Is India the next China?

President Modi has begun to turn around the chaotic kleptocracy that was India. Despite his controversial engagements in religious areas, Modi has kept his word to make India an investable economy. While China has dramatically improved its standard of living over the past thirty years, India has made little progress. It seems like the structures, legally and politically, are finally in shape for some improvement.

I have blogged about India elsewhere here. Most of the talented leadership in our tech holdings are of Indian origin and yet I've had little appetite for investing in their home country. Even more, I've recently had the ability to confirm Indian talent - my girlfriend of Kerala origins, with no experience in upholstery or sewing, completely reupholstered an old couch of mine in four weekends. The waiting list for re-upholstery in Bozeman, Montana was three years. 

It seems that the best and likeliest investment would be the dominant Reliance Industries, but ADRs from India are scarce. The search is on - especially when I'm sitting on my newly beautified couch!

Fundamental Errors: the Case of Obesity

Fundamental errors are the conceptual ones which cause the most trouble and allow for the most profit when resolved correctly. Statnews, an excellent publication in the health arena, has a wonderful article about thinking about obesity. Here is the link: https://www.statnews.com/2021/09/13/how-a-fatally-tragically-flawed-paradigm-has-derailed-the-science-of-obesity

The essence of the article is that obesity is not a function of taking in more calories than expended. One of my friends, whom I will call BC, always derided overweight people as "simply not pushing away from the table soon enough." While he is bright enough, this is an example where things are not as they appear. Over time, I have had clarity on this issue because my weight has been stable whether I eat alot or a little. Logically, I concluded that people who are overweight are generally experiencing a body shape that declares itself.

The article states that obesity is a function of bodies that drive excess fat accumulation. Examples are provided where calorie intake is strictly dropped to the point of starvation and the bodies of certain individuals still accumulate fat. There are a number of reasons why this trait might have been beneficial from an evolutionary standpoint as it might have increased fat reserves during lean times. The article does not explore trait benefit or development. But the article highlights the insulin mechanisms that function towards this excess fat accumulation. The author posits that this is the underlying reason Keto diets work (but again does not declare whether this is healthy).

For me it confirms that the body shaming of obese people has been useless, heartless and cruel. Many people have treated obesity as if it were a choice or a defect in character. Instead it is a trait that requires understanding. For people who have this trait, they may or may not take approaches to modify it. Like other personal decisions, it's their domain and not an indicator of no discipline.

Cheers to China

In the early years of my business career, I viewed the US as the ideal place because our culture had generated a strong middle class, meaning relatively few rich and poor in terms of standards of living. Of course, there are a wide variety of methods for describing a "middle class," but we all know it means the ability to have a decent standard of living - house, car, job, college for children and retirement. However, during my business career, college costs skyrocketed, jobs became increasingly service oriented, houses have recently become prohibitively expensive and retirements diminished. At the same time, conspicuous consumption in terms of mansions and conspicuous poverty in terms of tent cities has shot up. No one really has the answer. Interestingly, the same dynamics have begun to plague China and China is responding.

The recent crackdowns on tech billionaires, the opposition to private tutoring and the housing speculation are all receiving regulatory and financial management. The goal in China is to drive a "middle class" solution. While this approach does have human rights issues, the widening disparity in the US does not seem to indicate a better approach. The challenge is that capitalism works, but many capitalists don't. Rare is the example of Warren Buffett, who energetically allocates capital while minimizing consumption and grandiosity. It does cause me to wonder if the "middle class" outcome early in my career was simply a fortuitous event or, as I had thought, the result of a certain kind of Protestantism with its obsession on deferral of gratification, disgust with consumption and the accumulation of capital.

Communal Healing of "Moral Injury" or Trauma in General

In a recent article in The Guardian, the topic of "moral injury" is discussed. "Moral injury" is a concept coined by Shira Maguen and some colleagues in a 2009 paper in which trauma of perpetrating or failing to prevent moral transgressions is discussed.

I have spent time in this blog and elsewhere on the difference between morals and ethics. Simply put, morals are primarily communal while ethics are primarily individual. Trauma is a negative dislocation. Thus a trauma can vary widely from physical to emotional to intellectual. 

I have been interested in the accelerated rates of lasting trauma observed in the Vietnam War versus the Second World War. Some have posited that this difference might be due to the younger average age of fighters in the Vietnam War. Here Maugen's thesis might be useful.

The Second World War was viewed in moral terms, as a defense of "good" versus "evil." While every war is portrayed as such, the evidence of Germany's crimes were astonishing. As a result, if Maugen is correct, the act of killing another human, which is naturally a transgression and a trauma, would have been less traumatic due to its moral purpose.

The article in The Guardian describes special rituals, commemorations, singing and dancing used by communities in Kenya and Sudan to help returning warriors. As a result, their trauma levels are much lower. In the US, trauma levels are much higher. The article muses on the superior value of these communal activities. That certainly sounds correct and in line with the communal aspect of "moral injury."

I also think that it may point to a healing pathway for trauma in general. I had an experience with my Great Books class in which I shared personal information on a Zoom call. I have shared information in groups before, but the resulting empathy from the class caused a lasting internal shift for me in which I felt less isolated. Why was it so much more powerful? Somehow the negative dislocation of trauma has an isolative aspect which may be initially protective but harmful over time. Like some of these east African communities, the importance of this particular community to me may have made me feel intimately connected - a reumbilicalizing.

Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward

After studying the Greeks and Augustine's Confessions in our Great Books Redux, we were assigned to read Men We Reaped (MWR) by Jesmyn Ward. I was curious to understand how it deserved skipping Virgil's Aeneid, Dante's Divine Comedy and Milton's Paradise Lost. Great Books are typified by a combination of artistry and thought that become multi-generational touchstones. Part of the journey to become a Great Book is to stand the test of time, while MWR was written in 2013. So it's not an insult to say that MWR is not a Great Book - nothing written in the past 50 years qualifies.

MWR is a personal and intimate processing of grief. Jesmyn Ward beautifully and powerfully describes the gender tendencies of her community in southern Mississippi. She shows how these women operate as strong and forceful, but are frustrated while their men operate as freedom seekers, but are resentful. The central story around her family unit is direct yet poignant, particularly about her father and mother and brother. 

