...And Much (Poem)

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... and too

much depends
upon

fingers punching
tan keys

made of hard
plastic

above the black
spacebar

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Wise Sayings 7 from Ron Lucius

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1

Use the cleanest gloves for the dirtiest task.

…………………………………………………………………… Ron Lucius

2

Don't polish glass with black wax.

                   (OR don't read Ionesco)

…………………………………………………………………… Ron Lucius

3

When you see an unhappy person, do not think, "How unfortunate!" Ask yourself instead, "How can the suffering be relieved?"

When you see something ugly, do not shout, "How ugly that is!"  Ask instead, "How can that be made agreeable?"

……………………………………………………………………Ron Lucius

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Poem: July Twilight

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Violet
Glowing
Glowing violet
Blossoms
          violet glowing from tiny hill blooms

Dust
          thick air
Rolling down
And
And rolling down through dust and thick, filled air

Rocks
Stones
          pink
Grass
Grasses

Across pink-purple stones and lying grasses--
Where I
Where my feet
             are my feet are
             are strings under
             white-warm
             canvas,

Thin
             and hard
             as twigs.

***

Poem: Indian Summer

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Lying immobile on the silent earth
Full and ripe, round, beautiful
Resting quiet among the leaves.

Waiting unknown in the soft, dank bed,
Warm, sun glancing through the branches
Hoping, still, in the smelling autumn wastes.

Sitting timid in the damp dirt
Waiting, slowly dying in warm winds,
Round, tired, ripe, smothered

Full, sweet, unseen, soft,
Lying immobile on the silent earth
Rotting, mute, in the sun.

Humor

***

"I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous."

*

"I'd give your right arm to be kinder to others."

*

Sartre:  Do so you can do

Camus: Be so you can do

Sinatra: Do-be-do-be-doo...

*

"Better is not good enough."

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Reminiscence: Childhood Reading Part 2

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Note: I organized the exploration of my memory in Part One of this reminiscence about my childhood reading in terms of places: libraries, the family living-room, and so on.  This time, I'll try to include recollections organized around the reading materials themselves.

1

I don't associate any one place, for example, with my parents' biggest splurge in supporting my sister's and my interest in reading.  I can't remember where we stored it, but we had a large, carefully organized, multi-volume collection of poems and stories for children called The Bookhouse books.  The series was organized so that literature the editors thought appropriate for children of different ages was available in separate volumes, youngest to oldest.

There were ten or twelve volumes, starting with one having lively, colored pictures and Mother Goose and Robert Louis Stevenson verses as well as childhood versions of fairy tales.  This first volume had "the Nursery" in its title, appropriately enough.  The stories and other things in the last volume were longer, more serious and more complicated, with few illustrations (unless I am mis-remembering).  Knowing my childhood self, I expect at some point I set out to read every word in all the volumes, poem or story, one after the other until I had finished the whole collection.  But I don't think I stuck with the plan.

I'm sure I would not have waited very long before I tried to read the pieces in the final volume, something like wanting to be "all grown up."

I can almost remember Mother reading the nursery rhymes to me (to us, perhaps), helping us memorize them: "To market, to market...," "Baa, Baa, black sheep, have you any wool?," "Little boy blue...," "Diddle, Diddle, Dumpling,/my son John...," "Georgie Porgie...," etc.  Maybe it was in this volume that I first saw, "Peas porridge hot!" and wondered how in the world something to eat called porridge could possibly get to be "nine days old."  But I mainly associate that particular rhyme with another thin but wide book we had somewhere in the house with stylized drawings (silhouettes, perhaps) of black people - mainly big-breasted women - and almost naked little children, going about ordinary tasks like sweeping up or cooking or washing clothes.  These, I believe, were supposed to be African folks.  Many of these children's rhymes were little songs, but I don't think we sang "Peas porridge."

In terms of the stories, in this first Bookhouse collection I remember "Cinderella," "Billy Goats Gruff" (the troll captured my imagination), "Rapunzel," "Little Red Riding Hood." Was "Rumpelstiltskin" in this volume?  That one particularly fascinated me, though I didn't know why...

We were listening to "Let's Pretend" on the radio in this period, where many of these classic stories were acted out.  It was great.  One didn't tire of hearing, or reading, such stories over and over again...

This is probably a good place to mention as well that we had at home what I presume were all the A. A. Milne books, the ones with the original (Shepard?) illustrations: Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner, as well as the books of verses: When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six.  These were on a small book case behind my bedroom door when it was open. 

I knew all these books by heart, and loved Pooh and Piglet, Owl and Eeyore, Kanga and Roo (and the others).  I could recite several of my favorite poems, including "Halfway Down the Stairs" (...is where I'm at), "Lines and Squares," "Butter for My Bread," and "Bad Sir Brian" (ting-ling, rat-tat).  It was a great surprise to me to discover years later, when exploring the living-room bookshelves with Dad's old books, that Milne was primarily a playwright and novelist for adults.  I thought a sweet little novel with Two People in the title was very good, and when I told Dad how surprised I was to find it, he said something like "Oh, yes.  The Pooh books were just a little sideline."

From the later volumes of My Bookhouse, I remember especially liking "Casey at the Bat" and the verse about the railroad hero "Davy Jones."  I think I also was introduced by this collection to authors like Dickens, Hawthorne, Browning, and Poe.  But I can't recall any more details than that.  I wish I could.

We also had a color-illustrated Aesop's Fables that I knew well, and at some point I read (but never owned) the popular children's novel set in the Revolutionary War, Johnny Tremain.  That was not unlike the Meader historical novels for children, and I thought it was terrific.

2

When I was a youngster, some feared that reading comic books - oops, graphic novels - would reduce a child's motivation, ability, and inclination to read, really read, printed material with no pictures.  My own parents did not seem concerned about that but, as usual, they were concerned that none of us spent more than necessary.  Eventually my sister and I got a weekly allowance - 50 cents - just for spending money, and sometimes I spent some of my allowance on comic books.

It's a little hard to sort out which comics I became familiar with from the common custom of sharing comics with friends... at least when they visited their friends at home.  But one way or the other I was quite familiar with the best-known favorites, like Archie (and Veronica, Jughead, Reggie, and others... Betty?), Li'l Lulu, Donald Duck, Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Superman, Hopalong Cassidy, Spiderman, Tarzan, Bat Man and Robin, and so on.

Among all the many comics cowboys, I tended to buy for myself - not Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, or even The Cisco Kid - but Tim Holt, Lash Larue, and Johnny Mack Brown.  One of my favorite cowboy stars used to say to his horse, "Come on, Paydirt!  Scratch gravel!"  That was about as memorable to me as the radio Sergeant Preston's "On, King! On, you huskies!" or the masked man's "Hi-Ho, Silver! Away!" and Tonto's "Get 'em up, Scout!"  Alas, I don't remember who it was that had the fast horse named Paydirt.

One of my favorite superheroes was Plastic Man.  I remember his catching a gang of bad guys by rushing ahead of them and turning himself into an elevator!  I thought that was brilliant crime-fighting.

When Billy Batson said "Shazam!" he turned into Captain Marvel, another of my favorites (you know, not Superman).  I sent in a quarter or some coin and became a member of the Captain Marvel Club.  I had my special code ring and everything.

And what about the amazing speed of another favorite, Flash?  He was sometimes featured in his own comic but was also a member of a team of some kind, a team of superheroes.  I think Wonder Woman may have been one of the good guys on the team.

