Untapped Worlds – Retooling

Posted on December 18, 2015 by Professor Taboo

This is the fifth-part of the series continuing from Untapped Worlds — Reside and its previous four posts.
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“The prude is in fact the libertine,
without the courage to face their naked soul.”
—- A. S. Neill

“Exclusion makes us suffer. Inclusion makes us thrive.”
—- E. O. Wilson

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What does it mean to be more human? Looking back from where humans come can help. Comparing that past to where we are now helps. What would it mean to be more than human? Less than human?

If our history has shown us anything, the great and the horrid, humans must keep up, must be proficient learners, empathizers, and adapters, to best act and react, to fail better and succeed better in a world and Multiverse which perpetually challenges us every minute of every day. This inevitably means breaking old conventions and forming new healthier refined ones…even if it means our initial discomfort and ridicule, and in extraordinary cases, our imprisonment or death. To me personally, this is what it means to be human and more human.

How might we gauge our natural humanity?

Humans and Animals: The Near and Far

Perhaps a first observation can be differentiating humans from other animals starting with body structure. Even the rest of Earth’s other primates have noticeable differences to ours. But delve deeper beyond outer features and there is an overwhelming amount of continuity, until you reach the brains. At the University of Queensland in Australia, Professor of Psychology in Cognition and Evolutionary Psychology-Cognition, Dr. Thomas Suddendorf finds…

The physical similarities between humans and other mammals are quite plain. We are made of the same flesh and blood; we go through the same basic life stages. Yet reminders of our shared inheritance with other animals have become the subject of cultural taboos: sex, menstruation, pregnancy, birth, feeding, defecation, urination, bleeding, illness, and dying. Messy stuff. However, even if we try to throw a veil over it, the evidence for evolutionary continuity between human and animal bodies is overwhelming. After all, we can use mammalian organs and tissues, such as a pig’s heart valve, to replace our own malfunctioning body parts. A vast industry conducts research on animals to test drugs and procedures intended for humans because human and animal bodies are so profoundly alike. The physical continuity of humans and animals is incontestable. But the mind is another matter.

Many would guess our brains to be “another matter” because they are the largest on the planet. Incorrect. The human brain comes in at fourth, technically fifth place. Sperm whales have the largest at 17.5 pounds followed by blue whales at 12.5 pounds, then elephants at 10.5 pounds. In fourth place are dolphins at 4 pounds. Our brain is a distant fifth place at 2.8 average pounds. At a close sixth is the walrus at 2.4 pounds, followed by all remaining animals. Yet it isn’t size that sets us apart, but intelligence. Bertrand Russell asserted that “speech, fire, agriculture, writing, tools, and large-scale cooperation” significantly widens the gap between us and animals.

While those abilities may seem to us and our brains as “higher intelligence”– brains which are prone to deception, memory-errors, superstition, and ambiguity — closer comparisons find Russell’s claims inconclusive. I argue along with Suddendorf that moving the intelligence-bar lower, and maybe less arrogantly, we can find “parrots can speak, ants have agriculture, crows make tools, and bees [as well as ants] cooperate on a large-scale.” Nevertheless, Suddendorf also points out that in those six advanced-intelligence domains:

I’ve repeatedly found two major features that set us apart: our open-ended ability to imagine and reflect on different situations, and our deep-seated drive to link our scenario-building minds together. It seems to be primarily these two attributes that carried our ancestors across the gap, turning animal communication into open-ended human language, memory into mental time travel, social cognition into theory of mind, problem solving into abstract reasoning, social traditions into cumulative culture, and empathy into morality.

Humans are avid scenario builders. We can tell stories, picture future situations, imagine others’ experiences, contemplate potential explanations, plan how to teach, and reflect on moral dilemmas. Nested scenario building refers not to a single ability but to a complex faculty, itself built on a variety of sophisticated components that allow us to simulate and to reflect.

Though we may be the only creatures on the planet with the capacity to time-travel with our imaginations, simulate possible outcomes, and carry out mid-term and long-term plans based upon those imagined scenarios, how much of a contrast does that really create when we still know so little about aquatic mammals (not to mention those oceanic invertebrates and their languages), while the neurobiology and neurocognition of our own brains aren’t fully known? Despite his 2011 scientific misconduct in other areas, former Harvard University professor and evolutionary biologist Marc Hauser expounds on our higher-evolved cognitive abilities and notes four distinguishing abilities…

Generative computation
Humans can generate a practically limitless variety of words and concepts. We do so through two modes of operation recursive and combinatorial. The recursive operation allows us to apply a learned rule to create new expressions. In combinatorial operations, we mix different learned elements to create a new concept.

Promiscuous combination of ideas
Promiscuous combination of ideas allows the mingling of different domains of knowledge such as art, sex, space, causality and friendship thereby generating new laws, social relationships and technologies.

Mental symbols
Mental symbols are our way of encoding sensory experiences. They form the basis of our complex systems of language and communication. We may choose to keep our mental symbols to ourselves, or represent them to others using words or pictures.

Abstract thought
Abstract thought is the contemplation of things beyond what we can sense. This is not to say that our mental faculties sprang fully formed out of nowhere. Researchers have found some of the building blocks of human cognition in other species. But these building blocks make up only the cement foot print of the skyscraper that is the human mind. The evolutionary origins of our cognitive abilities thus remain rather hazy. Clarity is emerging from novel insights and experimental technologies, however.

I’d draw into further question Suddendorf’s assertion that humans have fully “moved social traditions into cumulative culture” or “moved empathy into morality” or more disconcerting, on a planet of abundant food sources, have we moved jealousy into civil negotiation and altruism, especially toward compersion and less famine? I will explore later what is meant by compersion. Hauser’s four points however, particularly #2 and #4, help us recognize the “haziness” of supreme beings without discrediting the reasons why we may never be able to claim total planetary supremacy for the foreseeable future. Maybe the smarter question is “Why seek supremacy?” Or supremacy in any context. What responsibilities come with supremacy and are human brains capable of such a lofty position? I’d also ask Why not promote more lateral mobility instead of vertical mobility? Certainly less bodies and cadavers under heavy foot with the former than the latter.

Alexander Neill meets Ed Wilson

In the previous post I introduced A.S. Neill and his unconventional approach to parenting and education. I wish to return to him and the impact of external stimuli and nourishment (and malnourishment) for the human heart and mind.

When a child is born do you consider them at that instant to be inherently good, bad, or indifferent? Immediately after an average healthy normal 9-months in the womb, is a newborn significantly altered or influenced toward goodness, evil, or apathy? Do moral and ethical measurements begin during gestation, minutes after birth, or weeks and months after birth?

Believe it or not this is a very controversial topic in parts of the human world. A. S. Neill believed the only source of humanity’s worst behaviours start with parents, then socio-familial groups (their parents), and eventually nation-state ideologies. Neill therefore began a radical form of education by opening a new type of school. “The merits [of Summerhill School] will be the merits” he explains “of healthy free children whose lives are unspoiled by fear and hate.” Students at Summerhill are not required, forced, or coerced to attend classes. They go of their own accord because they are genuinely interested and want to learn; or they can stay away from classrooms, for years if they choose.

