Two of God's Many Creatures

What I intended to write about this week and what I am actually writing about have turned out to be two different things. As it happens, my computer is on the fritz and needs to be wiped clean and the operating system reinstalled. This week has been spent backing up data files and hence I have been walking to the university to type this newsletter. Given that I live right next to the university, I live in housing predominated by fellow students, many of whom are quite wasteful in the things they discard. A gentleman was sorting through the dumpster as I walked by on my way here to type up the newsletter this week and we fell into an hour-and-a-half long conversation. His thoughts and my impression of him are quite interesting. Narrative accounts exist best in context, so it will prove instructive to frame the encounter first.

On the discussion forum, the observation recently arose that those things that we most dislike in ourselves are often the very same things that we are most critical of in others: if we are constantly angry with rude people, it is often the case that we hate our own rudeness passionately and are seeking to compensate for it. And regarding the compensation of tendencies we dislike, the idea also surfaced that we live in an insecure and uncertain world and there are times we feel acutely affected. When we feel most affected, we try to defend ourselves in various ways, our forms of self-deception legion. One of the most obvious coping methods, however, is adopting a persona in which we play the part we feel captures us in the best light. John Powell, whom we cited in the previous issue, states that our initial tendency is often to want to rip the mask off another’s face, particularly when he or she is being obviously pretentious. We want to give such people “a piece of our mind,” thinking that in so doing, we will disabuse them to reality and they will awaken and “grow up.” Powell insightfully goes on to write in Why Am I Afraid to Love? that as audience members, “we fail to realize that masks are worn only as long as they are needed.”

Powell’s implication is that what we most need and seek as human beings is validation. Simply by listening to another with the intent to be a friend can effect considerable changes, namely because it creates a non-threatening environment where the other person—and we ourselves—can candidly express those things that make us feel uncertain and insecure. Once we can safely discuss such things, they are then out in the open in front of us and we can more objectively assess and deal with them. Sara likewise shared an insight on the forum that trying to change other persons is most often an exercise in futility. Perhaps the chief reason this factor is often true was revealed in a conversation I had with my friend Greg last night: when we seek to change other people, we rarely seek to change them out of charity or true love: we generally seek to change them out of an inner compulsion that is in one way or another self-serving.

Recently, I was sent an e-mail that contained in part a mild criticism of an established service in which people may freely come together and discuss ideas. The criticism basically amounted to the fact that this service was not only time-consuming, but did not provide many answers. Recalling that the very things in ourselves that we most dislike or feel least confident about we condemn in others, my reaction was classic: I typed a superficially polite response in which my real motive was to demonstrate that Christian life was not about answers and certainties, but it was about trust: trusting our Lord to give us strength even in the midst of uncertainties. That is, he is the answer; he is the anchor. I do believe that to be true: at the least, I believe that our faith should be able to provide us sustenance when we face the absolute certainty of uncertainty. However, my response was utterly lacking in charity. Frankly I was disappointed in myself, and the myriad of areas in my life recently where I have been seeking exactly that—certainty, answers, clarity—all seemed to enjoy tormenting me, deviantly prancing about in my mind. My reaction had so very little to do with the e-mail I received and so very much to do with me. I denounced in the thoughts of another the very thing that has been causing me the most insecurity at present.

I have repeatedly talked with Greg about the importance of being diplomatic when dealing with other people and why I seek to avoid sarcasm and other forms of response, that, however true, often come across as subtly (and not so subtly) demeaning. (As Scottish historian and essayist Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) writes in Sartor Resartus, “Sarcasm I now see to be, in general, the language of the devil.”) Yet in spite of that stance, I proved yet again that I was in nowise immune to the same tendency. I could certainly have castigated myself for my failure, but instead I have chosen to attempt to channel the renewed self-awareness into an increased patience and empathy for the shortcomings of others. Long ago, I concluded that even the most outrageous things that someone else says are stated for some reason—people do not just spout off for no reason at all, even if we deem their reason a poor or insufficient one. What is more, there is some basis of truth in nearly everything another says, even if, as the gentleman I was in conversation with today suggests, it is only that “darkness reveals the light.” His point was largely predicated on inductive reasoning: ruling out a possibility also helps us get closer to the truth. As in philosophy, the avoidance of error and the uncovering of truth are the two sides we strive to keep in tension.