For some reason, I also bought war comics from time to time.  The Korean War was going on; I remember hearing Paul Harvey on the radio telling thrilling and uplifting stories about it (maybe it was in "Page Two!")  From the comics, I remember learning about "Screaming Mimi's" (I suppose they were incoming mortar rounds) that seemed to terrify the men.  There was a comic I liked to get now and then about a team of "special forces" called The Blackhawks.

It seems now like many of these "boy comics" with a good bit of violence, patriotism, courage, and honor featured full-page ads for either of two body-building programs.  The most common ads were for the Charles Atlas program.  Those were the ones about the 90-pound weakling getting sand kicked in his face. ...But since that was the more common one, I was naturally more interested in the other program: George F. Jowett's program.  Again for a quarter or a dime I bought a brochure with a few exercises illustrated in it.  They were simple and required no equipment.  Where is that brochure now when I could use it?

3

But the comics I remember the most fondly of all were Classics Illustrated.  As a parent myself, I think I would have had serious reservations about my children perhaps limiting themselves to such simplified versions of the real gems of literature, but I don't remember my own parents saying Boo about that or anything else.  It was remarked that these Classics cost more than the comic comics, and it is true that I had to manage my little allowance carefully to be able to afford them.

Here are some Classics Illustrated that I remember reading.   By the way, I suspect my friends did not collect the Classics, so I probably owned all of these at one time or another:

Bring 'Em Back Alive

Joan of Arc

The Time Machine

Lorna Doone

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

The Red Badge of Courage

Robin Hood

Master of the World

War of the Worlds

Moby Dick

The Man Without a Country

Poe stories, including The Pit and the Pendulum and The Fall of the House of Usher

The Last of the Mohicans

The Prince and the Pauper

Cyrano de Bergerac

The Master of Ballantrae

Green Mansions

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

Pudd'nhead Wilson

I remember the graphic look of each of these.  There were other classics (classic books, not the comics) that I read from the library - like Tom Sawyer, White Fang, and Captains Courageous - and there were others, of course, that I saw as movies which may well have existed in Comics Illustrated versions: such as Song of the South, Kim, Ivanhoe, and Around the World in 80 Days.  Also, some of the Classics Illustrated that I remember clearly as such were also movies, like Lorna Doone and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.

 4

I mentioned in Part One the many books owned by my parents on shelves in our living-room.  Besides those I mentioned specifically were dozens of others.  I read a number of them too.  But as I moved into the teen years, Christmas and birthday presents tended from time to time to include books.

One I remember fondly and wish I could see again, to indulge my nostalgia, was a small book about baseball heroes.  There were photos, some key statistics, and short biographies with reasonably detailed career histories.  That was easier then because players did not move from team to team very often.  Perhaps there was information about the early greats like Honus Wagner, Nappy Lajoie, Ty Cobb, Rogers Hornsby, and others, but what I remember most vividly is the older but then current and the more recent players.

Maybe I already had my favorites from listening to the Game of the Day on radio and from reading the box scores in the morning paper.  Or maybe this little book helped determine who my favorites were.  But, however they were set in my imagination, I certainly did have my favorites, and what I remember most clearly about each of them is the pictures and information in my little book.

Among these favorites were the Yankees Yogi Berra, and especially Phil Rizzuto.  More of them, like Rizzuto, were infielders than pitchers or outfielders: Johnny Evers, Nellie Fox, Eddie Stanke, Pee Wee Reese, Al Rosen, George Kell.  Others were Mel Ott, Bob Feller, Hank Greenburg, Stan Musial, Lefty Gomez, and Bill Dickey.

It may be obvious that missing from this list of my childhood favorite baseball heros were some legendary players, like Ted Williams, Babe Ruth, Gil Hodges, Jackie Robinson,  Joe DiMaggio, Mike or Mickey Cochrane, Lou Gehrig, and Ernie Banks.  I don't know why I don't remember my little book's treatment of these heroes as well as the others.

There were other books I owned, of course.  As I entered junior high, among the socks and pajamas, "boys' books" began to appear in my Christmas and birthday presents.  I had two books by Ralph Moody about growing up on a ranch out west; I remember thinking the first one, Little Britches, was pretty good, but the other one wasn't.  It had been a present, though, so I didn't tell anyone.  I had gotten a puppy for my tenth birthday (Sox, half collie and half chow), and had a few dog books.   I remember thinking that the one I had by Albert Payson Terhune was stodgy, at least compared to the Jack London books I'd read from the library and my two favorites about Kazan the Wolf Dog by James Oliver Curwood.  (I didn't notice the "cur" part of his name!)

I had several Hardy Boy mysteries, and I remember kind of enjoying several boys' books I had found at my grandparents' house about 200 miles north: coming from two series, one about "Scouts" (including one about fighting in World War I) and the other about "the Rover Boys."  These had belonged to my uncle as a boy, which means they must have been written no later than 1920.  I had been given books in several other series too: Chip Hilton sports adventures (I remember the phrase "a high hard one" figuring in one of those), and mysteries about Ken Holt or John Blaine.  I liked the Hardy Boys best, though, even if they were the best known and most popular.

5

Until I indulged myself in this nostalgic review of childhood reading, I didn't fully realize how many of my favorite books and comics were those considered designed for boys' boys.  It's true that every so often now - 50 years later - I enjoy reading Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Robert Parker, Len Deighton, and John LeCarre...

What can I learn from this... (if anything)?

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More and Less (essay)

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1

At any time in a person's life, he might consider what things or qualities he needs more of and what he needs less of.  For instance, a middle-aged professional man might think he needs to be more "spontaneous," not so often thinking and rethinking even relatively unimportant choices like whether to go out for dinner (and where) or whether to "eat in."  More such spontaneity, he thinks, might bring a missing element of freshness and creativity into what threatens to become a rather hum-drum and uninteresting life style.

Change is facilitated by emphasizing either the need for more X or instead the need for less Y, depending on the quality involved.  For instance, in the case of the man described above, if he identified his goal as "being less careful, cautious, or thoughtful," then when next faced with a rather unimportant choice, he is apt to wonder just what lack of caution would look like?  What would I do in order to be less careful in this instance? he would have to ask himself. 

On the other hand, if he identified his goal as "being more spontaneous," then when faced with that minor question, he could more easily visualize the kind of happy-go-lucky man who would think, "Oh, what the hell, I'll choose X" in a casual and cheerful manner.  In the case of spontaneity as opposed to caution, in other words, it is better to accentuate the "more side" of the issue.

On the other hand, if an individual were to realize that her health will be endangered if she doesn't begin to eat less in general, and to eat less fatty or sugary food in particular, then there is no need for such an act of imagination.  "That donut is fatty and sugary; I'm not going to eat it" is all the person needs to say to herself (which doesn't mean resisting the temptation is easy; it's only knowing what should be done that's easy). 

If she thought of her goal as "eating more healthy food," on the other hand, then the required action would be somewhat vaguer and more difficult to visualize concretely.  It would be at least a little more difficult to know, at the point of decision-making, just what to do.  In other words, in the case of eating more or less fatty foods as opposed to healthy foods, emphasis on the "less side" of the matter would be more effective.

