John O’Donohue: The importance of Contradictions

Extremism, Philosophy/Ideas, Polarization

 

Will Braun asked Christiane and I to consider the poetry of John O’Donohue when he was teaching us to dissolve the extremes. I loved the poetry and his glorious voice, but it took me awhile to figure out this fit into the concept of polarizations and how to neutralize them. He did not spell it out for us. He mainly sent a link to a glorious interview with him and some even better poetry.

 

John O’Donohue was a brilliant Irish poet and modern-day mystic. Please note O’Donohue also does not see awakening of life as a bad thing. He does not use the word “awakening” as a pejorative.  It is a good thing. To be awake, or to come out of a slumber is blessed. It is good to be alert. There is a time and place for sleep, but to deal with important ethical questions, for example, being asleep is not an advantage. This is contrary to MAGA right who have been adamant—and not just adamant, but fanatical—about the evils of wokeness.

 

Donald Trump has even tried to make it contrary to law. American Universities are now required to renounce wokeness in order to get millions of dollars in federal grants. Needless to say, they are all scrambling to get as far away from woke as they can possibly get and as fast as possible.

 

John O’Donohue took a different approach which was founded by an unusual idea.

 

O’Donohue thought contradictions were important and could be very useful. He said this:

 

 “Part of the awakening of any life, is the arrival of contradiction within that life. There is no sense of the other deep sides of ourselves. One of the sad aspects of the modern exploration of the self, is that it lacks all irony, that smile at us as we explore the miniscule explorations. It is sometimes in the most unusual places that you discover the gift of the beautiful.”

 

Contradiction is “a precious arrival” he says. That is counter intuitive, at least to me, a student of Aristotle who found non-contradiction as the philosophical foundation of the rational life.  If you arrived at a contradiction, Aristotle asserted, you have arrived at a falsehood.

 

But O’Donoghue said “we have demonized negativity, paradox and contradiction”. In this way we have removed irony from our lives at great personal cost. He felt that did not expand life, it  reduced life.

 

It took me a while to figure out how this related to extremism?  It is impossible to be extreme when you admit the opposite of your position—i.e. the contradiction—is part of the good.

 

To embrace contradictions you must give up the extremes!

 

Looking down on Others

Moral Humility, Polarization

 

In our CMU course with Will Braun, he said that in the spirit of expanding our capacity to see a wide range of people as the beloved of God, he asked us this question: “Have we ever enjoyed looking down on others?”   This question bit. Thankfully I could not remember a specific occasion but I had to admit to myself I probably had done that. Not one of my finer moments. People who can do that, Braun suggested were “confident in their own righteousness.”  That is what enables us to look down on others. Again, I must admit I have done that too. My bad.

Shamefully, I must acknowledge I have felt that satisfaction. But thanks to Will Braun, I won’t ever again have that easy confidence in my own righteousness. I am sure I will still have too much of it, but at least, I hope, a little less than I would have had before.  I will have to back off a bit. I will have to keep my hubris in check and release my humility instead. I hope I can do it.  Not sure I can.

 

Are The Democrats as bad as the Republicans?

Extremism, Polarization

 

Democrats recently have been demonstrating that in many ways they are just as bad as the Republicans. This should hardly be surprising. Tribalism runs deep, particularly in the USA.

 

In the US the Democratic party has found itself in a moral quandary.  As we all know they want to win the upcoming mid-term elections badly. To do that most commentators believe they have to win the Senate race in Maine to defeat the Republican Lisa Collins the incumbent who is seeking a 6th term. Her seat is considered shaky because Democrats were strong in Maine.

 

At least until recently, the leader in the race to gain the primary in Maine was harbor master Graham Platner who has more than a chequered record. Apparently he has a Nazi tattoo. He has faced a lot of claims of sexual harassment and now even an accusation of rape.  Platner was leading in the race with 72% support until after a long delay he was forced by the party elite and others to withdraw.  Until then the Democrats had a choice to support a much less than ideal candidate or lose the election to Collins   Many Democrats were showing they were fully prepared to hold their noses and vote for Platner despite their long history of virtue signalling.

