-healthcare but Williams’s mother definitely wasn’t one of those. There were no animals in the public restroom that night, and no one visited with gifts (not even a card from Nan). A drug-addict stuck his head into the cubicle to see what the noise was about but ran away when William’s mother asked for help. The infant William and the infant Christ were both born out of wedlock in a room that stank like faeces, but that’s about where the similarities ended.
Not that it stopped William’s mother from making comparisons or from having outrageous aspirations for her son. Hopes and dreams that she would constantly remind William about. “It’s not how you start but how you finish,” she’d say “Jesus Christ started out in a cow-shed.”
As he grew William began to hate that Jesus guy.
At thirteen William perplexed his Sunday school teachers when he asked “If God is so good then why did he let my dad die?” William’s mother never took him back to church after that and no one asked why. They talked and had ideas, but no one asked. Some figured that William’s question had caused Williams mother to do some doubting of her own, or that she was embarrassed when reminded that she was the only single mother attending mass. The truth as to why William’s mother turned in her rosary beads was more practical than that though: she knew William would not be able to handle finding out the truth about his biological father.
And so it was that William never had to hear about that Christ fellow again. At least not for a few weeks, after which time Williams’s mother began the comparisons again. They were a good few weeks though.
The bar was full but William was empty. He peered through the noxious fumes of cigarette smoke at the clock. It was about seven o’clock and the normal crowds were beginning to wander in. William was just leaving. He hated a full bar and he hated the crowds. Besides, William had been sitting in the bar for five hours. William knew his mother would have knocked off work by now and would be wondering where he was.
William was bothered. You see William’s mother asked too many questions… too many probing questions about William.
William was bothered…surprisingly not by his mother or by the questions, but by the 'about William' factor. This was a factor he couldn’t escape for it was a factor he was born with and reminded about every day.
William’s mother had cut back the Christ-comparisons recently. No matter how deluded you are, it’s pretty hard to compare your thirty-three year old son with the saviour of the world when he can’t even hold a job. This bothered William too… not the job thing or the thirty-three year old thing but the change in his mother. William began to wish for more comparisons with Christ because he had developed hopes that, like Christ, he would die at thirty-three.
William was nearly thirty-four and still very much alive… or at the least very much still breathing.
Perhaps this was William’s first miracle, to still be breathing at thirty-three. When you are the only child of a devout but unmarried catholic who has, since your birth, constantly compared you to Christ you don’t want to be still breathing, you want to be dead. However, alive by default is still alive and by living out his days in such a non-deliberate way William had performed the miracle of not having done himself in yet.
This was Williams only miracle to date. Unless of course you count the time that he convinced young Irene McLaren to show him her underpants. William counted it as a miracle. It didn’t matter that they were both thirteen years old at the time or that afterwards William ran away, underpants are underpants and William hadn’t been that close to a girl since.
William smiled as he remembered this miracle, probably the greatest achievement of his pathetic life. Given his lack of abilities with the ladies, William considered Irene even speaking to him another miracle. William thought that three miracles was a pretty good effort, and that maybe he was more like Jesus Christ than he gave himself credit for. He polished of the rest of his beer and left the bar.
As he made his way home William decided that his being alive was not only a miracle but a mistake. Walking home that day, he figured out a way to put the mistake right.
William sat near the old games machines. The café owners had long switched them off, but William appreciated the nostalgia and a familiar something.
To the passer-by William seemed consumed with and trapped in the early nineties (ten years later revelling in what most considered a nice experience and an even nicer distant memory). However William actually preferred to linger in the late eighties and to William, who was around for both, there was a big difference. Vanilla Ice was blaring in his iPod but the ‘about William’ factor was blaring louder.
It wasn’t really his iPod; it belonged to a girl at the library. She had left it there and William grabbed it before the librarian saw it. He hoped to run into the girl one day and return it, but thought that she wouldn’t mind him borrowing it in the mean time. It wasn’t really an iPod either; it was one of those cheap replicas that people buy on eBay. Still, William figured it was the closest he would get to the real thing and thought wearing it in the café would make him look cool.
William didn’t look cool. Two young children were trying to get the games machine to work. William guessed that they were probably somewhere between eight to fifteen years old. These days it’s hard to pick someone’s age, thought William, everyone is trying to look older. William wanted to look younger. He figured the fake iPod helped, but the two young children weren’t fooled.
“Excuse me …” one of the children asked hesitantly, “are you a retard?”
“What?” William asked amazed at the child’s brash openness.
“Take your friggin’ ear-phones out you big, fat thirty-three year old turd!”
William took his ear-phones out and stood up ready to clobber the kid.
“What did you say?”
“I’m sorry sir; I just asked you whether you know how to get the machine working…”
Remembering the maggots William knew that sometimes his mind played tricks. He realized that the kid was sincere and William showed him that the cord wasn’t plugged in. Then he showed the children how to get free games out of the machine, a talent he had learned when he was still trying to look older.
Upon imparting his wisdom to them, William hung out with the kids for a while, talking about whatever came to mind- comics, girls, sport. William didn’t know a lot about girls or sport, but that didn’t matter because neither did the kids. It was nice to have someone to talk to besides his mother. Normal people didn’t usually talk to William.
Just as William was beginning to loosen up and be himself, a voice came from the café door.
“Marcus and Steven, it’s time to go. Stop annoying that strange man…”
The kids ran out the door without even finishing the game leaving William friendless again. The words of the children’s mother echoed in his mind. Strange man…? Was that really how normal people saw him?
It was moments like this that William longed for his mother to say something, to compare him to Christ, or Buddha, or Tom Cruise. He wanted her to tell him that he wasn’t strange, and that when you looked at the lives of successful people they were all called strange once.
William expected that his 34th birthday would only lower the expectations and hopes of his mother. He had hoped that there were miracles still to come though. He didn’t want the word ‘strange’ to apply to him.
William knew it did.
He decided to go home quickly and to take his own life.
William got home, opened the front-door and waited. Normally his mother would be cooking food, or waiting at the table for William, or both. Normally she bombarded him with probing questions about his day and comparisons with Jesus Christ. Today was different… the television was blaring and there was no food cooking.
William’s mother lay still on the floor.
She had fallen and had knocked the heater down with her. It was Williams turn to save the smouldering carpet. He picked up the heater, and then checked his mother’s pulse.
He checked again.
Then William lay down next to her for a while.
Waking up in the little hospital room William was relieved to hear that his mother had had a heart attack. He’d thought she was dead when he walked in on her the night before. William had actually thought that his mother may have killed herself. She wasn’t dead though and the heart attack was from natural causes. She was alive… or at least, still breathing.
William was glad his mother was still breathing, and that she would be home soon but he wanted to make her life better. He knew how he should do it too. William kissed his mother, and headed home.
William searched through his bedroom, tidying it up so that when he was gone his mother would not have to clean the room. That’s what he told himself but he was really motivated by guilt. In his room William gathered up every piece of incriminating or embarrassing evidence into a garbage bag. There was pornography, credit card statements, and even a homemade bong from high-school. William was glad nobody would find these things when he was dead, especially his mother.
William emptied his near full sack of sin into the neighbours wheelie bin. Not the neighbour with the dog though, the neighbour with the wheelie bin. Evidently the neighbour with the dog was on holiday after their pet dog overdosed on bipolar pills. William wished he’d thought of doing that.
When everything was disposed of and the house was tidy, William grabbed a knife from the kitchen drawer. He decided not to write a suicide note.
William thought back on his life, on his conquests, strife’s and on bipolar. He remembered game machines, comparisons with Christ and underpants. He remembered he was strange and he remembered the ‘about William factor’. He held his wrist out in front of him and stared at his veins.
William remembered his mother. He remembered lying on the carpet, he remembered being afraid and being held, and he remembered that she loved him.
It’s a hard thing to think of loved ones when the moment calls for selfishness. However, as the only child of a devout but unmarried catholic who had since his conception always been there for him it was especially difficult in that moment.
Williams’s heart outraced his mind. He pressed the knife harder as the clocked ticked by faster and louder.
William threw down his knife.
This was his biggest miracle: his first unselfish thought.
William realised his mother was more precious to him than he was, than the “about William” factor was. William went back to the hospital. There was someone there who he needed to see, and who needed him.
For love to reach such a strange man in such a dark place, William knew there were miracles involved, and that there would need to be many more miracles to come.
William checked.
It was the dog.
It was always the dog. William was sick of anxiety attacks. He was sick of pills. He grabbed the pills from his top drawer. He emptied the bottle into the neighbour’s yard. William hopped back into bed. Outside he could hear the dog munching on the pills. At least he thought it was the dog.
But maybe it wasn’t the dog. Maybe he should check…
William tried harder to get to sleep. Unfortunately for him the clock still ticked by too loudly and the dog still moved too slowly, and William was cold. He hopped out of bed and switched on his radiant heater, standing with one leg either side like you’re apparently not supposed to do. William got warmer and sipped on water.
The water was old and William stared into it, looking for some sign of contamination.
After some time, William’s bare skin brushed up against the hot metal on the heater. William screamed and pulled away, knocking over the heater. He clutched his injured leg hysterically.
When he calmed down William took a peak. Festy-pus oozed out from the burn-mark. Maggots crawled in and out of the wound. William screamed again and curled up crying on the floor.
William’s mother came running in. When William calmed down he showed her the wound and the pus and the blood. William’s mother placed her cold hands on the pink skin where he had brushed the heater. There was no pus, there were no maggots. She checked outside. It was the dog. William’s mother turned off the heater and moved it away from the smouldering carpet. She sat with her thirty-three year old son and cried too.
She couldn’t save her son, just as he would probably not be able to save her.
Mary had to dodge the cow crap when baby Jesus was born. “Not enough room in the inn…” they all told her. So the Son of God spent his first night squealing from a trough. It wasn’t a very regal beginning for someone who would later be called the king of the Jews, but there was just no room in the inn. At least not enough room for a pregnant young girl about to give birth to a bastard child, even if that child was the messiah
Two thousand years later Williams’ life started in a similar way. Not the same, just similar. There was plenty of room in the maternity-ward for those with private-healthcare but Williams’s mother definitely wasn’t one of those. There were no animals in the public restroom that night, and no one visited with gifts (not even a card from Nan). A drug-addict stuck his head into the cubicle to see what the noise was about but ran away when William’s mother asked for help. The infant William and the infant Christ were both born out of wedlock in a room that stank like faeces, but that’s about where the similarities ended.
Not that it stopped William’s mother from making comparisons or from having outrageous aspirations for her son. Hopes and dreams that she would constantly remind William about. “It’s not how you start but how you finish,” she’d say “Jesus Christ started out in a cow-shed.”
As he grew William began to hate that Jesus guy.
At thirteen William perplexed his Sunday school teachers when he asked “If God is so good then why did he let my dad die?” William’s mother never took him back to church after that and no one asked why. They talked and had ideas, but no one asked. Some figured that William’s question had caused Williams mother to do some doubting of her own, or that she was embarrassed when reminded that she was the only single mother attending mass. The truth as to why William’s mother turned in her rosary beads was more practical than that though: she knew William would not be able to handle finding out the truth about his biological father.
And so it was that William never had to hear about that Christ fellow again. At least not for a few weeks, after which time Williams’s mother began the comparisons again. They were a good few weeks though.
The bar was full but William was empty. He peered through the noxious fumes of cigarette smoke at the clock. It was about seven o’clock and the normal crowds were beginning to wander in. William was just leaving. He hated a full bar and he hated the crowds. Besides, William had been sitting in the bar for five hours. William knew his mother would have knocked off work by now and would be wondering where he was.
William was bothered. You see William’s mother asked too many questions… too many probing questions about William.
William was bothered…surprisingly not by his mother or by the questions, but by the 'about William' factor. This was a factor he couldn’t escape for it was a factor he was born with and reminded about every day.
William’s mother had cut back the Christ-comparisons recently. No matter how deluded you are, it’s pretty hard to compare your thirty-three year old son with the saviour of the world when he can’t even hold a job. This bothered William too… not the job thing or the thirty-three year old thing but the change in his mother. William began to wish for more comparisons with Christ because he had developed hopes that, like Christ, he would die at thirty-three.
William was nearly thirty-four and still very much alive… or at the least very much still breathing.
Perhaps this was William’s first miracle, to still be breathing at thirty-three. When you are the only child of a devout but unmarried catholic who has, since your birth, constantly compared you to Christ you don’t want to be still breathing, you want to be dead. However, alive by default is still alive and by living out his days in such a non-deliberate way William had performed the miracle of not having done himself in yet.
This was Williams only miracle to date. Unless of course you count the time that he convinced young Irene McLaren to show him her underpants. William counted it as a miracle. It didn’t matter that they were both thirteen years old at the time or that afterwards William ran away, underpants are underpants and William hadn’t been that close to a girl since.
William smiled as he remembered this miracle, probably the greatest achievement of his pathetic life. Given his lack of abilities with the ladies, William considered Irene even speaking to him another miracle. William thought that three miracles was a pretty good effort, and that maybe he was more like Jesus Christ than he gave himself credit for. He polished of the rest of his beer and left the bar.
As he made his way home William decided that his being alive was not only a miracle but a mistake. Walking home that day, he figured out a way to put the mistake right.
William sat near the old games machines. The café owners had long switched them off, but William appreciated the nostalgia and a familiar something.
To the passer-by William seemed consumed with and trapped in the early nineties (ten years later revelling in what most considered a nice experience and an even nicer distant memory). However William actually preferred to linger in the late eighties and to William, who was around for both, there was a big difference. Vanilla Ice was blaring in his iPod but the ‘about William’ factor was blaring louder.
It wasn’t really his iPod; it belonged to a girl at the library. She had left it there and William grabbed it before the librarian saw it. He hoped to run into the girl one day and return it, but thought that she wouldn’t mind him borrowing it in the mean time. It wasn’t really an iPod either; it was one of those cheap replicas that people buy on eBay. Still, William figured it was the closest he would get to the real thing and thought wearing it in the café would make him look cool.
William didn’t look cool. Two young children were trying to get the games machine to work. William guessed that they were probably somewhere between eight to fifteen years old. These days it’s hard to pick someone’s age, thought William, everyone is trying to look older. William wanted to look younger. He figured the fake iPod helped, but the two young children weren’t fooled.
“Excuse me …” one of the children asked hesitantly, “are you a retard?”
“What?” William asked amazed at the child’s brash openness.
“Take your friggin’ ear-phones out you big, fat thirty-three year old turd!”
William took his ear-phones out and stood up ready to clobber the kid.
“What did you say?”
“I’m sorry sir; I just asked you whether you know how to get the machine working…”
Remembering the maggots William knew that sometimes his mind played tricks. He realized that the kid was sincere and William showed him that the cord wasn’t plugged in. Then he showed the children how to get free games out of the machine, a talent he had learned when he was still trying to look older.
Upon imparting his wisdom to them, William hung out with the kids for a while, talking about whatever came to mind- comics, girls, sport. William didn’t know a lot about girls or sport, but that didn’t matter because neither did the kids. It was nice to have someone to talk to besides his mother. Normal people didn’t usually talk to William.
Just as William was beginning to loosen up and be himself, a voice came from the café door.
“Marcus and Steven, it’s time to go. Stop annoying that strange man…”
The kids ran out the door without even finishing the game leaving William friendless again. The words of the children’s mother echoed in his mind. Strange man…? Was that really how normal people saw him?
It was moments like this that William longed for his mother to say something, to compare him to Christ, or Buddha, or Tom Cruise. He wanted her to tell him that he wasn’t strange, and that when you looked at the lives of successful people they were all called strange once.
William expected that his 34th birthday would only lower the expectations and hopes of his mother. He had hoped that there were miracles still to come though. He didn’t want the word ‘strange’ to apply to him.
William knew it did.
He decided to go home quickly and to take his own life.
William got home, opened the front-door and waited. Normally his mother would be cooking food, or waiting at the table for William, or both. Normally she bombarded him with probing questions about his day and comparisons with Jesus Christ. Today was different… the television was blaring and there was no food cooking.
William’s mother lay still on the floor.
She had fallen and had knocked the heater down with her. It was Williams turn to save the smouldering carpet. He picked up the heater, and then checked his mother’s pulse.
He checked again.
Then William lay down next to her for a while.
Waking up in the little hospital room William was relieved to hear that his mother had had a heart attack. He’d thought she was dead when he walked in on her the night before. William had actually thought that his mother may have killed herself. She wasn’t dead though and the heart attack was from natural causes. She was alive… or at least, still breathing.
William was glad his mother was still breathing, and that she would be home soon but he wanted to make her life better. He knew how he should do it too. William kissed his mother, and headed home.
William searched through his bedroom, tidying it up so that when he was gone his mother would not have to clean the room. That’s what he told himself but he was really motivated by guilt. In his room William gathered up every piece of incriminating or embarrassing evidence into a garbage bag. There was pornography, credit card statements, and even a homemade bong from high-school. William was glad nobody would find these things when he was dead, especially his mother.
William emptied his near full sack of sin into the neighbours wheelie bin. Not the neighbour with the dog though, the neighbour with the wheelie bin. Evidently the neighbour with the dog was on holiday after their pet dog overdosed on bipolar pills. William wished he’d thought of doing that.
When everything was disposed of and the house was tidy, William grabbed a knife from the kitchen drawer. He decided not to write a suicide note.
William thought back on his life, on his conquests, strife’s and on bipolar. He remembered game machines, comparisons with Christ and underpants. He remembered he was strange and he remembered the ‘about William factor’. He held his wrist out in front of him and stared at his veins.
William remembered his mother. He remembered lying on the carpet, he remembered being afraid and being held, and he remembered that she loved him.
It’s a hard thing to think of loved ones when the moment calls for selfishness. However, as the only child of a devout but unmarried catholic who had since his conception always been there for him it was especially difficult in that moment.
Williams’s heart outraced his mind. He pressed the knife harder as the clocked ticked by faster and louder.
William threw down his knife.
This was his biggest miracle: his first unselfish thought.
William realised his mother was more precious to him than he was, than the “about William” factor was. William went back to the hospital. There was someone there who he needed to see, and who needed him.
For love to reach such a strange man in such a dark place, William knew there were miracles involved, and that there would need to be many more miracles to come.
DREAMING TILL I WAKE
I sit, huddled... no, not huddled, hunched, hugging knees to chest like a terrorized child. I sit hunched, as I have for so long that I have lost all sense of time. I sit and I stare from the cave mouth, stare over a landscape that no sane mind could hope to imagine, or ever want to see.