Now then, I mention this gentleman for a reason: after first expressing his great delight at finding cold beer in the dumpster, he saw that I was interested in his conversation and proceeded to share his mind with me. After spending some time in the workaday 9 to 5 world, he quit his job and now goes around town collecting refuse and recycling it. Like all persons, he desires to be validated and justified—to be taken seriously and seen as a contribution to society. It was quite clear that his rather caustic criticism of the stupidity of other persons was motivated to large degree by his desire to be seen as someone of worth and intelligence. And like many of us, the thing he felt would be admired and valued most would be his education and his intellect: he was, in fact, very well read and if he did not have a university education, it was quite clear that he was no stranger to that world: he accurately and in many instances insightfully cited persons and works ranging from Schopenhauer to Marx and Engels to the Bhagavad-Gita. He was also fairly well versed in the world of science and technology and had obviously done a lot of reading and a lot of thinking. His first desire, then, was to be seen not as a “bum”—his own choice of words—but as someone of high intelligence. Further, he was very caustic in his denouncement of “stupid people” and at first found great merit in letting a number of expletives fly. I merely listened, observant, but not critical.

The conversation began with his description of how he was different than other persons. Most people, he suggested, are vermin. Later in the conversation he provided further context for that statement. He owned a car that by his own admission was rather modest and had problems with mice making their nest in it. He thought of these mice as remarkable creatures and rather intelligent and spent some time talking about how vermin learn and adapt, whether that be in a maze or in a cage with a system of levers with “Skinnerian” (his word) rewards and punishments. He had purchased one of the self-billed “better mousetraps” and to his amazement found that they were indeed better at catching even the most crafty mice who could clean a trap of peanut butter time and again and escape unscathed and that it indirectly proved the limitations of the otherwise truly intelligent mice that they were susceptible to this new form of trap and did not learn to triumph over it. His final assessment was that there was a surefire way to tell if vermin were around: by what they defecate and by what they chew, if not in so many words. Thus, where there is feces and where there is chewed matter, there are vermin. And that, he concluded, was what most of us are today: we are less than human, priding ourselves in our sophistication—and indeed that tubing between our throat and its counterpart on the opposite end has seen some rather sophisticated means of acquiring the stuff that we chew—but in reality, we have bought into a consumer mentality and are asleep, consumption going in one end and the defecation of refuse passing out the other. Consuming and wasting, consuming and wasting, an endless cycle of decadence, vermin chewing and defecating.

I heard three things in these words. I observed self-justification to some degree. I heard a Marxian type criticism. I also noted a degree of sobering truth. But that is not all that this gentleman said in the hour and a half he spoke and I listened: he spoke often of the Pharisees and the Brahmins, of morality and that the knowledge and practice of what is right and wrong—or, if I preferred, just and unjust—makes us more human: consumers—vermin—care for their bellies, what they may eat and what they may wear, but a pathetically small number of people actually cared about what really was right and what really was wrong and about doing to another what one wants done to oneself.

My friend Greg suggested last night that in almost every instance Jesus denounced those Pharisaical of the Pharisees (for not all Pharisees are Pharisaical), it invariably was because they have exalted some ideal or standard above reality: their ideals, which looked beautiful to them, overshadowed the often ugliness of humanity and pragmatic faith. Their ideas and ideals, which existed nowhere but in their own minds, became to them the means that blinded them; Greg speaks often of the “yeast of the Pharisees” and how he believes it has filtered into so much of Christianity as we know it today, at least Christianity in America.

The gentlemen today, however, not only spoke of the Pharisees, but also spoke about the Brahmins and the caste system and the social pariahs of India and how an ancient system of religion has perpetuated a system virtually identical to that of the Pharisees. He spoke often about Christianity and about Jesus as well, or at least enough times to catch my attention. His assessment of churches—he implicated the very church I attend among his list—is that those who attend are actually more “scientific” than those with Ph.D.s, because Ph.D.s really believe that they have the answers that can change the world (an idealistic fallacy), but most Christians do not really believe and thus are actually more scientific than those from the university. For him, it all came down to actions: the world was entirely reducible to binaries: words merely obscured the pairing of beliefs and actions, money obscured the pairing of greed and acquisition, words and money were middle terms that obscured the truly binary nature of the interactions. Thus, beliefs/actions and greed/acquisition were separated by illusions, in the first instance by words and in the second by money. Money in particular was illusionary.