 

In November 2017, during his election campaign for U.S. Senate in Alabama as a Republican several public allegations of sexual misconduct were made against Roy Moore. 3 women stated that he sexually assaulted them when they were aged 14, 16, and 28. 6 other women reported that when he was in his thirties, he pursued sexual relations with them even though some were as young as 16. He denied assaulting them but acknowledged he had approached them.  None of this was sufficient to stop Donald Trump from endorsing him and that encouraged some Republicans to endorse him as well, but fortunately he lost the election to a Democrat. Democrats of course were quick to mock Republicans for their deplorable behaviour.

 

Now the shoe is on the other foot. Many Democrats were making it clear that they were quite prepared to ditch their morality in the hopes of defeating Collins but the damage to the Democrats’ reputations   has been done. They have demonstrated clearly that they are not much better in this respect than Republicans.

 

On both sides, this is how tribalism works and it stinks to high heaven. Tribalism is the mother of extremism.

 

 

 

We Seem to Disagree on Everything

Extremism, Gender Warfare, Moral Humility, Pluralism, Social Issues, Woke

 

The divisions in America keep growing in number and in the depth of those divides. As usual, Canada is the same just a little more gently. Polls have shown that many Americans think those divisions are so deep that the country will not be able to survive its problems.  In other words, because of polarization we are doomed.  But are things that bad?

 

Mark Edmundson writing for the New York Times pointed out that evolutionary biologists have determined that,

 

“binary behavior is an evolutionary adaptation. It inheres in the reptile brain. There was a time when it was incumbent on us to decide and decide quickly who was friend and who was foe. Will it eat me? Am I safe around it? Err, if you must, on the side of enmity. You don’t want to equivocate about a sabre-toothed tiger.”

 

But, he also said, he did not agree things were that bad. Edmundson suggested the famous philosopher Jacques Derrida had some important things to say on the topic.  Derrida hated the compulsion so many of us have to divide the world into binaries or polarities.  Life just was not that simple he said.  That is why according to Edmundson, Derrida was an “an enemy of simple, dualistic thinking.” That is not a bad thing. Such thinking deserves critics. Added to that, he said “Derrida worried that compulsive binary thinking, in which one seeks opposition everywhere, could readily lead to violence…”  Edmundson agreed with Derrida. So do I.

 

Edmundson preferred the position of that modern philosopher Ted Lasso, who said instead, we should “Be curious, not judgmental.” That is often good advice. As a result Derrida called for thinking that did not require polar opposites but instead “resembled a form of thinking that was not based on the tension of opposites but resembled an ever-expanding web of rich associations.” Derrida’s curiosity led him to affirm the free play of the interpreting mind.

 

I agree with both of them but put it just a little differently.  My take is that we should not think and see in black and white, nor even gray. We should think and see in colour. Glorious colour. But that is not what we do.

 

Instead of that we think in black and white. We think the world is either A or B. 2 choices no more.  Pick a side and stick with it. As Edmundson said,

 

“Our culture is amok with binaries. We have two major parties, just two, and they are forever opposed. When a group tries to start a third party, it can be summarily disabled by the existing powers. We love sports, generally the most binary of activities. One side wins; one side loses. Root hard for your squad and the devil take the opposition. We savor debates where one side wins and one side loses.”

 

In the larger world, we find allies and we find enemies. We are, as I say, Democrats or Republicans, realists or idealists, people of much faith or people of none. We wear our team jerseys with pride and scoff at the opposition’s colors.

 

 Such binary thinking is just plain impoverished and so are we if confine ourselves to black and white.  Yet it is everywhere.

 

There is one clear modern example of this deficiency which is pretty plain if you look. That is thinking about  sex and gender.  More and more people are saying there are only 2 sexes and 2 genders.  A person is a male or female. Oner or the other. The pendulum is swinging. There are no other choices. In fact this is an issue in the municipal elections in Steinbach this year, as odd as that seems.