When I first read Neill’s school policies I was stunned. As a teacher of five years in traditional public schools, I could only relate to my students, my campuses, and my childhood as a student with other students. My boyhood schools and the schools I would later teach in classrooms would have been zoos had the students had that much freedom! When I was a school boy I probably would’ve been just as deviant. I soon recognized I now had a serious conflict — I do not believe children are inherently evil at birth, nor into their toddler years. This caused me to seriously re-evaluate major and minor aspects of my life; aspects as a father, former teacher, and active U.S. citizen! Change was again in my front door.

In an October 2011 article by The Independent (U.K.), correspondent Sarah Cassidy interviews several alumni of Summerhill School.

It is one of the most famous schools in the world; a place where every lesson is voluntary and where youngsters can vote to suspend all the rules. Founded by the liberal thinker AS Neill, Summerhill turns 90 years old this year.

Famous alumni of the democratic or “free” school include actress Rebecca de Mornay, children’s author John Burningham and Storm Thorgerson, the rock album cover designer.

Other graduates include Michael Bernal, PhD in Mathematical Physics, Hylda Sims, novelist, poet, songwriter, event organizer in greater London, and Freer Speckley, International Development consultant for online facilitation and training. Author Hussein Lucas in his book After Summerhill interviews twelve other graduates and concludes:

The key feature that sums up the distinctive nature of the Summerhill experience is the virtual absence of fear: fear of failure; fear of authority; fear of social ostracism; fear of life and the consequent failure to engage with it with a feeling of optimism and a positive outlook.

If Lucas, Summerhill School, and its graduates, as well as founder A.S. Neill don’t sum up the enormous impact of human influence and interaction on a child’s and teenager’s formative educational years, then it certainly highlights social coping mechanisms during the adult years; years rot with fears of failure, authority, ostracism, life (suicides?), agoraphobia, and pessimism. I’ve watched several of these toxins develop in my sister for 40+ years and in a span of 7-days my father’s suicide. Personally, it took about four years of therapy for me to conquer my unhealthy codependency; as opposed to much healthier forms of human connection and love. I will explore several of these forms later. Meanwhile, where do these fears originate? Are they hardwired into us prenatally or do we contract them like air pollutants when we encounter other fear-bearers? How is fear justified or unjustified?

Alexander S. Neill

The question of fear’s origins is as much a question of timing as purpose. For an adult or a person capable of self-evaluation and adequate self-reliance, fear in its most basic form is a matter of life or death. We know or have been conditioned and/or educated that running red traffic-lights at intersections is taking your life into your hands, other driver’s hands, and others inside the vehicles and of nearby innocent bystanders. We know that fire and extreme heat along with smoke inhalation will kill us. We know that various weapons will terminate life (immediately?) when put to and/or fired at the head. We know that massive brain aneurysms or coronaries usually end in quick death. We know approaching certain wild animals who are in fear for their own lives or their offspring’s, or are merely very hungry, is chancing a violent death. The “timing” of this recognition comes much later in age after conditioning or retained educated fear. They are healthy fears or respect to those specific dangerous situations learned over time, i.e. realized fears. Infants, toddlers, or adolescents have not had the luxury of time or experience to learn necessary life-or-death fears. For better or for worse, the teaching and protection for life-safety and avoiding death, or realized fears, are in the parent’s or guardian’s hands. However, there can be the improper mixing of unrealized fears with life-or-death ones. This is where A.S. Neill diverges from traditional child-rearing and education. His postures can easily traverse our age groups.

It may be no exaggeration to say that all children in our civilization are born in a life-disapproving atmosphere. The time-table feeding [the mother’s breast milk or later] advocates are basically anti-pleasure. They want the child to be disciplined in feeding because non-timetable feeding suggests orgastic pleasure at the breast. The nutriment argument is usually a rationalization; the deep motive is to mold the child into a disciplined creature who will put duty before pleasure.

Neill goes on to give specific child-student scenarios denouncing repressive conditioning to fit-in, be acceptable, and fulfill duties of the state while being ashamed of individual passions and emotions, even self-awareness. Furthermore, these “unfree” conditions repress imagination and ingenuity, the very building blocks of refinement, progressiveness, adaptation, and pragmatism.

To sum up, my contention is that unfree education results in life that cannot be lived fully. Such an education almost entirely ignores the emotions of life; and because these emotions are dynamic, their lack of opportunity for expression must and does result in cheapness and ugliness and hatefulness. Only the head is educated. If the emotions are permitted to be really free, the intellect will look after itself.

The tragedy of man is that, like the dog, his character can be molded. You cannot mold the character of a cat, an animal superior to the dog. You can give a dog a bad conscience, but you cannot give a conscience to a cat. Yet most people prefer dogs because their obedience and their flattering tail wagging afford visible proof of the master’s superiority and worth.

Much of this Western social-political thinking and lifestyle stems from Antiquity between 300 CE until, in various subtle forms, the modern 1960’s and 70’s. The mentality is known as total depravation indoctrination as taught to the world by extreme Abrahamic religions upon the uneducated illiterate subjects of the empire. Neill writes…

The problem child [and adult?] is the child who is pressured into [holiness and piety] and sexual repression. Adults take it for granted that a child should be taught to behave in such a way that the adults will have as quiet a life as possible. Hence the importance attached to obedience, to manners, to docility.

If the condition of depravity isn’t taught outright by Abrahamic clergy and churches, it is certainly perpetuated by the obsessive perfectionists or tyrants of the world intolerant of responsible and total human freedom.

“The prude is in fact the libertine, without the courage to face their naked soul.”

Indeed. And there is another renown scientist and Naturalist that would echo much of what A.S. Neill claims. He advocates a return, if not at least a constant remembrance, to who we really are and where we actually come from. His name is Harvard graduate, social-biologist, and naturalist Edward O. Wilson. In 1979 his book called On Human Nature won the Pulitzer Prize. He has since authored other acclaimed books such as The Diversity of Life, Naturalist his biography, Concilience: The Unity of Knowledge, and in 1990 co-authored and published with German behavioral and evolutionary biologist Bert Hölldobler the book The Ants that won his second Pulitzer Prize.

Advanced Social Behavior and Who Has It

Sociobiology has only recently become a scientific field of study: the mid-1970’s. E. O. Wilson defines sociobiology as “the systematic study of the biological basis of all social behavior” whether human or non-human. Because many human intellectuals and human groups regard Homo sapiens as highly advanced, Wilson’s theories and definition of sociobiology flew in the face of old “supremacy” traditions, particularly of the divine persuasion. But as I reflect back on human history, the brilliant and the atrocious, and how Homo sapiens behave toward and treat each other despite social labels and imaginative beliefs, I want to hear-out everything Wilson has to say. In fact, it might be intellectual suicide or quicker extinction not to.

Edward O. Wilson

Earlier I compared differences between humans and animals. Bertrand Russell asserted that what sets us apart from other species was intelligence; speech, fire, agriculture, writing, tools, and large-scale cooperation or social behavior. Thomas Suddendorf further expounds that humans are avid scenario-builders and time-travellers, being able to bring into existence what our minds created in the past. And Marc Hauser asserted that with our highly cognitive brains we are able to generate complex computations, promiscuous combinations of ideas, mental symbols, and construct and contemplate abstract thoughts. Along with these advanced abilities and skills we seek to share them with our own kind in order to survive better, easier, and advance our species, especially those we love and cherish. This is called eusociality. From the field of biology, Wilson asked “Why did any animal, whether human or insect, evolve complex societies and behavior?” and from his research he defines eusociality as exhibiting three characteristics:

Groups of individuals within that species living together for more than two generations.