It is a terrain without any living thing, an endless scape of blasted and blackened rock without relief. Mountains reach into a low and heavy sky, holding aloft a ceiling of clouds as thick and inflexible as iron. Crevices delve down into the rough stone, their plunging depths perhaps the equal of even the highest mountain. There is no soil to support growing things, nor water to nourish them. The land is gripped in an ongoing storm, a storm without rain. Deafening thunder shakes the mountains, awesome lightning bridges the earth and the heavens, as regular as a beating heart.
The wind blows hot and fierce across the open ground, horribly moist and cloying. And if this is the breath of this blasted land, so too is it the voice, as it whistles and howls across the cavernous hollows in the mountains.
Hollows such as that in which we shelter.
I have long since surrendered any effort to further converse with Clarke. Even were we not reduced to shouting our throats raw over the banshee winds, we have been here too long to have anything left to tell one another. There is no day or night in this hellish wasteland, merely intervals where the lightning is more or less frequent, making a precise time impossible to determine. It is long enough, however, that the last of our supplies have long gone.
Supplies! Laughable to call them such. Snacks, intended merely to pass the time on our journey, never to maintain a man’s survival. We have neither eaten nor drunk in so long, I fear I have forgotten what it is to taste. Worse, I fear that it is a skill I shall never again require, for while I can no longer be certain of the sun’s rise, nor that a road I have traveled a dozen times will lead to the same destination on the thirteenth, I have become certain indeed that I must soon die.
And then my soul, which I had thought battered into submission and inured to further horrors, shrivels just that little bit further, as from behind I hear an abominable scream, even over the rushing winds. The voice is unknown to me, though nobody resides within the cave but myself and my two closest friends, for never have I heard either of them make a sound like this I hear now.
Phillips lies dead far back in the cave, his body convulsed in a terrible spasm that must apparently follow him into the grave. Clarke stands above him, his eyes haunted and empty. I do not know how Phillips died, and I fail to ask, for I fear to hear the answer.
We are starving, have long been starving, and we both know what must happen.
We sit with that body behind us, staring again into the blinding lightning and blasted rock, for what might be hours or might be days, until we can make ourselves allow it to happen.
I believe I fall asleep after my first meal in days, and try to forget that the taste upon my tongue is the blood and flesh of a man I knew well. I doze, fitfully, until I am awakened by yet another scream. I look out over the blasted waste, and only in the flicker of the lightning can I see Clarke as he disappears into the shadows of the towering peaks, leaving me forever.
“And then I wake. Truly wake, I mean. Always there and then, Doctor Augustus. Never so much as one moment earlier or later.”
Augustus, a gaunt and hawk-like man, nodded toward me as though that final point had been the most interesting and vital, as though he understood something he had not understood before.
I knew that he could not, not truly, for I had not truly conveyed the horror of my nightmare. No description in words crafted by mortal minds could do it any justice. The bleak and barren wastes, the burning lightningbolts that cooked the air and seemed to seek us out should we dare venture from the caves, the atrocious hot scents in the wet wind that could have been nothing but the breath of the land itself... how to explicate such details to a man who had never experienced them for himself?
Yet whatever the inadequacies of my descriptions, I had communicated enough to pique the doctor’s curiosity. His expression was concerned as he gazed at me over his notes, as any good doctor’s should have been, but he could not hide the light of his interest.
“Indeed, it is a most disturbing dream, Mister Ashton. I cannot imagine it a pleasant thing from which to awaken, particularly if it truly comes upon you every night, as you say. It would be my pleasure to direct what techniques I have available toward your treatment.
“However,” he persisted as I prepared myself to reply, “I wonder if you have truly considered all the ramifications of what you ask. Though your admission here would be of your own volition, still there is a minimum stay required for treatment. You cannot just wake up in two days, or even a week, having changed your mind, and expect simply to walk through the door.”
“I understand fully,” I assured him, all in earnest. “I wish to stay as long as I must, to free myself of these nightly horrors.”
Augustus nodded yet again. “I must say, Mister Ashton, institutionalization seems a rather dramatic step to rid oneself of a dream, no matter how unpleasant or regular. Do you fear it symbolizes some particular trauma or defect of personality?”
I could not but laugh at him, a reaction that doubtless served to reinforce in his mind that my faculties were not in order.
“Doctor Augustus, you misapprehend me. My dream symbolizes nothing at all. It is no phantom of the mind’s eye, nor any window into my persona or my soul.
“Two years ago, my closest friends and I set out on what was to be a regular visit to the mills of Nartok, just across the border, to acquire some good Darkonian lumber. It was, you must believe me, a journey that we had made, together and severally, many a time before. Yet on this day, we became lost in a bank of mist that rose in all disregard for the weather, and when we emerged, we found ourselves in no land where reason holds sway. Only I, alone, discovered another bank of mists in later days and blindly groped my way back home.
“My dream, Doctor Augustus, is no tale spun by any part of my mind. It is memory, clear and unblemished, of events that truly happened!”
“I shall have Nurse Roberts show you to your room,” Augustus said.
She was a pretty thing, Nurse Roberts, short, with dull golden locks and a roundness of features and form that bespoke the best of what femininity had to offer a man such as I. In other circumstances, it would have been I attempting to coax her into my room, rather than her showing me the way. Friendly she was, certainly, an open conversationalist, and possessed of a kind heart. She served in a place like this out of genuine desire to help those troubled by demons of mind and soul.
Yet, other than my insistence that she call me Howard, rather than Mister Ashton, I found myself unable to muster much enthusiasm to engage in my accustomed amorous banter. Under present conditions, and in these dim and dour halls, it seemed to me ill-appropriate.
Had I made my selection of doctor and institution based on appearances, my shadow would never have darkened the vestibule of Dharlaeth Asylum. The building was of heavy brick, whatever color they might once have boasted long since leeched from the stone by years of pounding sun and rain and wind. Demonic visages and inhuman forms hunched above the eaves, glaring angrily at all who dared pass. It had once been a cathedral, this asylum, or so I’d been given to understand. Doctor Augustus and his staff had scarcely proved able to afford the property, and thus had done little to render it any more attractive or suitable for the comfort of patients. All appearances aside, however, Augustus had a wide-ranging reputation, from Lamordia to Darkon, for competency and skill at his healer’s arts.
And so here I had come, when the dreams and memories finally weighed too heavily on my mind for me to continue life as I had known it, when it became clear that the oblivion of hemlock or the noose might soon become more enticing to me than another waking dawn.
Long I continue to watch, one hand raised to shade my eyes from the sporadic blinding flash of the lightning, though Clarke has utterly vanished into the shadowed valleys and nigh-bottomless crevices of the wasteland. I stand in the cave’s open maw, a morsel of food not yet chewed and digested. I grow stale, clammy, sticky, as my own perspiration and the hot wetness of the gale sit upon my skin.
Then, though I scarcely know where it is I intend to go, or even why I have chosen to set foot beyond the meager shelter, I step out across the blasted stone.
Heavily as I perspired in the dream, I am certain I did so at least as heavily when speaking with Doctor Augustus the following morn.
For over a week, we had met for many hours every morning, and I had consumed a specially prepared meal, along with a cocktail of calming herbs, every evening. These, it was explained to me, were intended to permit me to face the imagery of my dream with composure, studying it via the lens of reason rather than that of emotion, fear, revulsion, guilt. I was, Augustus told me, to study not the events themselves, traumatic as they had been, but the associated reactions. How did I feel about having consumed the flesh of my dead friend? How could I make sense of a world where such a place could exist, or where I could suddenly find myself stranded without ever straying from roads I knew? To understand and answer these, he instructed me, was the initial step to overcoming whatever derangement of the mind caused me to continue reliving the instigating events night after night.
It seemed to me a waste of time and effort, for surely I had already considered all such possibilities in the years since my waking nightmare. Still, the next stage of treatment were this to fail involved all manner of unpleasant medications, mesmerism, even electrical shock, none of which I was in any hurry to experience.
For over a week, as I say, this went on, with no change to either my emotional or mental states. And then, that night....
“Extraordinary,” Augustus remarked, and for a moment I could happily have throttled the man. To reduce this experience to an interesting exercise....
“Did you not tell me,” he continued, scribbling fiercely with his quill upon the topmost of a stack of papers, “that the dream was ever the same? That, in fact, it precisely relayed and repeated a series of very specific events?”
“Indeed, it always had!” I was ashamed at the quaver in my voice, but I must confess that I was terrified, more so than ever I had been since I escaped the hellish territory of which I dreamed. “But now it has changed! For the first time ever, Doctor, it has changed!”
“And the events you dream of now, Mister Ashton? These are not, perhaps, memories as well? Perhaps images of a sojourn you made from the cave that you had since forgotten?”
I could only shake my head. “I am certain, Doctor, that I never once departed that cave, until the day I saw the mists rising once more behind the nearest rise. I never followed Clarke into the wasteland. Never.”
“Then it seems your dreams are, indeed, more than mere memories, my friend.” Augustus rose and paced the room before me, scratching at the thin beard that clung, moss-like, to his chin. “Else they are indeed true memories, and you have fully and deeply repressed the remainder of your experience.
“In either event, Mister Ashton, I believe the time has come to attempt more vigorous avenues of treatment.”
I clamber across the unyielding rock, over rises and down from ledges, across crevasses that threaten to swallow me whole, along slopes whose angles threaten to send me tumbling. My palms are chapped and bloodied, like raw sausage, and my ankles threaten to turn with every step, yet I persevere. The wind blows harsh but brings no relief from the sweltering miasma, serving only to sting my eyes and chafe at my face, yet I persevere. I know not where I go, struggling directly into the face of the gale only to offer my mind some sense of direction. I flinch at every clap of thunder, at every stroke of lightning, for it seems they draw ever nearer to me, the arrows of an archer honing in upon his prey.
Yet I persevere.
And finally, finally, I crest a vicious rise, a hummock laden with razor-sharp protuberances of slender, fragile rock. The agony of my lacerated flesh is enough to drive me onward, upward, forward, those last lingering few feet that stretch before me. The lightning flashes yet again, as though in premeditated effort to illuminate my view, and below me, so terribly far below, I see a fearsome crevice, greater than any I have heretofore encountered. It gapes open, the earth’s own maw, and it is hungry. The wind, the terrible breathing wind against which I have so continuously struggled comes not from across the open valley, but from deep within that crevice itself!
I look above, and though the clouds are low and the lightning bright, still for the first time I can see the stars. They gaze malevolently upon this terrible land, and they are not sparkles of guiding light, but rents in the sky, holes to places that never were. Colors never before glimpsed by any man leak from them, and they make me ill to look upon for long.
From within the gasping crevice, I hear the low hum of voices, far and faint. Despite the wiser angels of my nature, I find myself beginning the long climb downward....
“Bluetspur.”
This was all that Doctor Augustus’s mesmerism could draw from me. Just this, this nonsensical, meaningless word, no matter how deep the trance, how pliant my mind became beneath his unfathomable words and gestures. It held no connotation for him, and for a time it hadn’t any for me, either. But with each session it recurred, forming around my throat and tongue, and each time it burrowed ever deeper into my psyche as well, until finally I felt I understood its meaning.
Bluetspur. It was nothing less than the name of the nightmare realm itself, the blasted land in which I saw the last of my two dearest friends, the dreamscape which my mind continued to visit with every death of the sun’s light.
Augustus, of course, had grievous doubts, wondering at the source of that knowledge, or how it should just suddenly come to me. Yet as he had no alternate definition to ascribe to the term, he accepted my explanation, at least for the nonce.
If breakthrough it was, however, it proved disappointingly insignificant. Possession of that name did nothing to change the nature of my dreams, and the many sessions of mesmerism offered neither of us any further insight into the events in question. Finally, after days of such attempts, my dreams had changed again, and I conveyed just that to Doctor Augustus.
That, and more.
“I’ve begun to fear, Doctor,” I confided in him, after telling him of my latest dream. “I feel a terror in my chest in all my waking hours, like a lump of ice that refuses to thaw.”
“And what is it you fear, Mister Ashton?”
“What if I am still there, Doctor?” I shuddered merely at the thought, and felt myself grasping at the arms of the chair. “With each change in my dream, I move that bit further into that empty hell—into this Bluetspur—yet I know, as surely as I know my own name, that I never did any such thing! What if I am there still, driven by desperation to explore, and it is my time here, with you, with Nurse Roberts, that is the dream?”
Augustus assured me over and again that such was not the case, but his assertions served to ease my worries only slightly. As all those who know fear can attest, even though their terrors be of far lesser magnitude than my own, worry and anxiety rarely see defeat at the hands of logical and reasoned argument.
When it became clear that I was too distraught to be easily assuaged, Doctor Augustus leaned forward and put a calming hand upon my shoulder.
“I’ll not lie to you, Howard,” he said softly, and I could not but view his use of my first name as a poor omen indeed. “While we have spent only a few weeks on your treatment as of yet, and thus could not expect any sort of substantial improvements, I must confess that I’m rather dismayed at our lack of progress. While I would still dearly love to understand the emotional underpinnings of your troubles, and believe that doing so would be helpful and healthy for you, I must concede that this appears not to be your road to recovery.”
I shook off his comforting grasp and stood, that I might pace away at least a modicum of my agitation. “What do you propose, Doctor?”
“If we cannot rid you of your dreams through understanding,” he told me, “the next logical step is to find a means of encouraging your mind to shy away from the most troubling images. This should, at minimum, provide you some distance and time from the initial event so that you might heal.”
I almost wept at the mere thought of it. A means of preventing myself from experiencing these dreams? A chance, however brief, to forget? I was as a lonely sinner suddenly granted a vision of some backdoor into Heaven.
Perhaps alarmed by the sudden elation in my countenance, Doctor Augustus raised a cautionary hand. “Understand, Howard, that what I propose is no easy thing. There are dangers, some significant indeed, inherent to either method.”
He explained to me that he saw two possible means of ridding me of my night terrors. The first he dubbed “shock-aversion therapy.” I would be strapped, he told me, to a great steel mechanism, bound so that I could not harm myself through spasm and movement. I would be bombarded with a series of stimuli, visual imagery, ambient sounds, even artificial scents produced via alchemical wonders I could not begin to comprehend. Should any such image trigger a memory of my dreams, I was to indicate thus with a switch beneath my thumb, resulting in a painful electrical shock. Should I fail to cooperate, perhaps out of fear of the agony, the doctor would take it upon himself to decide which images seemed related, though he believed it would work better if I did so myself.
This technique, he explained, would take many sessions, until my mind instinctively associated the images and the pain, and thus should, by his theorem, refrain from revisiting those memories. It meant many days of torment, and though the shock was relatively light, still there was danger of damage to muscles, or even to the brain, the heart, and other organs.
Alternatively, he might offer me a medicine of his own invention, one intended to stop the mind from germinating dreams entirely. It meant no pain, no days of effort before I might see results.
Yet this medicine carried its own risks, risks that Augustus could not elucidate so well as he had those of his shock treatment. It had seen its use before, this medicine, and safely enough, but only in light dosages, used to calm a restless sleeper’s nightmares for a single evening. I would be the first man ever to subject himself to its effects for multiple consecutive nights, and in necessarily higher quantities as well.
Long I pondered this dreadful choice, until nearly time for supper. I thought for a time about accepting neither treatment, for both seemed ghastly, but the thought of living forever with these dreams was ghastlier still.
In the end I selected the machine, as I think the doctor hoped I would. I have never been a coward, for all that I had spent the prior two years in relentless fear, and was unafraid of physical pain. It seemed a safer gamble than the unknown poisons of ill-tested medicine.
The process was, if anything, far more brutal even than Doctor Augustus had implied. By the conclusion of my first session, I had to be all but carried to my room. Nurse Roberts was to occupy the chamber beside mine for the night, with the curtains drawn from the intervening window, that she might observe me as I slept. Ostensibly her mandate was to ensure that I had no ill reactions to the treatment, but I believe Doctor Augustus was more interested in having an observer present to determine whether or not I dreamt.
They seem almost designed for climbing by some higher being (or lower), the walls of this great gaping chasm, with many a niche or ledge on which to rest one’s weary weight. With gashed and bleeding hands, with sore and aching feet, I make my way, a clumsy spider, down the gullet of the earthen maw. The humid wind rushes past me, upward and over me, until finally I feel solid stone once more beneath my soles. Somehow, here at the base, the air has ceased to move, no longer a rushing wind but a miasma that squats, bloated and reeking like something long dead.
As I had stumbled my way here across a nigh-featureless landscape, so too do I find a path, all unwittingly, through the twisted passageways below. Again I cannot but think of a spider, for had the tunnels been the strands of some arachnid’s spun web, they could not be any more ornate, complex. And still, on I walk, on I stagger, on I crawl when the height of the claustrophobic ceilings or exhaustion of my limbs demand it. On and on.
How I can find my way through these caverns and catacombs I know not, for I should certainly be groping about blindly in wretched darkness. Yet always there remains just enough ambient light to guide my steps, its source hidden from any effort I might make to find it.
Ahead of me, now, the light brightens. Ahead the voices grow louder. I know that I should turn, that I should flee, return to my sheltered cave, starve to death if that is to be my fate, rather than to continue one further step. I continue nonetheless.
The passage twists upward, narrow, ungainly. I struggle to reach its culmination, only to stand on a ledge, a tiny tongue of rock, overlooking....
Ah, gods! Would that I stood upon the precipice of Hell, for even that must be less terrible than this!
The cavern stretches wide, so vast it seems that it must swallow the world entire. Above, a gap in the stone, a festering wound that admits the poisonous light of the stars to dribble down into the inner dark.
Below, I stare deep into... something, something almost fluid, something with the scent of brine, the consistency of drool. It roils and burbles in a pool of stone, and within a horrid shape pulses and beats like some monstrous heart. I cannot see its form, for it defies shape itself... a pulpy, fibrous mass delighting in its own vile excretion, the afterbirth of things never born... a horror not of flesh, nor of organs, nor of bone, a repulsive sac of substances beyond any man’s capacity to imagine. I can see no more of it, for my eyes are obstructed by the viscous substance in which it bides, by the shadows that grow thick between my vantage and the tableau below, and for both I am pathetically grateful.
Around the pool, a thousand dancing horrors, and again I am saved only by the feeble light and the flickering shadows. I can apprehend only the most vague of details, and even these are loathsome to behold. Tendrils I can see, reaching from the darkness, reaching from maws and orifices that were never sculpted by any god of man’s. And lying at their feet as they parade about their monstrous sire, the shapes of a dozen men and women, two dozen, three.... It is from them the voices come, voices without words, the endless cry of maddened minds, broken by contemplation of their coming fate. I know Clarke lies among them, though I cannot possibly hear or see him. And I see those tendrils reaching for these poor prone souls, sliding almost gracefully into succulent flesh....