*

With those perceptions in mind, then, let us consider our nation, the USA, or our American culture today.  Of what elements and qualities do we now need MORE, and of what do we need LESS?   Here are my lists:

2  MORE

In our America of today, I would say we need more:

• More respect for others' values, customs, and opinions
• More sense of responsibility for society, not only for oneself
• More honesty with oneself about weaknesses or failings
• More media attention to issues, rather than to individuals or to election prospects
• More commitment to tell others the truth
• More support of the poor
• More emphasis on serving current economic and social needs (while respecting a long-term need for avoiding too much public debt for too long)
• More tax revenue from the wealthy
• More emphasis on long-term benefits or happiness instead of on instant reward or gratification
• More economic and political power among mid- and low-income owners
• More investment in infrastructure
• More competition in such areas as: health insurance, banks and financial institutions, media outlets, et al.
• More public support of small business
• More reliance for economic success on production of goods as well as services
• More separation of financial speculation from banking (i.e. borrowing and lending)
• More good public schools
• More law enforcement officers, conservationists, teachers, fire fighters, preservationists...
• More support of independent research
• More support of labor unions who champion quality of work over job security
• More accessibility to good and affordable health care
• More consumer protection
• More commitment to public decency in language, entertainment, and personal appearance
• More protection of public safety

3  Less

In our America today, on the other hand, we need less:

• Less inclination to intervene abroad
• Less attempt to control others' morality and spirituality
• Less inequality of opportunity
• Less greed (or, as Jefferson called it, "heedless self-interest")
• Less overlooking the effects of national initiatives (including wars) on the long-term need for balanced national budgets, while not jeopardizing the nation's duty to serve immediate social and economic needs
• Less dogmatism, whether in politics, religion, public discourse, or personal affairs
• Less tax breaks for the wealthy
• Less government support of big corporations
• Less control of the mass media by big business
• Less dominance of big money in elections
• Less attention to possible defects of the individuals with whom one disagrees than to the fallacies in his or her arguments
• Less emphasis in business on short-term profit ("the fast buck")
• Less corporate control of prescription drugs
• Less emphasis on sex in public discourse and entertainment and in private language and behavior

4

The next question is whether one should think of each of these issues on the more side or the less side in the way I have done it above, i.e More X or Less Y where Y is the opposite of X (or does it matter?).

For instance, I said we as a nation and as a culture need more of a "sense of responsibility for society."  Couldn't we equally well say, instead, we need less "selfishness"?  Isn't it the same thing to act less selfishly as to act more responsibly for others as well as for oneself?

Well, no.  Whether or not to feel and act selfishly is an issue simply of an individual's morality (not to say that is unimportant, just different).  Showing more of a sense of responsibility for others is, instead, both an issue of individual morality and an issue of the nation's and our culture's characteristic attitude and policy toward all people, rather than only toward a certain group (such as the rich and powerful, for example, or those from a Judaeo-Christian background, or some other group).  

And what about the "attempt to control others' morality"?  Isn't that the exact opposite of "respect for others' freedom of choice"?  If it were, then we could say the need today is for more respect for freedom, instead of less attempt to control others' moral choices, and we might just as well seek the one as the other.

Well, again I don't think so.  The reason it is better to say our culture today needs less will to control others' morality rather than more respect for freedom is that it seems that many of those today who are most ready to claim that they highly value freedom are the very people most likely to devalue the freedom of others different from themselves.  If they were fully honest with themselves, these people would say, "We want to be free to do as we think best, and we want you to do what we know you ought to do." This is not only logically inconsistent: it is wrong.

It seems natural to some of us today, in other words, to want to outlaw behavior that we think it would be wrong for us to engage in ourselves, whether it be birth control or same-gender sexual partnership or something else we find morally abhorrent to think of doing ourselves.  It is not right for a person to say, for instance,  he should be free to own any kind of weapon he might want, while at the same time he attempts to deny someone else's freedom to engage in any behavior she or he might want. (Note: in all these examples, the assumption is that no real threat to public safety is involved.)

Saying that we need less temptation to control others' morality makes it easier to see what to do in practice in regard to others' behavior (or rather in this case, what not to do).  When I am tempted to support public prohibition of any particular behavior, it's easier to stop myself from attempting to control someone else's moral behavior, than it would be in general to imagine what I could do in order to show my respect for others' freedom to choose their own actions.

5

Aren't there cases where saying we need "More of X" and saying we need "Less of Y" (opposite of X) would be equally effective?

I have also said we need "More commitment to tell others the truth." It does seem much the same thing to say instead that we need "Less lying." But all of us know that conventionally in our culture, it is considered immoral to lie, and it is considered moral (as well as "best policy") to tell the truth. So it would be hard for any of us to acknowledge that in practice we might obscure the truth, or exaggerate the truth so much as to give an outright false impression, or state as  true something that supports our opinion but that we don't actually know, or - in order to achieve a sufficiently significant objective - flatly and knowingly state an untruth. So, it is more likely to be effective in this case to emphasize the positive goal: telling the truth, reminding us all of this basic home truth in the hope that, so reminded, we are more likely to avoid lying or anything approaching it.

A similar point might be made about my saying above that we need "More economic and political power among mid- and low-income owners." Couldn't we just as well say that what we need in fact is "Less economic and political power among the very wealthy"?  The meaning might indeed be much the same, but it seems more likely to change our public morality today to ask ourselves when considering any policy or proposal, "Will our doing this undermine the strength of mid- and/or low-income earners?" than it would be to determine ourselves to avoid doing anything that might add to the increasing power of the high-income earners.  It would be better in this matter for all of us to agree to avoid a harm than to pursue a benefit, albeit a benefit for only a relatively few.

Also, wouldn't it be just as effective to say we need "More generosity" than to say, as I do above, that we need "Less greed"?  This is like the example cited above of the ease with which one can know that eating a donut will hinder weight loss, while it is harder to know what exactly it might be to "eat healthy."  In this case, it is easier to know what it would be to act greedily, and thus avoid doing so, than it might be to know what it might be to behave generously.


And, in one final example, why wouldn't it be just as good to say that, in public discourse and in belief, we need more of a positive virtue than to say we need "Less dogmatism"?  

Maybe again the root meaning of both the more and the less statements would be the same; but I for one understand what dogmatism is (and I see it at work in the partisan debates in the media and in Congress).  Instead of providing evidence to support one's position on X or Y, all too often an abstract general principle is cited as though that proves the point.  A current dogma among many today, for example, is that it is an urgent need for the USA to cut government spending, when many of the facts we see all around us show that the even more urgent need is to invest in the economy so that people can go back to work and financial institutions can go back to lending to responsible borrowers.

So what dogmatism is, is clear.  But what words would we use to describe its opposite?  "Flexibility"? "Pragmatism"? "Thinking for oneself"?  Those are at least close to what we need more of in our nation today, but no one positive word or phrase identifies what we must always avoid doing: applying to any related new development an abstract principle, fervently believed, without thinking through whether doing so will produce a good result in the particular case.

6

It should be acknowledged that my list above of those qualities of which we Americans need more and less, as indicated, is not complete.  Perhaps anyone could add other ideas to the one or the other category.  Let us acknowledge too that, even though I have thought carefully about whether we should say we need more of this or that rather than less of its opposite, there may be a few issues that could just as effectively be moved from the one list to the other.

For instance, I say here that we need "More protection of public safety." Maybe it would be equally effective to say that what we need is instead "Less acceptance of policies and actions jeopardizing public safety."  One phrasing in this case may indeed be as effective as the other.

And what about saying that what we need is "Less inequality of opportunity" (as I do) instead of saying we need "More equality of opportunity"?  The point here is that our nation is supposed by all to be the land of equal opportunity, for those from one race or from another, from one culture or another, one religion or another, one family background or another, one economic status or another... while in fact today our country sternly limits opportunity for freedom of choice and opportunity for prosperity to the rich and the lucky, excluding the poor and the unlucky. 

And matters are getting worse.