Adults caring for the young; usually intimately caring for them.

They have to have a reproductive division of labor, i.e. some of those individuals in that society have to be giving up part of their longevity, perhaps, or at least reproductive capacity to serve the others; in other words, real altruism inside the group.

Out of the 10-million estimated living species on Earth, we only know about, study and understand 2-million; and of those 2-million living species, only 19 of them are truly of eusocial evolutionary lines. Sixteen of them are insects. Another aspect of eusociality in insects, like ants or bees, is that an individual serves the survival of the whole and act in almost perfect syncronization with other individuals in the entire colony, called the superorganism. This same behavior is called altruism in human contexts.

The only eusocial primates are Homo sapiens, us. Therefore, being the only primates with the advanced social behavior of eusociality coupled with highly developed cognitive skills Suddendorf and Hauser point out, can we learn anything more from the species who have been eusocial the longest, over 120-million years? Wilson thinks so. He has spent his entire life studying insects like ants. In fact, Wilson asserted in the 70’s that human social behavior, origins of human emotional mechanisms and instincts, evolved in the same ways as those other 18 eusocial species: in nature. This caused a firestorm not only among biologists, but social scientists and activists as well.

The Sociobiology Wars

In 1975 Ed Wilson suggested that social behaviors like human bonding and morality must have a biological neurological basis. They must have evolved. “The time has come” said Wilson, “for ethics to be removed temporarily from the hands of the philosophers and biologicized.” Social scientists and activists of that time did not take too kindly to his “regressive” claims. Back in the 1970’s the fields of psychology, sociology, and philosophy had fought long hard battles against late 19th century, early 20th century ideals of racism and sexism, and won or at least made progressive strides toward winning. Ed Wilson was seen as regressing backwards to those barbaric racial hierarchies and patriarchal ideologies. His naysayers at that time imagined he was attempting to revive those old discredited social systems and that human nature could only be understood through biology and genetic manipulation benefitting a race or gender.

Jonathan Haidt, social psychologist at New York University and Yale University/University Pennsylvania alumnus, explains the heated controversy Wilson found himself:

“The most sacred value of anti-racism and also related, anti-sexism was anything that remotely threatened those values would trigger a nerve and those groups would go haywire! And that’s what happened [in 1975-76]. Ed was simply saying ‘Well, maybe human nature is innate, maybe we evolved with a division of labor between men and women.’ Woah! You’re saying that there could be genetic differences between men and women!? But that could justify sexism. That could justify paying men and women differently! Therefore, it must be wrong!”

There was even a manifesto entitled Against Sociobiology written by several of Wilson’s colleagues at Harvard from their biology department denouncing Wilson’s sociobiology and that it could license racism, sexism, slavery, and genocide. Some demonstrations and picket-lines on the campus turned verbally abusive. After a class lecture Wilson gave he required a police escort out the back doors. But Wilson withstood the storm and stood his ground.

As more studies, research, and data poured in over the 1990’s and into the 21st century in the fields of psychology, genetics, anthropology, neurology, and other related fields, it seems to be increasingly plausible, Wilson says there are indeed “general properties of the way the human mind develops and children acquire culture, preferences, and biases adopted by people that have a biological nature.” If there is one benefit afforded the modern fields of psychology, genetics, anthropology, and neurology by E. O. Wilson’s battle scars, it is the free-range deeper exploration and study of human nature against the backdrop of biodiversity.

Being and Becoming More Human

A. S. Neill and E. O. Wilson have opened the roof on human nature by examining human sexuality, human aggression, human dominance, human collaboration and learning, and human emotions like fear, anger, jealousy, pride, guilt, sympathy and empathy through a biological lens.

“It is one thing to observe that we must have a human nature, quite another to discover what it is and how we came by it.

Exalted we are, written to be the mind of the biosphere without a doubt, our spirits uniquely capable of awe, and evermore breathtaking leaps of imagination. But we are still part of Earth’s fauna and flora, bound to it by emotion, physiology, and not least, deep history.”

Neill and Wilson show we are inexplicably part of the natural world. Our minds and emotions evolved in and from nature and with each other. Understanding nature and biology means understanding that evolution. That evolution began between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago on the continent of Africa.

Just as our biosphere supports us and is supported by some 10-million estimated species today in various ecosystems all over the world, paleoanthropologists have revealed we humans also come from a diverse background of at least 13 different bipedal hominids to-date: Homo sapiens likely from Homo naledi, less likely Homo neanderthalensis or Homo floresiensis, then from Homo heidelbergensis or Homo erectus, then from Homo rudolfensis or more likely Homo habilis, then Australopithecus sediba, a yet unknown or unspecified but likely Homo species now being studied, then less likely the Australopithecus garhi or A. africanus, then Kenyanthropus platyops, then Australopithecus afarensis, to finally Australopithecus anamensis from 4-million years ago and at least four more species (Ardipethicus) dating back to around 6 to 7-million years ago. Every single one of these above listed species have similar body traits to modern humans; less so further back in time, increasingly so nearing our 100,000 – 60,000 year genetic markers.

It wasn’t just the physical human form that originated in Africa. It was also our human nature; our biological-neurological natures. Today, paleoanthropologists have a much clearer picture of how our human brain developed. How the frontal lobes expanded over millions of years into the 2.8 pound mass and shape we have today. But what has been lacking in science the last several centuries has been the meaning of humanity…the origin of our social behavior. When and how did humans go from being social, like primates today, to being intensely cooperative building astounding civilizations together?

Dr. Michael Tomasello is the co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Liepzig, Germany. A Duke and University of Georgia alumnus and comparative psychologist, since the 1990’s he has studied “the unique cognitive and cultural processes that distinguish humans from their nearest primate relatives, the other great apes.” Tomasello’s work has earned him many awards, the latest being the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award by the American Psychological Association in 2015. In his developmental research he has focused on how human children become cooperating members of cultural groups, focusing in recent years on uniquely human skills and motivations for shared intentionality: joint intentions, joint attention, collaboration, prosocial motives, and social norms. Tomasello:

“If the last common ancestor of humans and apes was like modern-day great apes, it was a pretty competitive individual. Fighting for food every day and maybe cooperating a little bit. And what had to happen in human evolution is that humans had to become more cooperative to live in the kind of societies that we live in today.”

The transition from being somewhat social and cooperative within not just familial ties, but in a small group, to being ultra social and cooperative beyond family and small groups was indeed our species greatest moment. It is exactly what removed us from the majority of all primates and other animals, and into that unique distinctive group of 19 advanced eusocial species, and arguably above those other eighteen. Ants did it about 150-million years ago. Humans followed about 1-million years ago when our ancient ancestors developed advanced cooperation defending their campsites and young. Dr. Haidt adds…

“…that transition from being like chimpanzees, that are highly social, to being eusocial, being able to work in very large groups, even with strangers, as we are doing here today. None of us are siblings, but we’re all working together really well because we got all these moral emotions. We are built for this stuff.”