As a way of grieving her brother's death, this work succeeds as a memoir in trying to arrive at an answer. She capably contextualizes her family dynamics within a larger, darker setting, masterfully indicating a certain passivity and an inability to alter directions. As a result, no personal accountability is given to men, while for herself and the women, there is no limit to the demands and expectations to be met. An image of the larger context is wooded within which lurks an all-devouring wolf .

MWR is weakest as an attempt to capture "systemic racism." Part of its failure is a lack of balance. Never are moments of systemic supports allowed to shine, such as those involved in her life-saving start as a preemie baby or the family which provides funding for her to attend a high quality private school. Nor are there any indications where personal responsibility might play a part. This limits the long run appeal of this as a universal work. Further on an artistic note, the author uses a cumbersome reverse chronological order within a chronological sequence - losing power and comprehension.

So why was this work included? There's no real "arc" of change as it's unrelenting in its misery. The work is linear - in much the same sense as a holocaust narration. My thought is that our class comes from the University of North Carolina - a state with a history of racial horrors. Not being from North Carolina, I think I sometimes forget how awful that legacy is for those from Southern states. I think the inclusion of MWR is the class's attempt to bear witness to the atrocities committed and honor and abide with most those directly impacted.

Revolution of Subjectivity: Augustine's Confessions

On a rereading of Augustine's Confessions for our Great Books Redux for the first time in 40+ years, it was not at all the book that I recall. This was striking because the works we have read so far seemed largely as I recalled them. This says a lot not only about myself, but concerning the work itself. What is it that makes this work change more radically based on reader's, or at least my viewpoint?

Prior to the latest reading, I recalled this as a work written by a devout man who reflected on his spiritual journey from birth through sex and fun until a rebirth by hearing tolle, lege in a garden. Beyond that highlight, it was a long, boring slog.

This time, I was startled by the critical spirit of Book I as he discussed the lack of innocence in children and the hypocrisy of adults. Simmering with resentment, he criticizes the abuses of power of others in authority as well as his own sinfulness and even God (I.18). His perfectionism shines bright especially in the story of the stolen pear and by the end of Book II, I thought to myself, "this guy is even worse company than the apostle Paul; what the hell happened to him?"

But in III.2-5, I saw a glimpse of something deeper. Neuroscientists are still baffled by an issue he raises: why does sad art constitute a joy to people, even those already in sadness? Such introspection brought his feelings closer to me and caused Book IV's "death of a friend" to be moving. Augustine witnesses the power of faith found at death's door and experiences a "black grief closed over my heart." I teared up at his telling.

To judge both others and himself, as he repeatedly does in these early books, rests on some notions of free will and ultimately, earned love. Perhaps at the time of my first reading, his assumptions then seemed correct. At that time, it was impossible for me to conceptualize the notion of love as unearnable. Even more, sex and love seemed inextricably linked. So it resonated when he wrote that Alypius "was most interested to know what this element was, without which my life, which appeared to him so attractive, would be to me a punishment."

I shared with Augustine a long-term personal focus was on lust - defined as the usage of a physical desire to meet a spiritual purpose. I have assisted dozens of others, exploring the message that if love is earnable, then love is finite, whereas love understood as unearnable expands to meet the infinite demands of our hearts.

Relating to his telling in VI.15.25 of his forced separation from his long-term and faithfully kept love, I was deeply pained. Whereas my first reading in college was based on a perceived disregard for this unnamed soul mate, I now saw that I had read superficially, mistaking cause and effect. Rather than her departure being the effect of lust, I now understood that her departure, "being regarded as an obstacle to my marriage" was the cause of lust to heal the gaping wound of his broken heart.

Out of his heartbreak and the related interest in evil, he moves to a new understanding that existence itself manifests goodness so that in VII.13.19, he writes, "far be it from me ever to say, 'These things ought not to be'" exclaiming "there is no wholesomeness for those who find fault with anything you have created" and briefly achieves a view of "That Which Is." I found myself sharing in this unfettered flight of the mind.

This view leads to a conversion, or what might be termed a spiritual experience. He traces the movement from a self-understanding that "disordered lust springs from a perverted will; when lust is pandered to, a habit is formed; when habit is not checked, it hardens into compulsion." (VIII.5.10) Then he moves to a self-inventory as he writes "You set me down before my face" (VIII.7.16). Finally the spiritual experience. It created an evident change - "my face was peaceful now." (VIII.11.30)

Having worked with others, the elements leading to a spiritual experience are almost always the same - an understanding of a problem of weakness, a personal inventory taken with rigorous honesty and then an experience that creates a change sufficient to provide power - which is frequently marked by a personality as well as facial change.

Augustine's post-spiritual experience was dramatic. After moving through his early newfound footing in Book IX, Books X and XI were some of the most beautiful writings I have ever read. It was as if I were in the presence of a great musician and simply found myself letting go and being led by the beauty of his riffs. Those two chapters held me with perfect clarity. It was as if I were removed from bodily sensations and elevated into a harmony of reason. 

As I reflected on the entirety of the book, I realized that Augustine was the first writer completely explore subjectivity, to drive the Protestant rebirth narrative (Luther was an Augustinian monk), to share "experience, strength and hope" in telling "what it was like, what happened and what it's like now." His testimony points to a subjectivity that was fundamental in causing me to read the work so differently then and now.

Gendered Nouns: A Closer Look

In the midst of numerous gender and race discussions, I have continued to review basic Latin grammar. Oh the excitement! While reflecting on Latin nouns which are categorized as either masculine, feminine or neuter, I noted something new. Despite having studied them for 45 years, I never really thought about the reason that the nominative and accusative cases are dissimilar for masculine and feminine nouns while they are identical for neuter nouns. Suddenly it occurred to me. 