 

But life is not that simple, even if we would like it to be.  It is an uncomfortable fact that some people are born with ambiguous sexual organs. It is just not clear whether the person is male or female. Such a person could be one or the other or some combination of both. Such people are called intersex.

 

The differences between the genders is even less clear. There seem to be a lot of choices when you look. As Edmundson said, “Insisting on purity — you must be one thing or another — will inevitably create confusion and resentment.” That really is the point.  Insisting on simple answers will just bring about a lot of unnecessary unhappiness and pain.  There is no need to insist upon a clear distinction. There is nothing to be gained by such simplified thinking. Its none of our business. Let others live and let live.

 

Edmundson had a better approach, which he found in eastern religions. This is what he said,

 

“A person influenced by the great Eastern texts, the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita, would be likely to see it differently. The best state of mind is one in which you can look out on all creation, other people in particular, and say to yourself: That, too, I am.

 

We are all part of one being; we all possess the same soul. This way of seeing does not cultivate opposition or conflict. It accepts what comes its way without picking sides and initiating strife.”

 

This does not just apply to issues of sex or gender. We should look at the other and keep our opinions to ourself.  If the other person is suffering from confusion let him or her or they choose. Be happy.

 

I am not sure the Bible actually says, as some suggest, “we are all God’s children,” but it could still be true. If you believe in God surely you would say we are all God’s creation. Is that not enough to give us all dignity? Sometimes, we should give up judging in favour of accepting. As the Beatles said, “Whispser words of wisdom. Let it be.”

 

Is that not enough?

Even Hitler was Loved by his Mother

Extremism, Hate, Polarization

 

Mark Edmonson pointed out in a New York Times articles something that is actually quite obvious. He said, “Our culture is amok with binaries.” I have called it ‘My way or the highway’ thinking. This is particularly true in politics but this attitude has seeped into many aspects of modern life. For example, in can still be seen among some religious communities where each thinks they have a monopoly on truth and the “other religions” wallow in ignorance.  Sadly, many Mennonites think that way, though not as many as before.  There is some improvement. For example, my teacher Will Braun, did not think that way. He always worked hard to avoid such binary thinking. He was a Christian but admitted that there is truth to be found in other religions.

 

Sports is one field where binaries still rule and the glaring ugliness of it can be seen there.  At hockey games or football games as soon as the referee makes a call adverse to “our side”, we tend to leap up in with venomous disgust. We can’t stand it.  I have even seen parents jumping and screaming at very young refs of games in which their children are participating. It is ugly enough to tarnish the sport.

 

And really, we must admit that these games and these perceived injustices are really pretty insignificant. Why do I love the North Carolina Tar Heels and hate the Duke Blue Devils? They are both great basketball teams and live about 7 miles apart in North Carolina. But there is a lot of hatred between those teams, and sadly, not all of it is good natured. Some of it is vile and really the differences between the two sides are puny.

 

This is what Freud called the “the narcissism of minor differences.”  And their sole purpose is to keep insignificant binaries alive. Yet, even though I know this is true, when I watch the next basketball game between Duke and North Carolina is will be dying every time Duke makes an unlikely basket or North Carolina misses an easy shot. These small differences to me are very important. My bad.

 

We should not think and see in black and white, nor even gray. We should think and see in colour. Glorious colour.

 

Will Braun’s attitude which he got from his interpretation of the Bible was that we are all God’s children.  My wife Christiane says something similar, also wisely, “Even Hitler was loved by his mother.”

 

 

Why do we hate so much?

Polarization

 

Will Braun who taught the course that Christiane and I took at Canadian Mennonite University 2 years ago said that “we are all God’s Children.”  He is a Christian and to him that is a fundamental principle. God loves all of us. Not just the Christians who go to church. Not just Christians. He also loves Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, and people who don’t love him back or even believe he exists. I suspect a lot of modern Christians don’t agree with Braun. I find it easier to believe that many of them hate Muslims for example. At least that is what their actions suggest. They don’t even treat Muslims with respect let alone love. Some claim to love them but I just don’t believe them because their words and actions suggest otherwise.

