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Editors SpaceThese are my own views and thoughts, if you are interested (there is no reason why you should be, I suppose). They are subjects that do not require treatment in ARG. These are not for the general public, but for people already considered "friends" or people who want to get to know me better (I hope they are not disappointed).
Private Editorials for Friends by Donald Vroon (Revisions 2010)
A Political Manifesto I don't think I've changed much, but over the last 40 years what I thought of as liberal, even radical, has become somewhat conservative. I am regularly accused of being a conservative, by liberals and conservatives alike. Well, I have always voted Democratic, never Republican. My favorite presidents were people like Roosevelt, Truman, even Jimmy Carter—people I could respect. I despised Mr Nixon and had no use for Ronald Reagan. I am convinced he validated and encouraged national attitudes that set us back many decades. I have always supported and voted for the more liberal candidate for anything. I am disgusted by the rancid "Christian right". And I am convinced that "the market" is a false god, that government has the absolute duty to correct the injustices of capitalism and the "free market" and to punish its crimes against the people and the environment. But I'm not a "textbook" liberal, because I am a serious Christian. I believe human nature is depraved and inclined to sin. I believe people are very bad at knowing what is good for them and will usually make the wrong choice, left to their own devices. People are certainly easily deceived—Americans are known all over the world as notoriously gullible people. I believe people need strong intellectual leadership. I am suspicious of simple solutions to human problems. I reject, for example, the "liberal" notion that crime is caused by poverty and lack of opportunity. I reject the nonsense about "self-esteem"; I believe shame is a legitimate social tool to keep people in line. I reject the victimology that seems to come from so many sources. I don't believe the problems of the poor can be solved by money. Nor do I believe we will ever fairly eliminate a poverty class in any society. I was always annoyed by liberal propaganda on racial problems. I did not even like Dr King; his speeches made me angry, while all my liberal friends felt guilty. He created lots of trouble and violence. The position of blacks in our society today has very little to do with white racism. I can't support affirmative action or "diversity" initiatives. I'm inclined to think labor unions killed the goose that laid the golden eggs and reduced us to a second-rate industrial power and a permanent depression in the rust belt cities. We are still feeling the results in lower and lower typical wages (where are all the decent jobs?). I think the gap between rich and poor in this country is obscene and must be bridged if we are not to end up like Brazil. I think feminism went off the rails 20 years ago. I think "progressive" ideas in education have proved themselves disastrous. I am against relativism and the idea that everything is a matter of opinion and that everyone's opinion is worth the same. In culture and in affairs of the mind, equality is an illusion. But still, I believe we should have universal health care, underwritten by the government. It is the only solution to an outrageous situation. And I am sure government must take the side of the poor and the oppressed, just as it must protect all of us from the rapacious power of the big corporations,and just as it must be a force for equality. I am disgusted with the Republicans, who seem to consider the current mess perfectly acceptable when it is obviously unjust.