In the case of neuter nouns, the category implies a lack of subjectivity. Since the neuter noun lacks subjectivity, there is only a sense of being an object. The difference in nominative and accusative cases of masculine or feminine words reference a subjectivity in the difference of taking action or receiving action that does not occur in neuter nouns. I briefly explored how this implicated various nouns and may discuss in a later post. As my friend would say, "this does not make a bank deposit," but it's notable that after looking at something for such a long period of time, I still find some new.

A New Orthodoxy?

In our Great Books Redux, we had a final summary session to discuss the Greek works covered so far. Prior to the class, there had been a surprising email that pornographically portrayed the speakers of Plato's Symposium as a group of exploitative and self-congratulatory men. The writer further stated that these men confuse desire with love, love with self-love and self-love with beauty. I reread it several times because it was so passionate. There were no emails in response so I thought perhaps our discussion would unpack the reasons for such a heated diatribe.

Instead, the class followed through with the spirit of that email, beginning with the concept that the speakers were rationalizing their disgusting behaviors. In the spirit of a Greek play, a full chorus of support followed. The discussion veered into contemporary simulacra with Harvey Weinstein, the larger movie production area, student-teacher relationships, athlete-coach relationships and finally medical school training as evidence of the horrible and pervasive forces described favorably in the Symposium. I sat stunned.

When I was asked to speak up (because in a prior email, I had indicated that while in college I had been groped by a Classics professor), I shared that I could feel a lot of anger and pain had been provoked by the Symposium. I then expressed that my being groped experience was unfavorable and yet after I had gone back to the professor and explained that I had no interest in that dynamic, we moved on to a good working relationship (in which good grades were now assured). I then shared that I felt we all operated from self-interest and that the journey described in the Symposium is about a pathway to enlightened self-interest.

One of the classmates had made an observation that our discussions were normative rather than descriptive about the Symposium. I felt that it hit a core concept of what I was experiencing. This appeared to be a new orthodoxy in which power - particularly in the hands of "white males" - is synonymous with abuse, inequality is equivalent to exploitation and difference is defined as injustice. We never did address where my classmates' passion was coming from, but it was certainly religious in its specificity of language and tenor.

Later I engaged in some discussions and it seems that the fallacy is the racist fallacy. We tend to take superficial characteristics that occasionally accompany a set of actions and label them as causal. When people see a serial killer with blue eyes, they start saying that blue-eyed people are serial killers. For historical reasons, more white men occupy positions of power and become assigned a race and gender reason for their bad behavior. Interestingly, despite the intelligence and social power of my classmates, it appears that they are susceptible to the same cognitive fallacies affecting our police forces - establishing, of course, that we are all just human.

Love: A Progression in Thought

Spinoza argues that all of what we term feelings are really modes of thinking or thoughts. In our Great Books Redux, the class has worked through Plato's Symposium which is a work that attempts to deepen an understanding of the meaning of love. We had a guest lecturer Mariska Leunissen who immediately answered my first question. Socrates opens (177d8-9) with “The only thing I say I know is the art of love.” I thought this was strange because the first thing I learned about Socrates in Third Form (ninth grade) was "I know only one thing - that I know nothing." She showed that it was a clever linguistic reference as the Socratic knowledge of art of love (ta erôtika) as art of asking questions (erôtan). However her argument that it was a subversion of erotic norms through philosophy differs from my read that the Symposium is to help its readers move their notions of love from transactional to tranformational.

Someone once told me as a chocoholic (one more 12 step program to consider!), "you don't love chocolate, you use chocolate. If you loved it, you would open the refrigerator every day and say 'Good morning chocolate!'" This difference highlights the endpoints for a framework within the Symposium for moving from "love" as use of another to "love" as appreciation of another. Plato's transcendent and "gay" framework could be applied to the immanent and multipicities structure of today's sexual and love world with desire, of course, driving the progression to increasingly enlightenedly self-interested forms of love.The art of asking questions, of open-mindedness and of engagement is the basis for the growth of love and all growth involves an incorporation of ideas with their ultimate dismembering and then reconstructing and remembering into a more profound understanding. 

To me the progression looks to be:
Level 1: Phaedrus and Pausanias: This is the mutual "use" level which is transactional
Level 2: Eryximachus: This is the objective "use" level which is scientifically transactional
Level 3: Aristophanes: This is the "needy" or "soulmate" use level of increased feeling intensity
Level 4: Agathon and Diotima level: This is the level of poetry or truth gaining "self knowledge" breaking through to conceptual intensity
Level 5: Alcibiades and Socrates level: This is the level of true appreciation of "the other" - as I see it, Alcibiades attempts a "use" but doesn't end with one and Socrates has no "use."

The class was focused on Level 4 (my term) of Diotima being the highest progression for love. However, I think that Plato took the conceptual framework and tried to move it into action. As the common refrain states it, "love is not a noun, but a verb." Spinoza's framework on love is enriched here. Spinoza views love as a change (in a sense verbal) accompanied by an object (in a sense noun). The change dynamic here is differentiated by Plato along the axis of transaction to transformation.

Fate: Bound By What We Don't Want To See

Our Great Books Redux rolled through Oedipus Tyrannos and Oedipus at Colonus. John McGowan is taking us through the "trilogy" in the order of writing - starting with Antigone and followed by these two. Our discussion was animated and insightful but foundered on the concept of fate.

The Greeks were clear that there was such a thing as fate, but our modern mind of increased powers denies the concept - the fundamentally human and, to my way of thinking, primary theme of the Oedipus Tyrannos and Oedipus at Colonus works. Dr. McGowan outlined two approaches to these works - a conservative one and a radical one. 

In the conservative view, Oedipus is not a hero but an atheist who attempts to fight his fate and thus the gods. In the radical view, Oedipus is a hero as he attempts to address the huge gap between what is divinely ordained and the humanly acceptable. In these terms, I find myself a radiservative - with elements of both views.

Fate is fate. We can will what we want, but we can't we will what we will. Fate gives rise to a notion of powerlessness and that seems fatalistic. Yet, accepting powerlessness as limitation is the basis of sanity as opposed to the insanity of Greek-termed hubris. Oedipus was reactive as he heard his fate and moved through three of the four Fs: flight (from "home"), fight (killing his father), f (with his mother). All of these Fs assist in removing conscious attention from reality. But the body knows.