 

In fact, it seems to me many Americans hate Muslims. Many hate Jews or blacks or indigenous people. Again, they might claim to love them, but to me it seems more likely that they hate them. Perhaps even more obviously, many Americans hate Democrats. And Many Americans hate Republicans.  They hate them because they are on the “other side”.  And they can’t stand the other side in many cultural disputes. They hate gays or lesbians, or heterosexuals. They hate whites or blacks. They hate, often with surprising viciousness, those on the other side of their important cultural and political debates.

 

About a year ago or so, Charlie Kirk was murdered. He was loved on the right, but not so much on the left.  In fact, it seemed if the right loved him the left would have to hate him. He was immediately attacked on the left and defended on the right. People took sides. And those sides were sacred. No one gives up on what they think is sacred.  At least it is very difficult, if it is not impossible.

 

Some have called this “binary thinking.”  Mark Edmundson said this in an article in the New York Times: “Look around: Binary thinking (often informing binary rage) is everywhere in our country.”

 

One person who resisted binary thinking was Van Jones an occasional commentator on CNN. This is what he said about Kirk: “I was very frustrated with people in my party throwing rocks at the corpse before he could even be buried.” According to Edmundson, “Mr. Kirk was on the other team, and in binary-thinking America, that meant he was a foe.”

 

I think he was right. Not all teams work that way, but increasingly political teams do. You are almost required to hate the other team to stay on your team. You risk shunning if you don’t hate enough. Religious groups used to work that way too, but thankfully, many of them are moving in the other direction.

 

At Charlie Kirk’s funeral service his widow said, demonstrating Christian principles in action, that she did not hate the man who killed her husband. She said she forgave him. That is uncommon. Donald Trump was very different. This is what Trump said,

 

“Mr. Kirk did not hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them. That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponents, and I don’t want the best for them.”

 

Kirk and his wife were followers of Trump, but they did not follow him down this path. When leaders do the wrong thing we should not follow them. That is unusual in modern politics, particularly politics that are as polarized as American politics, and increasingly, Canadian politics which is going down the same path as Trump, not Kirk.

 

I recently attended a conference that was attended by many religious people of various religions and they all got along  respectfully. It was great to see. Pluralism in action. This is a big improvement over the “good old days”, that were really not always so good. I hope we don’t start back-sliding. Extremism is really not often attractive. Often its ugly. Just watch Trump. Or the extremists on the left for that matter.

There is a better way.

Lawful Little Migrants

Hummingbirds

In South America the Andes mountains provide great habitat for numerous hummingbirds. In fact, as David Attenborough remarked, “half of all humming birds live in these mountains along with their plant partners.”

 

The Ruby-throated Hummingbird, which is the only one to live in Manitoba, needs to make sure that it leaves the north before its plants stop producing nectar for the winter. If it fails to do that right it will starve.  When the time comes, they begin their incredible migration to the south. When they arrive in places like Rockport Texas they load up with food where they can get it. Many people place feeders for them on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Each of the humming birds must convert sugar from its source such as nectar, into fat for the long migration over the gulf which has very few islands for resting on the flight.  Most fly non-stop across the Great Bay that some idiots call the Gulf of America.

According to David Attenborough, “in just 3 days the average hummingbird will nearly double its weight. This is the equivalent of a human of average weight putting on over 50 kg of fat in 3 days.” As Attenborough said, “During the peak of migration Rockport is home to tens of thousands of hummers. This spectacle of so many hummers can be found nowhere else on earth.” Needless to say, it attracts bird enthusiasts from around North America. Those are the real bird brains.