***

JYA in Paris, Part II: "Greatness Thrust Upon Me"

***

1

The short story I usually tell about the second half of my JYA in Paris in 1962-63 goes like this:

I withdrew from my program at the beginning of the second semester, after Mardis Gras in mid-February.  The Institute returned my tuition and fees but continued my room at Mme. T----------'s flat near Boulevard Montparnasse at Rue de Sevres as well as my board in the student restaurants.  I had accumulated enough overload credits that, together with the fifteen credits for the first JYA semester and small overloads in my senior year, I could graduate on time.  My Dad took the reimbursement to pay off the loan he'd taken out, and sent enough monthly for me to finish the year within the cost of a regular semester at my midwestern university, including the return trip by sea.

I continued attending lectures at the Sorbonne and the Institut d'Art et d'Architecture (though not the ones at the JYA institute, obviously) but did not sit for any exams as the Institute had arranged for all of us at the end of the first semester.  It was still clear, by the way, that my attendance was more regular than the French students who were sitting for the exams.  Go figure!

From mid-February until mid-June, I was pretty much on my own all day, every day, walking almost everywhere, going to a play or concert or movie four to six nights a week.  That was possible for me because of the deep discounts the French gave students and because I now had the time to research the cheapest venues and ticket deals (like sitting in the front row at the neighborhood cinemas and waiting in the line for unsold tickets at concerts and plays until five minutes before "curtain time" when they were released for two or three francs).

I read all the time, from public libraries: I belonged to the tiny library in my first neighborhood near the Eiffel Tower and to the only slightly larger one in my new neighborhood with Mme. T----------.  I would often check out two or three books from each one every week.  I especially liked reading the English Penguin editions of detective novels!  But I also read biographies, histories of art and music, and some books on the French Revolution... though not in order to understand the causes of the American Revolution.

2

That's the shorter version of my story, but it leaves out the reasons why I withdrew.  It wasn't exactly my own idea... at least not at first.

That short version also leaves out a silly little rebellion about lunchtime that three of us guys had led near the start of the year.  After the orientation program was over, we were told that we should speak French to each other at lunch every day.  I suppose I myself may have been content to eat in silence every day, listening to the others stammer away, but everyone else seemed to think the whole idea was absurd enough to be resisted.  There we were, surrounded almost 23 hours every day by native French speakers, and we were supposed to learn from hearing each other?  We just couldn't do it.

So one day, I loudly told the group - in my best French - what I had done the day before... only I didn't use the ordinary conversational past tense ("J’ étais..." or "J’ai été..."); I used the past tense used exclusively in classic literature ("Je fűs…")!

I had worked this speech out working furiously a couple of hours that morning.  I had to explain the tense several times at lunch, which I did pretending to be angry.  Slowly the others caught on, and three or four of them started in on the conversation.  Whenever anyone used the usual verb form, we all shouted out the literary equivalent, to widespread hilarity.  We had such fun that several came in the next day with set speeches like mine that first day.  More hilarity.  By the morning of the third day, word got around that we could just be ourselves at lunch.

We didn't do "high fives" in those days, but it was one of those kind of moments.  And all in good fun, too.

3

One feature the Institute had advertised was that students would be housed with French families with whom they would have breakfast and dinner (lunch being between classes at the Institute itself).  When we actually arrived in Paris, however, only about half of the students - all of them women - were in fact placed with families.  All the men and one group of three or four women were in small pensions, large Parisian flats that had been divided into private rooms with bathrooms down the hall and large kitchens and dining rooms.

I myself had been placed in such a pension on Rue Sainte Dominique along with three other guys.  Our landlord was a Polish count who had long since fallen on hard times.  His somewhat younger wife ran the place and fixed the meals.  The Count presided over dinner where the other boarders - three or four older French men - joined the party.  They didn't know what to make of us at first, but seemed glad of the company and the novelty; conversations did not lag, the food was fine and interesting (my first match with artichokes, I remember), and the company agreeable enough.  One of our crowd had made fast friends with the guys living in another pension across town.  They went out every evening (partying, the rest of us thought); he grumbled about our accommodations a bit but the rest of us were satisfied enough.

The group of women in another pension, however, were hotly divided on the issue.  Two of them, I came to understand, liked the greater freedom they had in the pension than they would have had with families; but three others and possibly some of the other guys elswewhere were also upset that they were not with French families, as promised.

The Directeur apologized and said all who still wanted it would be placed with families within a month.  My guess is that their parents had called M. S------ expressing their outrage.  Rather than trying to soothe the feelings of their sons and daughters, the parents were keeping the pot boiling as the Institute staff apparently kept trying to locate appropriate families.

At the end of our four-week orientation program, no one else had in fact been placed with families.  At some point, I don't remember when, those of us in our pension were moved.  K---- and I were moved to the flat of a "war-widow" (she was head of an association, no less) who was glad to have the rent and to give us breakfast, but who did not cook dinners.  K---- and I got passes to the student restaurants instead.  That suited us just fine.  The other two guys were transferred to the pension where the three friends of the one were already housed.  (The Comte de B---l-Pl----r was left with some empty rooms.)

4

At lunch, one began to hear that the complaint that the amount of room and board money we'd all paid was being unfairly distributed.  We understood that M. S------ pooh-poohed this, but it must have been true.  Apparently some parents had contacted the American headquarters in Chicago by this time expressing their concerns.

One day someone decided that we were all going to meet later in the day to discuss what we were going to do about this dreadful injustice.  Even those of us who were satisfied with current arrangements were sympathetic to those who weren't.  After all, living with French families was indeed supposed to be part of the deal.

The meeting - right there in the Institute room where we had lunch everyday, next door on one side to the Directeur's office and on the other side to his assistant's office - was fairly intense.  The aggrieved women were soliciting the support of all the rest of us.  Their leading sympathizers were those other women who had been placed from the beginning with families; even those who were with families knew they had a privilege being denied to others.  So in the meeting they chimed in right away.  The guys happy in that other pension climbed on board, as we all did quite readily.

The next question was, What were we going to do?  Talk of a strike was mentioned, I believe, a petition signed by all of us to the Chicago headquarters, maybe some other things.  Finally it was decided that a delegation of three of us - not including any of those most aggrieved - would go visit M. S------ to see what could be worked out to address the problem.  I had felt up to this time like an outside observer: interested, more or less sympathetic, but not much caught up in the dispute.  But I was commissioned to be one of the three.

5

M. S------ was good-looking, well-dressed, a smooth operator without seeming dishonest.  By education he was an economist.  I can't recall what was said at our meeting, but I do remember that one of the others took the role as our principal spokesman.  He said what we had to say, and M. S------ seemed to take the matter seriously.  As we were starting to leave, having completed our assignment, M. S------ took me aside to say quietly that he was counting on those like me to help him keep things running calmly while solutions could be found.  I was surprised and more than a little intimidated.  Why had I been selected? I wondered.  There was a follow-up conversation with the aggrieved students, and talk of further action stopped.

By this time, I considered myself out of the controversy altogether.  My role, as I had defined it, was to keep the others informed about what was happening in movies, concerts, theatre, and so on.  I did happily this almost every day.  But somehow it soon became clear that the staff (or at least M. S-------) blamed me personally for the whole upheaval.  People began to ask me what I was going to do about it. 

After Christmas break, it became impossible to ignore these rumors and the tension in the atmosphere any longer.  I telephoned my parents.  That itself was a big deal.  It cost real money, Mme. T---------- had to loan me use of the telephone in the sitting room (where we were usually not allowed), arrangements had to be made about timing because of the difference in time zones...  I explained to Mother and Dad that the program was having trouble placing all the students with families, there was some concern about the financial arrangements, and somehow I had inadvertently been selected leader of the opposition.

