THE WORLD IN DISORDER -- WHY KLAUS HAS A POINT -- KLAUS AND MICHAEL RESPOND!

 THE WORLD IN DISORDER – WHY KLAUS HAS A POINT – KLAUS AND MICHAEL RESPOND!

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© September 17, 2014

REFERENCE:

No two individuals look alike, so it shouldn’t surprise us that no two individuals think alike, yet we can become exercised to the point of anger or, indeed, frustration when people don’t think as we do, as how we think we often believe is the only way to think properly.  Small wonder that we have so much trouble in the world.

As pointed out earlier in these several exchanges, power and religion get our attention because power and religion impact either positively or negatively, it would seem, our economic health, happiness and well-being.

Everyone agrees that death and taxes are certainties, and we take this reasonably well if not matter-of-factly, so why not the reality of the rich and the poor, the ambitious and the lazy, the fortunate and unfortunate?

Could it be that we fail to recognize or accept the difference between equal opportunity and equality?  We are all different, sui generis, all unique, but rather than accept the fact we tend to punish ourselves and others for this natural discrepancy in being.

Lately, on PBS television, there has been a Ken Burns series on the Roosevelt’s, profiling the lives of Theodore, Franklin Delano and Eleanor Roosevelt, all from the same clan, intermarrying their own kind, privileged, patrician, the two men rising to the Presidency of the United States, and a First Lady of singular distinction, and all having major roles in the transition from a sleepy naïve America to the dominant hegemony of the world. 

For those who have read history of these figures, there are few surprises, but still many of these histories are hagiographies of these three because we Americans like heroes, and don’t like our heroes to be shown many of their flaws.  Ken Burns is of another mind, and shares some of human frailties of this distinctive trio, and I suspect for many it is a surprise. 

For example, Theodore was compulsive to the point of madness with blind ambition compensating for his deficiencies which were many in terms of health and well-being.  Franklin Delano was a party animal, which one Chief Justice of the Supreme Court called “having a first class personality and a second class mind,” which, as it turns out, was probably pretty accurate.  Eleanor was more stable, mature, more balanced and engaged, if not brighter than the two.  She quietly did amazing things while her husband, Franklin Delano took the bows, and was reelected four times.

The Roosevelt’s were born to wealth, but turned away from its hedonistic self-indulgence and self-gratification to serve, and preserve, and conserve.  We, as a nation, owe them much, and yet they were as flawed if not more so than the least of us.  We have not seen their like since, nor have we experienced their kind of leadership. 

I was born when Franklin Delano Roosevelt became president, and grew up absorbing his personality and leadership, and his definition of what it was to be an American.  I lived in a household that treated him with the reference common to saints.  His picture was on the wall along with Pope Pius XII, two very different men, but two men patrician to their bone marrow, with a belief that they personified leadership without having to bother about its definition.

These three Americans and this one Italian were born in the nineteenth century with a sense of place and space.  They were reared in the ideas and ideals that were assumed rather than definitively defined.  Put another way, they were born into an age that preceded our self-conscious age in which everything is defined or explained, ad infinitum, while events control circumstances and a sense of place and space is preoccupied in distractions.  They used technology rather than being enamored of technology, and not always wisely.  That said they took charge and defined events rather than waiting for events to define action.

For the past quarter century, I have been writing books, publishing articles, giving speeches, conducting seminars, and teaching with a simple agenda that is reflected in these pages of the Peripatetic Philosopher, and that is that self-acceptance leads to tolerance of self as well as others, which in turn leads to living with and utilizing our own unique inherent ability to its fullest capacity.  If we do, chances are we will get to where we think we want to go – both Roosevelt’s expected to be president and behaved in ways to enhance that possibility – and have the life we think we deserve.

I am appalled by the continuing references on television and in books as to how bright or intelligent this or that person is.  Intelligence is not an I.Q. or SAT test score.  Intelligence is what it does.  Likewise, where we are, right now, doing what we are doing, being what we are being, having or not having what we think we should have or deserve having is precisely where we expect to be. 

It is why we are not somewhere else doing something else.  It is terribly predictable if not always satisfying because so many of us rush through life on automatic pilot, and act surprised when we find ourselves where we find ourselves being.  It is, I assure you, no accident, and no accident at all.  The Roosevelt’s were not governed by appetites but by ambitions, appetites are always there, but tabled when ambition takes precedence.

Most of us get to where we want to go because we pay attention in school.  Pundits and educators, knowing how most of us think, have attempted to motivate us as students by telling us how much we will make if we pay attention in school, stay in school, and go beyond high school, even college, into some specialty or another.

Money is the elixir, and so we chase money like a greyhound running around the track chasing a mechanical rabbit, and think we have arrived when we cross the finish line, only to find money is like that mechanical rabbit, a terrible disappointment.

Klaus of my title piece responds to my suggestion that he is not angry, while Michael looks at my piece from his perspective, both are legitimate, both have merit, and both reflect two people who have paid the price in life to find their way.

I write in MEET YOUR NEW BEST FRIEND (2014):

We are all authors of our own footprints in the sand, heroes of the novels inscribed in our hearts.  Everyone’s life, without exception, is sacred, unique, scripted high drama, playing out before an audience of one, with but one actor on stage.  The sooner we realize this, the more quickly we overcome the bondage of loneliness and find true friendship with ourselves.

Theodore Roosevelt’s life in particular is a reflection of this homily.

KLAUS RESPONDS:

You are right, I am not angry.  I find the ignorance of human nature interesting.  I learned many things while teaching from students, and they in turn learned. 

While studying art the concepts that were used to teach drawing came from a book The Natural Way to Draw. I used that method in my drawing classes. 

What I found was that just like everyone can learn to write everyone can learn to draw if they make the effort.  However, just like it does not mean everyone who learns to write will become a great writer so everyone who learned to draw does not achieve the same level of success. 

After I got a MA in art education I started teaching art classes to 7th graders.  One of the ideas pushed in the art education classes was that the teacher should put all work on the bulletin board no matter the quality. 

After the first two weeks students started asking why certain pieces were on the bulletin board because they thought they were not very good.  After that lesson from my students I only put the A work on the bulletin board.  After that students would work hard to get their work on the board. 

For anyone who would disagree with that I would respond that in sports and anywhere else everyone is not equal. 

We can all learn something up to a point if we work hard, but everyone will not achieve the same level of quality.  That is the same in all parts of life including the economic part.  If people are given things without effort they never work to achieve more.

MICHAEL RESPONDS:

These "welfare" discussions are so tedious. Less than 10% of the federal budget is allocated to the poor. You know, the people who actually might be living in cardboard boxes. Yes, there are other forms of welfare that are not included in my ten percent. That would be Social Security, Medicare (not Medicaid), and corporate subsidies. Still, 10% is less than half the defense budget. It is also less than half of what the federal government pays in pensions.

That's the crux. "Taking from the rich" is not "giving to the poor." There's a bit of (well, maybe a lot of) narrow-mindedness that informs most of these arguments.

We tend to blame systems for things we don't like. It's not my fault seems to be the mantra favored by the have nots as well as the haves. In the end, every war, every disturbance, can be traced back to two things - money and religion. Money usually takes the lead and religion follows on as an excuse.

The reality is most of us work hard to get what we have. Others, through laziness, bad luck, aggressiveness or good fortune become the statistical outliers. When those with good fortune are asked to pay a bit more in taxes to improve the infrastructure that allowed them to become rich, it's only fair.   

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