A Religious Manifesto I believe in God the Creator. I am not credulous enough to believe that a cold, mindless, chance process like natural selection can explain the miracles of design I see everywhere—or the subtleties of the human mind, with its ethical and aesthetic sensitivities. I believe in Jesus—in what he taught and did. He taught that the Creator God loves us like a father. Nature could never have taught us that. Nature is cold and unfeeling. He spent his life undoing the baleful deeds of nature—mostly healing the sick, but eventually triumphing over death itself. If Jesus was a fraud, there is no hope. I believe in the Holy Spirit but wonder if he has abandoned us. Certainly he has mostly abandoned the churches. Nor does God's Spirit seem to be inspiring our leaders, our artists, our writers and composers. But where people seek the truth and turn away from childish rebellion and fads as well as tired customs, perhaps there, in his own quiet way, the Spirit of God is present—because the Spirit of God is a free spirit and fills our lives with truth, beauty, and love. When you have God's Spirit within you, you have a nose for truth, a lively aesthetic sense, and feeling for all creatures. All my life I have been thought of as "evangelical" by liberals and "liberal" by evangelicals. I have not consciously walked the middle of the road, but neither have I followed any party line. I suppose I considered everything afresh, so I ended up on different sides for different issues. I have no group identity or loyalties—in fact, I have no conception of belonging to a group. I never "belonged" or even wanted to. I think for myself. So I might be considered part pietist and part anti-pietist, part Lutheran, part Calvinist, part Methodist, part Episcopalian. I think I'm quite liberal on most social and moral issues; I'm certainly not a capitalist or a patriot, and I have never even married, so I am hardly interested in "family values". But I believe the Bible and believe in Jesus. I may live like a liberal, but I pray (in private) like a true pietist, and I love the old hymns and gospel songs. Well, why shouldn't a Christian be a bundle of contradictions? Jesus was, and his influence seems to enhance our individuality—certainly our freedom. Christian conformity is a contradiction. I might add that though they have some things in common—mostly ethical matters—the world's religions are profoundly incompatible. To a serious Christian or Jew Hinduism and Buddhism are absolute nonsense. To a Muslim Christianity is almost incomprehensible. In spiritual matters you really have to stick with your tradition. Logical consistency does not allow for a blend of traditions that essentially contradict each other.
Sexuality Sex must be the greatest pleasure our Creator gave us, but it is hard to imagine that he intended for us to become obsessed by it—as we surely are. One would assume that, like all the pleasures, it would have had its normal place in human life. We would not have been driven by it, lose control because of it, commit acts of aggression and make fools of ourselves over it. It would be one of the many pleasures God created us to enjoy: food, drink, sight, sounds, music, colors, even sleep. Sex the way God created it hardly exists. It became an overpowering, obsessive, urgent need; and all attempts to rein it in and restore it to a reasonable place in our lives only seem to backfire. There is no unfallen sexuality. People who are relatively free of its "normal" urgency might even be considered lucky. They must certainly wonder why the rest of us make such fools of ourselves. Because sex is so powerful today, it is used to sell everything, from self-image to clothing to toothpaste to automobiles. Women use it to manipulate men, because it is men who seem most unable to control it. Asexual men and homosexuals are blessedly immune to that kind of manipulation and may actually, therefore, be freer of the ubiquitous distortion of sex (so ubiquitous that everyone considers it "normal") and actually more truly "normal". CS Lewis draws the wonderful image of everyone slobbering over food (juicy steaks and such) to make us wonder how sex ever got so distorted. Jesus said that in the kingdom of heaven there would be no marriage. Marriage is one of the devices we have been given to tame the wildness of sexuality in a fallen world. We will not be sexless beings in God's kingdom; we will simply be able to control it instead of it controlling us. The Hebrew-Christian tradition should not be understood as anti-sexual (though that distortion has turned up from time to time) but as pro-sexual, with the utopian hope that we will someday not even need the controls of marriage and society but will be able to enjoy it without being obsessed by it. If you think hard about it, that's even implied in the dogma of the Immaculate Conception (which I reject utterly). It teaches that Mary was born immaculate because her parents actually managed to have a sexual union—at least on the one occasion—that was not compulsive and distorted by the usual uncontrollable lust. Catholics have sometimes assumed that that means they didn't enjoy it! But why should it mean that? The doctrine arose out of the realization that human sexuality is badly fallen, depraved, and distorted. An exception was felt necessary for the Mother of God. That strikes me as pure sentimentality, but the basic perception is true: there is no undistorted human sexuality. Its very urgency is a distortion. Any gay or celibate person can see quite clearly the humongous distortion that passes for "normal" sexuality in our culture. It amazes me that people who call themselves Christians can be so blind to that and can even call the gay individual "perverted". Do they really mean to tell us that this mess, this joke we call "normal" heterosexuality is NOT perverted? Don't believe it! They are so caught up in the perversion—so pervaded by it—that they think it must be normal, must be what God created. And there's safety in numbers: if everyone thinks so it must be so. But it isn't so, and asking masses of heterosexuals what is sexually normal and natural is a lot like asking the teachers' union if teachers should be paid more. How sleazy it is when laymen accuse celibate priests of not knowing enough about sexuality to be able to offer spiritual guidance! Because they are not caught up in the sexual rat race they are actually much better equipped to see its distortions! (Not that I would defend everything the priests say about sexuality!) Another thought: gay sexuality is purer sex, because it is not mediated by piles of social conventions that have grown up around sexuality. Much of what heterosexuals feel they have been taught to feel, and the way they interpret sex is the way they have been taught to interpret it—by their peers, by television, the movies, the advice columns, and so on. Straight sex is a kind of conformity. Gays are pretty much on their own: no one offers any "guidance", so they are often far more "natural" about it all (and sometimes pretty weird!). Heterosexual relations are anything but natural! They represent generations of fussing and interfering, because society has quite a stake in what happens between a male and a female.