Dad was supportive, seemed to understand quickly.  It was agreed that I would write a detailed letter to the Chicago office explaining the tensions as nicely and sympathetically as I could.  I don't recall when and how, but it emerged between us that I could just drop out, stay on as had been planned, and still be able to graduate with my class.  The idea was that I would ship my letter off to Dad and that he would call Chicago and tell them he was going to send it on.

That all happened, and when everyone got back from our Mardi Gras trips (we had a week between semesters; my little group of five went to Spain), I was no longer in the Institute.  I think it was the Directeur's assistant - who had always been very nice and gracious - who explained the details to me, worked out after Dad's call to Chicago.  None of us had seen M. S------ himself for a couple of weeks.

6

I never regretted being out of the program.  I don't recall even being lonely; of course, I saw K---- every day, but we didn't actually do much together.  I did keep in touch with the closest friends I'd made at the Institute, and we would go out together once in a while.  I don't know how the management eventually made things seem all right about the housing.

There was a peculiar postlude to this little soap opera.  One day several weeks after I had left the program, in the afternoon mail I got an invitation to dine with M. and Mme. S------ at their home in several days.  Mme. T---------- let me use the 'phone again, so I called the number listed for my response and spoke with Mme. S-------.  I thanked her for the invitation and asked if it would be inconvenient to invite F---, one of the three guys who had gone to that first meeting with the Directeur, to accompany me.  I didn't say so, but I thought M. S------ would try to get me to agree to something that might not have been in my interest.  Mme. S------- readily agreed.  And F--- later said he would help me out.

Dinner that evening was completely uneventful.  F--- was relaxed and charming; I tried to be too.  Mme. S------ didn't say much but was gracious... And M. le Directeur was as nice as could be.  We actually had a pretty good time, despite a little under-current of tension.  When leaving, we all shook hands warmly and wished each other well.

*

I can't help wondering if M. S------ had thought I'd been the leader of the rebellious gang protesting about living arrangements simply because of that cute little joke about speaking French at lunch.  At least, "all's well that ends well."

***

Here's a recent photo of where I lived in Paris in 1962-63.  While the shops on Rue Mayet have changed, "my" doorway still looks much the same.



Wise Sayings 6 from Ron Lucius

***

"Comparisons: Better and Worse"

1

A pain in the Neck

     is better than a pain in the A--

2

Chicken S--t is better than Horse S--t

     which is better than Bull S--t

          which is better than going Ape S--t

                     or being Bat-S--t crazy.

Who decides these things?


……………………………………………………………………Ron Lucius

***

JYA in Paris, Part I (of 2)

***

I was recently given a good collection of recent memories of Paris, where I lived and studied for a year in 1962-63, my junior year in college.  The editors of this book had asked a large number of professional writers to write short pieces relating to how the great French capital had changed their lives, without necessarily analysing the nature of the change.  My own experience in Paris when I was 20 and 21 certainly did change the "me" I have become, so I decided to recall several especially vivid memories from that year in Paris.

1

Part I of this exercise involves some early experiences with learning the French language.  All the two dozen or so of us college students in my JYA group were first involved in a six-week language and orientation program, which began with the five-day trip via ocean liner.

The whole program was eventually littered with rules about speaking the language that may have had some logic behind them but no practicality whatsoever.  Hmmm, "logical but not practical": now that I think of it, maybe these rules were part of our orientation to French culture!

The first rule of this sort was that we were all supposed to converse with each other at our meal tables using French only.  I figured I would imitate a deaf mute, a stratagem I did later adopt for several months, as it turned out.  In a strange quirk of my course selection at college, I had ended my sophomore year having taken only one semester of French Language, followed by just one semester of French Literature.  Everyone else, not only at my college, but - as I discovered - everywhere else, took at least two semesters of Language before starting Literature, which itself took two semesters too.  

So I was significantly disadvantaged compared to everyone else in my program.  The so-called "beginners" had all completed two years of college French, compared to my one, and the "more advanced" students had started their French up to six years earlier, including all four years of high school French!

None of us knew each other until we first got on board in New York, and we were all pretty excited too, so to think we could confine ourselves to speaking French to our new American friends at any time was silly, especially during meals.  What saved the day was that our only supervisor - the wife of our program's director - attempted to enforce the ban on English only at her own one table, which had places for only four.  When all of us came to dine, therefore, three lucky folks got to sit and speak French with Mme S------.  For the most advanced students, this was in fact a good opportunity to polish their skills, and they willingly filled the three empty places at her table at lunch and dinner.

But we happened to pass within 100 miles of a little hurricane after a day or two at sea, which made the ship more unstable than usual... the result of which was that for a while, not a full complement of students actually showed up for meals.  Thank goodness sea-sickness was not one of my own problems.  Coupled with the fact that we all stayed up half the night having fun every night, the ship's pitching meant that the breakfast crowd was especially small.  I myself never missed.

Sooo, one morning I turned out to be the only person besides Mme. S------ who showed up for breakfast.  It was my turn to sit with her and speak (and hear) French.  Being a deaf mute was not an option. 

We managed to exchange a pleasantry or two and ordered our breakfasts (I in English), until there we were, face-to-face.  Somehow, by the grandest good fortune we ended up - Mme. S------ and I - having a rather animated conversation comparing Marilyn Monroe with Brigitte Bardot!  She had to repeat, slow down, and rephrase everything, of course, and I had to think carefully and haltingly grind something out, with coaching from her... So that was enough to get us through breakfast.  (By the way, my pronunciation was always pretty good, so it may actually have seemed I knew what I was doing better than I really did.)

When I told my new friends later than I'd been forced to have breakfast speaking French with our supervisor, everyone was especially sympathetic, sorry for me.  But I was able to tell them sincerely it had actually been sort of like fun.  Fortunately, the same situation never repeated itself!  (Could Mme. S------ herself have stopped getting up early enough for breakfast?)

2

Our first month in Paris, every day we spent three or four hours in class at our little Institute and, as we did all year, had lunch together there.  Mornings were spent doing language exercises; at least some afternoons were spent listening to talks by experts (really) on French culture: politics, existential philosophy, economics, some history, art, and so on.  We were divided into a beginner group and a more advanced group.   I couldn't believe it, but I ended up in the more advanced group.  (I figured it was because of my pretty-good accent and that conversation about Bardot and Monroe.)

The teachers switched around, we supposed in order to expose us to a variety of different voices and accents.  But we all agreed that by far the best teacher was a certain Mme. H---.  Her name was not recognizably French, and she eventually told us that her husband was an American businessman who had lived in Paris since the war.  She told us great stories, including one amusing anecdote showing how idioms were based on different metaphors in different languages.

It had to do with smoking (Mme. H--- being a smoker herself).  To ask for a light or a match  in French, you say, "Avez-vous feu?" [Literally: "Do you have fire?"].  During the war, when she was a young woman, Mme. H--- (Mlle. then, of course) had gone to a USO dance with American soldiers, a small group of whom she had approached with a cigarette between her fingers and said, in her best English: "Do you have fire for me, soldier?"  We thought it was great that she could tell that story on herself.

3

One of Mme. H---'s homework questions was for each of us to come the next morning with an answer to the question (in French, of course),  Why do I get up in the morning?  Yes, it was dumb, but it was a good enough question for the purpose of challenging us to talk.