And even what little I can perceive has become too much, and I have run screaming into the darkness of the catacombs.
That I woke screaming, my throat raw and head throbbing, must come as no surprise to any. Nurse Roberts was already at my side, for apparently I had thrashed and tossed about long before the dream grew fierce enough to haul me from my slumber. Others had heard my screams as well, and it was but moments before Doctor Augustus, clad in robe and slippers, hurried through my door.
“The medicine!” I am certain that I must have shouted, and certain too that I sounded, at that moment, as mad as any lunatic that ever he had treated. “By all the gods, give me the medicine!”
The doctor spent much of the following day questioning me on the content of my dream, but I refused utterly to speak of it. Merely reflecting on it sent me into such a terror, I feared I might truly perish of heart stroke or apoplexy if I dared dwell on what I had seen, or imagined I had seen. To speak of it was utterly unthinkable.
He agreed, finally, as night drew near once more and my agitation only swelled, to permit me to try this last, desperate remedy. He insisted, however, that Nurse Roberts again spend the night in observing me.
I cared not a whit, one way or another, so long as he granted me his medicine.
I have no words for the following night, for no words exist in any language to describe such emotions. How can you, you who have never been troubled as I have been troubled, haunted as I have been haunted, comprehend the profundity, the glorious wonderment, of a night’s sleep uninterrupted and unmarred by dreams?
Yet I cannot say my slumber was completely unmarred. I remember feeling, in that drowsy state of half-sleep, that some weight had finally withdrawn. Or rather, relented.
I woke this morning, blinked open my eyes, and only then it dawned on me that the night had passed. I literally wept with joy, true and unbridled joy.
And then... oh, gods, and then I raised myself up and turned my gaze toward the intervening window, toward Nurse Roberts, with whom I wished to share my newfound delight.
It was shattered, that window, the glass all burst inward from my room to hers. It lay glittering across the floor, a constellation of tiny reflective stars. Roberts herself sat upright, one might almost have said stiffly formal, in the room’s most comfortable chair. She sat turned away from me, facing into the far corner.
A corner painted with darkening crimson, a corner that I could see clearly, for the entire back of her head was absent, and there was nothing within the cavity of her skull to block my view of the far wall, a view through the three gaping hollows of her eyes and mouth!
I have had long hours to think on what has occurred as I sit here, strapped to this bed, awaiting the authorities to come and take me away for this abominable crime. Perhaps I may yet convince them of my innocence, perhaps I may not. In truth, it matters little enough.
For I understand now, I think, what happened to me on that long ago day, in that tiny sheltering cave that overlooked an impossible world. Those terrible things to which necessity drove us, Clarke and I, more than any sane mind could bear. I died a bit that day, I think. I left behind a part of myself, a part of my soul, in the high peaks of Bluetspur.
And took a part of Bluetspur with me in its stead.
It is vile, this unholy, indescribable thing. It is monstrous. But it is trapped, trapped within me, unable to escape....
But only so long as I remain trapped with it.
Tonight, I may lay myself down to sleep in another asylum, one far less friendly than this. I may lay myself down to sleep in a foul dungeon. I know not.
All I know is this: I will lay myself down to sleep.
And though I know they can bring me nothing but unimaginable horrors that must slowly consume what remains of my rational mind, I will fervently pray for dreams.
It is a terrain without any living thing, an endless scape of blasted and blackened rock without relief. Mountains reach into a low and heavy sky, holding aloft a ceiling of clouds as thick and inflexible as iron. Crevices delve down into the rough stone, their plunging depths perhaps the equal of even the highest mountain. There is no soil to support growing things, nor water to nourish them. The land is gripped in an ongoing storm, a storm without rain. Deafening thunder shakes the mountains, awesome lightning bridges the earth and the heavens, as regular as a beating heart.
The wind blows hot and fierce across the open ground, horribly moist and cloying. And if this is the breath of this blasted land, so too is it the voice, as it whistles and howls across the cavernous hollows in the mountains.
Hollows such as that in which we shelter.
I have long since surrendered any effort to further converse with Clarke. Even were we not reduced to shouting our throats raw over the banshee winds, we have been here too long to have anything left to tell one another. There is no day or night in this hellish wasteland, merely intervals where the lightning is more or less frequent, making a precise time impossible to determine. It is long enough, however, that the last of our supplies have long gone.
Supplies! Laughable to call them such. Snacks, intended merely to pass the time on our journey, never to maintain a man’s survival. We have neither eaten nor drunk in so long, I fear I have forgotten what it is to taste. Worse, I fear that it is a skill I shall never again require, for while I can no longer be certain of the sun’s rise, nor that a road I have traveled a dozen times will lead to the same destination on the thirteenth, I have become certain indeed that I must soon die.
And then my soul, which I had thought battered into submission and inured to further horrors, shrivels just that little bit further, as from behind I hear an abominable scream, even over the rushing winds. The voice is unknown to me, though nobody resides within the cave but myself and my two closest friends, for never have I heard either of them make a sound like this I hear now.
Phillips lies dead far back in the cave, his body convulsed in a terrible spasm that must apparently follow him into the grave. Clarke stands above him, his eyes haunted and empty. I do not know how Phillips died, and I fail to ask, for I fear to hear the answer.
We are starving, have long been starving, and we both know what must happen.
We sit with that body behind us, staring again into the blinding lightning and blasted rock, for what might be hours or might be days, until we can make ourselves allow it to happen.
I believe I fall asleep after my first meal in days, and try to forget that the taste upon my tongue is the blood and flesh of a man I knew well. I doze, fitfully, until I am awakened by yet another scream. I look out over the blasted waste, and only in the flicker of the lightning can I see Clarke as he disappears into the shadows of the towering peaks, leaving me forever.
“And then I wake. Truly wake, I mean. Always there and then, Doctor Augustus. Never so much as one moment earlier or later.”
Augustus, a gaunt and hawk-like man, nodded toward me as though that final point had been the most interesting and vital, as though he understood something he had not understood before.
I knew that he could not, not truly, for I had not truly conveyed the horror of my nightmare. No description in words crafted by mortal minds could do it any justice. The bleak and barren wastes, the burning lightningbolts that cooked the air and seemed to seek us out should we dare venture from the caves, the atrocious hot scents in the wet wind that could have been nothing but the breath of the land itself... how to explicate such details to a man who had never experienced them for himself?
Yet whatever the inadequacies of my descriptions, I had communicated enough to pique the doctor’s curiosity. His expression was concerned as he gazed at me over his notes, as any good doctor’s should have been, but he could not hide the light of his interest.
“Indeed, it is a most disturbing dream, Mister Ashton. I cannot imagine it a pleasant thing from which to awaken, particularly if it truly comes upon you every night, as you say. It would be my pleasure to direct what techniques I have available toward your treatment.
“However,” he persisted as I prepared myself to reply, “I wonder if you have truly considered all the ramifications of what you ask. Though your admission here would be of your own volition, still there is a minimum stay required for treatment. You cannot just wake up in two days, or even a week, having changed your mind, and expect simply to walk through the door.”
“I understand fully,” I assured him, all in earnest. “I wish to stay as long as I must, to free myself of these nightly horrors.”
Augustus nodded yet again. “I must say, Mister Ashton, institutionalization seems a rather dramatic step to rid oneself of a dream, no matter how unpleasant or regular. Do you fear it symbolizes some particular trauma or defect of personality?”
I could not but laugh at him, a reaction that doubtless served to reinforce in his mind that my faculties were not in order.
“Doctor Augustus, you misapprehend me. My dream symbolizes nothing at all. It is no phantom of the mind’s eye, nor any window into my persona or my soul.
“Two years ago, my closest friends and I set out on what was to be a regular visit to the mills of Nartok, just across the border, to acquire some good Darkonian lumber. It was, you must believe me, a journey that we had made, together and severally, many a time before. Yet on this day, we became lost in a bank of mist that rose in all disregard for the weather, and when we emerged, we found ourselves in no land where reason holds sway. Only I, alone, discovered another bank of mists in later days and blindly groped my way back home.
“My dream, Doctor Augustus, is no tale spun by any part of my mind. It is memory, clear and unblemished, of events that truly happened!”
“I shall have Nurse Roberts show you to your room,” Augustus said.
She was a pretty thing, Nurse Roberts, short, with dull golden locks and a roundness of features and form that bespoke the best of what femininity had to offer a man such as I. In other circumstances, it would have been I attempting to coax her into my room, rather than her showing me the way. Friendly she was, certainly, an open conversationalist, and possessed of a kind heart. She served in a place like this out of genuine desire to help those troubled by demons of mind and soul.
Yet, other than my insistence that she call me Howard, rather than Mister Ashton, I found myself unable to muster much enthusiasm to engage in my accustomed amorous banter. Under present conditions, and in these dim and dour halls, it seemed to me ill-appropriate.
Had I made my selection of doctor and institution based on appearances, my shadow would never have darkened the vestibule of Dharlaeth Asylum. The building was of heavy brick, whatever color they might once have boasted long since leeched from the stone by years of pounding sun and rain and wind. Demonic visages and inhuman forms hunched above the eaves, glaring angrily at all who dared pass. It had once been a cathedral, this asylum, or so I’d been given to understand. Doctor Augustus and his staff had scarcely proved able to afford the property, and thus had done little to render it any more attractive or suitable for the comfort of patients. All appearances aside, however, Augustus had a wide-ranging reputation, from Lamordia to Darkon, for competency and skill at his healer’s arts.
And so here I had come, when the dreams and memories finally weighed too heavily on my mind for me to continue life as I had known it, when it became clear that the oblivion of hemlock or the noose might soon become more enticing to me than another waking dawn.
Long I continue to watch, one hand raised to shade my eyes from the sporadic blinding flash of the lightning, though Clarke has utterly vanished into the shadowed valleys and nigh-bottomless crevices of the wasteland. I stand in the cave’s open maw, a morsel of food not yet chewed and digested. I grow stale, clammy, sticky, as my own perspiration and the hot wetness of the gale sit upon my skin.
Then, though I scarcely know where it is I intend to go, or even why I have chosen to set foot beyond the meager shelter, I step out across the blasted stone.
Heavily as I perspired in the dream, I am certain I did so at least as heavily when speaking with Doctor Augustus the following morn.
For over a week, we had met for many hours every morning, and I had consumed a specially prepared meal, along with a cocktail of calming herbs, every evening. These, it was explained to me, were intended to permit me to face the imagery of my dream with composure, studying it via the lens of reason rather than that of emotion, fear, revulsion, guilt. I was, Augustus told me, to study not the events themselves, traumatic as they had been, but the associated reactions. How did I feel about having consumed the flesh of my dead friend? How could I make sense of a world where such a place could exist, or where I could suddenly find myself stranded without ever straying from roads I knew? To understand and answer these, he instructed me, was the initial step to overcoming whatever derangement of the mind caused me to continue reliving the instigating events night after night.
It seemed to me a waste of time and effort, for surely I had already considered all such possibilities in the years since my waking nightmare. Still, the next stage of treatment were this to fail involved all manner of unpleasant medications, mesmerism, even electrical shock, none of which I was in any hurry to experience.
For over a week, as I say, this went on, with no change to either my emotional or mental states. And then, that night....
“Extraordinary,” Augustus remarked, and for a moment I could happily have throttled the man. To reduce this experience to an interesting exercise....
“Did you not tell me,” he continued, scribbling fiercely with his quill upon the topmost of a stack of papers, “that the dream was ever the same? That, in fact, it precisely relayed and repeated a series of very specific events?”
“Indeed, it always had!” I was ashamed at the quaver in my voice, but I must confess that I was terrified, more so than ever I had been since I escaped the hellish territory of which I dreamed. “But now it has changed! For the first time ever, Doctor, it has changed!”
“And the events you dream of now, Mister Ashton? These are not, perhaps, memories as well? Perhaps images of a sojourn you made from the cave that you had since forgotten?”
I could only shake my head. “I am certain, Doctor, that I never once departed that cave, until the day I saw the mists rising once more behind the nearest rise. I never followed Clarke into the wasteland. Never.”
“Then it seems your dreams are, indeed, more than mere memories, my friend.” Augustus rose and paced the room before me, scratching at the thin beard that clung, moss-like, to his chin. “Else they are indeed true memories, and you have fully and deeply repressed the remainder of your experience.
“In either event, Mister Ashton, I believe the time has come to attempt more vigorous avenues of treatment.”
I clamber across the unyielding rock, over rises and down from ledges, across crevasses that threaten to swallow me whole, along slopes whose angles threaten to send me tumbling. My palms are chapped and bloodied, like raw sausage, and my ankles threaten to turn with every step, yet I persevere. The wind blows harsh but brings no relief from the sweltering miasma, serving only to sting my eyes and chafe at my face, yet I persevere. I know not where I go, struggling directly into the face of the gale only to offer my mind some sense of direction. I flinch at every clap of thunder, at every stroke of lightning, for it seems they draw ever nearer to me, the arrows of an archer honing in upon his prey.
Yet I persevere.
And finally, finally, I crest a vicious rise, a hummock laden with razor-sharp protuberances of slender, fragile rock. The agony of my lacerated flesh is enough to drive me onward, upward, forward, those last lingering few feet that stretch before me. The lightning flashes yet again, as though in premeditated effort to illuminate my view, and below me, so terribly far below, I see a fearsome crevice, greater than any I have heretofore encountered. It gapes open, the earth’s own maw, and it is hungry. The wind, the terrible breathing wind against which I have so continuously struggled comes not from across the open valley, but from deep within that crevice itself!
I look above, and though the clouds are low and the lightning bright, still for the first time I can see the stars. They gaze malevolently upon this terrible land, and they are not sparkles of guiding light, but rents in the sky, holes to places that never were. Colors never before glimpsed by any man leak from them, and they make me ill to look upon for long.
From within the gasping crevice, I hear the low hum of voices, far and faint. Despite the wiser angels of my nature, I find myself beginning the long climb downward....
“Bluetspur.”
This was all that Doctor Augustus’s mesmerism could draw from me. Just this, this nonsensical, meaningless word, no matter how deep the trance, how pliant my mind became beneath his unfathomable words and gestures. It held no connotation for him, and for a time it hadn’t any for me, either. But with each session it recurred, forming around my throat and tongue, and each time it burrowed ever deeper into my psyche as well, until finally I felt I understood its meaning.
Bluetspur. It was nothing less than the name of the nightmare realm itself, the blasted land in which I saw the last of my two dearest friends, the dreamscape which my mind continued to visit with every death of the sun’s light.
Augustus, of course, had grievous doubts, wondering at the source of that knowledge, or how it should just suddenly come to me. Yet as he had no alternate definition to ascribe to the term, he accepted my explanation, at least for the nonce.
If breakthrough it was, however, it proved disappointingly insignificant. Possession of that name did nothing to change the nature of my dreams, and the many sessions of mesmerism offered neither of us any further insight into the events in question. Finally, after days of such attempts, my dreams had changed again, and I conveyed just that to Doctor Augustus.
That, and more.
“I’ve begun to fear, Doctor,” I confided in him, after telling him of my latest dream. “I feel a terror in my chest in all my waking hours, like a lump of ice that refuses to thaw.”
“And what is it you fear, Mister Ashton?”
“What if I am still there, Doctor?” I shuddered merely at the thought, and felt myself grasping at the arms of the chair. “With each change in my dream, I move that bit further into that empty hell—into this Bluetspur—yet I know, as surely as I know my own name, that I never did any such thing! What if I am there still, driven by desperation to explore, and it is my time here, with you, with Nurse Roberts, that is the dream?”
Augustus assured me over and again that such was not the case, but his assertions served to ease my worries only slightly. As all those who know fear can attest, even though their terrors be of far lesser magnitude than my own, worry and anxiety rarely see defeat at the hands of logical and reasoned argument.
When it became clear that I was too distraught to be easily assuaged, Doctor Augustus leaned forward and put a calming hand upon my shoulder.
“I’ll not lie to you, Howard,” he said softly, and I could not but view his use of my first name as a poor omen indeed. “While we have spent only a few weeks on your treatment as of yet, and thus could not expect any sort of substantial improvements, I must confess that I’m rather dismayed at our lack of progress. While I would still dearly love to understand the emotional underpinnings of your troubles, and believe that doing so would be helpful and healthy for you, I must concede that this appears not to be your road to recovery.”
I shook off his comforting grasp and stood, that I might pace away at least a modicum of my agitation. “What do you propose, Doctor?”
“If we cannot rid you of your dreams through understanding,” he told me, “the next logical step is to find a means of encouraging your mind to shy away from the most troubling images. This should, at minimum, provide you some distance and time from the initial event so that you might heal.”
I almost wept at the mere thought of it. A means of preventing myself from experiencing these dreams? A chance, however brief, to forget? I was as a lonely sinner suddenly granted a vision of some backdoor into Heaven.
Perhaps alarmed by the sudden elation in my countenance, Doctor Augustus raised a cautionary hand. “Understand, Howard, that what I propose is no easy thing. There are dangers, some significant indeed, inherent to either method.”
He explained to me that he saw two possible means of ridding me of my night terrors. The first he dubbed “shock-aversion therapy.” I would be strapped, he told me, to a great steel mechanism, bound so that I could not harm myself through spasm and movement. I would be bombarded with a series of stimuli, visual imagery, ambient sounds, even artificial scents produced via alchemical wonders I could not begin to comprehend. Should any such image trigger a memory of my dreams, I was to indicate thus with a switch beneath my thumb, resulting in a painful electrical shock. Should I fail to cooperate, perhaps out of fear of the agony, the doctor would take it upon himself to decide which images seemed related, though he believed it would work better if I did so myself.
This technique, he explained, would take many sessions, until my mind instinctively associated the images and the pain, and thus should, by his theorem, refrain from revisiting those memories. It meant many days of torment, and though the shock was relatively light, still there was danger of damage to muscles, or even to the brain, the heart, and other organs.
Alternatively, he might offer me a medicine of his own invention, one intended to stop the mind from germinating dreams entirely. It meant no pain, no days of effort before I might see results.
Yet this medicine carried its own risks, risks that Augustus could not elucidate so well as he had those of his shock treatment. It had seen its use before, this medicine, and safely enough, but only in light dosages, used to calm a restless sleeper’s nightmares for a single evening. I would be the first man ever to subject himself to its effects for multiple consecutive nights, and in necessarily higher quantities as well.