Comparing today’s chimpanzees — the closest genetic relative to humans at about 0.1% difference! — with young children age 1 to 6 years in controlled experiments, time after time shows one singular significant difference in social behavior. Dr. Tomasello determined through cooperation tests one innate feature which sets us apart, as children, from chimpanzees and other apes.

“There is food on a board, and a rope is strung through [carabiners] in the board, so that if one [child or chimp] pulls, it just comes out [disconnected]…you have to pull at the same time to get the board to come inward. If you split the food, one part of the food on one side of the board and one part on the other side, both children and chimps pull it in and are quite successful. But when you pile the food in the middle, the children are still quite good at [cooperating and sharing], they take around half each, and they keep cooperating trial after trial, but with the chimpanzees, everything falls apart because the dominant takes all the food, the subordinate says, ‘What’s in it for me?’ and that’s the end of it.”

Another experiment Tomasello and the Max Planck Institute uses to demonstrate innate eusociality and altruism in human child behavior versus chimps is this fascinating 5-minute video:

A. S. Neill would be extremely pleased with these experiments, with Tomasello, and the Max Planck Institute because they show how toddlers and young children have been wired for altruism, cooperation, and fairness over hundreds of thousands of years. When the opposite behavior is exhibited — e.g. bullying, greed, debasement, psychological egoism, rational egoism — suffering ensues and it begs the question, has that person or group devolved or succumbed to very ancient primate behavior due to choice, genetics, or environment, or all three? Neill and Wilson say humans from birth cooperate instinctively. Whether we stop or continue is a question of teaching, parenting, and community. And sadly to some extent, the available (and shared) wealth and resources and ecosystems Earth abundantly provides. Here we learn what it means to be more human, or less human.

Pushing Beyond “Advanced” Homo Sapien

The term Homo sapien is derived from the Latin homo, meaning man + sapien, meaning wise or rationale. I would like for us to soon become a new species, Humana participatio. This is already happening in certain pockets of the world.

What does it mean to be the Latin Humana participatio? Well, humana is Latin for human being, and participatio means simply sharing. But the act of sharing isn’t just giving what we are or have, it is also about connecting, or in Latin connectens. Thus, I also need to state Humana connectens-participatio! What I mean by that is a sharing of our entire being and a receiving of another’s. It is a flowing two-way connection. And since all humans have the innate want to “distribute knowledge” and experience (more sharing via strong, weak, or absent interpersonal ties) as well as receive knowledge and experience from others and our world, it isn’t or shouldn’t be limited to just two-way connections, but multiple connections. After all, that is how Homo sapiens took the giant leap ahead…over all other primates! Can it be done again? More fully? Personally, I think so; much of the genetic wiring is already present.

Where can we start?

There are a number of human areas to tackle and a number of biological-ecological areas too. The biological-ecological domains are already being addressed, several with fierce opposition, like global climate change and social inequality, but the noble efforts have been recognized, awareness and education has risen, and there are changes in progress. But by comparison and contrast, those advancements seem to be the easiest of the two. They are external changes and progression, not intimate internal ones. Why are outward external issues typically addressed more quickly compared to internal intimate ones?

There seems to be at least two hurdles that give us, advanced homo sapiens, progressive problems: 1) those unrealized fears mentioned earlier, and 2) the Path of Least Resistance; in other words, simply because we are such eusocial beings, it is important that we FEEL included and not excluded by our peers…so we are greatly tempted to take or remain on the Path of Least Resistance. This sometimes (often? always?) does not bode well for progress, for needed evolution, or for dire adaptation.

On the other hand, there are many primus Humana connectens-participatis around the world without or little unrealized fears or lounging in/on the PLR. Their prominence and times around the world might surprise you…

Abolitionists, or opponents to any type of human slavery; at least 70 groups worldwide and well over 260 individual leaders, historically and contemporary. Some 200 of those 260 individuals were/are not of African decent.
Chinese Dissidents, or intellectuals who push the boundaries of society or criticize their governments; currently 36 individuals detained or jailed, 17 to be arrested upon return to China, 13 to be refused reentry into China, and 29 “to be dealt with” by the Chinese authorities and leadership.
Civil Rights Leaders and their organizations; at least 126 individuals throughout history and today.
Activists for Disability Rights, fighting for equal treatment for those with physical and mental disabilities; some 59 individuals.
Feminists, or the advocacy of women’s political, social, and economic rights to equality with men; at least 772 advocates (male and female) from the 13th century up to today.
LGBT Advocacy Groups, or social-support groups or organizations advocating equal rights for sexually non-traditional, non-binary, non-hetero relational people, couples, and groups; 13 international groups, and well over 1,000+ groups in various nations around the world and on most continents, along with twice as many individuals, and growing annually.
Anti-war and Peace Groups, with over 200 anti-war organizations worldwide, past and present, and well over 300 prominent individual activists.
Women’s Suffragists and Rights expands even further the Feminists list above, past and present.

As you can well see, there have been plenty of primus Humana connectens-participatis among us and there are many around us today who ignore those hurdles of unrealized fears and the temptation of the PLR. They have helped humanity push beyond our walls of 200,000 years as Homo sapien and they invite the rest of us to leap forward with them.

A Further Proposal

I mentioned earlier that there are two domains in which modern humans can influence change and progress: A) the external and outward biological-ecological systems which truly need our utmost steadfast attention and care, and then B) the internal emotional and cognitive systems. It is the latter domain that is much less known and understood, as a group and species, and therefore by default too often falls by the wayside. If this “default” does not change in time, then it is my personal opinion that we are doing a great disservice to ourselves, our loved ones, our species, and our planet…and as a consequence we will continue to struggle or stagnate in near-primate social conundrums incapable or crippled to keep up as proficient learners, empathizers, and adapters; to best act and react, to fail better and succeed better in this beautiful daunting world and Multiverse we live on, in, and amongst. Diversity gives us the strength and higher virtues to become more human. Singularity, strict conformity, judgement, individualism makes us weaker, less human.

“Exclusion makes us suffer. Inclusion makes us thrive.”

I propose two assignments, two goals to achieve. First, learn and live compersion or higher levels of compersion. If you are a parent, you have experienced or are likely already familiar with compersion. It is the feeling of joy one has experiencing another’s joy, such as in witnessing your toddler’s joy or another’s toddler and feeling joy in response. There have been many wise axioms that expand the essence of compersion. One such adage is if you love someone/something, let it go. If it returns, it is yours. If it doesn’t, it never was. But that’s not all. It is also the feeling of joy associated with seeing and feeling a loved one love another, including your intimate partner(s) or spouse. This is perhaps one of the ultimate forms of compersion in an age-old society of restrictions and repression. What those confining social dynamics cause are unrealized potential, even brilliance and/or unknown euphoric levels of happiness, joy, and connection. Clearly what is NOT present during compersion are its opposites: jealousy, greed, anger, verbal or physical abuse/threats, selfish-hoarding, and even hints of solipsism. Learning to better manage our “darker” emotional traits (in controlled structured environs; BDSM?) is a means to rule over them rather than they rule over us and others — when and how to switch them on and off. In some respects, those darker behaviors are used to benefit individuals and groups, much the same way an athlete and athletic teams painfully push physical and mental limits to become better.