As luck would have it, Mme. H--- called on three of us that next morning.  The first said something dumb but appropriate, like wanting to not waste valuable time.  Mme. critiqued and then called on someone else, who did the same, saying something dumb but okay.  Then, Mme. H--- turned to me, whom she had thus far left to my own devices.  "M. Derique, Why do you get up in the morning?"   My reply was a question: Comment dit-on en francais...? (i.e. "How do you say in French...?") then, in English, "a full bladder."

Everybody howled raucously, and Mme. H--- openly laughed too.  I had escaped again.


The other regular teacher in the Institute orientation program, by contrast, was just awful.  She was more scared of us than we were of her.  She was ditsy too, and barely prepared every day.  Mme. H--- seemed a professional, while Mme. la Comtesse (yes, a countess) did not.  Still, it was she who had been selected to give us an afternoon talk on the topic of the relation between the American and French Revolutions.  Unfortunately, her thesis was that there would have been no American Revolution if it had not been for the French Revolution.  The Americans had feebly imitated the French's democratic initiative, she maintained.  After 30 minutes of her lecture, no one had the heart to mention that by definition, in any language, to be a cause of an event, your event must come first.

4

Especially for me, one of the most memorable Paris events that year occurred on the first evening.  We had arrived at each of our various residences, mine and three others' at a small boarding house near the Eiffel Tower, in the early afternoon.  We were to gather at our little Institute near the Arch of Triumph for dinner (that day only) a few hours later.

A couple of weeks before I had left home for New York, my Dad had given me a guidebook to Paris that had been recommended by an old friend.  It was filled with detailed maps on the right page, with information about the sites in that area on the left page.  I took it with me.  I must have looked that guidebook over and over again: at home, on the ship, and on that afternoon in my room.   I especially didn't want to get lost on my way to dinner.

After our meal, about six of us decided to walk the couple of blocks up to l'Arc de Triomphe and take a look at the famous Champs-Elysees, which proceeded two and a half miles or so down from the Arch all the way to the Louvre Museum at the other end of downtown Paris.   We were all very excited.  It was obvious why Paris was known as the City of Lights, and everything seemed charmed. 

Pretty soon, it turned out that I was leading the way.  I was having an odd experience: as we came to each corner, I found I already knew what was there and what was near-by.  I didn't remember it; I knew it, just as I would have known each street on the main drag in my home town.

We had not intended to walk all the way to the Jardins des Tuileries outside the big museum, and along the way one or two dropped out of our fast-talking, slow-walking party.  At each street, I would say, "If you wanted to go to X, you would turn down this street to the left" or something like that.  I was giving the others a tour.

I especially remember drawing near Rue Royale at the Place de la Concorde and saying that l'Eglise de la Madeleine was just one block to the left.  When we got to the crossing and looked left, there it was, all lit up.  The thing is, it looked just like I knew it would.  It gave me the strangest thrill.

It gave me a sense that I was to feel the whole year to come.  I felt I had come home.



***

Making Sound Decisions

***

1

Americans, societies generally, or perhaps all human individuals, experience tension between the following:
    
     Emotion             and      Reason
     Superstition    and      Observation
     Dogma                and      Analysis
     Tradition          and      Knowledge.

About every issue and every choice, a person experiences a unique combination of these profound influences on his or her thinking and behavior.  In every decision about one's personal life - such as, whether to go to college and which one, whether to choose where to settle down by geographic preference or by job possibilities, whether to marry and whom to marry, how to prepare for retirement, and so on - in making each decision, one feels a mixture of emotions and rational concerns, one applies a combination of habitual belief and step-by-step analysis, one considers family and cultural norms and what is known about relevant facts.  When a decision is necessary, all influences come into play, whether the individual is highly intuitive making choices instantly or is more deliberative preferring to ponder each question for a while.

The same is true in making social, moral, and political choices - such as whether to wear sandals to a party, whether to tell a convenient lie or voice an uncomfortable truth, whether to vote for Candidate Y instead of Candidate X, and so on.  The same tensions between what you can see at the moment and what your past experience would tell you, between your customary choices and different choices whose advantages you can see, between your "heart" and your "head"... all such tensions work together and against one another to push you in one direction or another.

2

How important the choice is - to you, not to others near you, and not to institutions to which you may belong - the importance of the choice to you may make the decision more difficult and may change the influences that are the most powerful in the particular instance.  For example, if you hear a report that your best friend has secretly worked against your interest, your anger and sorrow may lead you to confront him or her without delay, despite the fact that your reason tells you that your friend would not do this to you and your analytical powers may help you dream up possible explanations for what you have heard.

By contrast, if someone you have known a long time but who has never been particularly close emotionally is said to have acted against your interest in some way, your surprise and perhaps a passing moment of self-doubt and your lack of first-hand knowledge may make you want to confront her or him, but if you have other, more important things on your mind, you may decide without much deliberation to go on as you customarily do, choosing to deal with this later, if at all.  The choice of how to respond in either case is harder or easier to make because of how important the personal offense is.

If you have long defined yourself in part by membership in a particular group, toward whom your customary trust and preconceived ideas have been shaken by some new revelation, then deciding what to do - forgive and forget, agitate for change designed to prevent recurrences, join a protest movement, or quietly leave the group - choosing your action in such a situation will be harder than deciding how to respond to a sad discovery about a rival group, because your decision in the first instance is so much more important to you than in the second case. 

The contest between competing influences - preconceived ideas vs. new knowledge, reasoned analysis vs. disgust or even fear, your wishes vs. your perceptions - these contrasting elements would be the same, whether the issue is important to you or not, but the important choice among the various influences would be much more difficult to make than the less important one.

3

Also, in such a difficult decision, the influences that most affect you may well be different from what most often guides your choices.  In other words, if you are generally a person who feels most comfortable with life continuing tomorrow as it has always done, you would usually be most likely to be guided by tradition and by what others have taught you rather than by what you yourself perceive or experience and by considering all factors in play at the time, when making a decision that you feel is of profound significance even you may be influenced more by your rational analysis of everything involved and by your new knowledge than by habit or temperament. 

The reverse is also true.  Faced with shocking news, a usually reasonable and fact-based individual may respond without careful consideration, motivated by deep emotion.  If a woman's grown son or daughter, for example, has made a choice that the mother instinctively questioned but whose benefits to the grown child do seem reasonable given the facts of the situation, then if she should learn that the daughter has been harmed as a result of her choice - humiliated, injured for life, or even killed - the mother herself (though normally cautious and deliberate) might actually experience despair, unable to call back to mind the analysis that prompted the son's or daughter's original decision.

In such a crisis situation, one may not only behave uncharacteristically but think and feel differently than before.  In crisis decision-making, the balance point between the influences in tension - emotion and reason, belief and perception, preconceptions and analytical thinking, and customary views and new facts - in times of crisis, the balance point may differ radically from one's usual modes of making decisions.

4

So all choices are made under the same basic influences by each of us, whether the choice is personal or moral or social in nature, whether it is particularly important or not, and whether one's final decision is or is not as might have been expected; but just which influences will predominate as the choice is made depends on the particular circumstances.


5

Let us examine a few examples of decision-making.



In 1998, Joanne was a mature, single, professional woman.  She prided herself on her reasonableness, pragmatism, and ability to get full value for her money.  She had been raised in a comfortable but modest middle-class family, and after college had made steady progress in her career without pursuing professional success to the exclusion of other interests.  When she took a week off for vacation, for example, it was characteristic of her that she would consider only activities that she could easily afford; she would seek relatively modest hotels and methods of travel and would plan carefully using comparison-shopping.  She knew she would not enjoy herself on the trip if she had not planned carefully beforehand.