FAMILY VALUES There is a certain smugness to the common idolatry of The Family. These people seem to be saying, "we are righteous and you are not. We have channeled our sexuality the right, approved way. Unchanneled, it is mere lust." The assumption is anti-sexual, I think. Sexual pleasure itself is suspect and has to be justified by and limited to an approved relationship. Often "family" seems an excuse for a kind of selfishness that we would never excuse in a single individual. It also often justifies aggression and ambition, the chase after money, the consumer society. A family—especially a mere "nuclear" family—can be quite suffocating for a child. In the name of family many children are forced into a "togetherness" that feels like torture and amounts to totalitarian control. Maybe they don't like their parents very much. There are often major differences in personality. In the past children had their own world and life; parents followed a policy of benign neglect. Some of us as children found those times the best times. I feel sorry for children now: the parents interfere in every corner of their lives—supposedly out of "concern". "Family values" gives these control freaks the excuse they need. (And those children therefore find it hard to stand on their own two feet.) "Family values" is also often a cover for the feeling parents have that they have lost control over their children. That is a power issue. American parents seem to think they should have almost dictatorial power over their children. Parents think they should mold their children as a potter molds the clay, and the children should turn out the way they as parents determine. Of course, that fails to take account of that messy little thing called freedom. Children are individuals, and why on earth should they have no say in how they "turn out"? In our kind of world a child is exposed to a wide range of values, and parents resent it. For example, the parents don't want the child to even consider the possibility that he might be gay. They want that possibility hidden and not discussed, because they fear it and don't want it for their child. But the child will become familiar with the possibility long before he needs to figure out whether it fits him, and the parents are well aware that they have lost a lot of control over their children in such matters. They resent that, but I'm not sure that it's a bad thing. I really feel sorry for children who are tyrannized by their parents and given no room to grow and discover. One of the most disgusting things I see is the overprotection of children. In 1969 69% of children walked to school. Now it's fewer than 10%. Go by any school at the time of day when school lets out and you'll see traffic for blocks—mothers, one to a car, picking up their precious little angels, who apparently cannot walk. (Is that why kids are so fat now?) TV has terrified everyone into thinking walking is unsafe. But those families don't need that extra car, and those children need to walk! If there's a risk, then they need to learn to risk, too! Children have no life! When I was young we disappeared for hours on end and found things to do, found friends, invented games, and so on. Now children's lives are scheduled like adults'. How inappropriate! And the adults have become glorified chauffeurs to get the kids to all the things they are scheduled to do. Even technology is an enemy of childhood: how do you get away from the parents in the age of cell phones? Children's lives today are overcontrolled. That's no childhood!