This latter thought was specially interesting to me: he said we are told there are givers and there are takers and that there can be giving and taking. But he strongly disagreed: there could not be both giving and taking, for there was always more of one than the other and the two canceled one another out. By way of illustration, he said we do not speak of a north wind blowing at 50 miles and hour, and a south wind simultaneously blowing at 20 miles per hour: we speak only of a north wind blowing at 30 miles an hour. There are those who take and there are those that give: if they work harder to make more money, he says they are in love with mammon (another of the allusions that clearly indicated a familiarity with Jesus). But if they are willing to do the same thing for less, then their actions show that they are more in love with their work. They cannot be both.

For him, to be in love with mammon was exactly identical with being selfish. My ears perked up here, for I have often said myself that we either serve God or we serve ourselves, at least ultimately (perhaps more of one at one point and more of another at another point, but in the end it may fairly be said that we serve one of two masters: God or ourselves). Yet just the other day I was thinking that Jesus obviously said that we serve either God or mammon and he surely had a good reason for doing so: he was as familiar with selfishness as anyone and could have put it in so many words, so why did he choose that particular terminology of mammon? My new friend’s solution, though he did not realize he was clarifying something I had only recently been thinking about, was that money is an illusion. He claims that money was the invention of thieves who sought a means of exploiting goods. Perhaps. But his idea of money being an illusion is compelling. Let’s trace it further.

He collects refuse, as we said, and recycles it, making very little in the process, particularly compared to his labor. He says he is sometimes asked the price of iron and he feigns confusion: that is, he pretends that he is being ask what the intrinsic value of iron actually is. And, of course, iron is iron: it is what it is: a rule he believes strongly is that what is, is all that there is. He said he does not believe we can derive an ought from an is. Thus, the value of iron is intrinsic, the price of iron entirely arbitrary. Money, he suggests, is an illusion that hides from us our own greed. There are only pairs of things in the universe: in this case, only giving and taking. Money is a third term, however: money is something that exists in the middle helping to distract us on the one hand from the actual intrinsic value of things and on the other from our motivations in doing the things we do. The root of all evil—our friend explicitly used this phrase—was the love of mammon, for money hides from us our own selfishness. Presumably, he believes money is a lie that keeps us from seeing the truth about ourselves that would set us free. As I am applying the concept here, I cannot say that I fully agree, but the idea is certainly an interesting one that warrants further thought.

Recently on the forum, Powell’s observation came up that when we sin, we have to believe that we are getting some good out of the deal: we coerce our will by rationalization: “if I do this wrong, this good will result.” This good is generally in the form of some pleasure or other indulgence and there is a subtle but often unconscious sense that God is secretly holding out on us and that we are entitled. To sin, then, and to validate or justify ourselves, we must rationalize, coercing our wills into a lie: what will be gained is greater than what will be lost: we shall do evil so that good may result. It is even better if we can pretend that the resultant good is not motivated purely for personal ends, but also will in some way be of benefit to others. Even when are not sinning, it is not uncommon for this principle to be at play: a stated reason for doing something versus the overriding motivation: I say that I go to the convenience store at five to buy milk: in truth, I go to the store because the woman who works the cash register is attractive and I want to get to know her better. Besides, she looks lonely and the store is not doing so well financially and I want to show my support. Thus, if we take the gentleman’s observations with these here, we could say that money is a third term: the third term in this instance a rationalization that hides the reality on either end of the taking and not the giving, the selfishness of taking only and caring nothing about giving anything in return.