It was her custom to make decisions on rational grounds.  Instead of basing choices on habit, she would make the effort to learn about the key factors in play at the time and make her decision based on prudent analysis of them.  For many, we might think, this would not seem like "fun," but it was for her.

Joanne did not usually drive more than 5,000 - 6,000 miles a year, and in her experience it was necessary to replace her car every ten years or so.  In that amount of time, she found that she did usually develop a sentimental attachment to her car, but she kept uppermost in her mind the fact that after a certain amount of time, it would not be intelligent to hang on to the old favorite when maintenance costs would no doubt soon begin to increase significantly.

In 1998, she began a deliberate search for a new car.  She was replacing a durable, dark-blue, American-made compact sedan with reasonably good gas mileage that she had driven for 12 years.  She felt like it was the best car she'd ever had, but its time had come.  After a lengthy process of researching and looking at the cars at various dealerships, she was tending to focus on three or four choices.  On one Saturday, she test drove them all.  The closest thing to the same model of automobile as her current car turned out to seem tinny and spartan, unlike the modest comfort she had grown accustomed to.  The model of the same make one step up seemed way too expensive, even though it was handsome and she trusted that auto-maker.

That brought her, at least for the moment, down to two choices.  Surprising herself, one of the cars Joanne was actually considering was the new Volkswagen Beetle.  It had a reasonable safety rating, was in her price range, and generally had been well received; so, even though it was smaller than her current car, something about it appealed to her.  The other choice was a Chevy sedan, just the kind of car she would usually have taken: practical, reliable, safe, conservative.

After a day or two, Joanne returned to the dealer for another test drive of the sedan.  Yes, it was just her kind of thing.  But she still hesitated.

When she awoke the next morning, though, Joanne knew just what she was going to do.  She went in to the dealer that evening, worked out what seemed a reasonable deal, and filled out the paperwork.  She bought the Beetle.  The one she ordered would be lavender.

This decision was so hard for Joanne to make because she felt that, this one time at least, she should respond to her personal, emotional impulse: she bought the Beetle mainly because she wanted to (and it wasn't outright stupid, from a practical perspective).  Her emotion in this case was a more important influence than her tried and true, rational, step-by-step approach.  And she just knew "in her heart" that it was the right thing to do.

b.  Case #2, a personnel decision

The firm Bernard worked for emphasized values over and above job skills alone, character traits such as dedication, interaction with other employees, receptiveness to suggestion and/or direction, loyalty, and volunteering for informal in-company responsibilities.  In employee merit evaluations, it was significant if, being candid, a supervisor or his V-P had to note that Employee X was great at his or her "core job" but needed to work harder to absorb the "company culture."   That would not be good.

Bernard found that such character attributes came naturally to him, and he also understood the pragmatic benefits of them to the firm, as they improved teamwork and collaboration, ability to interact positively with the customer or the vendor, job satisfaction, and average length of employment with the firm.  The traits were significant factors in Bernard's department's hiring decisions, and the CEO sometimes used his team as a model for other teams in this regard.

Information Technology was a critical field for an up-and-coming young firm with modest means, but there was more turnover in IT - Bernard's largest department - than in any other area, and successful searches were harder.  When he was honest with himself, Bernard recognized that he had to make compromises in the "company culture" expectations in IT hiring than in any other field.

SuLynn's application stood out from the other applicatants'.  She was originally from Bolivia though of Chinese origin.  She listed as her "Native Language" both Spanish and Mandarin Chinese.  She described her English as "Very Good."  Her education and professional background looked right; she was in a similar IT position at a small family firm in the Midwest and had moved up to that level over 14 years, with 5- and 9-year stints at other firms in the East (where Bernard's firm was located).  After reference checks and a good interview, she was hired.


Bernard's custom was to check out whether a new employee was still at work when he knocked off for the evening, for the first couple of days and then every so often after that.  SuLynn was always there, which was remarked by her immediate supervisor as well.  After only a couple of weeks, a staff member chairing a committee planning the annual company picnic emailed to say SuLynn had volunteered to help out.  Bernard mentioned to the CEO that on the "company culture" side, SuLynn had made a good start.

Within the first several weeks, however, he got reports of mistakes in her work.  Her supervisor said she was well-liked and she responded positively to feedback, but he was a little concerned.  This pattern continued for a while.  One morning SuLynn was waiting for Bernard when he got in at 7:45 a.m.  She looked tired, scared, nervous, and sad.

She had to tell him that she'd somehow let her H1B1 visa expire.  Her immigration attorney said that, with her skills and experience, as well as the shortage of qualified IT candidates, she would have no trouble getting it renewed, but it would take spending a month back in her native country where she would apply.

This was an odd enough situation that Bernard interrupted a one-on-one between the CEO and the head finance guy to explain that he was giving SuLynn a 30-day leave of absence to deal with the issue.  It was her problem, not the firm's; the others in IT could work okay shorthanded for that long, especially for someone they liked, but the damn thing was, if she didn't improve her core job performance within three or four more months, he might end up letting her go anyway.

The CEO liked SuLynn for her dedication and positive attitude.  All he said was to thank Bernard for keeping him in the loop.  But the CFO, with a little glint in his eye, said: "Why don't we contact her in two weeks, down in Bolivia, and say we've decided to reorganize the department and no longer need her services?"

The CEO always wanted every employee to be given every chance to succeed; if they responded well to coaching, they should stay until it was hopeless.  But he didn't respond to this suggestion right away.  After a second Bernard himself broke the silence: "We're not going to do that, Tom."

"Why not?"

"We're not going to do it, because it would be wrong."  The conference ended after a couple of minutes.

Even though Bernard spoke unhesitatingly, without taking time to think, all the usual influences shaped his decision.  Company policy (tradition) was to help people to succeed, not to hurry them out the door, and besides SuLynn looked as though she embodied all the character traits they valued so highly.  Bernard admired her having overcome obstacles in the past, although forgetting to renew the visa was really too much (emotion).  He knew his team could get along without her for a few weeks, especially since she volunteered to keep up with some of her regular tasks via computer (analysis).  And besides, all he had learned about the right way to treat others (established values) told him that the sneaky trick Tom had proposed was just reprehensible.  Bernard was angry it had been suggested.  Established beliefs and values, company tradition, practical analysis all led to the same conclusion: they would keep the position open for SuLynn.


c.  Case #3, political engagement

I'm an American, Randy said emphatically to himself as he rode the mower around his lawn on the north side of his South Carolina home.  I'm a free, white, American man, and you've taken advantage of me for the last time!

Randy had never been involved in politics.  Why bother? he'd thought. They'll find a way to screw you over anyway.  Those damn tax-and-spend democrats, he thought now, tightening his grip on the steering wheel.  This time, he vowed, we'll show them who's in charge in a free democracy, with a free market system.  Get the damn government out of our lives.   Let people make their own decisions.  Leave businesses alone so that they can put good Americans back to work.

As Lou had said last night, at least they still had their jobs.  But the Democrats need to leave businesses free to right the ship and get moving again. 

Randy and Lou soon attended their first political conference.  His favorite talk show hosts had been promoting it.  Randy knew there'd be nothing but friends and colleagues there, and all the leading figures who wanted to clean things up and clean them out in government were going to be speaking.  What could be better?

