Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 17:05:36 -0400 To: Matthew Gaylor <freematt@coil.com> From: Matthew Gaylor <freematt@coil.com> Subject: Niebuhr's Dire Warning? Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"[Note from Matthew Gaylor: Ed's a long time subscriber to Freematt's Alerts who teaches philosophy and ethics at Brooklyn College, CUNY.]
Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 14:43:26 -0700 From: Edward Kent <ekent@brooklyn.cuny.edu> Organization: Brooklyn College, CUNY Subject: Niebuhr's Dire Warning?
I studied with Reinhold Niebuhr after he suffered his stroke -- he and the young Daniel Malan, son of the South African Apartheid leader, who also suffered one as a young student at UTS, used to joke together about their common disabilities -- speech impediments and such. Still Niebuhr was a commanding presence -- a powerful intellect spilling over with original insights into present day events for which he could see connections to things ancient and modern. He was also young in spirit with a warm and wry sense of humor. My wife and I used to watch him with his wife, Ursula, in the UTS refectory -- laughing and flirting together like a couple of teenagers who had just met and were becoming intrigued with each other.
One of the images that Niebuhr used in his analysis of "original sin" has stuck with me. As a "Neo-orthodox" Protestant theologian who had pressed Christian pacifists to enter the war against Nazi Germany, he had a deep sense of man's capacity for evil. He suggested in one class that this perspective had been enriched when he had become a parent. "Have you ever seen a two-year-old throw a temper tantrum and imagined how very dangerous he would be if he had the body of an adult?" That image has stuck with me and, of course, we understand that many violent crimes entail precisely regression to two year-old modes of behavior -- why it is so important to teach one's children at that age not to not to hit and to not hit them except in extreme circumstances!
As impressive as it was, I left Niebuhr's world view behind because I could not get past theodicy -- reconciling a just G-d with the Holocaust -- my childhood horror. I will never forget those death camp pictures in Life Magazine that I happened upon. My archetypal moral philosopher who explains human nature most acutely, if I am forced to settle with one, is David Hume who proposed that we are basically creatures determined by our feelings ("sentiments") overlaid by whatever senses of justice that we are taught by our societies. I suspect from all that I have learned along the way that this is the way things are. I was a parent of 3 children in the Bank St. College/School early childhood programs and learned there how we socialize kids -- necessarily starting at age 3 if we are to do the job right. And our studies of Head Start Program follow ups 30 years later have proven that kids from similar backgrounds who have had the benefit of such programs are twice as likely to enter society happily and successfully as those who have not been taught to respect and care for others at the earliest age. Those deprived of such teachings become all too frequently dropouts or criminals.
Just societies produce just individuals -- or at least reduce deviants to those with serious behavioral defects caused by brain damage along the way combined with cultural abuses -- a study of individuals who had committed extremely violent murders found that 9/10 suffered from BOTH these defects -- brain injury and severe abuse as very young children. One of the Times reports of a terrorist had an interview with his Egyptian lawyer father who was claiming that his son would never have dared do such an act -- the picture and quotes from this man suggested a sadistic father of a tormented son: "Look, daddy, I did it!"
I am learning from reading and from participation in a group of philosophers and psychiatrists who are exploring such things that much of our consciousness (of which we still comprehend little) derives from ur sources either in the brain or early cultural influences. We may think we are rational, but we are only rational within the frames of our cultures. Last week's NY Times Science section had an article offering horrible examples of this phenomenon which I will not repeat here because they might be prejudicial in our current emotionally fraught situation -- examples offered un-self-consciously perhaps with such in mind.
My bottom line concern here is that it looks as though a number of intelligent individuals in our global scene are being under-educated or mis-educated towards violent solutions to problems of injustice -- real or perceived. How we can make an impact on such individuals, I do not exactly know. However, we can try to reach the next generation of potential successors -- not obviously with bullets, bombs, and rockets. The ultimate weapons that threaten us in the future are far more deadly than what we have yet experienced. I read this morning a quote from a Jerusalem Post article of 1999 claiming that Bin Laden already had some suitcase nuclear weapons -- several to 20? I imagine that he would have used them, if he or whoever had. But this sort of suggestion, while it may be only a rumor today, is tomorrow's too real possibility. Tit for tat?
Our challenge is -- how do we persuade others that a non-violent route for pursuing justice is a real alternative to terrorism? For starters we can become better listeners. And I am certain that the way to peace does not lie in tit for tat retaliation for each violation or attack that comes our way. I have debated this issue this summer with Israeli friends and praised those brave Israeli Women in Black for their steadfast pursuit of peace and reconciliation. But this gentle voice for sanity will not be sufficient, if it is not heard. And perhaps Niebuhr's dire warning about "original sin" -- our human capacity for self-destruction once we are unchained from civilized restrictions -- will not prevail? I hope not. -- Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
Subscribe to Freematt's Alerts: Pro-Individual Rights Issues Send a blank message to: freematt@coil.com with the words subscribe FA on the subject line. List is private and moderated (7-30 messages per week) Matthew Gaylor, (614) 313-5722 ICQ: 106212065 Archived at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fa/