As our friend denounced the stupidity of other people, he appealed to the principle of logic, namely what we call the law of non-contradiction. An assumption thinkers have held at least since Aristotle is that something cannot possibly be and not be in the same way at the same time: I cannot have my cake and eat it too: one cannot meaningfully speak of A and ~A in the same context. (I could not help but think, on this principle, that there can be such a thing as giving and taking, as long as there is a difference in kind and not in degree. If you give me lettuce—I take lettuce—and I give you tomatoes—you take tomatoes—the two do not cancel each other out, because they are not a difference in degree but rather in kind.) As further proof of the stupidity of others, he talked about how the systems of other people were often contradictions and that we could dismiss them outright. As he spoke on other things later, for all appearances failing to see his own at times contradictory logic, I thought of something once said by Dale Carnegie, author of the best-selling classic How To Win Friends and Influence People: “When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but creatures of emotion.”

Carnegie’s point has always stuck with me. Much of what this gentleman said was true or at least had a basis of fact at its core. He was articulate and intelligent. But more than anything, he was lonely. I did not need to rip any masks off his face or prove anything to him: the simple act of kindness of listening, truly listening, to what he said and taking him seriously was what he needed most and he gave me a lot to think about (I took) and I gave him a listening ear (he took) and the exchange, being different in kind (and perhaps degree, though how does one measure such things?), was mutually beneficial.

There is one final thing we might say: he spoke of Jesus and Christianity enough times to be noticeable. Implicit in his statements was a clear admiration for the teachings of Jesus and a real desire to emulate them: clearly implicit was that the words of Christ were reliable and true. He did not, however, believe in God. For example, his theories for Muslim terrorists were interesting and had to do with their belief, clearly demonstrated by their actions, in something greater than themselves: a God who did not exist, ultimately, but an idea that was nevertheless greater than themselves if only on the level of thought. It might seem odd to some persons that I felt absolutely no compulsion to say anything whatsoever about God or to defend any of these views. The truth is, I believe I heard something that was not being said. Words being for this gentleman only the middle term, that, like mammon, often serve to obscure our true beliefs on the one hand and the inevitable proof of our actions on the other, showed that he really did believe. What is more, when he spoke of Christianity, on several occasions it was as though he was checking himself, for he clearly appeared to identify himself with the self-designation of Christian in spite of the fact that he calls God a fiction.

Now would be an occasion in which I could easily resort to cynicism, laying out on the table in utter sarcasm the various litmus tests we use to evaluate the believers from the nonbelievers, the sheep from the goats. I will resist that impulse and say only that I believe there is much truth to what the late Reverend William Sloan said in an interview with Terry Gross on NPR. He said that there were many people who claimed that they did not believe in God and that did not really bother him so much. He said that by their actions and their words—I will here insert my own words—they demonstrated that they had a moral law written on their hearts and that their conscience now condemned and now approved them. The more important question for him was “In whom does God believe?” For believers who have been trained to evaluate sheep from goats—or even to be particularly sensitive of such categorizations—his words could very well be perceived as risqué. Yet in actual experience with God and human beings, I am convinced that Sloan is absolutely correct and rather than being filled with love and compassion for our fellows, we too often sit in place of God acting as judge and jury.

Archive note: See also the discussion forum thread regarding this newsletter.

The gentleman with whom I spoke was a mixture of many things: he was bright, articulate, and at times contradicted himself as do we all, as do we all. He wanted to be seen as being all of these positive things and none of the negatives, he wanted to be accepted, he was isolated and lonely and was reaching out to talk with someone. I suspect that if Jesus was conversing with him, Jesus would not have tried to evangelize him but would rather have seen exactly what he needed and given it to him, genuinely enjoying the man’s company even more than I did. But you know, I really think that Jesus converses with this man anyway, walking and talking with him unseen to you, to me, and likely even to himself. This gentleman did not need my sermons, he did not need me to correct him for his heretical beliefs—there can be a time for such things, but in our conversation today, it was not the time and wisdom does know the difference—he did not even need somebody to listen to him or take him seriously, at least not per se. He was not my project. He was a human being and I was a human being; he was a particularly insightful and interesting human being, no more perfect than any of us, whose company I truly enjoyed. We were two of God’s many creatures whose lives came together, if only for a moment, to the mutual benefit of us both, and God was fully present in the encounter. And you know, that is all that really needs to be said of the matter.

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