Oedipus's name is rooted in a Greek cognate that "he knows something." Oedipus exhibits a long-term "willful blindness" (as one of the classmates perfectly put it) that is how we function in today's world - making these plays as relevant as ever. In twelve step programs, the essential power given to the recovering person is "in-sight" - the ability to see her or his role in life. Oedipus's journey is one of accepting his fate and moving to surrender. His surrender is how that huge gap between what is divinely ordained and humanly possible is closed and, in that, a model for all of us.

Embracing the idea of fate, then, is critical to accept to gain the fullness of the play's meaning. Incest and parricide are introduced to simply elevate the terms of the acceptance of fate. Great fates require no surrender. In surrender is power and Oedipus's awful fate requires great surrender - which he ultimately achieves through the peer support of Theseus. 

We, too, live in a world of fate but our "willful blindness" makes that of Oedipus look puny. While we exhibit enormous individual latitude, the dynamics of probability indicate on a law of large numbers, we continue to head inexorably towards our individual and collective fates. Acceptance of that sets our feet on solid ground and builds towards the fifth F: freedom.

It's All Power, All the Time: Reality

Given that power is primary and occurs within the context of a unity, the maximization of power is reality - that elusive presence clouded by our perspective and our imagination. Sadly one of the most recurring patterns to minimize power is to engage in "efforting."

I came across "efforting" when I was dropping my son off at Princeton University for a Ph.D in Math. I had some free time so I took a yoga class at the local Y. As we were doing various poses, the teacher came over to me to get me to stop "efforting." I thought she was nuts and went ahead with my "efforting."

Of course I did. I had been "efforting" my whole life. What the yoga teacher pointed out was a valuable insight and was similar to my running coach who advised me to keep breathing through weight training exercises. To move my breath or prana smoothly or efficiently meant that I needed to be positioned in such way that I could maintain my pose for a long period. 

Basically we all recognize how quickly we tire if we hold our arms out to the side even with little or no weight. The reason is that I don't have any ground support. I have to be "efforting" the whole time. However, if I can rest my arms on some ground supports, I still get the benefits of extending stretch but without the tension introduced by "efforting." "Efforting" takes away power in order to express power. 

The concept of asana in yoga is designed to offset this efforting. An asana is a pose of being that allows for smooth breathing as well as some expression of stretch or movement. In order for the asana to be maximally effective, I try to find the grounding or structural support. Prior to this emphasis on grounding, my yoga movements were labor intensive and athletic endeavors. The healing properties of yoga eluded me.

In the same way as this occurs physically, my "efforting" can show up mentally. To maximize power in the mental area relies on what Spinoza causes adequate ideas. Basically, our inadequate ideas are those configured by our imagination. These "efforting" structures of the mind rely on our continued reiteration to make them "real." Adequate ideas, on the other hand, need little support because they are grounded properly.

Yet like my tendency to be tense all over when I simply flex my toes, my habits of mind to connect to a series of imaginations when I engage in new ideation. The most power series of imaginations are those which become purpose-driven. Like "efforting," purpose-driven patterns indicate that the power is at the end of the rainbow when in fact it lies at the beginning. 

It's all Power, All the Time: Unity as Breath

The primacy of power that I described in an earlier post combined with its bad general reputation is not good for clarity of thought. If fundamental truths are ignored, elaborate systems are contrived to provide work arounds to avoid the truth. 

At one point, the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous trumpets "lack of power is our dilemma." Having tried every self-help approach, the authors of the Big Book finally conceded that lack of power was the primary issue so that led to a search for the necessary power "to restore sanity."

If power is primary, then the primary principle of power is unity. The reason love songs dominate musical charts is because the natural pattern of love is unity. As two become one, so power is increased. But right there is how we avoid power as primary. It sounds callous to say they are together for power unless you are a friend of mine who claims, "she married me for my body, but keeps me for my money."

But unity starts at home. Spinoza describes singular things as those which have complex parts but all express as one effect - elegantly connecting unity to power. The word yoga comes from the sanskrit word "yuj" for unity or oneness. (Give me another year of Covid and sanskrit will be mine!) The emphasis of yoga is to establish an internal unity so that the body functions as a whole as if a well-directed orchestra, rather than fighting within itself through internal divisions of body and mind as a dissonant experience. What's yoga's secret to this?

The essence of yoga is breathing rooted in the word prana as "breath-spirit." In breathing the body is unified. Underlying this concept is the term spiritual which is just Latin for breath. In the Big Book, the authors are looking for a spiritual solution. Here breath is connected to unity is connected to power. Breathing is the fundamental way that we experience unity which brings power. But its regularity and continuity hides its characteristics.

The first time I became aware of breathing as an act was when I was working out with a personal trainer. She assured me that holding my breath while I bench pressed weights was not helpful. That struck me. Why was I doing that counterproductive activity? It's simply that I perceived that by shutting down all activities except for the bench press would lead to a better outcome. But it doesn't; unity always outperforms division.

Breathing is all important. Longer out breaths drive a slowdown in a cooling of the unity and shorter out breaths drive a ramp up in a heating of the unity. Pranayama is a set of breath exercises that are not only designed to enhance unity but express that unity in different ways.

It's All Power, All the Time

Recently I had a discussion about Kanye's interview with David Letterman concerning Kanye's "maximum expression of self" concept. I shared that it was rooted in power. That provoked some pushback because power has a bad connotation - an unfortunate aspect of the current times.

Power is what we are after. It's a manifestation of the reactive and diminished thoughtfulness of today's environment that power is bad but empowerment is good; that police are bad, but policing is good. If empowerment does not lead to more power, then what does the word mean? If more power is not good, how can empowerment be good? (Of course, empowerment does indicate a connection and a larger sense of self. But that is the essence of power - two are always more powerful than one.)

In a parallel way, I noticed that Oedipus Tyrannos is the name of Sophocle's play. Tyrannos translates to the English cognate of "tyrant." But in fact the Greek meaning of the word did not connote abuse or cruelty as it does for us today. Instead, it simply indicated someone that did not gain rule through heredity - more of the "self-made person" idea.

