A THOUGHTFUL MAN PONDERS AN ETERNAL PROBLEM

A THOUGHTFUL MAN PONDERS AN ETERNAL PROBLEM

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© September 23, 2010

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A READER WRITES:

Jim,

On the editorial page (17) of today’s Tampa Tribune is a commentary by Mitch Alborn, “Hard Times: When Will They End?”

It depresses me for a couple of reasons. It suggests everyone is living in misery, which is wrong. It suggests folks do not see the pain of others because they are lost in their own awful situation, which is also not true.

Most of all, though, I feel that to simply speak of, or worse to encourage an, “Oh, woe is me, I just can’t get ahead,” or “Life is just so miserable and nobody cares” attitude contribute nothing positive, but instead help to perpetuate a sense of failure, misery and victim hood.

Mostly, it just offers nothing, no explanation of why, no suggestions for fixing, no ideas on how to overcome problems at either the micro or macro level. What purpose, other than low cost, might the Tampa Tribune have had in printing this piece?

What do you think of that sort of presentation?

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Here is something else I would like your thoughts on.

In the past when panhandlers appeared, I would get irritated and refuse to give them anything. As they have started up again in this economic downturn, I have taken a different approach.

One of the first ones to hit me up was a rather timid elderly guy (my age?) standing outside the post office here in town.

I gave him a couple bucks, and he thanked me. I then found I had forgotten something and had to go back inside. He thanked me again coming and going.

On the way out I saw a friend and we stopped for a few minutes to chat during which this same guy decided to leave the area. As he walked by he thanked me yet again.

In thinking the incident over, I decided that this man would rather have been doing just about anything other than standing there and begging. So, I went out and got a bunch of $1 bills, and put them in the car so I would be ready when stopped at an intersection with panhandlers.

I have concluded:

(1) Panhandlers would rather be doing something else and if they saw an opportunity they would be doing it.

(2) Annoying though they might be panhandlers are at least making some effort for their income. They will probably go away as the economy improves.

(3) They may be scamming in the sense that some are just guys who never work, but even at that, they are better than many of the slugs sitting at home on the couch waiting for the government check to arrive. They will not go away when the economy improves.

I suppose the economic argument about the “one broken pane of glass” has application to their activities. But I have some sympathy for them, and am not sure I go along with the idea of just stopping them. I guess the government will help them out, and that will be better because . . . well, quite frankly, I don’t know. I do think those who would stop them should lay out a plan of what they would do for them.

Take care,

Ted

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DR. FISHER RESPONDS:

The beauty of your note is that you care. You can identify with the less fortunate. You can feel their pain, not in a rhetorical sense, but in a real sense. I don’t know if you are religious man or not, but you exemplify the Christian ideal, of the man, who sees the beggar and gives him aid, only to later learn that it was the Christ.

We have all heard that story. It was an Epistle in the Roman Catholic Church that I heard as a boy. It is in other churches as well, and is not confined only to the Christian faith but to men of good will of other faiths, and no faith everywhere.

I no longer subscribe to The Tampa Tribune, but to The St. Petersburg Times. Incidentally, there is an article by Margaret Carlson of the Bloomberg News on the op-ed page, “Mr. Hope and Change can feel no one’s pain.”

Ms. Carlson is on the president's case about his disastrous town meeting in which he, to his credit, didn’t try to make like slick Willie (Bill Clinton), when Velma Hart challenged him to feel her pain, and the pain of those she served. It was apparent he could only address the question analytically, "I understand your frustration," not your pain.

Imagine if the president had one-tenth of your empathy. How the country would rally to his side!

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Journalists dumb down to our lowest common denominator in order to connect with us as readers. They are not in the business of challenging us. They are in the business of selling newspapers.

Mitch Alborn offended you because you are exasperated by the mere appearance of such gross negativity, as rightly you should be.

On the other hand, I failed to see the point of Ms. Carlson’s article, as the president is not apparently temperamentally suited to waxing much less feeling empathetic. So, there is little point in him stepping out of character and being what he is not.

Bob Woodward has out a new book, “Obama’s War,” and if the reviews are correct, and the text true, the president is more concerned with his historical legacy than the disposition of people. President Herbert Hoover of my State of Iowa could never managed such a challenge. He may not have been the cause of the Great Depression, but he didn't know how to act decisively once it came. Could the same case be made for our current president?

If so, I would suggest further that President Barak Obama is not an aberrancy, but a cultural phenomenon of what we have become, a society out of touch with reality, a society driven to get whatever we can while the getting is good, and to worry more about making an impression than a difference.

In the same op-ed page is an article by Maureen Dowd, “Truly madly purely Jimmy.”

It is an article about our ex-president Jimmy Carter. It is not a complimentary piece, but alludes to this president's many faux pas. Yet, while doing so, Ms. Dowd mentions in passing all that President Carter has done for people about the globe since leaving office.

Yes, he misspeaks on occasion, but who doesn’t? Yes, he has been fodder for exploitative television comedians. That said he has also connected with the downtrodden across the world, and with leaders within the so-called “evil empire” without apologies. He doesn’t have to confess to feeling the pain of others. His life and work is testimony to the fact.

You are a reader and thinker as well as doer. It is a manifestation of your discerning intellect that you process and rethink what you have read to see how it computes with your experience and life. Alas, were more only engaged in such a noble process.

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The mind is a happy playground. Your candor in expressing your suspicions about panhandlers, and then passing through that filter to a course of action illustrates what I call “Sequential Chronology of Interpersonal Interaction” (The Taboo Against Being Your Own Best Friend, 1996, page 250), which is the basis for getting beyond our apprehensions.

Obviously, the panhandler could be scamming, but his gratitude suggested otherwise, and you acted on that basis. That took courage and resolve, and yes, humanity. Whether you are God fearing or atheist, we all know, “there go I but for the grace of circumstances.”

There is ample justification for you to have turned away, and said, “Get a job!” Something in that man’s expression connected with your feelings, and those feelings connected with your thinking, and that thinking led you to a decision to give him “a couple of bucks.”

In my piece on “Two Remarkable Books,” I reference Antonio Damasio and his book, “Descartes’ Error.”

Damasio has shown in his work that emotions and their biological underpinnings are involved in decision-making (both positively and negatively, and often unconsciously). This provides the scaffolding for the construction of what he calls, “social cognition.”

You have it, and used it, and will not regret it. Your gut intelligence prevailed, and it has been my experience it never fails.

In our culture, rational determiners often discourage empathy. Empathy connects us to the least of our brothers and sisters, as it makes the world better one person at a time. In that sense, we are the government.

Thank you for sharing, and always be well,

Jim