Long I pondered this dreadful choice, until nearly time for supper. I thought for a time about accepting neither treatment, for both seemed ghastly, but the thought of living forever with these dreams was ghastlier still.
In the end I selected the machine, as I think the doctor hoped I would. I have never been a coward, for all that I had spent the prior two years in relentless fear, and was unafraid of physical pain. It seemed a safer gamble than the unknown poisons of ill-tested medicine.
The process was, if anything, far more brutal even than Doctor Augustus had implied. By the conclusion of my first session, I had to be all but carried to my room. Nurse Roberts was to occupy the chamber beside mine for the night, with the curtains drawn from the intervening window, that she might observe me as I slept. Ostensibly her mandate was to ensure that I had no ill reactions to the treatment, but I believe Doctor Augustus was more interested in having an observer present to determine whether or not I dreamt.
They seem almost designed for climbing by some higher being (or lower), the walls of this great gaping chasm, with many a niche or ledge on which to rest one’s weary weight. With gashed and bleeding hands, with sore and aching feet, I make my way, a clumsy spider, down the gullet of the earthen maw. The humid wind rushes past me, upward and over me, until finally I feel solid stone once more beneath my soles. Somehow, here at the base, the air has ceased to move, no longer a rushing wind but a miasma that squats, bloated and reeking like something long dead.
As I had stumbled my way here across a nigh-featureless landscape, so too do I find a path, all unwittingly, through the twisted passageways below. Again I cannot but think of a spider, for had the tunnels been the strands of some arachnid’s spun web, they could not be any more ornate, complex. And still, on I walk, on I stagger, on I crawl when the height of the claustrophobic ceilings or exhaustion of my limbs demand it. On and on.
How I can find my way through these caverns and catacombs I know not, for I should certainly be groping about blindly in wretched darkness. Yet always there remains just enough ambient light to guide my steps, its source hidden from any effort I might make to find it.
Ahead of me, now, the light brightens. Ahead the voices grow louder. I know that I should turn, that I should flee, return to my sheltered cave, starve to death if that is to be my fate, rather than to continue one further step. I continue nonetheless.
The passage twists upward, narrow, ungainly. I struggle to reach its culmination, only to stand on a ledge, a tiny tongue of rock, overlooking....
Ah, gods! Would that I stood upon the precipice of Hell, for even that must be less terrible than this!
The cavern stretches wide, so vast it seems that it must swallow the world entire. Above, a gap in the stone, a festering wound that admits the poisonous light of the stars to dribble down into the inner dark.
Below, I stare deep into... something, something almost fluid, something with the scent of brine, the consistency of drool. It roils and burbles in a pool of stone, and within a horrid shape pulses and beats like some monstrous heart. I cannot see its form, for it defies shape itself... a pulpy, fibrous mass delighting in its own vile excretion, the afterbirth of things never born... a horror not of flesh, nor of organs, nor of bone, a repulsive sac of substances beyond any man’s capacity to imagine. I can see no more of it, for my eyes are obstructed by the viscous substance in which it bides, by the shadows that grow thick between my vantage and the tableau below, and for both I am pathetically grateful.
Around the pool, a thousand dancing horrors, and again I am saved only by the feeble light and the flickering shadows. I can apprehend only the most vague of details, and even these are loathsome to behold. Tendrils I can see, reaching from the darkness, reaching from maws and orifices that were never sculpted by any god of man’s. And lying at their feet as they parade about their monstrous sire, the shapes of a dozen men and women, two dozen, three.... It is from them the voices come, voices without words, the endless cry of maddened minds, broken by contemplation of their coming fate. I know Clarke lies among them, though I cannot possibly hear or see him. And I see those tendrils reaching for these poor prone souls, sliding almost gracefully into succulent flesh....
And even what little I can perceive has become too much, and I have run screaming into the darkness of the catacombs.
That I woke screaming, my throat raw and head throbbing, must come as no surprise to any. Nurse Roberts was already at my side, for apparently I had thrashed and tossed about long before the dream grew fierce enough to haul me from my slumber. Others had heard my screams as well, and it was but moments before Doctor Augustus, clad in robe and slippers, hurried through my door.
“The medicine!” I am certain that I must have shouted, and certain too that I sounded, at that moment, as mad as any lunatic that ever he had treated. “By all the gods, give me the medicine!”
The doctor spent much of the following day questioning me on the content of my dream, but I refused utterly to speak of it. Merely reflecting on it sent me into such a terror, I feared I might truly perish of heart stroke or apoplexy if I dared dwell on what I had seen, or imagined I had seen. To speak of it was utterly unthinkable.
He agreed, finally, as night drew near once more and my agitation only swelled, to permit me to try this last, desperate remedy. He insisted, however, that Nurse Roberts again spend the night in observing me.
I cared not a whit, one way or another, so long as he granted me his medicine.
I have no words for the following night, for no words exist in any language to describe such emotions. How can you, you who have never been troubled as I have been troubled, haunted as I have been haunted, comprehend the profundity, the glorious wonderment, of a night’s sleep uninterrupted and unmarred by dreams?
Yet I cannot say my slumber was completely unmarred. I remember feeling, in that drowsy state of half-sleep, that some weight had finally withdrawn. Or rather, relented.
I woke this morning, blinked open my eyes, and only then it dawned on me that the night had passed. I literally wept with joy, true and unbridled joy.
And then... oh, gods, and then I raised myself up and turned my gaze toward the intervening window, toward Nurse Roberts, with whom I wished to share my newfound delight.
It was shattered, that window, the glass all burst inward from my room to hers. It lay glittering across the floor, a constellation of tiny reflective stars. Roberts herself sat upright, one might almost have said stiffly formal, in the room’s most comfortable chair. She sat turned away from me, facing into the far corner.
A corner painted with darkening crimson, a corner that I could see clearly, for the entire back of her head was absent, and there was nothing within the cavity of her skull to block my view of the far wall, a view through the three gaping hollows of her eyes and mouth!
I have had long hours to think on what has occurred as I sit here, strapped to this bed, awaiting the authorities to come and take me away for this abominable crime. Perhaps I may yet convince them of my innocence, perhaps I may not. In truth, it matters little enough.
For I understand now, I think, what happened to me on that long ago day, in that tiny sheltering cave that overlooked an impossible world. Those terrible things to which necessity drove us, Clarke and I, more than any sane mind could bear. I died a bit that day, I think. I left behind a part of myself, a part of my soul, in the high peaks of Bluetspur.
And took a part of Bluetspur with me in its stead.
It is vile, this unholy, indescribable thing. It is monstrous. But it is trapped, trapped within me, unable to escape....
But only so long as I remain trapped with it.
Tonight, I may lay myself down to sleep in another asylum, one far less friendly than this. I may lay myself down to sleep in a foul dungeon. I know not.
All I know is this: I will lay myself down to sleep.
And though I know they can bring me nothing but unimaginable horrors that must slowly consume what remains of my rational mind, I will fervently pray for dreams.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
DO YOU BELIEVE IN GOD?
So do you believe in God?
As a person who discusses weird theories and psychology, I get this frequently. So I’ve decided to make a better effort to reply. To be honest, I don’t like the question because it presumes we know what those words mean. Here are some responses, touching on more or less serious aspects of the topic.
1. Which god? Do you mean Zeus, Baal, Athena, Shiva, Allah, Jehovah, or some other? If you mean one of those, then no. I am not a theist. I don’t believe in an individual being that created and now controls the world.
2. What is belief? Is it a cognitive conclusion that I have reached basic on logical consideration of evidence? That would assume I have access to all the information, and I do not. Is it an emotional feeling for something beyond myself? Well, my emotions vary, and some days are hopeful, other days are dark. Emotions are a rocky basis for “belief.” Do I make a leap of faith, not knowing anything really, but simply wanting to “believe,” and putting stock in a “scripture” to give it support? This is also difficult because knowing about the origins of “scripture,” I know the complexity; they were not simply dictated. Also, the strength of my blind faith can also vary and I’m not sure how completely I am supposed to convince myself in order to say I “believe.”
3. The concept of “God” usually meant by this question is some sort of being that exists “out there.” The god of the Bible is very separate, superior to humans, but anthropomorphic in many ways. Other gods are also considered “out there” and have controlling powers we do not have. A more New Age notion of god includes “the divine” in all of us, and still involves the notion of “spirit” infusing people. There is an assumption in most approaches to spirituality of a kind of “force,” which can be called by different names, but which is a thing in a universe of other things. As such, I do not resonate with this idea of “god” as an entity.
4. If I must use the concept at all, I would equate it with the “nature of being.” This is close to “ground of being,” a phrase coined by John Robinson many years ago in Honest to God. For me it involves a perception of existence grounded in the profound science of modern physics. Most ordinary people do not know much about this. Yet, we now know from findings in both relativity theory and quantum physics, that the universe is much more strange and incredible than we ever realized. It calls for massive humility because there are things no one understands, yet we now have good reason to question all of our basic assumptions about “reality.” The difference is bigger than finding out the world is not flat. We have evidence for questioning our ideas about matter, linear time, cause and effect, and more. String theorists agree there are eleven dimensions. Yet the general population operates all day every day assuming things that are completely out of date. The knowledge has not reached the masses. This is akin to having everyone act as if the earth is still flat. The issues are intensely profound, with implications for everything we do. The big words for me are “mystery” and “possibility.” Feelings are humility, awe, and excitement. There is no religious description of “god” that matches the grandeur of the universe as it is – elusive, ever-changing, impossibly mind-boggling. And this includes us. We are part of the fabric; there is no separation. If this is believing in god, then by all means, a hundred times YES! But I’m still not drawn to the language.
A couple of quotes that I find consistent with this:
“How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, ‘This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant’? Instead they say, ‘No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.’ A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.”`
-Carl Sagan
“I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”
-Albert Einstein
5. Dispensing with the “god” word, it makes a little more sense for me to address “spirituality,” although this word has often meant a focus on other-worldly things. I prefer to describe spirituality as a way of living which is here-and-now. These are attributes rather than a definition. They involve feelings and perceptions and experiences which depend on openness. This openness can be chosen and developed. Rather than escaping into a different realm, I think of spirituality in terms of how we live our lives – the choices, the consciousness, the texture of daily life. There are several aspects of this:
Accord. This is the experience of feeling attuned with the rest of existence - a feeling of belonging on earth, being a part of the rest of nature, and in harmony with everything around. When you are in accord, you move along with the vast river of evolutionary change, feeling connected in a fundamental way with the harmony and power of the whole. You feel as though you are tapping into a rich resource that is beyond you, much larger than yourself. Your inner spring of god-within connects with the vastness of god-beyond, a "deeper power" rather than "higher power," a subterranean aquifer connecting all of life. This produces a sense of trust and safety, a knowledge that you fit, that you have a place.
Awareness. With awareness you are alive and awake, fully experiencing life. This means being totally grounded in the here and now. Your sensory experiences are vivid, and you notice what is happening when it is happening, both around and inside you. You do not reject uncomfortable experiences or deny pain; you are open and embracing of all that life has to offer. This makes it possible for you to enjoy things more intensely and to learn from difficulties. You are not trying to be on some other plane of existence, but are willing and happy to be here now, like a curious child.
Growth. Growth is a natural process. You are not static or inert; you are a changing, growing being. And your experiences can propel you to develop further. As a plant needs the attention of water and food to grow, you need to attend to your needs and consciously make opportunities to learn and change. This aspect of spirituality is active, complementing the more receptive elements of accord and awareness. As humans we are granted the exciting option of making conscious loyal commitments to move in positive directions. Learning will often occur anyway, as a neglected plant will often survive, but informed with a sense of accord and awareness, you can take action on your own spiritual behalf.
Transcendence. There are moments of awe for us in life, those times of being overwhelmed with wonder at beauty, or love, or natural power. At these moments you get clues about the immensity of the cosmos, like pinpricks in the veil around your limited consciousness. You are humbled and thrilled as you gaze at a sunset or a torrential waterfall. A moment of pure love can be ecstatic. Let your vision extend into the night sky, and you may experience a blissful dissolving of your individual ego. Not needing to understand or control, you can experience a sense of total Mystery. These moments are gifts that reflect your spiritual capacity, gifts that become more available as you open to your sense of the ultimate. This is not ultimate in the sense of above or better, but simply beyond your usual mode of consciousness. These are moments of realization knowing that the sense you have of “god” within is not only in contact with but one and the same as the transcendent “god”-beyond. You are a wave in the ocean, individual in a sense but also part of something much bigger – the immensely huge and powerful ocean of existence. You don’t understand and you don’t need to understand. All of this is multiverses away from “believing in God.”
So even though I would have to say I don’t believe in God and I am an atheist in the true definition of the word, ie, not a theist, I obviously feel compelled to question and reclaim the language being used and make this rather inadequate stab at describing my lived experience. It’s a bit defensive and that’s because the stereotype of the cold, shallow, hedonistic, selfish atheist needs to be challenged. In my opinion, it’s all about how we live, and not what we “believe.”
As a person who discusses weird theories and psychology, I get this frequently. So I’ve decided to make a better effort to reply. To be honest, I don’t like the question because it presumes we know what those words mean. Here are some responses, touching on more or less serious aspects of the topic.
1. Which god? Do you mean Zeus, Baal, Athena, Shiva, Allah, Jehovah, or some other? If you mean one of those, then no. I am not a theist. I don’t believe in an individual being that created and now controls the world.
2. What is belief? Is it a cognitive conclusion that I have reached basic on logical consideration of evidence? That would assume I have access to all the information, and I do not. Is it an emotional feeling for something beyond myself? Well, my emotions vary, and some days are hopeful, other days are dark. Emotions are a rocky basis for “belief.” Do I make a leap of faith, not knowing anything really, but simply wanting to “believe,” and putting stock in a “scripture” to give it support? This is also difficult because knowing about the origins of “scripture,” I know the complexity; they were not simply dictated. Also, the strength of my blind faith can also vary and I’m not sure how completely I am supposed to convince myself in order to say I “believe.”
3. The concept of “God” usually meant by this question is some sort of being that exists “out there.” The god of the Bible is very separate, superior to humans, but anthropomorphic in many ways. Other gods are also considered “out there” and have controlling powers we do not have. A more New Age notion of god includes “the divine” in all of us, and still involves the notion of “spirit” infusing people. There is an assumption in most approaches to spirituality of a kind of “force,” which can be called by different names, but which is a thing in a universe of other things. As such, I do not resonate with this idea of “god” as an entity.
4. If I must use the concept at all, I would equate it with the “nature of being.” This is close to “ground of being,” a phrase coined by John Robinson many years ago in Honest to God. For me it involves a perception of existence grounded in the profound science of modern physics. Most ordinary people do not know much about this. Yet, we now know from findings in both relativity theory and quantum physics, that the universe is much more strange and incredible than we ever realized. It calls for massive humility because there are things no one understands, yet we now have good reason to question all of our basic assumptions about “reality.” The difference is bigger than finding out the world is not flat. We have evidence for questioning our ideas about matter, linear time, cause and effect, and more. String theorists agree there are eleven dimensions. Yet the general population operates all day every day assuming things that are completely out of date. The knowledge has not reached the masses. This is akin to having everyone act as if the earth is still flat. The issues are intensely profound, with implications for everything we do. The big words for me are “mystery” and “possibility.” Feelings are humility, awe, and excitement. There is no religious description of “god” that matches the grandeur of the universe as it is – elusive, ever-changing, impossibly mind-boggling. And this includes us. We are part of the fabric; there is no separation. If this is believing in god, then by all means, a hundred times YES! But I’m still not drawn to the language.
A couple of quotes that I find consistent with this:
“How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, ‘This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant’? Instead they say, ‘No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.’ A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.”`
-Carl Sagan
“I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”
-Albert Einstein
5. Dispensing with the “god” word, it makes a little more sense for me to address “spirituality,” although this word has often meant a focus on other-worldly things. I prefer to describe spirituality as a way of living which is here-and-now. These are attributes rather than a definition. They involve feelings and perceptions and experiences which depend on openness. This openness can be chosen and developed. Rather than escaping into a different realm, I think of spirituality in terms of how we live our lives – the choices, the consciousness, the texture of daily life. There are several aspects of this:
Accord. This is the experience of feeling attuned with the rest of existence - a feeling of belonging on earth, being a part of the rest of nature, and in harmony with everything around. When you are in accord, you move along with the vast river of evolutionary change, feeling connected in a fundamental way with the harmony and power of the whole. You feel as though you are tapping into a rich resource that is beyond you, much larger than yourself. Your inner spring of god-within connects with the vastness of god-beyond, a "deeper power" rather than "higher power," a subterranean aquifer connecting all of life. This produces a sense of trust and safety, a knowledge that you fit, that you have a place.
Awareness. With awareness you are alive and awake, fully experiencing life. This means being totally grounded in the here and now. Your sensory experiences are vivid, and you notice what is happening when it is happening, both around and inside you. You do not reject uncomfortable experiences or deny pain; you are open and embracing of all that life has to offer. This makes it possible for you to enjoy things more intensely and to learn from difficulties. You are not trying to be on some other plane of existence, but are willing and happy to be here now, like a curious child.
Growth. Growth is a natural process. You are not static or inert; you are a changing, growing being. And your experiences can propel you to develop further. As a plant needs the attention of water and food to grow, you need to attend to your needs and consciously make opportunities to learn and change. This aspect of spirituality is active, complementing the more receptive elements of accord and awareness. As humans we are granted the exciting option of making conscious loyal commitments to move in positive directions. Learning will often occur anyway, as a neglected plant will often survive, but informed with a sense of accord and awareness, you can take action on your own spiritual behalf.
Transcendence. There are moments of awe for us in life, those times of being overwhelmed with wonder at beauty, or love, or natural power. At these moments you get clues about the immensity of the cosmos, like pinpricks in the veil around your limited consciousness. You are humbled and thrilled as you gaze at a sunset or a torrential waterfall. A moment of pure love can be ecstatic. Let your vision extend into the night sky, and you may experience a blissful dissolving of your individual ego. Not needing to understand or control, you can experience a sense of total Mystery. These moments are gifts that reflect your spiritual capacity, gifts that become more available as you open to your sense of the ultimate. This is not ultimate in the sense of above or better, but simply beyond your usual mode of consciousness. These are moments of realization knowing that the sense you have of “god” within is not only in contact with but one and the same as the transcendent “god”-beyond. You are a wave in the ocean, individual in a sense but also part of something much bigger – the immensely huge and powerful ocean of existence. You don’t understand and you don’t need to understand. All of this is multiverses away from “believing in God.”