The second assignment or goal is therefore to redefine, or retool, or liberate our lifestyle, our personality, relationships, affecting our world and environment, and our conventions, then doing the same to our deathstyle. These are the six areas I will explore in the next post of the series Untapped Worlds — Maior Liberatio. I hope that I have not encumbered your reading brains and eyes too much here, and you will join me for the next installment, the last one… I think. 😉 Meanwhile, please feel free to share your thoughts and comments on this series and post below!

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Live Well — Love Much — Laugh Often — Learn Always

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MIA

Posted on July 15, 2015 by Professor Taboo

Where have I gone you ask? Let me see how to briefly answer 😉 without sacrificing the most relevant points while still making sense.

As the school year drew to an end and closed for the summer June 6th, I fully expected to have the free time to comfortably and earnestly blog. I was looking forward to completing about 2-3 posts per month! I have about eight posts started and outlined a dozen more topics I’m excited to get posted… in all of my categories.

But as I settled in my summer home in the Hill Country, my own wishes and plans went quickly out the window. Unless you’re an island unto yourself… life, family, and career sometimes have little regard for one’s petty personal desires. HAH!

Life

If I choose to keep writing my blog-posts, I will have only short 30-60 minute windows early early in the mornings when no one else is up. This is honestly a welcomed peaceful quite-time ritual: a wave of the flower garden’s watering-wand brings showers to Black-chinned hummingbirds, infrequently the Ruby-throated or Rufous hummingbirds, buzzing down darting in and out of the spray… often no more than 3-feet away from my nose. Four out of five of these mornings have the cool southerly or southwesterly breezes blowing through our hilltop oasis. As I’m writing this (and not outside) I notice our nearby roadrunner (Geococcyx californianus) family trots from one end of the yard to the other. This is the prelude of a day in nature’s front-row that is never the same from previous A.M. shows. This is the “life” I would give up if I were to focus on my blogging and all of you. Hmmm, the quandaries. 😉

Family

For two weeks I’ve had my 14-year old son with me. It has been great and rejuvenating rekindling our relationship, again. I haven’t seen him since Xmas 2014 and then before that Spring Break 2014. We talk on the phone biweekly, sometimes more. It isn’t the same though; touching, seeing each other’s expressions, hugging, mean so much more with more lasting impressions. But the landmass of Texas is more than huge — which did allow he and I to talk the drive back, and talk, and talk, and talk five hours, the entire return trip. However, despite that immeasurable profit, traveling expenses are higher when hotel rooms must be included with food and fuel costs. For the last 13-years I’m the one that must and has foot the entire bill if I want to see my children which has made visitations difficult.

The time with my son is precious and highly needed, if not at least for my sake and sanity. And my newly married 21-year old daughter and her husband came to visit last weekend for 2-nights, 3-days! You couldn’t chisel the smiles off my face I was so thrilled! As I wrote a couple of months ago in my post And It Begins, my relationship with my daughter was put on hold 13-years ago when she, her brother, mother and step-father moved from the DFW area to Houston. My face-to-face time with my kids becomes, has become even more priceless. This is the current positive side of “Family.”

I was not told that my sister — an addict, recovering & relapsing the last 35+ years NEEDING to be either in a halfway house or inpatient dual-diagnosis hospital — moved into my mother’s home last December. I am not going to go into the many problems this lumps onto my widowed mother of 76-years living in her 3,000 sq. ft. ranchita on 13-acres and all the daily weekly chores, tasks, and projects a property that size requires… FROM RELIABLE helpers/workers/family members!!! I guess I did go into it a little detail, huh? This is why my Mom never told me she moved in. Instead of being upset and irate last winter, now I’m even more upset and irate when upon my arrival I assessed and determined how horribly behind all the chores, tasks, and projects have fallen and some not even started the last 7-months! Yet, that’s not all of it!

She wants to put on the market and sell the house and property by the end of August… of 2015! *large exhale*

Wonderful, beautiful, fun, responsible family! 🙂

Unreliable, unpredictable, over-weight & smoking, clinically depressed family in dire need of professional help, not resort accommodations! 😦

Family.

Career

The last two years the Texas Board of Education along with their conservative legislative constituents in Austin, will have their specialized curriculums implemented this 2015-16 school year. The most significant changes in the state-wide curriculum will be in the science and social studies/history textbooks and standards (visit New Texas Curriculum Standards and New BOE Chairman for more info).

The Professor’s circus will return!

These social conservative changes force me to reevaluate my personal conviction of “let the PARENTS aid their children in deciding religious and political debates.” My job responsibility is to offer the various perspectives, that information and data, monitoring student’s performance and proper objectivity. Unfortunately, now that the Texas GOP remains in office with more conservatives seated in our state Congress along with continued conservatives appointed on the Board of Education, as a Freethinking Humanist my convictions and conscience are increasingly challenged putting my performance-reviews further under the microscope by my supervisors and superiors. It doesn’t help either that I’m only a 5-year experienced teacher… easily replaced by a biased Christian-conservative teacher with 10-15 years experience. This past spring I’ve begun considering a career change, more like a career return to the psych/A&D field of therapy, crisis management, and guidance. In 1989-91 I was in the field and doing exceptionally well.

Hence, the tedious, enormous task of job-searching begins simultaneously with everything mentioned above. HAH!

What It All Means

It means simply my enjoyment of writing and blogging will be suspended, or very infrequent until further notice. It has taken me almost 2-weeks just to finish this post! I know all of you are crying and mourning my absence and thought-provoking posts. It is hard, I know. I’m sorry. But this shall one day pass. 😉

Meanwhile, please feel free to read and/or visit my other posts, both old and recent. Comment if you’d like. I will log-in two or three times a week to check for new comments and suggestions for my Us and Them page.

Until then…

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Live Well — Love Much — Laugh Often — Learn Always

Third Monday

Posted on January 19, 2015 by Professor Taboo

Dad’s note – c. 1958

On the third Monday of every January, we remember and celebrate one of America’s greatest civil rights warrior Martin Luther King, Jr. Today I reflect back on a handwritten note my Uncle gave me not too long ago. It was written by my Dad in about 1955-1962 when he was a young man from tiny Alta Loma, TX and headed off to the University of Texas Austin. I never knew this note existed until my Uncle — a close dear brother-in-law to my father — brought it to me and shared its context. It meant a lot to my Uncle because my father meant a lot to him. Uncle Dale and my Dad had enormous mutual respect and fondness for each other. They saw eye-to-eye on many social and political issues of the day. It feels right to share the note here today. It is entitled “Children Learn What They Live” by Dorothy Law Nolte, a popular American writer and family counselor of my Dad’s era. A picture of the note is above.

I remember throughout my childhood all the way up through my senior year of high school, Dad would often tell me that people are not born to hate, not born to kill, and not born to discriminate unless they are taught to do it and surrounded by it. That was not, he would adamantly explain, the definition of true freedom, true liberty, true equality in which our nation was supposedly founded! Furthermore, those three principles do not fully exist if it is not safe for someone here to be unpopular, like Martin Luther King, Jr. in the 60’s. If only one person in society is scared for their life or safety, for merely being different or thinking different, then the whole society IS NOT a free one. It is something less or worse.