 

The crossing of the Gulf of Mexico is the greatest test of the flying skill of the hummingbirds. They make their journey at night and fly at least 800 km non-stop. That is an enormous task for such a little bird. No one really knows how they can do it. But they do it.

I love this photo because it shows the long tongue of these birds which are used to suck out nectar from flowers with long nectar chambers.

 

David Attenborough summed up hummingbirds like this:

 

“There is much we do not know about humming birds and their secret high-speed lives, but what we do know is that they are the most remarkable, colourful, energetic and acrobatic of all creatures. They live at the limits of what is possible. Nature’s miniature masterpieces and all because they are the messengers of plants.”

 

 

We are fortunate to be blessed with hummingbirds. Life would be so much duller without them.

 

At the Edge of what is possible

Hummingbirds

 

 

 

It is abundantly clear that hummingbirds have an abundance of skills, some of them spectacular. As a result of all of exercising these skills they require a lot of energy. Their flights are often like aerial pilots with their dogfights.

As  David Attenborough in his film explained this:

 

“When flying, hummingbirds have the highest oxygen demands of all vertebrates. Their wings beat as fast as 80 times a second. The problems is getting all that oxygen to the proper place. When the bird is perched its heart beats at around 400 times per minute. In flight it rises to an astonishing 1,200 beats per minute [20 times per second] as the heart pumps oxygen rich blood to the wing muscles. Even this is not enough for hovering, so the heart expands in size so it can pump more blood with each beat. When this happens, the blood circulates around the whole body. Heart to lung, heart to muscles, and back to the heart in under 1 second! They are living at the edge of what is possible. Extreme aerial athletes with extreme needs. It’s no surprise that when they are not flying and feeding, they rest and conserve energy.”

That really is astounding. As a result of all of this, hummingbirds spend 80% of their day perched. That is why I sometimes have such a hard time finding them, as they perch often inside tree branches where it is so dark and difficult to photograph them. During this time, they stretch muscles and groom their very important feathers. They also take advantage of rains to clean their feathers. Unlike insects they really seem to flourish in the rain. I noticed this from inside my cottage this summer when I was watching hummingbirds in the rain.

 

The hummingbirds also as a result need to protect their sources of nectar. In the forests of South American for example, they must protect their flowers from nectar thieves. That is why they have evolved to drive out competitors. Like all good capitalists they are habituated to destroy the competition. It is in their nature.

 

As a result of all of these high energy needs, hummingbirds must feed every 15 minutes or more. “Starvation and even death is always only hours away,” Attenborough reported. As a result, they don’t have time to visit flowers that have no nectar. They don’t really have time to chase competitors to away either, but I can report they do. This begs the question, what do they do in the dark?

 

Staying alive until morning is a challenge for every hummingbird. They do that by going into torpor every night of their lives. This is similar to hibernation. It is like going into hibernation every night! Their heart rate drops precipitously and their heart rate goes down from 400 to 40 beats per minute. That is 1% of the energy they use when flying!  This is a radical solution, because while they are in torpor they can’t move and are easy prey for predators that are out and about where they are. They can’t escape from nocturnal predators that find them. If a predator finds them at night, they are dead meat. When day breaks, they shiver and in about half a hour can fly again. It is a remarkable transformation for these truly remarkable birds.

 

To feed themselves sufficiently hummingbirds must be smart, except when it comes for rivals at least.  Then they can be stupid. Competing when it is not necessary to compete. Reminds me of humans.

 

They must learn to avoid flowers that don’t produce nectar or not enough or are temporarily drained. As a result, they learn to avoid flowers they have already drained of nectar until they are replenished. They must have mental timers in their brains and be able to remember flowers already visited recently in trees or flower patches among enormous numbers of virtually identically coloured flowers. So Hummingbirds are indeed smart. That is why Attenborough said it was “a great feat for a bird brain.”

Hummingbirds can’t live on nectar alone. That is why they have learned to catch prey such as flying insects as well, which of course requires incredible aerial dexterity. They particularly need protein to replace feathers and build muscles.