In Spinoza's framework, the Latin language has two words for power: potentia and potestas. Potentia is relatable to its English cognate of potential as virtual power or energy. It's similar to an untapped resource. Of course that sense of power is always good and there is an aspect in which empowerment is about resourcing those who lack resources. 

But potestas as in manifest power is what's gotten the bad name. My high school English teacher had an aversion to potestas when he quoted, "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." In some ways, this journey of the word tyrannos from "self-made ruler" to "cruel and abusive ruler." The increased focus on historical misuses of power has similarly given power as potestas a bad name. There is some inevitability here.

To have "maximum expression of self" means that one expands limits. In most situations, this maximization of self-expression comes at a cost to someone or something else. There are rare situations, like exercise or meditation, which don't compete for limited resources. But in addition to an attempt to expand self-expression, there is an attempt to at least maintain power. This, too, is inevitably a failure as attempts to maintain power become attempts to thwart the emerging power of others (by say innovation or competition).

In the corporate world there is always a journey from doing things for the customer to doing things to the customer. This is not sinister, but is a manifestation of the same power dynamic. At some initial period, a corporation expresses potentia and emerge to meet an unmet need. For example, look at Google's quick and powerful emergence. However, once that emergence has occurred, potestas is present. Now the phase of doing to the customers emerges in attempts to maintain and expand that power. 

Jeff Bezos identified this as he attempted to focus on Amazon always considering his business on Day 1. On Day 1 for any business, the mission is clear - delight the customer by exceeding expectations. By making the virtual idea of pleasing others a reality of exceeding expectations, potentia is shaped beautifully into potestas.

This is a natural cycle for individuals as well as corporations. Calling power a bad thing is inaccurate and inevitably leads to blind spots in self-management and social policy. Instead, accepting as reality the dynamics of power leads to frameworks which facilitate power in an organic cycles of change. As Spinoza posits, "reality and perfection are the same thing."

Philosopher Kanye West

Recently I watched an interview of Kanye West by David Letterman. I had anticipated that the insightful David Letterman would reveal Kanye to be the mad man of his reputation. Letterman certainly attempted to establish that. But by the end of the interview, the positions were exactly reversed for me. 

The crux of my reversal was Kanye's view that we are all about maximal expression of self. This position is the basis for his musical journeys and his clothing lines. This sometimes right, sometimes wrong, but always Kanye approach is also the basis for his controversial support of Donald Trump. While not endorsing Trump's articulations, he strongly supports Trump's attempt to articulate his views.

Since freedom for maximal expression of self has always conflicted with an obligation towards the feelings and beliefs of others, why has this topic turned into such an issue? It seems to me neither a higher level of sensitivities or in-sensitivities is to blame. That mistakes effect for cause. Instead, the morphing from the limited range of the power of advertising soundbites into the limitless bounds of memes through the internet turns up crazy for all involved.

This emphasis on maximal expression of self struck me as Spinozist and sane. Spinoza argues for a concept of conatus which defines our essence as an attempt to perservere in one's self. Spinoza's position put him as an early advocate of free speech and democracy. Yet conatus is most easily viewed physically, or as Spinoza puts it, within the attribute of extending. For Spinoza, every mode with an aspect of extending also has an aspect of thinking. Kanye's concept of maximal expression of self is the interior and thinking aspect of conatus. 

This maximal expression of self seems better than "the pursuit of happiness" structured into our nation's founding document. Certainly "life" is the physical notion necessary to individual development and "liberty" is the contextual importance. But liberty spent in the pursuit of happiness is poorly connected to real self. Better stated, liberty in the pursuit of maximal expression of self is rooted in the unique characteristics of an individual.

David Letterman was unable or unwilling to hone in on Kanye's point. Letterman appeared to approach the interview with preconceptions designed to caricature the interviewee. Kanye was open and honest about his struggles with mental health, describing a sprained brain syndrome that caused him to tend to ramp up. But Kanye revealed that the madness did not lie within Kanye, but within the collective crowd, included Letterman, obsessed with defining self by not offending others.

Initial Thoughts on Antigone: Love Vs. Respect

Our Great Books Round Two class is now working through Sophocles' play Antigone. The basic outline of the work pits the rules of a ruler named Creon against the personal conscience of a grieving sister named Antigone. Bearing the mark of a great work, its themes are universal but as nuanced as individuals.

Prior to reading the work, I knew that Creon was considered a "bad guy," a kind of prototypical dictator. However, when I read his comments and thoughts, my sympathies went out to him. Thebes, the city over which he rules, had just gone through a terrible war between two brothers competing for rule of the city. In the pivotal battle, both brothers, Eteocles and Polyneices die, but Eteocles went down defending the city while Polyneices led foreign forces in an attempt to conquer and raze the city. As a result, Creon honored Eteocles and attempted to dishonor Polyneices by not burying him.

Creon makes a legitimate point - to honor Polyneices would have been to dishonor everyone who had battled to save the city. However, Creon misses the all-important distinction between respecting someone's achievements as either good or evil versus someone's participation as a human being. It is an easy thing to miss as I did it for years.

In my family of origin, achievements were lauded. My parents were ambitious as they both received college educations at a time and place in which the majority did not. They praised achievement and punished sloth. Such training was perfectly sound for me. However I missed one crucial distinction in this training: praise does not equal love. Praise and respect are earnable, but love is not. Praise and respect are extrinsic, but love is intrinsic. For most of my life, I lumped praise and respect into the same basket as love. Creon makes the same mistake.

When Creon wishes to dishonor Polyneices, he crosses the line from extrinsic action to intrinsic. It would not have been a problem, for example, to strip him of money, name recognition or honorary degrees. But when Creon denied Polyneices a burial, Creon denied him an intrinsic form of love that humans cannot lose no matter what their extrinsic actions. This can be a bitter pill to swallow when the extrinsic actions have been horrendous, as they were in the case of Polyneices.