It is amazing, probably appalling, that since 1775 and the words of our Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal“, since 1863 and again the same words from our Emancipation Proclamation, since the hundred years of Jim Crow Laws from 1866 to 1965 which after 1776 should have never existed, since the 1900’s and Women’s Suffrage, and then still today in the 21st century, the United States is STILL dealing with forms of inequality and civil rights violations. A foreigner looking in to our shores — with our Statue of Liberty in the foreground — would quite rightly scream, HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE!?

To that foreigner I would respond ashamed repeating what my father taught me… “because it is still being taught.” Hate, violence, killing, discrimination, prejudice, bigotry, elitism, and divisiveness are all taught. It starts with the parents and family, then the immediate community, and if unchecked, continues through following generations. It is there at the roots and in those hearts that it must be untaught and the cycle broken.

Happy MLK Day everyone! And please remember the cost and continuing responsibility required to protect our fragile freedom, liberty, and equality for not just a few, or those in distant lands, but for ALL Americans right here within our own national borders! We’ve progressed a bit in 240 years, but we still have a ways to go!

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Live Well — Love Much — Laugh Often — Learn Always

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Out-of-Wedlock Babies

Posted on October 14, 2014 by Professor Taboo

On October 10^th, 2014 then again the previous July, Texas Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate for Texas governor defended the state’s ban on same-sex marriage based upon economic benefits to the state and its citizens. He continued his position by stating:

“The State is not required to show that recognizing same-sex marriage will undermine heterosexual marriage,” the court reply brief read. “It is enough if one could rationally speculate that opposite-sex marriages will advance some state interest to a greater extent than same-sex marriages will.” Abbott and Perry continued that “First, Texas’s marriage laws are rationally related to the State’s interest in encouraging couples to produce new offspring, which are needed to ensure economic growth and the survival of the human race. Second, Texas’s marriage laws are rationally related to the State’s interest in reducing unplanned out-of-wedlock births. By channeling procreative heterosexual intercourse into marriage, Texas’s marriage laws reduce unplanned out-of-wedlock births and the costs that those births impose on society. Recognizing same-sex marriage does not advance this interest because same-sex unions do not result in pregnancy.”

There are a number of flawed preconceived ideas about Greg Abbott’s and Rick Perry’s argument and brief to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. None of them more glaring than unions which do not result in pregnancy. That logic implies that couples who are unable to conceive but adopt, do not and cannot advance the state’s interests. To read their brief click here.

Economically Conducive Babies

The first and flagrant flaw of their position is their idea that babies created and born inside traditional heterosexual marriages produce economically conducive state citizens. Apparently, as archaic as it sounds, babies have a varying monetary value attached to them based upon their parents, and that value is determined not by love, but by anonymous (to the child) governing officials an anonymous (to the child) population elects. And aside from contrary national statistics on heterosexual homes, Greg Abbott and Rick Perry are essentially pretending to be psychics who can predict the futures of newborn babies or toddlers — or perhaps the better description would be playing God.

Knowing Texas Republican politics well – I am an eighth generation Texan living in the state the majority of my life – it is safe for me to assume that Perry and Abbott are firmly pro-life advocates and politicians. Abortion of an unborn child conceived in an illegal rape, in their view, deserves a chance in life to become possibly (probably?) a model citizen. They’d likely argue that no one, not even a 47-year old mother, can predict whether that rape-child (or out-of-wedlock child) would be a detriment to society. In that particular case they’d argue a pro-choicer is horribly illogical and essentially a murderer pretending to play God. Therefore, since no one can precisely predict how a newborn baby will turn out as a person or as an upstanding citizen, they must be given the chance. Perhaps their words would be having faith in God that He can turn seemingly horrendous circumstances into later miracles. But therein lies the paradox or flaw in their political position.

How would a one- or two-year old, placed into or adopted by a stable, economically set, ethically irreproachable same-sex couple surrounding their home in plentiful love…be predicted prematurely to turn out as a productive or detrimental young adult for society decades into the future? Then I’d be the first to proclaim “Have faith in your God that He can turn seemingly untraditional circumstances into later examples of tremendous love!” But I’d later add, “think also of the possible or probable societal issues that child would face – especially in a bullying or hateful anti-gay community or schools – when his/her “parents” attend PTA meetings or hometown gatherings and sports games.” Is it not just as much the environment and community the child grows up in as it is the time-of-conception circumstances? Is it not as much the community that either makes the child’s life miserable or happy as it is the parents?

It is at this point where I think I understand where economics might play into the debate. A young malleable vulnerable child typically has a better chance of becoming a productive citizen and taxpayer if it is raised in a home and community of love, stability, education, equal opportunity, and positive support. Many indigenous cultures today do exactly that, where the tribe raises the children as much as its biological parents, and they do it quiet successfully! There is no heavy favor between one couple or one man and woman. In contrast, a child born into a neighborhood of strife, violence, hate, bullying and ill-founded prejudices has much less of a chance to become a productive citizen and taxpayer regardless of male-female parenting. Wait a minute! Are Abbott and Perry presuming children born into those negative influences are found purely and only within every LGBT home, community or neighborhood? Yes, an utterly ridiculous question, right? But if it is presupposed, as Abbott’s and Perry’s brief state, that a newborn or toddler has a reduced chance of becoming an economically productive citizen based upon its parents, then sticking with that absurd logic also means we need to ban heterosexual marriages where one or both parents have negative detrimental civil and/or criminal records (e.g. bankruptcies?) to sustain and advance the state’s interests. Is that sound logic?

The child’s prenatal neurological and genetic wiring may (probably?) be perfectly fine, at least giving them that advantage. But how is the planetary leap made from postnatal rearing straight to heterosexual parents? If the child is simply born or placed into a home and community of love, stability, education, equal opportunity, and positive support, is not much of the child’s future success dependent on the community’s support, sociably and economically? But I simply cannot fathom how those positive influences onto a newborn child, toddler, and adolescent can only be provided by a heterosexual home!

What Abbott-Perry ~~presupposed~~ ideas on marriage or parenting are firmly backed by family and sexual-orientation statistics? America’s appalling rising divorce rates, I’d imagine are numbers based strictly on heterosexual marriages. Is that supposed to support their position!? Furthermore, what basis do anonymous lawmakers or citizens have in dictating that child’s healthy loving home? Well, in this case you’d have to ask Rick Perry and Greg Abbott. They are not only experts in state law, party politics, and apparently love, but now licensed doctors in medical prenatal genetics, obstetrics, and gynaecology. Even though a perfectly normal prenatal and postnatal child can be born (adopted?) into a very loving stable home, based on Abbott’s and Perry’s unwavering position and careers, and only if it is done in heterosexual homes. And herein lies more problems.

Proper and Appropriate Home Construction

This plural family, all parents being heterosexual, from a Mormon background faces larger challenges in their tradtional monogamous hetero neigborhood and town.

This plural family, all parents being heterosexual from Mormon backgrounds, face larger difficult challenges daily in their traditional monogamous hetero neighborhood and town.