Abortion
2011
LifeI am old enough to start to ask myself what my life has been all about and what matters most to me in life. HatesLife has been wonderful, and any list of the great joys in life would have to be quite long. But it is easy to list the miseries—the things we hate. Some are Mother Nature's perversity—real evils—but most are human inventions—maybe just mistakes. Here is one man's little list, they'd none of them be missed by me! biting insects like mosquitoes and chiggers
Sacred Principles of Bureaucrats1. There is only one way to skin a cat: my way. On Maturity
Childish Things to Outgrow 1. Greed above all. Children are notoriously greedy and demanding—and how few people ever really outgrow it! The Marks of Maturity A. The Self B. Sensitivities (capacities) C. The Cognitive: mental capacities D. The Creative E. The Relational Now look back at all this. It is by no means exhaustive, but it seems fair to say that where any ONE of these is lacking there is a lack of maturity—even a lack of humanity. Maturity is simply the fullest measure of humanity. I think people today are missing a lot. [This was written in 1975 and certainly reflects my reading at the time. But I cannot remember what I was reading. I hope there is no plagiarism.]
FAT Have you ever read a brief summary of why Americans are so fat? It's really quite easy to list the reasons. There is only one reason people are fat: they eat too much for the amount of exercise they get. But there are many reasons for all that.1. They are sedentary. They spend most of their lives sitting around. They won't walk—not even a few blocks. They go everywhere in their gas-guzzling cars, burning energy that is not theirs and polluting the environment. 2. They are passive. Popular culture promotes passivity. It's all entertainment. Sit back and watch "sports", and the exercise is vicarious. You do nothing; you watch someone else do it all. TV also promotes passivity; your only place is as a recipient of its messages—in fact, passivity is encouraged by the medium and makes it a gold mine for advertisers, because it makes people suggestible, gullible. (Sitting at a computer is not much better; the only difference is finger exercise.) Harvard Medical School estimates that "The risk of obesity jumps almost 25% with each two-hour increase in daily television watching". Other studies associate television watching and weight gain. Another word for passive is "lazy". Americans are the laziest people I know. It is surprising they even get out of their chairs to eat the sugary snacks that TV talks them into. The inertia is amazing. Well, what do you expect? These people have spent their whole lives being coddled, flattered, and entertained. They are told every day that their life should be effortless and easy. They even do very little work at work—almost every other Western country is more productive per hour worked. Most of us seem to dislike work, so most of the work is done by a few of us. The old standby, the 80-20 rule, applies: 20 percent of the people do 80 percent of the useful work—the work that keeps a civilization going. A recent study showed that only 20% are involved in their jobs and attentive. By the way, it is worth noting here that the poorest people are the fattest in this country (unlike, say, India). That is partly because those people can't control their impulses and appetites—and that's part of why they are "poor". And also they are the people who watch the most television and are the target of the most advertising—precisely because they are impulsive and not careful with money. The poor are also more inclined to fatten up while there's plenty to eat, because they remember (or their bodies remember) that sometimes there isn't (or wasn't). And there is a connection between poverty and laziness and between poverty and inability to postpone gratification (self-indulgence). 3. Some people eat to counteract depression—and depression is far more common in this country now than it was a few decades back. Tasty food can be a great comfort, but that is not what food is for. That is what friends are for—but friendship is a lost art. And maybe that is why people are so depressed! 4. Advertising talks people into eating far more than they should—and the wrong kind of "food". Empty calories like sugary drinks are not satisfying and leave you hungry. It has been proved that even diet drinks lead to weight gain: "diet" beverages are no help at all in losing weight. Perhaps such beverages make you hungry and lead to overconsumption of food. Ice cream and candy are shots of sugar without much nourishment. 