So even though I would have to say I don’t believe in God and I am an atheist in the true definition of the word, ie, not a theist, I obviously feel compelled to question and reclaim the language being used and make this rather inadequate stab at describing my lived experience. It’s a bit defensive and that’s because the stereotype of the cold, shallow, hedonistic, selfish atheist needs to be challenged. In my opinion, it’s all about how we live, and not what we “believe.”
Monday, December 17, 2007
on literacy and education
this is dedicated to teachers,its time they have to change the "study for marks" mentality as i mentioned in my last posts,this mentality is degrading the quality of education and the teachers are primely responsible for it.so this one is dedicated to all you teacher(except a few one who really want students to get knowledge then marks).the basic difference between education and literacy is that moulding of character and absorbtion of knowledge happen in education while a literate person has the graduation degree only...
All learning is either by instruction or by discovery; that is, with or without the aid of teachers. The teachers who serve as instructors may be alive and in direct contact with those whom they instruct, as is always the case in classrooms or tutorials, or they may be present to the learner only in the form of books. The teacher who instructs by his writings cannot engage in discussion with those who are reading his works in order to learn; he can ask them initial questions, but he cannot ask any second questions—questions about the answers they give to his initial questions. He is, therefore, seriously limited in his performance of the art of teaching, though he may have done what he could to apply the rules of that art in his effort to communicate what he knows.
That the effort to communicate what a man knows is not, in itself, effective teaching follows from the fact that such efforts are seldom if ever successful and, at best, they succeed only in part. Successful teaching occurs only when the mind of the learner passes from a state of ignorance or error to a state of knowledge. The knowledge acquired may be either something already known by the teacher, or something about which he himself is inquiring. In either case, the transformation effected in the mind of the learner is learning by instruction only if another human being has taken certain deliberate steps to bring about that transformation. What the teacher does must be deliberately calculated to change the mind of the learner. Merely motivating someone to learn is not enough; stimulation is not teaching.
Since whatever can be learned by instruction must necessarily have been learned first by discovery, without the aid of teachers, it follows that teachers are, absolutely speaking, dispensable. Nevertheless, they are useful because most human beings need instruction to learn what they could have learned by discovering it for themselves. If we recognize, as we should, that genuine learning cannot occur without activity on the part of the learner (passive absorption or rote memorization does not deserve to be called learning), then we must also recognize that all learning is a process of discovery on the part of the learner.
This alters our understanding of the distinction between learning by discovery and learning by instruction. If the latter is not to be identified with passive absorption or rote memorization, then the distinction divides all active learning into two kinds—unaided discovery, discovery without the aid of teachers, on the one hand; and aided discovery, or discovery deliberately assisted by teachers, on the other. In both cases, the principal cause of learning is activity on the part of the learner engaged in the process of discovery; when instruction occurs, the teacher is at best only an instrumental cause operating to guide or facilitate the process of discovery on the part of the learner. To suppose that the teacher is ever more than an instrumental cause is to suppose that the activity of a teacher can by itself suffice to cause learning to occur in another person even though the latter remains entirely passive. This would view the learner as a patient being acted upon rather than as an agent whose activity is both primary and indispensable. In contrast, the instrumental activity of the teacher is always secondary and dispensable.
These basic insights are epitomized by Socrates when, in the Theaetetus, he describes his role as a teacher by analogy with the service performed by a midwife who does nothing more than assist the pregnant mother to give birth with less pain and more assurance. So, according to Socrates, the teacher assists the inquiring mind of the learner to give birth to knowledge, facilitating the process of discovery on the learner’s part. If the learner suffers birth pangs because errors block the way, then, as Socrates tells us in the Meno, the teacher may have to take strenuous measures to reduce the learner from a state of error to one of admitted ignorance (by “benumbing” the mind of the learner), so that motion toward learning can proceed unhampered by obstacles.
Before we consider how the good teacher, following the model of Socrates, cooperates with the activity of the learner, which will develop from our understanding of teaching as a cooperative art, let me call attention to two erroneous uses of the word “teach.” It is often said that “experience teaches,” but however much we may learn from experience, it teaches us nothing. Only human beings teach. We also frequently say that a man is self-taught—an autodidact— or that he has taught himself this or that. He may have learned this or that entirely by himself; all of his learning may have been unaided discovery. But to say that it occurred without the aid of teachers is not to say that he taught himself. One individual can be taught only by another.
Teaching, like farming and healing, is a cooperative art. Understanding this, Comenius in The Great Didactic again and again compares the cultivation of the mind with the cultivation of the field; so, too, Plato compares the teacher’s art with the physician’s.
In arts such as shoemaking and shipbuilding, painting and sculpture (arts which I call “operative” to distinguish them from the three cooperative arts), the artist is the principal cause of the product produced. Nature may supply the materials to be fashioned or transformed, and may even supply models to imitate, but without the intervention of the artist’s skill and causal efficacy, nature would not produce shoes, ships, paintings or statues.
Unlike the operative artist, who aims either at beauty or utility, the cooperative artist merely helps nature to produce results that it is able to produce by its own powers, without the assistance of the artist—without the intervention of the artist’s accessory causality. Fruits and grains grow naturally; the farmer intervenes merely to assure that these natural products grow with regularity and, perhaps, to increase their quantity. The body has the power to heal itself—to maintain health and regain health; the physician who adopts the Hippocratic conception of the healing art attempts to support and reinforce the natural processes of the body. The mind, like the body, has the power to achieve what is good for itself— knowledge and understanding. Learning would go on if there were no teachers, just as healing and growing would go on if there were no physicians and farmers.
Like the farmer and the physician, the teacher must be sensitive to the natural process that his art should help bring to its fullest fruition— the natural process of learning. It is the nature of human learning that determines the strategy and tactics of teaching. Since learning which results in expanded knowledge and improved understanding (rather than memorized facts) is essentially a process of discovery, the teacher’s art consists largely in devices whereby one individual can help another to lift himself up from a state of knowing and understanding less to knowing and understanding more. Left to his own devices, the learner would not get very far unless he asked himself questions, perceived problems to be solved, suffered puzzlement over dilemmas, put himself under the necessity of following out the implications of this hypothesis or that, made observations and weighed the evidence for alternative hypotheses, and so on. The teacher, aware of these indispensable steps in the process by which he himself has moved his own mind up the ladder of learning, devises ways to help another individual engage in a similar process; and he applies them with sensitivity to the state of that other person’s mind and with awareness of whatever special difficulties the other must overcome in order to make headway.
Discipline in the traditional liberal arts imparts the skills by which an individual becomes adept at learning. They are the arts of reading and writing, of speaking and listening, of observing, measuring and calculating—the arts of grammar, rhetoric and logic, the mathematical arts, and the arts of investigation. Without some proficiency in these arts, no one can learn very much, whether assisted or not by the use of books and the tutelage of teachers. Unless the teacher is himself a skilled learner, a master of the liberal arts which are the arts of learning, he cannot help those he attempts to teach acquire the skills of learning; nor can his superior skill in learning provide the learner with the help he needs in the process of discovery. The teacher must put himself sympathetically in the position of a learner who is less advanced than himself, less advanced both in skill and in knowledge or understanding. From that vantage point, he must somehow reenact—or stimulate—for the learner the activities he himself engaged in to achieve his present state of mind.
The Hippocratic understanding of healing as a cooperative art provides us with analogical insights into the cooperative art of teaching. Hippocrates distinguished between three forms of therapy: control of the patient’s regimen, the use of drugs or other forms of medication, and recourse to surgery when that drastic remedy cannot be avoided. He regarded the first of these as the primary technique of the physician as a cooperative artist, for, unlike medication, it introduces no foreign substances into the body and, unlike surgery, it does no violence to it. By controlling the patient’s regimen— his diet, his hours, his activities, his environment—the physician helps the body to heal itself by its natural processes.
In the sphere of teaching, the analogue of surgery is indoctrination, the result of which is rote memorization, or some passive absorption of information without any understanding of it. Indoctrination does violence to the mind, as surgery does violence to the body, the only difference being that there is never any excuse for indoctrination, while there can be justification for surgery. The restoration of health may be facilitated by surgery when that drastic remedy is needed, but knowledge and understanding can never be produced by indoctrination. Even so, Hippocrates did not regard the surgeon as a physician, though the physician may find it necessary to have recourse to his services. The physician and the surgeon are distinguished by the line that divides the cooperative from the operative artist. By the same criterion, the indoctrinator is not a teacher.
Lecturing is that form of teaching which is analogous to the use of drugs and medication in the practice of medicine. No violence may be done to the mind if the lecturer eschews any attempt at indoctrination, but the lecture, even when it is attended to with maximum effort on the part of the auditor, is something that the mind must first absorb before it can begin to digest and assimilate what is thus taken in. If passively attended to and passively absorbed by the memory, the lecture has the same effect as indoctrination, even if the lecturer scrupulously intended to avoid that result. At its best, the lecture cannot be more than an occasion for learning, a challenge to the mind of the auditor, an invitation to inquiry. The lecture, in short, is no better than the book as a teacher—an oral rather than a written communication of knowledge. Like the author, the lecturer cannot ask the second and subsequent questions, and unless these are asked, persistently and vigorously, the learner is not aided by a teacher in his own process of discovery. Unlike the indoctrinator, the lecturer may have the same aim as the teacher, but his manner of teaching is at best second-rate.
Analogous to the fully cooperative therapeutic technique of controlling the patient’s regimen is the fully cooperative pedagogical technique of engaging the learner in discussion—teaching by asking instead of teaching by telling, asking questions not merely to elicit answers for the sake of grading them (as in a quiz session, which is not teaching at all), but asking questions that challenge the answers elicited, and asking still more questions that open up new avenues of inquiry. Lectures audited and books read may provide the materials for teaching by discussion, and there may be advanced learners, highly skilled in the liberal arts, who can learn from lectures and books without the aid of teachers. But for those who need the help that good teachers can provide, listening to lectures or reading books without discussing them yields little profit to the mind. The help that the good teacher provides takes the form of conducting the needed discussion. Socrates did that without any use of books or lectures, and there may be others who have taught by asking questions without employing any “teaching materials” to ask questions about; yet for the most part even the best teachers find lectures heard and books read useful accessories to teaching by discussion.
All learning is either by instruction or by discovery; that is, with or without the aid of teachers. The teachers who serve as instructors may be alive and in direct contact with those whom they instruct, as is always the case in classrooms or tutorials, or they may be present to the learner only in the form of books. The teacher who instructs by his writings cannot engage in discussion with those who are reading his works in order to learn; he can ask them initial questions, but he cannot ask any second questions—questions about the answers they give to his initial questions. He is, therefore, seriously limited in his performance of the art of teaching, though he may have done what he could to apply the rules of that art in his effort to communicate what he knows.
That the effort to communicate what a man knows is not, in itself, effective teaching follows from the fact that such efforts are seldom if ever successful and, at best, they succeed only in part. Successful teaching occurs only when the mind of the learner passes from a state of ignorance or error to a state of knowledge. The knowledge acquired may be either something already known by the teacher, or something about which he himself is inquiring. In either case, the transformation effected in the mind of the learner is learning by instruction only if another human being has taken certain deliberate steps to bring about that transformation. What the teacher does must be deliberately calculated to change the mind of the learner. Merely motivating someone to learn is not enough; stimulation is not teaching.
Since whatever can be learned by instruction must necessarily have been learned first by discovery, without the aid of teachers, it follows that teachers are, absolutely speaking, dispensable. Nevertheless, they are useful because most human beings need instruction to learn what they could have learned by discovering it for themselves. If we recognize, as we should, that genuine learning cannot occur without activity on the part of the learner (passive absorption or rote memorization does not deserve to be called learning), then we must also recognize that all learning is a process of discovery on the part of the learner.
This alters our understanding of the distinction between learning by discovery and learning by instruction. If the latter is not to be identified with passive absorption or rote memorization, then the distinction divides all active learning into two kinds—unaided discovery, discovery without the aid of teachers, on the one hand; and aided discovery, or discovery deliberately assisted by teachers, on the other. In both cases, the principal cause of learning is activity on the part of the learner engaged in the process of discovery; when instruction occurs, the teacher is at best only an instrumental cause operating to guide or facilitate the process of discovery on the part of the learner. To suppose that the teacher is ever more than an instrumental cause is to suppose that the activity of a teacher can by itself suffice to cause learning to occur in another person even though the latter remains entirely passive. This would view the learner as a patient being acted upon rather than as an agent whose activity is both primary and indispensable. In contrast, the instrumental activity of the teacher is always secondary and dispensable.
These basic insights are epitomized by Socrates when, in the Theaetetus, he describes his role as a teacher by analogy with the service performed by a midwife who does nothing more than assist the pregnant mother to give birth with less pain and more assurance. So, according to Socrates, the teacher assists the inquiring mind of the learner to give birth to knowledge, facilitating the process of discovery on the learner’s part. If the learner suffers birth pangs because errors block the way, then, as Socrates tells us in the Meno, the teacher may have to take strenuous measures to reduce the learner from a state of error to one of admitted ignorance (by “benumbing” the mind of the learner), so that motion toward learning can proceed unhampered by obstacles.
Before we consider how the good teacher, following the model of Socrates, cooperates with the activity of the learner, which will develop from our understanding of teaching as a cooperative art, let me call attention to two erroneous uses of the word “teach.” It is often said that “experience teaches,” but however much we may learn from experience, it teaches us nothing. Only human beings teach. We also frequently say that a man is self-taught—an autodidact— or that he has taught himself this or that. He may have learned this or that entirely by himself; all of his learning may have been unaided discovery. But to say that it occurred without the aid of teachers is not to say that he taught himself. One individual can be taught only by another.
Teaching, like farming and healing, is a cooperative art. Understanding this, Comenius in The Great Didactic again and again compares the cultivation of the mind with the cultivation of the field; so, too, Plato compares the teacher’s art with the physician’s.
In arts such as shoemaking and shipbuilding, painting and sculpture (arts which I call “operative” to distinguish them from the three cooperative arts), the artist is the principal cause of the product produced. Nature may supply the materials to be fashioned or transformed, and may even supply models to imitate, but without the intervention of the artist’s skill and causal efficacy, nature would not produce shoes, ships, paintings or statues.
Unlike the operative artist, who aims either at beauty or utility, the cooperative artist merely helps nature to produce results that it is able to produce by its own powers, without the assistance of the artist—without the intervention of the artist’s accessory causality. Fruits and grains grow naturally; the farmer intervenes merely to assure that these natural products grow with regularity and, perhaps, to increase their quantity. The body has the power to heal itself—to maintain health and regain health; the physician who adopts the Hippocratic conception of the healing art attempts to support and reinforce the natural processes of the body. The mind, like the body, has the power to achieve what is good for itself— knowledge and understanding. Learning would go on if there were no teachers, just as healing and growing would go on if there were no physicians and farmers.
Like the farmer and the physician, the teacher must be sensitive to the natural process that his art should help bring to its fullest fruition— the natural process of learning. It is the nature of human learning that determines the strategy and tactics of teaching. Since learning which results in expanded knowledge and improved understanding (rather than memorized facts) is essentially a process of discovery, the teacher’s art consists largely in devices whereby one individual can help another to lift himself up from a state of knowing and understanding less to knowing and understanding more. Left to his own devices, the learner would not get very far unless he asked himself questions, perceived problems to be solved, suffered puzzlement over dilemmas, put himself under the necessity of following out the implications of this hypothesis or that, made observations and weighed the evidence for alternative hypotheses, and so on. The teacher, aware of these indispensable steps in the process by which he himself has moved his own mind up the ladder of learning, devises ways to help another individual engage in a similar process; and he applies them with sensitivity to the state of that other person’s mind and with awareness of whatever special difficulties the other must overcome in order to make headway.
Discipline in the traditional liberal arts imparts the skills by which an individual becomes adept at learning. They are the arts of reading and writing, of speaking and listening, of observing, measuring and calculating—the arts of grammar, rhetoric and logic, the mathematical arts, and the arts of investigation. Without some proficiency in these arts, no one can learn very much, whether assisted or not by the use of books and the tutelage of teachers. Unless the teacher is himself a skilled learner, a master of the liberal arts which are the arts of learning, he cannot help those he attempts to teach acquire the skills of learning; nor can his superior skill in learning provide the learner with the help he needs in the process of discovery. The teacher must put himself sympathetically in the position of a learner who is less advanced than himself, less advanced both in skill and in knowledge or understanding. From that vantage point, he must somehow reenact—or stimulate—for the learner the activities he himself engaged in to achieve his present state of mind.
The Hippocratic understanding of healing as a cooperative art provides us with analogical insights into the cooperative art of teaching. Hippocrates distinguished between three forms of therapy: control of the patient’s regimen, the use of drugs or other forms of medication, and recourse to surgery when that drastic remedy cannot be avoided. He regarded the first of these as the primary technique of the physician as a cooperative artist, for, unlike medication, it introduces no foreign substances into the body and, unlike surgery, it does no violence to it. By controlling the patient’s regimen— his diet, his hours, his activities, his environment—the physician helps the body to heal itself by its natural processes.
In the sphere of teaching, the analogue of surgery is indoctrination, the result of which is rote memorization, or some passive absorption of information without any understanding of it. Indoctrination does violence to the mind, as surgery does violence to the body, the only difference being that there is never any excuse for indoctrination, while there can be justification for surgery. The restoration of health may be facilitated by surgery when that drastic remedy is needed, but knowledge and understanding can never be produced by indoctrination. Even so, Hippocrates did not regard the surgeon as a physician, though the physician may find it necessary to have recourse to his services. The physician and the surgeon are distinguished by the line that divides the cooperative from the operative artist. By the same criterion, the indoctrinator is not a teacher.
Lecturing is that form of teaching which is analogous to the use of drugs and medication in the practice of medicine. No violence may be done to the mind if the lecturer eschews any attempt at indoctrination, but the lecture, even when it is attended to with maximum effort on the part of the auditor, is something that the mind must first absorb before it can begin to digest and assimilate what is thus taken in. If passively attended to and passively absorbed by the memory, the lecture has the same effect as indoctrination, even if the lecturer scrupulously intended to avoid that result. At its best, the lecture cannot be more than an occasion for learning, a challenge to the mind of the auditor, an invitation to inquiry. The lecture, in short, is no better than the book as a teacher—an oral rather than a written communication of knowledge. Like the author, the lecturer cannot ask the second and subsequent questions, and unless these are asked, persistently and vigorously, the learner is not aided by a teacher in his own process of discovery. Unlike the indoctrinator, the lecturer may have the same aim as the teacher, but his manner of teaching is at best second-rate.