Randy was the kind of person who made decisions quickly.  He knew his own mind, and he didn't hesitate.  He was now so mad he knew he had to do something.  When he did vote, it was always for the most conservative candidate.  When there wasn't anyone willing to take back America for the people, he just didn't vote.  He'd always done it that way because that's who he was.  He couldn't listen to the national news anymore; they always had the so-called experts saying blah-blah-blah.  Why don't they just admit it: we're going to hell in a hand basket and we've had it up to here!

These days when he was on his break at work, he felt uneasy if he had to miss his afternoon 15 minutes with his favorite radio show.  They might be saying something he ought to know, he thought, and it wouldn't be good if he missed it.  Lou could tell him about it later, but she might get it wrong.

Randy's anger, his knowing his own mind, his sense that his conservative habits should always apply in every circumstance, and reliance on media personalities led him to decide to get involved for the first time in his life.

Up in Massachusetts, on the other hand, Wanda was also distressed about the economic mess we were in.  Over and over again, she found her thoughts going back to the poor and the homeless and the unemployed.  How could anyone just accept those widespread conditions?  The rich don't carry their fair share, she felt.  Big businesses look for huge, quick profits, and to hell with everybody else: that was her position.  Who could turn things around?

When Wanda got a letter or an email asking for money to help unfortunates, she couldn't give much, but if she didn't send a small donation, she was afraid one more child or one more parent might be left out.  We have to help those less fortunate than ourselves, she'd always felt; now that was even more necessary than ever.  Democrats "get it," she felt sure.  When the choice at the polls was between a good Democrat and any Republican these days, she didn't hesitate.  She told her family and friends to be sure and vote, thinking they'd vote her way most often.  If she missed an election herself, she was afraid the other candidate would be elected for sure.

Most times in these highly partisan days, Wanda made her political decisions quickly.  She knew from experience, from her heart, and from everything she'd ever believed is right, and she knew what she ought to do as a result.

Although Randy and Wanda ended up with very different political positions, their decision-making was similar.  The key influences in both cases were emotions, traditions, preconceived values, and a tendency toward a kind of magical thinking: if Wanda or Randy does not behave as she or he is inclined to do, rather than rationally analyzing the probable consequences based on observable facts, they each fear that the consequences of their inaction would be very bad for what they want to achieve. 

6

Whether quickly or deliberately made, whether complex or simple, whether predictable or surprising, all decisions grow out of the interaction of rationality and passion, established belief systems and critical analysis, fear or anger and clear recognition of what one sees around oneself, and traditional patterns of behavior and new perceptions about reality. 

The question whether or not one reaches "the right decision" is of lesser importance for those of us interested in the process of making any choice.  But can we speculate about which influences should predominate in the various kinds of decisions we all have to make from time to time?

There are essentially two kinds of decision: those clearly and significantly affecting others and those affecting others only incidentally (if at all).  For example, the decision of a single person living alone whether to have dinner at the usual time or either earlier or later does not affect anyone else.  The example of Joanne's selecting a new car in Case #1 above does affect others (like the car dealers she is working with) but only incidentally and thus may also be considered a personal decision.

Failing to know whether or not one's decision may significantly affect others would be a problem.  Here's why.  Having little or no effect on others, a personal decision allows the individual to let emotions be a greater influence in making his or her choice than in the case of decisions affecting others.  One's customs and one's established values or beliefs shouldn't be ignored even in such personal choices, and what the individual has learned from experience, training, or observation remains relevant and perhaps significant.  But what "feels right," regardless of other factors, can still be the best guide, leading to the personal decision with the most positive (or least negative) long-term consequences.

On the other hand, if observation, knowledge, reason, or analysis is disregarded or ignored in making decisions that do have the potential for affecting others, one's decisions are much more likely to have unfortunate consequences in the long run and may be downright irresponsible.  How the person feels about something, and how preconceived ideas and traditions would incline her or him to decide cannot and probably should not be overlooked altogether in making any type of choice.  But decisions impacting more than incidentally anyone besides oneself should not be made solely on the basis of emotions, tradition, and pre-existing beliefs.  If they are made on only these bases, decisions may be unfair, unjust, wrong, or at least insensitive.

Wanda and Randy in Case #3 above, for example, respond to political choices on the basis of emotion and on the basis of those influences most likely to stimulate and control one's emotions, namely tradition and preconceived beliefs or values.  The elements required for independent thinking - so critical in a democracy - are observation, knowledge, analysis, and reason.  In political decisions, without exercising the opposing force to one's passions (reason), one's superstitions (observation), one's fixed beliefs including biases (analysis), and one's inheritance from tradition (knowledge), one cannot hope to make the right choice - except by accident.

7

Decisions about whether an action is right or wrong - like the decision about SuLynn in case # 2 - are easily taken out of the individual's hands by inherited beliefs, values, or biases, by superstitions ("I will be punished if I make the wrong choice"), and by what others tell you, drawing on established traditions.  And what a shame it is to avoid responsibility for one's morality by depending solely on these external influences.  Unless their guidance is measured against their opposing influences' implications - observation and knowledge together with reasoned and independent analysis - they are unreliable guides just as likely to lead toward the opposite of what you wish to support in the long run as they are to lead toward it.

8

The United States of America is the product of what's often called "the Age of Enlightenment," the period in European cultures in the 17th and 18th centuries.  Thoughtful people in this period - out of which not only our best social institutions but also our sciences were born - were serious about how one gains knowledge of the truth.  In their time they were usually seeking certain knowledge, which is not a preoccupation of our time; in general, we understand that humans have to get along despite not being absolutely certain, about pretty much everything.

But what is useful for us still today is what Enlightenment writers identified as sources, not of knowledge, but of illusion and falsehood.  Sound decisions, of course, must be based on the truth.  For example, the 18th-century writers noted that one ordinarily understands that the source of most of what we know about the world is our sense observations: what we see, hear, feel, and touch (and so on).  But sometimes we think we see this or that, when in fact we later come to learn we did not see it.  Sense impressions, in other words, sometimes have to be corrected by something, perhaps simply by later observations, perhaps by reasoning, or by something else. 

It was self-evident to Enlightenment philosophers, by the way, that emotion was unrelated to the gain of knowledge, perhaps an obstacle to learning, while reason was an essential tool in increasing our knowledge.  Likewise, beliefs not founded on ordinary reality - superstitious beliefs (magic), for instance - could not be true or useful.

Many of these writers also came to believe that much of what they'd been taught by others did not hold up in light of their own experience and the combined experiences of those from other times and places.  Their traditions had taught them much, but in some - perhaps many - cases, what they had been taught turned out to be untrue.  One's own observations alone and tradition by itself are very possibly the source not of true understanding, they found, but more likely of falsehood or fantasy.

Much of what we are taught by others, of course, consists of the dogma of our time, our family, or our subculture.  And like the other claims for truth that our forefathers contemplated, they found that such established beliefs were as likely to be untrue as they were to be valid.

These writers found that knowledge - on which good decisions rest - did not come from one's fantasies or passions, from one's traditions or the accepted beliefs of one's culture, or even from one's own perceptions (although as independently gathered, unfiltered by others, one's own observations are more likely to be true than what one inherits from others).  The knowledge we can achieve and on which we must base all our actions comes from our independent observations, our analysis of how things influence each other, and our reason.

Sound decisions affecting others - whether apparently moral or political in nature - must be based on the knowledge gained from a combination of independent observation, analysis, and reason perhaps shaped to some degree by our traditions, established beliefs, and feelings.  We may honorably and responsibly allow the latter three forces to influence implementation of our moral/social and political choices and decisions, but if we are to make progress over the long run, the decisions themselves must be grounded firmly in knowledge from observation of the facts, independent analysis of relevant factors, and careful reasoning about them.


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