5. People are out of touch with their bodies. They eat a big dinner and then go to the movies and buy popcorn or candy and soda, as they are programmed to do. If they could hear their bodies, they would know that they are not hungry, and no one should eat when he is not hungry. But Americans eat and snack so much that they probably wouldn't recognize hunger if it came along. Desire is not hunger. Desires are wants; hunger is need. The food industry manipulates desires. Hunger means you need food; your body demands it because your cells need nourishment. You can want food even when you don't need it, and big corporations are getting rich by jerking our desires around. All those images and smells can make you want food, but you are either hungry or you are not—and most of the time we are not, so we should not be eating. People have no self-awareness in this matter and no self-control. I have watched many fat people snacking on chocolate an hour or two after eating a big meal. They are taught to think that is normal—and if they are a little ashamed of themselves (as they should be) they are taught to excuse it as "normal" self-indulgence. (Of course; advertisers don't want any guilt over self-indulgence—it would eat into their profits.) It's too bad, but self-indulgence actually has become pretty normal in this country. People are programmed by the media to indulge. That's what a market economy is all about. Since people make money on greed and self-indulgence, they will make sure it is considered normal—guilt-free. We are rich. Even the "poor" are rich in this country. We are unable to deny ourselves anything. This is a serious moral flaw! 6. Another cause of fat is lack of sleep. It has been proved that lack of sleep prevents your natural appetite mechanism from working properly and disrupts your metabolism. Most people need 8 hours of sleep a night, and if they get only 6 their whole body gets out of whack. Weight gain has paralleled reduced sleep across our whole society. 30 years ago people were thinner and also got more sleep. The relationship has been proved—it's chemical. When deprived of sleep people crave sweets and carbohydrates—and only partly because they mistake the weariness for lack of fuel, or think that a snack will perk them up. 7. Many Americans gave up smoking in the last 30 years. Anyone who has done so will tell you that weight gain is almost inevitable. Perhaps smoking satisfied some oral cravings (without calories!). 8. We eat too fast. If you eat slowly your body will tell you when you've had enough. Traditional meals were leisurely for a good reason. It has always been a rule in this household that dinner may not be rushed. We won't even eat out the evening of a concert, because the early start times (which I hate) would force us to rush the meal. One reason, by the way, that people eat so fast is that our food is too refined and requires very little chewing. The food industry calls all this over-refined stuff "adult baby food". You get lots of calories for very little effort. 9. Restaurant portions are way too big. Fast food places even brag about the size and make it ever bigger to make you think you are getting a bargain. My doctor asked me once if I ever eat fast food. I could answer quite honestly that I never do. He immediately said, "that explains why you are in such good shape". As I've said again and again, almost everything that's popular is bad for you. Someone is getting rich over your gullability. Restaurants can charge more for bigger portions, and they claim to need that money. So you are not going to see smaller portions soon. Even some better restaurants have huge portions; only the most expensive ones have small (but artistic) portions. Another doctor told me that he and his wife routinely split an entree when they eat out, because one serving in American restaurants is almost exactly twice what any one mature adult should eat. (This same doctor—a cousin—told me that if he could control what his patients eat, he could practically guarantee their good health.) It has been proved that people think they are getting more of a bargain with huge servings. It has also been proved that most people try to finish them, because they paid for them. The bigger the servings the more most people will eat—like animals. People are either greedy or stupid or don't apply their intelligence to eating. It's a shame to waste food, but to be fat is even more shameful. One nutritionist has said, "the calories in restaurant foods are obscene"—and people are eating out much more than they did 30 years ago, so they have less control over what they eat. And huge portions at restaurants warp your portion size expectations. A four-ounce hamburger is big enough, but it seems puny when the restaurants are serving eight-ounce hamburgers (half-pounders). 