Analogous to the fully cooperative therapeutic technique of controlling the patient’s regimen is the fully cooperative pedagogical technique of engaging the learner in discussion—teaching by asking instead of teaching by telling, asking questions not merely to elicit answers for the sake of grading them (as in a quiz session, which is not teaching at all), but asking questions that challenge the answers elicited, and asking still more questions that open up new avenues of inquiry. Lectures audited and books read may provide the materials for teaching by discussion, and there may be advanced learners, highly skilled in the liberal arts, who can learn from lectures and books without the aid of teachers. But for those who need the help that good teachers can provide, listening to lectures or reading books without discussing them yields little profit to the mind. The help that the good teacher provides takes the form of conducting the needed discussion. Socrates did that without any use of books or lectures, and there may be others who have taught by asking questions without employing any “teaching materials” to ask questions about; yet for the most part even the best teachers find lectures heard and books read useful accessories to teaching by discussion.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
why i killed gandhi ??
i wanted to write this blog for a long time.there are many misconceptions on the times and reasons on mahatma Gandhi's death.the views of the 'killer'nathuram godse is not known and the conditions in the country during the assassination is long forgotten.this blog is a self interpretation one.i am a huge supporter of satyagraha and Gandhian ideologies but somehow i feel mahatma Gandhi tended to be a bit of a manipulative politician.the Truth always has a certain way to be brought forward,but sadly nathuram godse chose the wrong way.the killing of a person doesn't kill his ideas.nathuram godse had thoughts which were correct and could have been proved to be true.but killing Gandhi to voice the thoughts was not the correct thing to do.it portrayed that thinking to be terroristic and anti-national.but looking the ideology from a different angle,we also tend to think that maybe the man's action were wrong but his thinking was correct.
i wont say anything further.i will just let the last words of nathuram godse speak for themselves.
" Born in a devotional Brahmin family, I instinctively came to revere Hindu religion, Hindu history and Hindu culture. I had, therefore, been intensely proud of Hinduism as a whole. As I grew up I developed a tendency to free thinking unfettered by any superstitious allegiance to any isms, political or religious. That is why I worked actively for the eradication of untouchability and the caste system based on birth alone. I openly joined anti-caste movements and maintained that all Hindus were of equal status as to rights, social and religious and should be considered high or low on merit alone and not through the accident of birth in a particular caste or profession. I used publicly to take part in organized anti-caste dinners in which thousands of Hindus, Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, Chamars and Bhangis participated. We broke the caste rules and dined in the company of each other.
I have read the speeches and writings of Dadabhai Naoroji, Vivekanand, Gokhale, Tilak, along with the books of ancient and modern history of India and some prominent countries like England, France, America and' Russia. Moreover I studied the tenets of Socialism and Marxism. But above all I studied very closely whatever Veer Savarkar and Gandhiji had written and spoken, as to my mind these two ideologies have contributed more to the moulding of the thought and action of the Indian people during the last thirty years or so, than any other single factor has done.
All this reading and thinking led me to believe it was my first duty to serve Hindudom and Hindus both as a patriot and as a world citizen. To secure the freedom and to safeguard the just interests of some thirty crores (300 million) of Hindus would automatically constitute the freedom and the well-being of all India, one fifth of human race. This conviction led me naturally to devote myself to the Hindu Sanghtanist ideology and programme, which alone, I came to believe, could win and preserve the national independence of Hindustan, my Motherland, and enable her to
render true service to humanity as well.
Since the year 1920, that is, after the demise of Lokamanya Tilak, Gandhiji's influence in the Congress first increased and then became supreme. His activities for public awakening were phenomenal in their intensity and were reinforced by the slogan of truth and non-violence which he paraded ostentatiously before the country. No sensible or enlightened person could object to those slogans. In fact there is nothing new or original in them. They are implicit in every constitutional public movement. But it is nothing but a mere dream if you imagine that the bulk of mankind is, or can ever become, capable of scrupulous adherence to these lofty principles in its normal life from day to day. In fact, hunour, duty and love of one's own kith and kin and country might often compel us to disregard non-violence and to use force. I could never conceive that an armed resistance to an aggression is unjust. I would
consider it a religious and moral duty to resist and, if possible, to overpower such an enemy by use of force. [In the Ramayana] Rama killed Ravana in a tumultuous fight and relieved Sita. [In the Mahabharata], Krishna killed Kansa to end his wickedness; and Arjuna had to fight and slay quite a number of his friends and relations including the
revered Bhishma because the latter was on the side of the aggressor. It is my firm belief that in dubbing Rama, Krishna and Arjuna as guilty of violence, the Mahatma betrayed a total ignorance of the springs of human action.
In more recent history, it was the heroic fight put up by Chhatrapati Shivaji that first checked and eventually destroyed the Muslim tyranny in India. It was absolutely essentially for Shivaji to overpower and kill an aggressive Afzal Khan, failing which he would have lost his own life. In condemning history's towering warriors like Shivaji, Rana Pratap and Guru Gobind Singh as misguided patriots, Gandhiji has merely exposed his self-conceit. He was, paradoxical as it may appear, a violent pacifist who brought untold calamities on the country in the name of truth and
non-violence, while Rana Pratap, Shivaji and the Guru will remain enshrined in the hearts of their countrymen for ever for the freedom they brought to them.
The accumulating provocation of thirty-two years, culminating in his last pro-Muslim fast, at last goaded me to the conclusion that the existence of Gandhi should be brought to an end immediately. Gandhi had done very good in South Africa to uphold the rights and well-being of the Indian community there. But when he finally returned to India he developed a subjective mentality under which he alone was to be the final judge of what was right or wrong. If the country wanted his leadership, it had to accept his infallibility; if it did not, he would stand aloof from the Congress and carry on his own way. Against such an attitude there can be no halfway house. Either Congress had to surrender its will to his and had to be content with playing second fiddle to all his eccentricity, whimsicality, metaphysics and primitive vision, or it had to carry on without him. He alone was the Judge of everyone and every thing; he was
the master brain guiding the civil disobedience movement; no other could know the technique of that movement. He alone knew when to begin and when to withdraw it. The movement might succeed or fail, it might bring untold disaster and political reverses but that could make no difference to the Mahatma's infallibility. 'A Satyagrahi can never fail'
was his formula for declaring his own infallibility and nobody except himself knew what a Satyagrahi is.
Thus, the Mahatma became the judge and jury in his own cause. These childish insanities and obstinacies, coupled with a most severe austerity of life, ceaseless work and lofty character made Gandhi formidable and irresistible. Many people thought that his politics were irrational but they had either to withdraw from the Congress or place their
intelligence at his feet to do with as he liked. In a position of such absolute irresponsibility Gandhi was guilty of blunder after blunder, failure after failure, disaster after disaster.
Gandhi's pro-Muslim policy is blatantly in his perverse attitude on the question of the national language of India. It is quite obvious that Hindi has the most prior claim to be accepted as the premier language. In the beginning of his career in India, Gandhi gave a great impetus to Hindi but as he found that the Muslims did not like it, he became a champion of what is called Hindustani. Everybody in India knows that there is no language called Hindustani; it has no grammar; it has no vocabulary. It is a mere dialect, it is spoken, but not written. It is a bastard tongue and cross-breed between Hindi and Urdu, and not even the Mahatma's sophistry could make it popular. But in his
desire to please the Muslims he insisted that Hindustani alone should be the national language of India. His blind followers, of course, supported him and the so-called hybrid language began to be used. The charm and purity of the Hindi language was to be prostituted to please the Muslims. All his experiments were at the expense of the Hindus.
From August 1946 onwards the private armies of the Muslim League began a massacre of the Hindus. The then Viceroy, Lord Wavell, though distressed at what was happening, would not use his powers under the Government of India Act of 1935 to prevent the rape, murder and arson. The Hindu blood began to flow from Bengal to Karachi with some retaliation by the Hindus. The Interim Government formed in September was sabotaged by its Muslim League members right from its inception, but the more they became disloyal and treasonable to the government of which they were a part, the greater was Gandhi's infatuation for them. Lord Wavell had to resign as he could not bring about a settlement and he was succeeded by Lord Mountbatten. King Log was followed by King Stork. The Congress which had boasted of its nationalism and socialism secretly accepted Pakistan literally at the point of the bayonet and
abjectly surrendered to Jinnah. India was vivisected and one-third of the Indian territory became foreign land to us from August 15, 1947. Lord Mountbatten came to be described in Congress circles as the greatest Viceroy and Governor-General this country ever had. The official date for handing over power was fixed for June 30, 1948, but
Mountbatten with his ruthless surgery gave us a gift of vivisected India ten months in advance. This is what Gandhi had achieved after thirty years of undisputed dictatorship and this is what Congress party calls 'freedom' and 'peaceful transfer of power'. The Hindu-Muslim unity bubble was finally burst and a theocratic state was established
with the consent of Nehru and his crowd and they have called 'freedom won by them with sacrifice' - whose sacrifice? When top leaders of Congress, with the consent of Gandhi, divided and tore the country - which we consider a deity of worship - my mind was filled with direful anger.
One of the conditions imposed by Gandhi for his breaking of the fast unto death related to the mosques in Delhi occupied by the Hindu refugees. But when Hindus in Pakistan were subjected to violent attacks he did not so much as utter a single word to protest and censure the Pakistan Government or the Muslims concerned. Gandhi was shrewd enough to know that while undertaking a fast unto death, had he imposed for its break some condition on the Muslims in Pakistan, there would have been found hardly any Muslims who could have shown some grief if the fast had ended in his death. It was for this reason that he purposely avoided imposing any condition on the Muslims. He was fully aware of from the experience that Jinnah was not at all perturbed or influenced by his fast and the Muslim League hardly attached any value to the inner voice of Gandhi.
Gandhi is being referred to as the Father of the Nation. But if that is so, he had failed his paternal duty inasmuch as he has acted very treacherously to the nation by his consenting to the partitioning of it. I stoutly maintain that Gandhi has failed in his duty. He has proved to be the Father of Pakistan. His inner-voice, his spiritual power and his doctrine of non-violence of which so much is made of, all crumbled before Jinnah's iron will and proved to be powerless.
Briefly speaking, I thought to myself and foresaw I shall be totally ruined, and the only thing I could expect from the people would be nothing but hatred and that I shall have lost all my honour, even more valuable than my life, if I were to kill Gandhiji. But at the same time I felt that the Indian politics in the absence of Gandhiji would surely be proved practical, able to retaliate, and would be powerful with armed forces. No doubt, my own future would be totally ruined, but the nation would be saved from the inroads of Pakistan. People may even call me and dub me as devoid of any sense or foolish, but the nation would be free to follow the course founded on the reason which I consider to be necessary for sound nation-building. After having fully considered the question, I took the final decision in the matter, but I did not speak about it to anyone whatsoever. I took courage in both my hands and I did fire the shots at Gandhiji on 30th January 1948, on the prayer-grounds of Birla House.
I do say that my shots were fired at the person whose policy and action had brought rack and ruin and destruction to millions of Hindus. There was no legal machinery by which such an offender could be brought to book and for this reason I fired those fatal shots. I bear no ill will towards anyone individually but I do say that I had no respect for the present government owing to their policy which was unfairly favourable towards the Muslims. But at the same time I could clearly see that the policy was entirely due to the presence of Gandhi. I have to say with great regret that Prime Minister Nehru quite forgets that his preachings and deeds are at times at variances with each other when he talks about India as a secular state in season and out of season, because it is significant to note that Nehru has played a
leading role in the establishment of the theocratic state of Pakistan, and his job was made easier by Gandhi's persistent policy of appeasement towards the Muslims.
I now stand before the court to accept the full share of my responsibility for what I have done and the judge would, of course, pass against me such orders of sentence as may be considered proper. But I would like to add that I do not desire any mercy to be shown to me, nor do I wish that anyone else should beg for mercy on my behalf. My confidence about the moral side of my action has not been shaken even by the criticism levelled against it on all sides. I have no doubt that honest writers of history will weigh my act and find the true value thereof some day
in future. "
i wont say anything further.i will just let the last words of nathuram godse speak for themselves.
" Born in a devotional Brahmin family, I instinctively came to revere Hindu religion, Hindu history and Hindu culture. I had, therefore, been intensely proud of Hinduism as a whole. As I grew up I developed a tendency to free thinking unfettered by any superstitious allegiance to any isms, political or religious. That is why I worked actively for the eradication of untouchability and the caste system based on birth alone. I openly joined anti-caste movements and maintained that all Hindus were of equal status as to rights, social and religious and should be considered high or low on merit alone and not through the accident of birth in a particular caste or profession. I used publicly to take part in organized anti-caste dinners in which thousands of Hindus, Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, Chamars and Bhangis participated. We broke the caste rules and dined in the company of each other.
I have read the speeches and writings of Dadabhai Naoroji, Vivekanand, Gokhale, Tilak, along with the books of ancient and modern history of India and some prominent countries like England, France, America and' Russia. Moreover I studied the tenets of Socialism and Marxism. But above all I studied very closely whatever Veer Savarkar and Gandhiji had written and spoken, as to my mind these two ideologies have contributed more to the moulding of the thought and action of the Indian people during the last thirty years or so, than any other single factor has done.
All this reading and thinking led me to believe it was my first duty to serve Hindudom and Hindus both as a patriot and as a world citizen. To secure the freedom and to safeguard the just interests of some thirty crores (300 million) of Hindus would automatically constitute the freedom and the well-being of all India, one fifth of human race. This conviction led me naturally to devote myself to the Hindu Sanghtanist ideology and programme, which alone, I came to believe, could win and preserve the national independence of Hindustan, my Motherland, and enable her to
render true service to humanity as well.
Since the year 1920, that is, after the demise of Lokamanya Tilak, Gandhiji's influence in the Congress first increased and then became supreme. His activities for public awakening were phenomenal in their intensity and were reinforced by the slogan of truth and non-violence which he paraded ostentatiously before the country. No sensible or enlightened person could object to those slogans. In fact there is nothing new or original in them. They are implicit in every constitutional public movement. But it is nothing but a mere dream if you imagine that the bulk of mankind is, or can ever become, capable of scrupulous adherence to these lofty principles in its normal life from day to day. In fact, hunour, duty and love of one's own kith and kin and country might often compel us to disregard non-violence and to use force. I could never conceive that an armed resistance to an aggression is unjust. I would
consider it a religious and moral duty to resist and, if possible, to overpower such an enemy by use of force. [In the Ramayana] Rama killed Ravana in a tumultuous fight and relieved Sita. [In the Mahabharata], Krishna killed Kansa to end his wickedness; and Arjuna had to fight and slay quite a number of his friends and relations including the
revered Bhishma because the latter was on the side of the aggressor. It is my firm belief that in dubbing Rama, Krishna and Arjuna as guilty of violence, the Mahatma betrayed a total ignorance of the springs of human action.
In more recent history, it was the heroic fight put up by Chhatrapati Shivaji that first checked and eventually destroyed the Muslim tyranny in India. It was absolutely essentially for Shivaji to overpower and kill an aggressive Afzal Khan, failing which he would have lost his own life. In condemning history's towering warriors like Shivaji, Rana Pratap and Guru Gobind Singh as misguided patriots, Gandhiji has merely exposed his self-conceit. He was, paradoxical as it may appear, a violent pacifist who brought untold calamities on the country in the name of truth and
non-violence, while Rana Pratap, Shivaji and the Guru will remain enshrined in the hearts of their countrymen for ever for the freedom they brought to them.
The accumulating provocation of thirty-two years, culminating in his last pro-Muslim fast, at last goaded me to the conclusion that the existence of Gandhi should be brought to an end immediately. Gandhi had done very good in South Africa to uphold the rights and well-being of the Indian community there. But when he finally returned to India he developed a subjective mentality under which he alone was to be the final judge of what was right or wrong. If the country wanted his leadership, it had to accept his infallibility; if it did not, he would stand aloof from the Congress and carry on his own way. Against such an attitude there can be no halfway house. Either Congress had to surrender its will to his and had to be content with playing second fiddle to all his eccentricity, whimsicality, metaphysics and primitive vision, or it had to carry on without him. He alone was the Judge of everyone and every thing; he was
the master brain guiding the civil disobedience movement; no other could know the technique of that movement. He alone knew when to begin and when to withdraw it. The movement might succeed or fail, it might bring untold disaster and political reverses but that could make no difference to the Mahatma's infallibility. 'A Satyagrahi can never fail'
was his formula for declaring his own infallibility and nobody except himself knew what a Satyagrahi is.
Thus, the Mahatma became the judge and jury in his own cause. These childish insanities and obstinacies, coupled with a most severe austerity of life, ceaseless work and lofty character made Gandhi formidable and irresistible. Many people thought that his politics were irrational but they had either to withdraw from the Congress or place their
intelligence at his feet to do with as he liked. In a position of such absolute irresponsibility Gandhi was guilty of blunder after blunder, failure after failure, disaster after disaster.
Gandhi's pro-Muslim policy is blatantly in his perverse attitude on the question of the national language of India. It is quite obvious that Hindi has the most prior claim to be accepted as the premier language. In the beginning of his career in India, Gandhi gave a great impetus to Hindi but as he found that the Muslims did not like it, he became a champion of what is called Hindustani. Everybody in India knows that there is no language called Hindustani; it has no grammar; it has no vocabulary. It is a mere dialect, it is spoken, but not written. It is a bastard tongue and cross-breed between Hindi and Urdu, and not even the Mahatma's sophistry could make it popular. But in his
desire to please the Muslims he insisted that Hindustani alone should be the national language of India. His blind followers, of course, supported him and the so-called hybrid language began to be used. The charm and purity of the Hindi language was to be prostituted to please the Muslims. All his experiments were at the expense of the Hindus.
From August 1946 onwards the private armies of the Muslim League began a massacre of the Hindus. The then Viceroy, Lord Wavell, though distressed at what was happening, would not use his powers under the Government of India Act of 1935 to prevent the rape, murder and arson. The Hindu blood began to flow from Bengal to Karachi with some retaliation by the Hindus. The Interim Government formed in September was sabotaged by its Muslim League members right from its inception, but the more they became disloyal and treasonable to the government of which they were a part, the greater was Gandhi's infatuation for them. Lord Wavell had to resign as he could not bring about a settlement and he was succeeded by Lord Mountbatten. King Log was followed by King Stork. The Congress which had boasted of its nationalism and socialism secretly accepted Pakistan literally at the point of the bayonet and
abjectly surrendered to Jinnah. India was vivisected and one-third of the Indian territory became foreign land to us from August 15, 1947. Lord Mountbatten came to be described in Congress circles as the greatest Viceroy and Governor-General this country ever had. The official date for handing over power was fixed for June 30, 1948, but
Mountbatten with his ruthless surgery gave us a gift of vivisected India ten months in advance. This is what Gandhi had achieved after thirty years of undisputed dictatorship and this is what Congress party calls 'freedom' and 'peaceful transfer of power'. The Hindu-Muslim unity bubble was finally burst and a theocratic state was established
with the consent of Nehru and his crowd and they have called 'freedom won by them with sacrifice' - whose sacrifice? When top leaders of Congress, with the consent of Gandhi, divided and tore the country - which we consider a deity of worship - my mind was filled with direful anger.