Polyneices's sister Antigone rebels and attempts to bury Polyneices and incurs punishment for violating Creon's rules. I found Antigone's speech to Creon to be of the same smug and self-righteous tone that I have found at different times in my life. Yet despite her tone, she was correct. Creon was wrong in the same way that I had been by withholding love from myself and others which is intrinsically deserved. And like Creon, the consequences of missing such a distinction have been deeply painful

Oresteia Thoughts

Having finished the Iliad, our Great Books class has moved on to the Oresteia, a trilogy of plays written by Aeschylus. Given a different personal history than many of my classmates, I find it useful to clarify my view of the work prior to the class discussion. 

The Oresteia is a work about family in the context of society. I don't view the work as primarily about gender or race although it seems as if every book is now read through those lenses. "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does that make it sexist or racist?" seems like a poor way to go through life. I believe that the work attempts to look at the relative power of intrafamily loyalties and how they function.  

While boating on a lake in Buffalo, NY when I was engaged to be married, my good friend Monsignor Henry Gugino asked me, "If your wife and your child both fell overboard and you had one life preserver to save just one, who would you throw it to?" I thought for a moment and answered, "my child." He told me that was the wrong answer. He informed me that the marriage bond was more important than the parental bond. 

Since I had not yet experienced the joys of a teen child, I argued that any parent would want to save the child. He argued back that we could always make more children. Further, he made an argument that as marrieds, we were united as one person and should have each other's back. I never really felt like that worked for me and that may have identified me as divorce-bound. For me, The Oresteia presents a similar problem.

First of all, there are three infidelities involved. #1 is background with Thyestes having an affair with his brother Atreus's wife. #2 is also background with Paris having an affair with Menelaus's (Atreus's son) wife. #3 is in the first part of the Oresteia with Aegisthus (Thyestes's son) having an affair with Agamemnon's (also Atreus's son). One takeaway is that if the men in the Atreus family were adequate lovers, then everyone would've been much better off. But they weren't and very different forms of hell break loose in response to infidelities #1, #2 and #3.

Hell form #1 is also background as Atreus calls his brother Thyestes back from exile to a dinner of reconciliation where he serves Thyestes his children as part of the meal. The marriage bond violation sets up a parental bond violation. Hell form #2A is background as Agamemnon carries out a war to retrieve his brother's wife and sacrifices his own daughter Iphigenia to do so. Again the marriage bond violation sets up a parental bond violation. Hell form #2B is core to the second part of the Oresteia as Agamemnon's wife Clytemnestra kills her husband when he returns home. Here the parental bond violation sets up the marriage bond violation. Hell form #3 is core to the third part of the Oresteia as Agamemnon's son Orestes kills Aegisthus and his own mother Clytemnestra. Again the marriage bond violation sets up a parental bond violation. 

Hell form #1 seems completely insane. Hell form #2A seems unnecessary in terms of the child sacrifice for setting sail in what was going to be a long war anyway. But the real contrast of the Oresteia is hell form #2B versus hell form #3. Which is worse: to be a parent that kills a fellow parent for killing a child or to be a child that kills a parent for killing a fellow parent? The first structure places the parental bond above the marriage bond while the second places the marriage bond above the parental bond.

The first word of the work, θεους, sets up the divinities as the expressive forces at work. The older generation of divinities supported reproductive power, no different than the animal kingdom. These divinities supported condemnation of Orestes for placing marriage bond above parental bond. However, the newer generation of divinities were more concerned with human communal arrangements of peace and prioritized the communal power of marriage. These divinities supported Orestes and the work ends as a celebration of unity of peace.

I understand this concept and those words from Msgr. Gugino, but my heart still is unmoved and I feel 100% connected to Clytemnestra. Those old divinities still seem alive and well in me.

Mηνιν - the Iliad and stages of Grief

As some earlier posts reflect, I have been going through a review of the Iliad with classmates from 40 years ago. My focus has been on μηνιν, a Greek work that depicts a certain sense of rage or fury that is characteristic of Achilles and the first word of the poem.

Since looking at personal experiences of such rage, I have come to the conclusion that "outrage" is the correct translation. Next I spent time reviewing the arc or impact that this "outrage" had an Achilles. My classmates, more sensitive to the pain of others, have viewed his "outrage" as "murderous, pornographic and obscene." In some ways, I view my lack of sharing this view as personal insensitivity and in other ways, I continue to view that they have missed the point of the theater.

Achilles experiences "outrage" due to an injured sense of personhood by Agamemnon. He's being, in effect, called a nothing. The shock and then anger seems to follow the stages outlined by Kubler-Ross in grief. To me, grief is a process of accepting reality. As the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous declares, "acceptance is the answer to all my problems." Achilles' outrage leads him into an existential cocooning in which I believe he explores the question we all explore - what's is all about? and, as always, the endpoint of grief is clouded - what is it he is accepting?

In the midst of this exploration, he is approached by Agamemnon's people. This is the "bargaining" stage of grief. Like most bargaining stages, there is no progress. Achilles cannot recover the sense of meaning that he experienced before his personal affront by Agamemnon. Having been told (in his mind) that he is a nothing, Agamemnon's entreaties do not restore him to somethingness. The restoration would only confirm Agamemnon as the something and Achilles as nothing. 

Then his beloved Patroclus is killed wearing his armor. Of course it is significant that they are lovers. Patroclus is very much one with Achilles as much as contemporary marriage vows where two become one. Patroclus, though, represents his non-injured self. When Patroclus dies, that injured part, that injured self-state dies and receives a reincarnation in the form of Hector wearing Achilles' armor. The killing of Hector drives Achilles into a sadness or depression. Having been told he is nothing, that life has no meaning, he witnesses that nothingness.

To deal with this sadness, Achilles begin to go into a repetition compulsion. Repetition compulsion is driven by an underlying belief that if you do the same thing over and over again, you can get a different result. Everyday Achilles drags Hectors dead body around the camp three times. What finally knocks Achilles out of this sadness phase is the arrival of Priam for Hector's dead body. The power of Priam's kissing Achilles hands moves Achilles into the final phase of acceptance of life on life's terms. Not Achilles' terms. He becomes a part of a larger whole. Herein is the transformation from the fantasy of individual self to the reality of connected self. After that, Achilles expresses his connectedness with love and concern for those around him in the care of Priam and presiding over the games.