Are all and exclusively heterosexual homes the best and safest environment for newborn children? The Brookings Institute in Washington D.C., is consistently ranked as the most influential, most quoted and most trusted think tank in the nation’s capital and throughout most political campaigns. What do they believe are the best family planning methods? Simply answered: “A Job.” That certainly falls in-line with Abbott’s and Perry’s economic position.

The October 14^th blog-post by Andrew Cherlin is a delightful insightful article that for this subject begs the question: Are you implying births strictly by heterosexual partners or by non-heterosexual partners? I strongly urge you to click over to Andrew’s post to answer that question yourself! For those of you who are too busy to go read it (or too lazy), I give my synopsis:

The dissolution rates for cohabiting [and therefore heterosexual] couples over the subsequent years during the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study were very high.

What does that mean? Well, for starters it means that being heterosexual is no guarantee of a happy stable home for the unborn or newborn child. They are just as likely to be raised by a single parent as they are by a loving team or partnership. And by the simple but profound concept of “strength in numbers,” the child raised within a home and community of love, stability, education, equal opportunity, and positive support has much higher chances of a good future as one raised in a single parent home.

Therefore, is the parenting issue really heterosexual or non-heterosexual, or is it entirely something else? It honestly seems to be the latter. That begs the question of WHO builds a healthier and appropriate home for the child. It is here that I can speak amply on that question as a heterosexual male raised by heterosexual parents.

I know and am close to many friends, family members, and couples that are heterosexual, gay-lesbian or bisexual, of various careers from various ethnic backgrounds, levels of education, and even with civil and criminal records. It most certainly provides (at least) me with a wide, wide lens. One example I want to first mention is a heterosexual couple in Houston, Texas. I will change their and everyone else’s names for obvious reasons.

Kimberly and Paul had been married for eight years. He wanted a son or sons badly. She was open to the idea, however was not ready to give up her rising career as a flight attendant with a world-wide airline corporation. After giving in to her husband’s incessant pushing, they began trying to conceive. But after two or three years it wasn’t working. Years later and after many expensive doctor visits and alternative conception methods, it still wasn’t working. Kimberly gave up; Paul soon followed. And suddenly one evening when there was no more pressure, wham, it happened. Six years later another boy. For those twelve years – then in the Baltimore, MD area – they ended up having two happy normal boys doing very well in their respective public schools. Then the marital problems began. She began feeling ignored and taken for granted as a stay-at-home Mom who gave up her incredibly good and potentially rich-through-retirement career. The husband and father neglected his marital and fathering responsibilities by always, always working very long hours. After trying to mend and repair the marriage, Kimberly moved to Houston where two of her brother’s and their wives and kids were located, with the boys and without Paul. The official separation had begun. But then other serious problems arose.

As she enrolled her two boys into an exceptional south Houston school and district, her boys soon began to be heckled and bullied by students, and unfairly treated by certain staff. You see, Kimberly was white-Caucasian, Paul was African-American. Their kids, were by some Texas citizens, considered half-breeds, inferior simply due to their skin-color and heterosexual parents. Yes, I emphasized heterosexual to make a point.

These two normal happy boys now faced a problem they knew nothing about or why it was happening to them: social injustice.

You see, it is just as much a community’s responsibility to give children the best opportunities possible, economic or otherwise, as it is the children’s home! Does it really have everything to do with the sexual orientation of people parenting the child? Is love and happiness ONLY available from heterosexual parents and dare I say pure-bred heterosexual parents? Do I honestly need to answer the last question? I really hope not.

My second and third example will be from Barry, a gay man who I have befriended the last eight years – who is recently married to his partner – and a lesbian friend over the last seven years. I cannot count the stories they have shared with me about their social and occupational struggles.

As a teenager my male gay friend Barry was so bullied and so mocked and mistreated in school that he eventually caved-in to alcoholism and drug addiction for relief. His parents were not overly involved or committed to raising him – yes, they were heterosexual. My good friend has now been clean-and-sober for over twenty years, working hard at two jobs, and to me and our circle of friends is one of the most understanding, patient, and tolerant of society’s harsh flaws, I consider him and now his husband to be remarkable stories of survival in an often hateful jungle of taught bigotry and prejudice.

My third example, my good close lesbian friend Sally, faced the same unnecessary adolescent pressures and abuses in her heterosexual household and later high school and occupational years. Many times in her childhood she saw and heard her father and mother fight, scream, and throw objects. Many times they threatened divorce on each other but could never take that path for fear of the backlash by their Catholic Church and members. As a result, her brother has felony convictions of drug-trafficking and prescription drug abuse. The mother also abuses prescription drugs, possibly due to her marriage. Her sister has fallen in and out of abusive relationships, likely because of the model presented to her by her own parents. Sally, however, is now a college graduate and employed LPN at a Dallas hospital. All three of these friends are incredibly productive taxpayer citizens offering told and untold important value to their communities! All three of them have acquired an unbelievable amount of patience, tolerance, understanding, and pain provided by their heterosexual homes and harshly insensitive communities. I will happily go out on a limb and say these three human beings have a TREMENDOUS amount of wisdom to offer a newborn child to last their lifetime!

Dare I say their children would know how to build the most stable impregnable healthier appropriate home that our society could not tear down? Duh!

Then my last example is someone I’ve already written about in an April 2011 post that takes the subject of parenting and families on a different but relevant direction, which is how significantly a community/society takes on the responsibility of its children, their future success or failure, and how it is achieved. Fortunately, on a few levels, the story/post has a happy ending. One moral of my intersex birth story is that the meaning of love between human beings is defined in many ways and cannot be defined in just one or two ways. In my June 2013 post A Supreme Decision and February 2013 post Toss the 2-D Glasses, I further explain scientifically how non-heterosexuals are just as capable of happy, loving, stable parenting as anyone, including heterosexuals. In a 2010 review of practically every study done on gay-lesbian parenting, New York University sociologist Judith Stacey and USC sociologist Timothy Biblarz found no differences between children raised in homes with two heterosexual parents as children raised in homes with gay-lesbian parents. Besides, why are there orphans and fostering opportunities in existence anyway? How did they come to life? A hunch tells me it wasn’t because their biological parents were gay or lesbian. Is the real issue Abbott and Perry something else?

More Than Economics

To say that love is more than economics is like saying medieval marriage arrangements are out of date. Medieval marriage practices were, at least with the nobility and most of their peasants, entirely based on property and its economics. Today, at least in many Western nations, marriage is increasingly based upon attraction as it is on economics. What exactly is attraction? Does it involve feelings? Are feelings a powerful force inside a person? Will passion about something or someone make them go to the ends of the world for their beloved? Will a soldier gladly risk his life for his country or a way of life he is passionate about?