10. Another reason is "low-fat" (or -calorie) and "no-fat" foods. No other country on earth would put up with all that low-fat, no-fat crap (the worst by far is "light beer"); but Americans have been deluded into thinking that eating that stuff will help them lose weight—or at least keep them from gaining. So they overindulge—since it's "low-fat" they think they can get away with eating more of it. Most people are fat because they eat way too much—any doctor will tell you that. Too much low-fat food is still too much food! And people eat more because "low-fat" is not very satisfying. Swear off all low-fat and no-fat foods and you may eat less and find what you do eat more satisfying. Fat and protein calories are more satisfying. Food that has a lot of subtle flavors (like Asian foods of all kinds) are also more satisfying in smaller quantities. Empty calories like soft drinks add weight but leave you unsatisfied. Even no-calorie soft drinks have been proved to stimulate appetite and lead to weight gain and obesity. Americans have substituted soda-pop for water—a terrible mistake. They go around sipping those disgusting sweet beverages everywhere—walking and driving, even. (No one needs to drink anything while driving; nor does any adult need snacks in the car.) Sometime in my 20s I substituted beer and wine, iced tea and water for soft drinks—one of the smartest things I ever did. A lot of low-fat foods are higher in sweeteners—the substitutes for natural satisfiers. And the food industry in this country has a lot to answer for, because they have addicted Americans to sweetness. Everything is too sweet! I can't even stand the national brands of ketchup. Most bread has too much sweetener in it. Salad dressings are mostly obscene—and again, people are so stupid they seem to think that salads are good for them but don't realize that they are pouring high fructose corn syrup (a disgusting invention!) all over those greens. Almost nothing my high-class butcher prepares seems edible to me, because it's all too sweet. I can't buy his barbeque or his stuffed pork chops—or any stuffing. He knows that Americans are addicted to "sweet". 11. As we age we have to eat less. I ate twice as much at age 25 as I do now. All my portions except fruit and vegetables are much smaller now. If you plow thru life eating what you did when you were young and vigorous, you will be fat by the time you are 40 or 45. One of the secrets of aging well—one that we should tell all our children—is that you must eat less every year. And you can eat less and enjoy it more, if you choose your food carefully—don't just treat it as fuel, but enjoy it—and take your time. 12. The offspring of older mothers are more inclined to be obese. Women are waiting longer and longer these days to have children. 13. There is some evidence that birth-control drugs encourage weight gain. 14. It takes energy to keep warm in the winter and cool in the summer, but keeping your environment the same temperature all year round keeps you from needing that energy—and we all spend far too little time outdoors. We should get out more, yes; but we should also save energy and use our own energy by air conditioning less—keep your house warmer in the summer and cooler in the winter. 15. Social pressure and shame used to make people feel embarrassed when they acted greedy or ate a lot. When I was a child fat children were considered greedy and disgusting. But we are losing the power of social shame. We accept people who are fat pigs the way we accept single mothers—there's no shame left. Shame is a very important social tool to help people behave! Most people need that help, because they have no will power—they are slaves of their appetites. 16. A few studies have concluded that eating after dark puts on more weight than eating in the daytime. 17. The price of food is kept artificially low. Factory farms that treat animals like meat machines are a serious ethical issue. Our meat is wildly underpriced, because we don't take the trouble to raise our animals humanely. The prices of fruits and vegetables are low (as is the flavor) because they are grown in the desert in California and shipped across country (wasting water and energy—you want to save energy? Buy local produce when you can). Those fruits and vegetables have almost no flavor, because they are blown up with water (irrigation) and have to be picked before they are ripe. And that's one reason we don't eat enough fruits and vegetables. If American fruits and vegetables had decent flavor, people might be more willing to substitute them for sweet snacks. It is very difficult to find good produce in a supermarket. It is almost impossible in the winter. No wonder people eat so badly. Huge mechanized farms keep other prices low—farming hardly supports any families anymore. Almost every country on earth spends a larger portion of the family income on food than we do. 18. Food is everywhere in this country—on TV, on billboards, in magazines. Huge quantities of it are thrown away. The tempters are always after us in this land of plenty. Abundance is itself a temptation: there are far more tasty things to eat than I can possibly fit into a healthy diet. Because it is cheap, and because it is everywhere, we don't hesitate—we eat more than we should, we eat whenever we feel like it (not appetite but the power of suggestion and advertising). We snack all the time. In the 1950s people ate meals; only growing children had "snacks". But snacking is now the norm, and almost any meeting or social gathering has to have food. (Europeans think that is bizarre.) I never eat anything at those gatherings, and everyone thinks I'm anti-social. If they ask, I tell them I'm just not hungry—or "it's not my mealtime". We don't ask whether we can really afford to eat steak all the time. And that question is not personal, but social above all: it's not a matter of can you afford the best but a matter of should you so shamelessly indulge yourself all the time. Is that good for our world? It's certainly not good for you. And it is obvious that if you save steak and lobster for very special occasions you will enjoy them more! And fewer animals will die, there will be less waste, and the oceans will not be overfished. VROON