Civil vs. Polite

In English usage, the connotations of civil are different than polite or political. The word civil comes from the Latin word civis, meaning "citizen" and is related to the Latin word civitas, meaning "state." The words political and polite come from the Greek word πολις or polis, meaning "city-state." A recent discussion forced me to reflect on the differences.

Clearly, we intuitively prefer someone to be civil rather than polite. Polite and political both indicate a superficial action designed to create an external environment which may not reflect an interior state. On the other hand, civil and civilization indicate a profound sense of quality and even reasonableness in which the exterior and interior states are harmonized. What could be the linguistic roots for such difference given the similar origins of the word?

In our discussion, we explored different meanings of civil and got around to that civil behavior is one that seeks common ground. From this definition, I began to understand a possible reason for the development of different meanings. The Greek polis designated a "city-state" which carried its own environment, its own gods and culture. On the other hand, the Roman world was concerned about connectivity. A recent National Geographic article highlights the characteristics of roads as the defining feature. In fact, in the Roman's original 12 laws, rules of the road were one of this all-important list.

My take-away? Finding common ground and processing with compromise is the keystone for civilized behavior. We are all the center of our own universes and starting with that humble understand can lead to productive engagement. The recent environment of polite behavior which dismisses opinions not equally shared may have driven some of the recently unleashed divisiveness.

The Case Against Turning a Blind Eye

Recently I have been enhancing my study of the Iliad by watching Friday Night Lights (FNL). This series focuses on the dynamics of the "pre-state society" in a Texas high school which, of course, centers around  the "warrior culture" of football. A major departure from the Iliad is the role that infidelity plays. In the Iliad, the unfaithfulness of Helen sets up the whole story, but in FNL unfaithfulness plays a less fundamental role.

The star quarterback, Jason Street, is paralyzed early in the season. His long-term (since 8th grade) girlfriend, Lyla Garrity, is distraught and shows up strongly to help. However trouble looms as it becomes clear to Jason that he is not going to fully recover, while Lyla continues to see him getting better and getting back to a football career. It appears that he starts to feel like she is loving him not as him, but as a future NFL star. As a result of an explosive conversation to establish the reality of long-term paralysis, Lyla gets distraught and seeks comfort in the arms of Jason's best friend Tim Riggins. Tim, who has gone into a depressed state over a misplaced sense of responsibility for Jason's injury, has already broken up with his girlfriend Tyra.

The situation is difficult for all of these high schoolers who are encountering a challenge beyond the skills they have developed. Life does that. To stabilize, Lyla clearly engages in "triangling" (psychological term) or "cheating" (street term). I was sympathetic to Lyla. She's lost; her anchor is gone. She had built her future with regard to schooling and career around Jason's prospective career. As she swirls out, she ends up in Tim's arms. I was also sympathetic to Tim because he was depressed and single (having broken up with Tyra) and, of course, Lyla is a knock out.

Jason didn't see it my way. At first he stays in denial but as he heals physically, he begins to heal emotionally and honors himself. Based on an intuition and a brief sighting of Tim and Lyla together, he punches Tim in the face and confronts him. Lyla breaks down and admits wrongdoing. Jason takes the difficult journey to go his own way. 

My instinct was for Jason to hold it together and to blame Lyla for not sticking to her story. But my instinct was wrong and is evidence of my own history. The "triangling" (still prefer to be non-judgmental here) by Lyla was because the relationship no longer really worked. Yes she loved Jason, but it's a big and possibly ridiculous ask of a high school girl to take on a life-long paraplegic. Her best avenue would have been to openly address it with Jason, but again, that's a huge ask for so much emotional maturity. The "triangling" worked to get Lyla out of what she didn't really want to be in and for that reason, I think her honesty was a good call. 

The key action was Jason honoring her triangling by leaving the relationship. In a similar situation, I would have (and have) just "sucked it up" and played "forgive and forget." Unfortunately that creates unprocessed trauma that simply blinds the intuitive self - the self that showed up in Jason's sense that all was not right and made the subsequent decisions. I don't view Lyla as a "slut" or worthy of shaming, but she was no longer a person for Jason to be in relationship with. A relationship needs to be based in safety and an emotional sense of being the top priority. 

So what about Tim? Again, in a similar situation, I would have (and have) taken advantage of such discord with various rationalizations. Tim lacks any kind of home life, so I don't judge him as a "piece of sh.." After all, we are all doing the best we can. But pity dishonors a person. The consequence of Tim's damaged home life is the reality that Tim lacks the ability to honor friendship. Jason's confrontation honors Tim and forces realistic self-appraisal. That recognition is ultimately in Tim's best interest.

Mηνιν Part 3; more thoughts on the Iliad

In a couple of prior posts, I have explored the importance of μηνιν, the word that opens the Iliad and describes the kind of rage that Achilles was experiencing. In my first post, I explored the existential feeling of this type of rage and provided some personal examples of moments when some seemingly trivial issue felt like the time to take a stand. In my second post, I proposed the movie of Dazed and Confused and Texas football as modern avatars for understanding the "pre-state" and "warrior society" that serve as the contexts for the Iliad.

The Iliad is primarily about the development of Achilles as a coming of age story (or bildungsroman as my daughter Brooke would say) where the word μηνιν sets up as the gauge of his spiritual journey. This view is not commonly held. The result is that readers often incorrectly think that the Iliad is about other areas that really serve as stage props, such as Fate, the Gods and Goddesses, shields and spears and speech-making. What makes it difficult to see the Iliad as a coming of age story?

Coming of age stories generally have to do with adolescents. In adolescence, we make important first steps to differentiate our singular selves from family and society. The suddenly closed doors of teenagers is a sign of this personal cocooning as we dismember and remember our real selves. Lasting damage, showing up as people pleasing and cowardice, can occur when teens are deprived of this developmental phase. But adolescence is not the only period where we make significant steps to differentiate ourselves. Coming of age moments, like those of Job in the Bible, can occur at any time.

