The Peripatetic Philosopher Writes!

A Letter from an Octogenarian to an Octogenarian – Why is that?

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

© May 24, 2015

Henry,

For all our angst over the way things are, they are rapidly changing.  Every institution we know is in a state of flux, rebirth or demise.  This has been going on while we remain focused on the here and now with our heads metaphorically stuck in the sand.  Why is that?

We are entering a new day!  Can’t anyone see that?  Old rules and old biases, even old thought processes are in the way.

Your focus on government while mine on Western culture has beguiled us both, and for reason.  Yet, certainly despite us, surely not because of us, both are changing.  The fact that this change is resisted is not news.

ISIS we like to think is a mirage with its violence and failure to operate within the Geneva Convention.  In Iraq, Ramadi was taken over this past week by ISIS with 200 men while 2,000 Iraqi military forces fled for their lives, leaving thousands of citizens of this great city to fend for themselves.  Why is that?

The United States, war weary in 2015, reminds one of the pusillanimity of the French when German tanks pushed into the Ardennes and along the Somme Valley on May 10, 1940 with little opposition, making WWII inevitable.  

When you have lived as long as we have, you don’t have to be a politician or a military expert, much less an economist or any other exulted discipline, to see that we as a society have a penchant for repeating the same mistakes.  It is as if no learning is possible to take place.  Why is that?

Here in my modest study I entertain myself by reading books, books written by people who are said to be in the know, people be they academics, politicians, pundits or naysayers.  They can lace words together with some eloquence, but never seeming to actually make a difference in the scheme of things.  They are like court jesters in our major institutions and might as well be wailing to the wind.  Why is that?

David Brooks, the conservative journalist of the New York Times, with an almost “gee whiz” engaging likeability, has a new book out, The Road to Character.  He claims virtue and kindness matter, but we are too self-centered, self-obsessed and selfish to notice. 

His declaration, I’m sure, resonates with many.  Who can be against virtue and kindness?  I’m confident neither of us can.  Brooks goes so far as to say we’re too caught up in self-actualization to notice, while, clearly, his book demonstrably is an expression of that pentacle in Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs.”  Why is that?

My view, and it is only my view, which I have shared with a parochial audience, is that we are not centered enough; that we have misplaced our moral compass and therefore our own personal guidance system, and are looking everywhere for it – perhaps expecting to find it in “The Road to Character,” but I doubt with success.  Why is that?

There is a serious flaw in the Christian-Judaic code, and that is that virtue and kindness are impossible without being selfless, centerless, and obliging to satisfying the needs of others before meeting our own.  Why is that?

I have a throwaway sentence in Being Your Own Best Friend (2015):

“To attempt to do for others what they best do for themselves is to weaken their resolve and diminish them as a person.”

The same applies to nations as the Romans found out when it went into the nation building business a couple of millenniums ago.  Yet, here we are with ISIS rampaging through the Middle East and Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and yes, Israel, waiting for America to spend treasury and blood to right the situation because America has spent treasury and blood to make these nation-states counter dependent.  Why is that?

The National Security Agency is under serious attack and may lose some or much of its funding, as well as its blank check on surveillance strategies, because it is now nearly fourteen (14) years since 9/11, and we have had no serious disruption equivalent to the downing of the Twin Towers on September 1, 2001 with the loss of nearly 3,000 lives. 

Yet, in a country, indeed, in a Western Society, geared only to crisis management strategies, should this safety net, this umbrella of security start to leak, and an American city be removed from existence, the most draconian measures ever imagined will be immediately put into place. 

Then the politicians, the academics, the pundits and the naysayers, like social termites coming out of their hovels, will be seen everywhere with accusations and answers, books and polemics with “I told you so, and you wouldn’t listen,” while freaks will be chanting “these are our last days.”  This scenario resembles very much the one I’ve uncovered with my research for the “Jesus Story.”  Why is that? 

While on that theme, there were no better spin doctors than Matthew, Mark, Luke and John of the New Testament.  There is no historical proof that Jesus said or did any of the things they alleged for him to have said or done.  The times then were as insane as ours, and no one personified that insanity with more efficacy than did the man named Saul, then Paul, then St. Paul. 

There is not a word of the Four Gospels that can be verified much less the authors as Matthew, Mark, Luke and John may be names of convenience.  Scholars simply do not know.  On the other hand, much of what Paul said is in some form of verification.  

Religion is now and has always been a political movement wrapped in a spiritual tunic.  Why is that?

ISIS justifies its revolution with the words of the Koran from the prophet Mohammad who was a military, political leader. 

Emperor Constantine of Rome made Christianity the state religion, a religion he never bothered to practice but used for political advantage.  Why is that?  Or better yet, why don’t we have a problem with that?

Man has been on this planet for tens of thousands of years, perhaps in the millions of years, yet religion as a spiritual/political system is relatively new, even for ancient faiths.  Are we to believe there was no organized religions or political systems before 3,000 years Before the Christian Era (BCE)?  Why is that?  

Buddhism has been around only since the sixth century BCE as has Confucianism.  Christianity came into being in the first century of Christian Era (CE), while Judaism claims to have existed for 1500 years BCE and Taoism since 2700 BCE.  Obviously, there are other ancient faiths, but none that have managed to survive so holistically until now.  Why is that?

Would it be too much of a stretch to suggest that organized religions and, indeed, political systems, given man has been around for hundreds of thousands of years, represent the equivalent of a day in the time of humans?

And given that all of these religions have had violent histories before they settled into respectability, even Buddhism and Taoism, less so Confucianism, which is more an ethic than a religion, we might better look at what caused them to turn from violence to sensibility.

We look at ISIS in terms of its violence – beheadings – and fail to process the fact that Christian history competes with that violence with its Inquisition, its Crusades, and other gratuitous wars in the name of the Christian faith over two millenniums. 

We selectively forget that ancient civilizations, grand civilizations, existed in Central and South America, and that after Columbus discovered America in 1492 C.E., these Great Civilizations were erased from the globe in the name of Christ as Europeans believed they were civilized and could act uncivilized with these peoples of other cultures and save them by destroying their cultures for their own good.  Why is that?

Henry, one of the privileges of being an old man is (1) nobody takes you seriously; (2) nobody expects you to be around much longer; and (3) therefore you can say and think what you like to your heart’s content.  And people will feel good about themselves by allowing you that privilege.  Why is that?

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