One of the conditions imposed by Gandhi for his breaking of the fast unto death related to the mosques in Delhi occupied by the Hindu refugees. But when Hindus in Pakistan were subjected to violent attacks he did not so much as utter a single word to protest and censure the Pakistan Government or the Muslims concerned. Gandhi was shrewd enough to know that while undertaking a fast unto death, had he imposed for its break some condition on the Muslims in Pakistan, there would have been found hardly any Muslims who could have shown some grief if the fast had ended in his death. It was for this reason that he purposely avoided imposing any condition on the Muslims. He was fully aware of from the experience that Jinnah was not at all perturbed or influenced by his fast and the Muslim League hardly attached any value to the inner voice of Gandhi.
Gandhi is being referred to as the Father of the Nation. But if that is so, he had failed his paternal duty inasmuch as he has acted very treacherously to the nation by his consenting to the partitioning of it. I stoutly maintain that Gandhi has failed in his duty. He has proved to be the Father of Pakistan. His inner-voice, his spiritual power and his doctrine of non-violence of which so much is made of, all crumbled before Jinnah's iron will and proved to be powerless.
Briefly speaking, I thought to myself and foresaw I shall be totally ruined, and the only thing I could expect from the people would be nothing but hatred and that I shall have lost all my honour, even more valuable than my life, if I were to kill Gandhiji. But at the same time I felt that the Indian politics in the absence of Gandhiji would surely be proved practical, able to retaliate, and would be powerful with armed forces. No doubt, my own future would be totally ruined, but the nation would be saved from the inroads of Pakistan. People may even call me and dub me as devoid of any sense or foolish, but the nation would be free to follow the course founded on the reason which I consider to be necessary for sound nation-building. After having fully considered the question, I took the final decision in the matter, but I did not speak about it to anyone whatsoever. I took courage in both my hands and I did fire the shots at Gandhiji on 30th January 1948, on the prayer-grounds of Birla House.
I do say that my shots were fired at the person whose policy and action had brought rack and ruin and destruction to millions of Hindus. There was no legal machinery by which such an offender could be brought to book and for this reason I fired those fatal shots. I bear no ill will towards anyone individually but I do say that I had no respect for the present government owing to their policy which was unfairly favourable towards the Muslims. But at the same time I could clearly see that the policy was entirely due to the presence of Gandhi. I have to say with great regret that Prime Minister Nehru quite forgets that his preachings and deeds are at times at variances with each other when he talks about India as a secular state in season and out of season, because it is significant to note that Nehru has played a
leading role in the establishment of the theocratic state of Pakistan, and his job was made easier by Gandhi's persistent policy of appeasement towards the Muslims.
I now stand before the court to accept the full share of my responsibility for what I have done and the judge would, of course, pass against me such orders of sentence as may be considered proper. But I would like to add that I do not desire any mercy to be shown to me, nor do I wish that anyone else should beg for mercy on my behalf. My confidence about the moral side of my action has not been shaken even by the criticism levelled against it on all sides. I have no doubt that honest writers of history will weigh my act and find the true value thereof some day
in future. "
make your own cult following...
Cults maintain their following by putting members through a cycle of ups and downs. There is a psychology behind these tactics and it is to exploit the the members and keep them dependent on the cult. This brainwashing is very effective and it is important for people to understand how it works.
From Wikipedia, “Cult roughly refers to a cohesive social group devoted to beliefs or practices that the surrounding culture considers outside the mainstream.”
Thus all religions are cults. Whether or not a particular cult is considered a religion depends on the local customs and traditions of the area.
Now onto the psychology of brainwashing.
Brainwashing or thought reform is the technique that all cults use to keep and recruit new members. The goal is to modify the attitudes, behaviors and beliefs of a recruit so that it conforms to the attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs of all of the members.
Let me be clear that this can happen in a variety of situations. It does NOT require an isolated environment, physical abuse, or require complete control of a recruit. These tactics do help to make the brainwashing more effective, however, they are not a necessity.
The important feature about brainwashing is that it is done over and over again to achieve the desired goal. When people stop thinking independently for themselves, when they stop questioning their own personal sense of right and wrong, and when they refuse to listen to information that conflicts with their own beliefs… then they have been effectively brainwashed.
Find or create vulnerable recruits
People experiencing the loss of a loved one, the loss of a job, an uncomfortable or frustrating situation, etc. can be considered vulnerable (basically anything that can make you sad, anxious, or angry). Cults are especially good at finding these people. Many large cults will send out missionaries to 3rd world countries and war torn areas where many of these people exist. In more developed areas the cults will target places with lots these vulnerable people, such as college campuses and hospitals.
A cult recruiter will “reach out” to let these people know that they are “missing something.” The recruiter will claim to have the solution to this problem. Scientology uses a “personality test” to show a recruit how they can improve their personality. Recruiters for Christianity and Islam will often tell you that you are going to “hell” or will face “eternal damnation” when you die, and that you can be “saved.”The cult recruiter’s whole intent at first is to exploit the recruit’s vulnerability and to make them feel worse about their situation.(this is used over and over by naxal)
Make the Broken Down Recruit Feel Good
The recruiter will then reward the recruit with social support when he or she listens and agrees to the propaganda. Often the recruiter will offer personal assistance to get the new recruit to enter the cult’s isolated environment. This positive interaction helps to get the new recruit to a cult owned building. These isolated cult environments go by different names: church, synagogue, temple, mosque, dianetics center, jinja, mandir, kingdom hall, and shrine (to name a few). The encouragement from the recruiter makes the new recruit feel good and boosts their self esteem. This step reinforces that the cult and anything involved with the cult is good.
Use Guilt to Break the Recruit Back Down
In the isolated cult environment a member of the cult will explain to the recruit why he or she is bad/evil/impure. The things that make a person “evil” are usually normal, acceptable human behaviors and thus it is inevitable that the recruit is guilty of these “evils.” Things like sex and drug use are almost universally rejected by cults. Behavior that is actually adaptive in many situations, such as dishonesty, theft, and violence, are looked at as always bad. Therefore according to the cult it is NEVER alright to lie, cheat, steal, or maim in any situation, regardless of potential harm or personal gain. Many cults will also claim that a belief in a supernatural being/s is a requirement to be “pure.”
The recruit ends up feeling guilty about their impropriety and believes that it is his or her own fault that they were unhappy to begin with. The recruit’s self esteem will go down because of this guilt. Christianity and Judaism have the 10 commandments. Islam and Mormonism has an even longer list of commandments. Buddhism has the 5 percepts. Hinduism has the rules of karma and dharma. And every cult has its own unique set of rules.
Bring the Self Esteem of the Recruit Back Up
Now that the recruit has been broken down again by guilt, the members of the cult will go about bringing the recruit’s self esteem back up. The cult will ask the recruit to confess all of their wrongdoings to other members. When the recruit exposes their guilt to the cult, the members give the recruit praise and will declare that the recruit is on their way to being “saved.” The release of guilt makes the recruit realize that it’s not he or she that is wrong, but his or her beliefs that are wrong.
The cult will tell the recruit to follow these rules and return on a regular basis to the “holy” place. This means returning to the isolated cult environment at least every week if not more often. The new recruit then leaves feeling happy and relieved.
Continue the Cycle of Breaking Down and Building Up Cult Members
Within the week the cult member will probably commit one of the “sins” and feel guilty. They will attribute any sadness, anxiousness, or anger to their flawed beliefs. They will return to the cult environment at a low. At the weekly meeting the cult will use the social influence of a large group of people to now induce guilt and break down members further. The confession of wrongdoings and the “goodness” of the cult will once again be used to build up everyone’s self esteem.
This cycle is repeated week after week.
The Loss of Self and Exploitation
Eventually the cult member’s self worth becomes dependent on the cult. The cult’s self worth replaces any independent self worth. The cult member feels that any and all happiness is because of the cult, and the “sins” of the real world are the cause of their unhappiness.
Once the individual has reached this point they will have also lost most of their independent thought. The cult then exploits the member for their time and resources. Donations of money are mandatory in all cults. Cult members will claim that donation is not mandatory, however failing to donate or taking money from the cult is a major “sin.” Tithes, voluntary contributions, sacrificial giving, voluntary stewardship, tzedakah, alms, and zakat are some names for these mandatory donations. In all cults donating money is considered “sacred” and met with praise (how odd that even the supernatural obey the almighty $$).
Like businesses the intent of the cult is not really to help members, but to make money from them. Unlike businesses, though, cults do not pay taxes. This distinction is a result of politicians and other government officials being members of cults themselves. The influence of cults is widespread in all countries of the world. Hopefully information like this will help people realize these mind control techniques and manipulation.
“1) Find lonely, desperate people
2) Break them down: Make them feel much worse about themselves
3) Build them back up: make them feel good about themselves again
4) Repeat 2-3 until their sense of self-worth is completely dependent on you
5) Reveal the “true” beliefs of the cult and take all their money
Et Voila. Combine those with other brainwashing techniques and you have yourself a nice little cult.
So it is not so much “what do these people get out of the cult?”, as it is “what does the cult take from them?”. They take your independent sense of self-worth and turn it into a cult-dependent sense of self-worth.
edit: the strange part is, a lot of other organizations use the same tactics but nobody tends to notice them. The army, marine corps, navy, sports teams, pimps ;), etc.. all use the same break em down, build em back up tactic, which is brainwashing 101.”
From Wikipedia, “Cult roughly refers to a cohesive social group devoted to beliefs or practices that the surrounding culture considers outside the mainstream.”
Thus all religions are cults. Whether or not a particular cult is considered a religion depends on the local customs and traditions of the area.
Now onto the psychology of brainwashing.
Brainwashing or thought reform is the technique that all cults use to keep and recruit new members. The goal is to modify the attitudes, behaviors and beliefs of a recruit so that it conforms to the attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs of all of the members.
Let me be clear that this can happen in a variety of situations. It does NOT require an isolated environment, physical abuse, or require complete control of a recruit. These tactics do help to make the brainwashing more effective, however, they are not a necessity.
The important feature about brainwashing is that it is done over and over again to achieve the desired goal. When people stop thinking independently for themselves, when they stop questioning their own personal sense of right and wrong, and when they refuse to listen to information that conflicts with their own beliefs… then they have been effectively brainwashed.
Find or create vulnerable recruits
People experiencing the loss of a loved one, the loss of a job, an uncomfortable or frustrating situation, etc. can be considered vulnerable (basically anything that can make you sad, anxious, or angry). Cults are especially good at finding these people. Many large cults will send out missionaries to 3rd world countries and war torn areas where many of these people exist. In more developed areas the cults will target places with lots these vulnerable people, such as college campuses and hospitals.
A cult recruiter will “reach out” to let these people know that they are “missing something.” The recruiter will claim to have the solution to this problem. Scientology uses a “personality test” to show a recruit how they can improve their personality. Recruiters for Christianity and Islam will often tell you that you are going to “hell” or will face “eternal damnation” when you die, and that you can be “saved.”The cult recruiter’s whole intent at first is to exploit the recruit’s vulnerability and to make them feel worse about their situation.(this is used over and over by naxal)
Make the Broken Down Recruit Feel Good
The recruiter will then reward the recruit with social support when he or she listens and agrees to the propaganda. Often the recruiter will offer personal assistance to get the new recruit to enter the cult’s isolated environment. This positive interaction helps to get the new recruit to a cult owned building. These isolated cult environments go by different names: church, synagogue, temple, mosque, dianetics center, jinja, mandir, kingdom hall, and shrine (to name a few). The encouragement from the recruiter makes the new recruit feel good and boosts their self esteem. This step reinforces that the cult and anything involved with the cult is good.
Use Guilt to Break the Recruit Back Down
In the isolated cult environment a member of the cult will explain to the recruit why he or she is bad/evil/impure. The things that make a person “evil” are usually normal, acceptable human behaviors and thus it is inevitable that the recruit is guilty of these “evils.” Things like sex and drug use are almost universally rejected by cults. Behavior that is actually adaptive in many situations, such as dishonesty, theft, and violence, are looked at as always bad. Therefore according to the cult it is NEVER alright to lie, cheat, steal, or maim in any situation, regardless of potential harm or personal gain. Many cults will also claim that a belief in a supernatural being/s is a requirement to be “pure.”
The recruit ends up feeling guilty about their impropriety and believes that it is his or her own fault that they were unhappy to begin with. The recruit’s self esteem will go down because of this guilt. Christianity and Judaism have the 10 commandments. Islam and Mormonism has an even longer list of commandments. Buddhism has the 5 percepts. Hinduism has the rules of karma and dharma. And every cult has its own unique set of rules.
Bring the Self Esteem of the Recruit Back Up
Now that the recruit has been broken down again by guilt, the members of the cult will go about bringing the recruit’s self esteem back up. The cult will ask the recruit to confess all of their wrongdoings to other members. When the recruit exposes their guilt to the cult, the members give the recruit praise and will declare that the recruit is on their way to being “saved.” The release of guilt makes the recruit realize that it’s not he or she that is wrong, but his or her beliefs that are wrong.
The cult will tell the recruit to follow these rules and return on a regular basis to the “holy” place. This means returning to the isolated cult environment at least every week if not more often. The new recruit then leaves feeling happy and relieved.
Continue the Cycle of Breaking Down and Building Up Cult Members
Within the week the cult member will probably commit one of the “sins” and feel guilty. They will attribute any sadness, anxiousness, or anger to their flawed beliefs. They will return to the cult environment at a low. At the weekly meeting the cult will use the social influence of a large group of people to now induce guilt and break down members further. The confession of wrongdoings and the “goodness” of the cult will once again be used to build up everyone’s self esteem.
This cycle is repeated week after week.
The Loss of Self and Exploitation
Eventually the cult member’s self worth becomes dependent on the cult. The cult’s self worth replaces any independent self worth. The cult member feels that any and all happiness is because of the cult, and the “sins” of the real world are the cause of their unhappiness.
Once the individual has reached this point they will have also lost most of their independent thought. The cult then exploits the member for their time and resources. Donations of money are mandatory in all cults. Cult members will claim that donation is not mandatory, however failing to donate or taking money from the cult is a major “sin.” Tithes, voluntary contributions, sacrificial giving, voluntary stewardship, tzedakah, alms, and zakat are some names for these mandatory donations. In all cults donating money is considered “sacred” and met with praise (how odd that even the supernatural obey the almighty $$).
Like businesses the intent of the cult is not really to help members, but to make money from them. Unlike businesses, though, cults do not pay taxes. This distinction is a result of politicians and other government officials being members of cults themselves. The influence of cults is widespread in all countries of the world. Hopefully information like this will help people realize these mind control techniques and manipulation.
“1) Find lonely, desperate people
2) Break them down: Make them feel much worse about themselves
3) Build them back up: make them feel good about themselves again
4) Repeat 2-3 until their sense of self-worth is completely dependent on you
5) Reveal the “true” beliefs of the cult and take all their money
Et Voila. Combine those with other brainwashing techniques and you have yourself a nice little cult.
So it is not so much “what do these people get out of the cult?”, as it is “what does the cult take from them?”. They take your independent sense of self-worth and turn it into a cult-dependent sense of self-worth.
edit: the strange part is, a lot of other organizations use the same tactics but nobody tends to notice them. The army, marine corps, navy, sports teams, pimps ;), etc.. all use the same break em down, build em back up tactic, which is brainwashing 101.”
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
anecdotes and scrap
many email and orkut posts make rounds saying "forward this to seven people or u will be doomed "and such similar things.and the best part is the so-called computer literate and educated people actually believe in such stuff.i actually wonder is our government has taken notice of this.just imagine what would their email be like
dear user,
i am dianna(this is for the foolish orkut users,grow up),speaking from the government of maharastra.as you know the government has a large deficit to fill which is about 27000 crores.in view of this we have make a tie up with gmail,msn,rediff and other important email providers that for every forward you send they will give us 0.123 rs(exclusive of VAT).we are of great need of money as the chief minister's nephew's third cousins wedding is happening and so all our funds are being utilised in that procedure.
also"jai bhumbhum bhole".if you send it to 689.32(taxes included)people within 34 min,your will receive blessings from the pundit presiding in the wedding.if you don't forward and delete this message,you are doomed for the rest of your life.
special attention:
1.sc,st,o.b.c,have special concessions.they will get 5 more blessings and their forwards will be accepted separately without vat.
2.all those belonging to vt,nt etc. will have the concession of not being doomed for the rest of the life.
3.person doing the most forwards will get the ice cream served in the wedding(tutti fruity or malai pista).
4.all forwards are a property of the goverment and all disputes regarding it will be done in the jurisdiction of maharastra state.
5.forward kar varna thok dalunga.
in America,almost 40 percent of the students suffer from dyslexia ,according to recent reports.i fail to get the logic_40%??are you serious?are the dyslexia genes punjabi that they have the desire of going to america as soon as they are formed.i think there if i child doesnt perform well in studies he is suffering from dyslexia.its a cool word you see.we in india call the child is dumb or stupid or dunce.in america they say the child has dyslexia.if a child is weak in studies...u know what he suffers from dyslexia.its so popular that after some years ,there will be a new diesease."news flash-new survey says about 10 % of our population have the fast learning diesease"people who learn fast will undergo psycological treatment to 'slow' themselves down.you cant say anything after all its america,anything can happen.
dear user,
i am dianna(this is for the foolish orkut users,grow up),speaking from the government of maharastra.as you know the government has a large deficit to fill which is about 27000 crores.in view of this we have make a tie up with gmail,msn,rediff and other important email providers that for every forward you send they will give us 0.123 rs(exclusive of VAT).we are of great need of money as the chief minister's nephew's third cousins wedding is happening and so all our funds are being utilised in that procedure.
also"jai bhumbhum bhole".if you send it to 689.32(taxes included)people within 34 min,your will receive blessings from the pundit presiding in the wedding.if you don't forward and delete this message,you are doomed for the rest of your life.
special attention:
1.sc,st,o.b.c,have special concessions.they will get 5 more blessings and their forwards will be accepted separately without vat.