Yet there is a reason that we typically locate this process in adolescence - it is a period of heightened sensitivity. This heightened sensitivity characterizes Achilles and is the nuance of the word μηνιν. This sensitivity sets up the conflict between him and Agamemnon. Readers, and even scholars, view his μηνιν or "rage" as an example of how trivial things can have terrible consequences. This interpretation marginalizes a universal work of defining oneself into an archaic piece on morality and society. 

By viewing his "rage" as a case of "making a mountain out of a molehill," Achilles is seen as a "monster" or a "hero." His athletic, physical and military capacities become defining characteristics of the "monster" or "hero" rather than simply props to highlight the dynamism and sublimity of his personal and deeply human growth. The Iliad's things, people, Gods and Goddesses remain static, while Achilles undergoes significant change.  

The other narrative that plagues readers is that Homer has written an anti-war work. Such a reading simply does not work, but I think this is increasingly popular so as to suit current narratives and sensitivities. Over and over again, Homer gloriously outlines the thrill of the chase in war and the agony of war's injury and defeat with exquisitely beautiful natural similes. The Greeks, of which Homer was one, are repeatedly called "war-loving." In this framework, he is saying that for better or worse, this is what we do. We fight. We love. We die. Nature (no subjectivity) and the Gods and Goddess (no mortality) can't experience life like we do. To feel and to actually love the sensation of "kill or be killed" (give glory to the other or get it for yourself) sets up the sensation of what's at stake in becoming our fullest selves and in this sensation is the most sublime beauty. 

Emergence from Achilles' psychological "cocoon" occurs when Priam kisses Achilles hands. Achilles is affected with wonder and asks himself "Can he (Priam) be a God?" Achilles is overcome by the beauty and the power of an action so unnatural as for a father to kiss the hands that have murdered his own offspring. Achilles pays him the highest compliment, that Priam has "a heart of iron" - a description used repeatedly about Achilles. Achilles' deep admiration creates an ability to abide as Priam and Achilles weep together - Priam for his son and Achilles for his father and his lover Patroclus. Achilles heart fulls and suddenly shifts. It heals. Achilles moves fully into his own, culminating in them mirroring each other with an expansive love physical, emotional with spiritual with poignancy driven by its evanescence. And we all weep with them for the beauty and the pain of our mortal selves.

TGIF

I have a Latin calendar on my bulletin board next to my English calendar. (Of course...as David Ogilvy said, "cultivate eccentricities early because that way people are less likely to think you've gone gaga in old age.") In another clear example of gender inequality, the only female figure after which a day of the week is named on the Latin calendar is Veneris, the Day of Venus. Most Romance language speaking countries follow suit (except for Sardinia because of some exiled Jews - always causing problems! lol). But, while the female named days are in the vast minority, none of the other days of the week are deserving of an acronym. 

Friday, or Freitag in German countries, is also named after a female goddess - Frigg or Frigga (and you thought that was simply some euphemism for not saying the other "f" word). Frigg is the goddess wife of Odin and plays the same powerful yet seductive and tricky role that Hera does for Zeus. It seems likely that the day was named consistently for female divinities because it was the time for going home and restoring oneself. So, the next time you see TGIF, give a little shout out to gender equity and say Thank Goddess it's Friday.

Mῆνιν Part 2; More Thoughts On the Iliad

In an earlier post (here), I discussed the opening word of the Iliad and gave some relevant personal examples to indicate my initial sense of the word. But my thoughts are evolving. Last night, our class opened up a discussion of the first 12 books of the Iliad. Astutely led by John McGowan, the class engaged in a thoughtful discussion of the role of Achilles, of "honor," of women, of Fate (as algorithm!) and "hero" culture.

During class, I did not share my obsession with μῆνιν as I thought it risked a redirect from a fruitful collaborative discussion. Yet I continue to hold that the key to this work is getting that one word right. Dr. McGowan brought out context - that the Iliad depicted a "warrior culture" in a "prestate society." This resonated with me. Before class, I had held the movie "Dazed and Confused" to be the contemporary avatar of the Iliad. I could not better describe my Iowa public high school of the mid-70s than as a "warrior culture" in a "prestate society."

Football was the expression of a warrior culture in which the best were heroes, in which injuries were life changing moments to be told and retold and in which the women and fame went to the winners. Long after trophies were won and put into glass cases as prized possessions, stories were repeated about the heroes who had won them. While we lived in a "state," our high school society was "prestate" and a world of its own. 

When one of the class brought up the "raw authenticity of emotions," it moved to the tone within the context. The raw authenticity of emotions confirms the reality of μῆνιν. Dr. McGowan mused that we can't seem to command and control our anger. In my reading of the Greek language and culture, this power of the irrational was the most disturbing to the Greeks. Just as many religious people concoct fantasies as to why bad things happen to good people, the Greeks did the same to account for irrationality in a world of reason. Is Achilles' μῆνιν is rational, irrational or suprarational?

In the movie "Dazed and Confused," the connective theme is whether or not the quarterback, Randall "Pink" Floyd is going to play quarterback for the senior year. He has his own personal μῆνιν in response to the coach's demand that all the players sign a no drug use pledge. The urging of lifelong friends and teammates have little impact on his struggle to define and live his best life. But through a personal process unclear to those around him, he does define himself and the movie ends with "Slow Ride" playing as they ride off into the Texas horizon. 

Dr. McGowan highlighted the stakes of Achilles' decision. When you know that there is no life like the one you have now, then what's the best way to live it? Randall Floyd understood that life doesn't get much better than being a high school senior and in that opportunity sought his best life. In this way with the fullness of self-reflection, love and engagement, Achilles struggles to define himself. He's not, as some mentioned, a "monster" or "egotistical" or "monomaniacal." Instead, he's a man who struggles to be true to his sense of who he is. He knows he's not in Troy because he hates the Trojans or because he needs more fame or women or money. Mῆνιν is the agonizing birth of Achilles defining and expressing his own personhood not simply as a "doer of deeds and a speaker of words." Mῆνιν captures the powerful "manic" nature of the experience of the transitioning expressive self and the perception of this transition by its community.