In ancient Greece love was defined in six ways and they promoted all six equally. In his book How Should We Live? Great Ideas from the Past for Everyday Life, Roman Krznaric writes about the Athenians expressions of nurturing love or attraction…

“[Our] contemporary coffee culture has developed a sophisticated vocabulary to describe the many options for getting a caffeine fix – cappuccino, espresso, flat white, Americano, macchiato, mocha. The ancient Greeks were just as refined in the way they thought about love, distinguishing six different kinds. This is the opposite of our approach today, where under a single, vague term we bundle an enormous range of emotions, relationships, and ideals. A teenage boy can declare ‘I am in love’, but he is unlikely to mean the same thing as a sixty-year old who says he is still in love with his [spouse] after all their years together…

…The inhabitants of classical Athens would have been surprised at the crudeness of our expression. Their approach to talking about love [passion] not only enlivened gossip in the market square, but allowed them to think about its place in their lives in ways that we can barely comprehend with our impoverished language of love, which in terms of coffee is the emotional equivalent of a mug of instant.”

Krznaric goes on to list the six Greek definitions of expansive love/passion: philia, ludus, pragma, eros, agape, philautia. He gives brief definitions at the Yes Magazine website of which I will share here.

Philia, or deep friendship. It concerned the deep comradely friendship that developed between brothers in arms who had fought side by side on the battlefield. It was about showing loyalty to your friends, sacrificing for them, as well as sharing your emotions with them. (Another kind of philia, sometimes called storge, embodied the love between parents and their children.)
Ludus, or playful love. This was the Greeks’ idea of playful love, which referred to the affection between children or young lovers. We’ve all had a taste of it in the flirting and teasing in the early stages of a relationship. But we also live out our ludus when we sit around in a bar bantering and laughing with friends, or when we go out dancing. Dancing with strangers may be the ultimate ludic activity, almost a playful substitute for sex itself. Social norms today may frown on this kind of adult frivolity, but the classic Greeks were unabashed of publically showing it.
Pragma, or longstanding love. Greek love was the mature love known as pragma. This was the deep understanding that developed between long-married couples. Pragma was about making compromises to help the relationship work over time, and showing patience and tolerance. The psychoanalyst Erich Fromm said that we expend too much energy on “falling in love” and need to learn more how to “stand in love.” Pragma is precisely about standing in love—making an effort to give love rather than just receive it. With about a third of first heterosexual marriages in the U.S. ending through divorce or separation in the first 10 years, the Greeks would surely think we should bring a serious dose of pragma into our relationships.
Eros, or sexual expression. Named after the Greek god of fertility, it represented the idea of sexual passion and desire. But the Greeks didn’t always think of it as something positive, as we tend to do today. In fact, eros was viewed as a dangerous, fiery, and irrational form of love that could take hold of you and possess you—an attitude shared by many later spiritual thinkers, such as the Christian writer C.S. Lewis. Eros involved a loss of control that frightened the Greeks. Which is odd, because losing control is precisely what many people now seek in a relationship. Don’t we all hope to fall “madly” in love?
Intriguingly, in ancient Greek texts eros was often associated with homosexuality, especially the love of older men for adolescents, a practice prevalent in fifth- and sixth-century Athens amongst the aristocracy.
Agape, or love for everyone. The most radical of the six, was agape or selfless love. This was a love that you extended to all people, whether family members or distant strangers. Agape was later translated into Latin as caritas, which is the origin of our word “charity.” S. Lewis referred to it as “gift love,” the highest form of Christian love. But it also appears in other much older religious traditions, such as the idea of mettā or “universal loving kindness” in Theravāda Buddhism.
There is growing evidence that agape is in a dangerous decline in many countries. Empathy levels in the U.S. have declined sharply over the past 40 years, with the steepest fall occurring in the past decade. Kzrnaric feels we urgently need to revive our capacity to care about strangers. I am in complete agreement!
Philautia, or love of self. Here is where the ancient Greeks can teach mountains of wisdom. The idea was that if you love yourself and feel secure in yourself, you will have plenty of love to give others (as is reflected in the Buddhist-inspired concept of “self-compassion”). Or, as Aristotle put it, “All friendly feelings for others are an extension of a man’s feelings for himself.” The ancient Greeks found diverse kinds of love in relationships with a wide range of people—friends, family, spouses, strangers, and even themselves. This contrasts with our typical focus on a single romantic relationship, where we hope to find all the different loves wrapped into a single person or soul mate. The message from the Greeks is to nurture the varieties of love and tap into its many sources.

I believe posting these six forms of love are critically important in not only showing the wonderful expanse of deep love, but also that it is not exclusive to any specific type of person or their lifestyle. Everybody can give it and receive it. To demand that it is exclusive would be, to put it nicely, grossly ignorant. Perhaps the only people who are incapable of such love are the ones who choose to be closed off to it, restrict it.

Where in any of those six forms of love could it exclude non-heterosexual relationships and parenting? How could any of them justify exclusion from any man or woman? Does love or economics distinguish itself by any one person, male or female? No, apparently people do – apparently governors, lieutenant governors, and lawmakers do. But according to our federal constitution and my state’s constitution, those elected officials represent what the majority of registered voters want. But does a crowd or majority make it right? Ask the German people of 1940 and their Wehrmacht and SS units. Ask the 19^th century slaves of America’s southern states. Before that dark part of American history, ask the Native American tribes during Manifest Destiny. All three of those historical eras had communities, groups, states and nations that stood by or followed while a few led thousands or millions of “citizens” to do their bidding.

Influences Upon the Majority

Because I have now almost 4,000 words in this post, I will continue this subject of Abbott’s and Perry’s Out-of-Wedlock Babies and conformity by the masses on my next post Influences Upon the Majority.

Conclusion

I try (to the extent possible) not to impose my own personal world-views onto others as a show of respect and hope that they can find on their own a way of life that benefits the most freedom and responsibility to the largest number, while protecting against those who would reduce, restrict, even eliminate both. As a Freethinking Humanist from heterosexual non-religious parents, I do feel a certain civil obligation to offer in an understandable format all sides to an uncomfortable issue, or at the very least cause them to consider solutions outside, maybe way outside their own “box.” I hope I have succeeded so far and you will return for my next post. If I have not succeeded, I truly want to hear/read your comments below how I have fallen short and why.

Footnote – I am a college graduate, professional teacher, and also an out-of-wedlock conceived baby. My two kid’s mother also has a college degree, comes from an ultra-conservative Christian family and parents whose first child was conceived out-of-wedlock. My daughter, the older of my two who is now a third-year college student making outstanding grades, was also conceived out-of-wedlock. None of us are “imposing on the state” as Abbott and Perry wrongly assume or speculate. However, we are indeed all heterosexuals!

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Live Well — Love Much — Laugh Often — Learn Always

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Real Men

Posted on March 9, 2014 by Professor Taboo

I love my teaching job for moments like these:

Last week I had to pull an 8th grade boy aside to address his ‘cocky’ bullying. It became quickly apparent that his version of “a man” was arrogant hyper-testosterone peacocking. Where or how he learned it didn’t matter. What did matter was the chip on his shoulder.

I shared with him a lesson I learned when I was about his age about “being a man.” It was taught to me by a REAL man who had it taught to him…

Tearing down people’s lives, maiming them, or even taking life is easy and over-glorified; it requires about as much “manhood” as a gorilla picking up a stick or rock. But helping put lives back together or literally saving them takes an immeasurable amount of manhood. There is no comparison!

[Boy], if you must “stand out,” then stand out with and for the ones who can’t. Choose the harder higher road, not the easiest, and then you’ll understand what it is to be a real man.

Some great examples of “Real Men”…

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