2.all those belonging to vt,nt etc. will have the concession of not being doomed for the rest of the life.
3.person doing the most forwards will get the ice cream served in the wedding(tutti fruity or malai pista).
4.all forwards are a property of the goverment and all disputes regarding it will be done in the jurisdiction of maharastra state.
5.forward kar varna thok dalunga.
in America,almost 40 percent of the students suffer from dyslexia ,according to recent reports.i fail to get the logic_40%??are you serious?are the dyslexia genes punjabi that they have the desire of going to america as soon as they are formed.i think there if i child doesnt perform well in studies he is suffering from dyslexia.its a cool word you see.we in india call the child is dumb or stupid or dunce.in america they say the child has dyslexia.if a child is weak in studies...u know what he suffers from dyslexia.its so popular that after some years ,there will be a new diesease."news flash-new survey says about 10 % of our population have the fast learning diesease"people who learn fast will undergo psycological treatment to 'slow' themselves down.you cant say anything after all its america,anything can happen.
Saturday, December 08, 2007
a dream
someone told me that i should write more peoms because someone thinks i write pretty ok.so i decided to experiment a bit to try writing another one and lets see how it turns out......
DREAM ON.........................
Where the mountains touch the sky
Where poets dream, where eagles fly
A secret place above the crowds
Just beneath marshmallow clouds
Lift your eyes to a snowy peak
And see the soon- to- be we seek
Whisper dreams and let them rise
To the mountains old and wise
Climbers climb, it's time to try
Where the mountains touch the sky
Take me there. Oh take me now
Someway, Someday, Somewhere, Somehow
Where the ocean meets the sky
Where mermaid dance and seagulls fly
A place in dreams I know so well
The sea inside a single shell
Far across the living sea
A pale blue possibility
Beyond the castles made of sand
Tomorrow in a small child's hand
Only dreamers need apply
Where the ocean meets the sky
Take me there. Oh take me now
Someway, Someday, Somewhere, Somehow
Where the forests reach the sky
Men are equal and doves still fly
No thorns of war, a perfect rose
This is where the green grass grows
Out beyond the crystal stream
Like Dr. King I have a dream
Imagine such a goal in sight
For red and yellow, black and white
Whisper now, let the dream begin
It's time to trust the truth within
This is where we seek and find
A gift in being colorblind
Dream on Dreamers, hopes are high
Where the forests reach the sky
Take me there. Oh take me now
Someway, Someday, Somewhere, Somehow
Now, listen close, the future calls
"Build your bridges and tear down walls! "
For time has taught and so it seems
Realities are born of dreams
*********************************NEONSTEIN***************************************
DREAM ON.........................
Where the mountains touch the sky
Where poets dream, where eagles fly
A secret place above the crowds
Just beneath marshmallow clouds
Lift your eyes to a snowy peak
And see the soon- to- be we seek
Whisper dreams and let them rise
To the mountains old and wise
Climbers climb, it's time to try
Where the mountains touch the sky
Take me there. Oh take me now
Someway, Someday, Somewhere, Somehow
Where the ocean meets the sky
Where mermaid dance and seagulls fly
A place in dreams I know so well
The sea inside a single shell
Far across the living sea
A pale blue possibility
Beyond the castles made of sand
Tomorrow in a small child's hand
Only dreamers need apply
Where the ocean meets the sky
Take me there. Oh take me now
Someway, Someday, Somewhere, Somehow
Where the forests reach the sky
Men are equal and doves still fly
No thorns of war, a perfect rose
This is where the green grass grows
Out beyond the crystal stream
Like Dr. King I have a dream
Imagine such a goal in sight
For red and yellow, black and white
Whisper now, let the dream begin
It's time to trust the truth within
This is where we seek and find
A gift in being colorblind
Dream on Dreamers, hopes are high
Where the forests reach the sky
Take me there. Oh take me now
Someway, Someday, Somewhere, Somehow
Now, listen close, the future calls
"Build your bridges and tear down walls! "
For time has taught and so it seems
Realities are born of dreams
*********************************NEONSTEIN***************************************
OF IRAQ WAR AND PHILOSOPHIES
I have noticed something in the year or so I have been doing this.this post is long due i know but my restricted intelligence takes a long time to analyse things out.
What I have noticed is that certain types of Iraqi aims and ambitions and values are consistently hooted down by the American media-and-policy people as nothing more than rationalizations for power-grabs on the part of the people expressing them, or else are completely ignored. And yet certain other types of ideology or organized sets of values--namely religion and race-- are puffed up by the American media-and-policy people as the major motivating factors in Iraq and in fact as the standing in the way of implementing the benevolent and wise policies that the Americans had been proposing.
The first group includes Iraqi nationalism, Sadrist social-group loyalties or any other expression of social solidarity, along with regional loyalties of many types. These expressions of nationalist and other values are either completely ignored, or else debunked as mere "instruments" in a power struggle, not actual bona fide expressions of meaning.These types of aims and ambitions and values (including such things as national, regional and group loyalties) are regularly either debunked in this "instrumentalizing" way, or else completely ignored.
And by contrast other expressions of values and loyalty and so on are not debunked, but on the contrary they are elevated to the status of the major motivating factors in the whole country, in fact in the whole region. These are sect (Sunni versus Shia) and to some extent race (Kurd and Persian versus Arab). What is the difference between these two classes of values, that causes them to be treated by the Americans so differently?
The first idea that suggests itself is that Sunni/Shia is the Americans' instrument in a power struggle, and in order to be used as an instrument, the Sunni/Shia theme has to be built up and armed, so to speak, not only with real arms, but also with ideological importance. Hence in the aftermath of the invasion the use of Chalabi and the others to harass Sunnis, and more recently we have the arming of Sunnis to provide "military balance" against the Shiites. This kind of policy wouldn't be even explainable if it were not that "Sunni" and "Shia" are touted as almost military or at least militant and powerful enemies of one another. For which of course there was no real pre-existing evidence at all, and for which the evidence has to be provided by this American media build-up of these. This is so not only in the media sense, but really in terms of arming the two sides respectively.
In other words, the American strategy has been to aggressively sideline anything having to do with nationalism, or social solidarity, or regional loyalty, or any of the other civic virtues that would be so highly praised and prized in any other situation, debunking all of this in Iraq as mere fancy words dressing up the respective groups' roles in a brutal value-free struggle for power. While at the same time the American strategy has been to elevate Sunni-versus-Shia and to a lesser extent racial loyalties to a level of supposedly decisive importance. (If you say this is only a reflection of what happened, you are begging the question. What happened was that the Americans invaded, and they invaded, if not with a particular strategy in mind, at least there was a strategy that was quickly developed).
And the American people have bought into this. People have been expected to believe, and have believed, that nationalism, social solidarity, regional loyalties, and so on, are, in the Iraqi case, essentially nothing but covers for respective roles in a brutal struggle for power. And people have been expected to believe, and have believed, that the struggle in question is "really" religious, that this religion (or these religions) are not a mere cover for anything, but are the real thing, the real motivating forces. (Now you will say that people are gullible and succumbed to the media bombardment, but again I would like to take a step back and see if that isn't another case of begging the question: Why were people ready to believe that?)
Here's a proposed explanation for that part of it: People feel, as part of their overall moral upbringing, an obligation to be universally benevolent and good to one another, and in the Iraqi case the only way to justify the brutality of the invasion and the occupation was to buy the idea of "promoting democracy". Democracy is a "secular" value, an expression of universal equality not dependent on religion or any other factor except for the people themselves. This idea of a pure and religion-free value, and more particularly the idea of "promoting" it in a far-away country like Iraq, carried with it from the beginning a heavy burden of hypocrisy. And when it went wrong, who to blame? Here's where the proposed explanation gets a little "philosophical". Who you blame is you blame those factors that historically had to be overcome in creating an ideology of democracy: primarily religion. You blame, primarily, "Sunnis" and "Shiites" as natural enemies of democracy (as was specifically done in the aftermath of the 2005 and 2006 elections). Never mind that "Sunnis" included nationalists and a variety of other more particular loyalties; or that "Shiites" included a variety of different social loyalties and affiliations. It was all, supposedly, the fault of the Sunni-Shia difference in religion. Certainly the media megaphone was responsible for a lot of the touting of this, but the point I am making is that perhaps there was a preexisting disposition in Westerners to go for this "blame it on religion" approach, as a reflection of the historical archaeology of their whole moral world.
(Charles Taylor talks about "benevolence on demand" as part of the moral world we have inherited ultimately from religion, often bearing with it a latent sense of hypocrisy, and he warns: "The threatened sense of unworthiness can also lead to the projection of evil outward. The bad, the failure is now identified with some other people or group. My conscience is clear because I oppose them, but what can I do? They stand in the way of universal beneficence; they must be liquidated." Pretty clear-sighted, I would say).
And if moral history can help explain the puffing-up of the Sunni-Shia theme as the scapegoat in the story, what about the other side of this? What explains the ease with which people have fallen for the idea that expressions of the other sets of Iraqi values including nationalism and regionalism and so on, have been nothing but instruments and weapons in a power struggle, as opposed to bona fide expressions of values? As I read some of the would-be debunking that has gone on over the last year or so, I get the feeling the debunkers think of this as something like hard-headed realism battling against the naivete of listening to hollow expressions of emotion-laden tradition and the like. In fact I myself have been the target of this "don't listen to their words, look at the killing they are all doing" type of objection whenever I have tried to propound what it was the nationalists, for example, were saying. These expressions of value are merely "rationalizations", and should be debunked, so the argument went, because all these types of "rationalizations", whether emotional or calculating, need to be debunked in principle. All that matters, and all that underlies those types of discourse, is the drive for power or a share in power, and deploying the tools and weapons for that, including these verbal weapons. (Of course those making the claim think they are exempt from that: What they say is a genuine and sincere expression of values, but what everyone else says is a rationalization or an emotional sideshow of some kind).
And here's the philosophical part: This debunking attitude is a distant but living remnant of the Enlightenment idea of the power of (what Taylor called) "disengaged reason" to beat back all the superstitions of religion and tradition and the rest of the bad old medieval world. This "disengaged reason" has had a long and complicated history, but certainly it lives on in various forms, and one of them is this idea of our ability to debunk expressions of mere tradition, authority, prejudice, and so on. But here, in this case, in the Iraq-war context, this debunking "reason" is turned against bona fide expressions of value, merely because these people are thought of as the enemy. It is another example of a living part of our moral history gone bad.
This is all very sketchy. But suppose the above discussion is basically right. Suppose both of these mass-mediated phenomena--the (knee-jerk) condemnation of Sunni/Shia as the obstacle to Iraqi democracy; and the (knee-jerk) debunking of what would otherwise be considered valuable civic virtues--suppose both of them reflect living parts of our cultural heritage, that have gone bad or more likely been manipulable and manipulated to help support the vicious demolition of a great nation and maybe a whole region. What would that mean?
I don't know, but for me what it suggests is that for America to have abandoned the study of its own moral and philosophical history--and the liberal arts in general--is possibly having effects that are far more destructive than some mere "loss of depth and richness in our lives".
And if you don't find the above general line of argument convincing, then how do you propose to explain the fact that Americans are at one and the same time against this war and occupation, and powerless to mobilize to stop it? Isn't it plausible to think that in some way or another (even if not in the ways I suggested here) the moral power that one assumes would be fired up in a case like this has been hijacked or disabled in some way? Is this not worth thinking about?
What I have noticed is that certain types of Iraqi aims and ambitions and values are consistently hooted down by the American media-and-policy people as nothing more than rationalizations for power-grabs on the part of the people expressing them, or else are completely ignored. And yet certain other types of ideology or organized sets of values--namely religion and race-- are puffed up by the American media-and-policy people as the major motivating factors in Iraq and in fact as the standing in the way of implementing the benevolent and wise policies that the Americans had been proposing.
The first group includes Iraqi nationalism, Sadrist social-group loyalties or any other expression of social solidarity, along with regional loyalties of many types. These expressions of nationalist and other values are either completely ignored, or else debunked as mere "instruments" in a power struggle, not actual bona fide expressions of meaning.These types of aims and ambitions and values (including such things as national, regional and group loyalties) are regularly either debunked in this "instrumentalizing" way, or else completely ignored.
And by contrast other expressions of values and loyalty and so on are not debunked, but on the contrary they are elevated to the status of the major motivating factors in the whole country, in fact in the whole region. These are sect (Sunni versus Shia) and to some extent race (Kurd and Persian versus Arab). What is the difference between these two classes of values, that causes them to be treated by the Americans so differently?
The first idea that suggests itself is that Sunni/Shia is the Americans' instrument in a power struggle, and in order to be used as an instrument, the Sunni/Shia theme has to be built up and armed, so to speak, not only with real arms, but also with ideological importance. Hence in the aftermath of the invasion the use of Chalabi and the others to harass Sunnis, and more recently we have the arming of Sunnis to provide "military balance" against the Shiites. This kind of policy wouldn't be even explainable if it were not that "Sunni" and "Shia" are touted as almost military or at least militant and powerful enemies of one another. For which of course there was no real pre-existing evidence at all, and for which the evidence has to be provided by this American media build-up of these. This is so not only in the media sense, but really in terms of arming the two sides respectively.
In other words, the American strategy has been to aggressively sideline anything having to do with nationalism, or social solidarity, or regional loyalty, or any of the other civic virtues that would be so highly praised and prized in any other situation, debunking all of this in Iraq as mere fancy words dressing up the respective groups' roles in a brutal value-free struggle for power. While at the same time the American strategy has been to elevate Sunni-versus-Shia and to a lesser extent racial loyalties to a level of supposedly decisive importance. (If you say this is only a reflection of what happened, you are begging the question. What happened was that the Americans invaded, and they invaded, if not with a particular strategy in mind, at least there was a strategy that was quickly developed).
And the American people have bought into this. People have been expected to believe, and have believed, that nationalism, social solidarity, regional loyalties, and so on, are, in the Iraqi case, essentially nothing but covers for respective roles in a brutal struggle for power. And people have been expected to believe, and have believed, that the struggle in question is "really" religious, that this religion (or these religions) are not a mere cover for anything, but are the real thing, the real motivating forces. (Now you will say that people are gullible and succumbed to the media bombardment, but again I would like to take a step back and see if that isn't another case of begging the question: Why were people ready to believe that?)
Here's a proposed explanation for that part of it: People feel, as part of their overall moral upbringing, an obligation to be universally benevolent and good to one another, and in the Iraqi case the only way to justify the brutality of the invasion and the occupation was to buy the idea of "promoting democracy". Democracy is a "secular" value, an expression of universal equality not dependent on religion or any other factor except for the people themselves. This idea of a pure and religion-free value, and more particularly the idea of "promoting" it in a far-away country like Iraq, carried with it from the beginning a heavy burden of hypocrisy. And when it went wrong, who to blame? Here's where the proposed explanation gets a little "philosophical". Who you blame is you blame those factors that historically had to be overcome in creating an ideology of democracy: primarily religion. You blame, primarily, "Sunnis" and "Shiites" as natural enemies of democracy (as was specifically done in the aftermath of the 2005 and 2006 elections). Never mind that "Sunnis" included nationalists and a variety of other more particular loyalties; or that "Shiites" included a variety of different social loyalties and affiliations. It was all, supposedly, the fault of the Sunni-Shia difference in religion. Certainly the media megaphone was responsible for a lot of the touting of this, but the point I am making is that perhaps there was a preexisting disposition in Westerners to go for this "blame it on religion" approach, as a reflection of the historical archaeology of their whole moral world.
(Charles Taylor talks about "benevolence on demand" as part of the moral world we have inherited ultimately from religion, often bearing with it a latent sense of hypocrisy, and he warns: "The threatened sense of unworthiness can also lead to the projection of evil outward. The bad, the failure is now identified with some other people or group. My conscience is clear because I oppose them, but what can I do? They stand in the way of universal beneficence; they must be liquidated." Pretty clear-sighted, I would say).
And if moral history can help explain the puffing-up of the Sunni-Shia theme as the scapegoat in the story, what about the other side of this? What explains the ease with which people have fallen for the idea that expressions of the other sets of Iraqi values including nationalism and regionalism and so on, have been nothing but instruments and weapons in a power struggle, as opposed to bona fide expressions of values? As I read some of the would-be debunking that has gone on over the last year or so, I get the feeling the debunkers think of this as something like hard-headed realism battling against the naivete of listening to hollow expressions of emotion-laden tradition and the like. In fact I myself have been the target of this "don't listen to their words, look at the killing they are all doing" type of objection whenever I have tried to propound what it was the nationalists, for example, were saying. These expressions of value are merely "rationalizations", and should be debunked, so the argument went, because all these types of "rationalizations", whether emotional or calculating, need to be debunked in principle. All that matters, and all that underlies those types of discourse, is the drive for power or a share in power, and deploying the tools and weapons for that, including these verbal weapons. (Of course those making the claim think they are exempt from that: What they say is a genuine and sincere expression of values, but what everyone else says is a rationalization or an emotional sideshow of some kind).
And here's the philosophical part: This debunking attitude is a distant but living remnant of the Enlightenment idea of the power of (what Taylor called) "disengaged reason" to beat back all the superstitions of religion and tradition and the rest of the bad old medieval world. This "disengaged reason" has had a long and complicated history, but certainly it lives on in various forms, and one of them is this idea of our ability to debunk expressions of mere tradition, authority, prejudice, and so on. But here, in this case, in the Iraq-war context, this debunking "reason" is turned against bona fide expressions of value, merely because these people are thought of as the enemy. It is another example of a living part of our moral history gone bad.
This is all very sketchy. But suppose the above discussion is basically right. Suppose both of these mass-mediated phenomena--the (knee-jerk) condemnation of Sunni/Shia as the obstacle to Iraqi democracy; and the (knee-jerk) debunking of what would otherwise be considered valuable civic virtues--suppose both of them reflect living parts of our cultural heritage, that have gone bad or more likely been manipulable and manipulated to help support the vicious demolition of a great nation and maybe a whole region. What would that mean?
I don't know, but for me what it suggests is that for America to have abandoned the study of its own moral and philosophical history--and the liberal arts in general--is possibly having effects that are far more destructive than some mere "loss of depth and richness in our lives".
And if you don't find the above general line of argument convincing, then how do you propose to explain the fact that Americans are at one and the same time against this war and occupation, and powerless to mobilize to stop it? Isn't it plausible to think that in some way or another (even if not in the ways I suggested here) the moral power that one assumes would be fired up in a case like this has been hijacked or disabled in some way? Is this not worth thinking about?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)