HERESY When I am accused of "racism" because I am critical of black "culture", I answer something like this: Ever since the Salem witch trials, Americans have been enthusiastic heresy hunters, despite our lip-service to freedom of thought and speech. And, as always, the heresy hunters are the ones who define what constitutes heresy. As the hysteria grows, guilt by association takes over. I said something that Karl Marx once said, so I am a communist. (But Karl Marx was sometimes right! And, by the way, I am old enough to remember that witch-hunt. I was told I was on an FBI list!) Or I said something that a racist once said, so that makes me a racist. (But there are many true facts that can be (ab)used to promote racism—and have been.) I write a lot about the depravity of the mainstream American popular culture. Is it surprising that I don't exempt the black subculture from such criticism? I write pages about marketing classical music. Is it surprising that I mock the condescending way it is marketed to blacks? Above all, I tell the truth and do not bother with "political correctness". The truth is not flattering to the main culture, and it is not flattering to the black subculture. Most of what was quoted (out of context) is undeniable, even if, like so many Americans, you consider it nasty to point out that the emperor has no clothes. Much less flattering things could be said—and are true—but I have never dealt with "the racial problem" in my writing.
LOVE I wanted to say to my friends something that explains my whole basis for living—something that I am deeply committed to all my life, as long as it lasts. I believe that where God's spirit is in them, people have two things that no one else really has: a nose for truth and liberal love. A nose for truth means we can see thru the propaganda that most of our fellow human beings swallow and believe in. We can certainly see thru the people in power at any given moment. We are not taken in by the mountains of advertising and political propaganda that this country produces. We will never be nationalists or obedient consumers. Everything in my life should be captive to love, determined by love. Love must be in charge of every relationship. Love is not only the source of sexuality and the basis for real joy; love is even the key to all knowledge and understanding—a secret only a few people ever figure out. Love is necessary for full and essential knowledge—of music, of people, of great ideas. Liberal love is love that is generous, as God's love is. Of course, we can never be as generous and liberal with our love as God is. But we know that sharing and dividing love never weakens it but rather strengthens it. The more you love, the more love you have to give. God recharges your batteries. Love is his business. The more people I love, the more love I have for each of them. God sees to that; the expansion of love is the major divine activity. This is a basic conviction I have lived by all my life. Love wants to be spread around—demands it. Love everyone you can (some people make it really hard). Strict monogamy—investing all your love in one person—is as foolish as investing all your money in one place. "Cast your bread upon the waters..." Love is of God, so it is infinite. It only expands as it spreads to new people. It is not limited; love by its very nature is not limited—because it is of God. When you love you are drawing on something infinite and endless. It never runs out, never runs down, never runs thin. It is always full and rich, from a limitless supply. It enlarges itself constantly, expands gladly—forever. PS: There is no tactful way to tell people what they don't want to hear, and frankness is always better than dissembling. I decided long ago to live by that, and I do. The best people are not hurt by it but strengthened by it. People who need their egos coddled are weak people, and it is not my place to be their psychologist. I don't believe I am by nature hard or insensitive, but by golly I know this is one of the important lessons I learned in life. If you try to cloak what people don't want to hear in pleasant garb they will take the pleasant garb and not hear what they don't want to hear. That is ALWAYS what happens. If you want criticism to be effective, it has to be blunt. I have seen this again and again. The "tactful" people are better liked but ineffective. I have never needed to be liked.
Why I Consider the USA Perverse.
Letter to a Friend in his mid-90s February 9, 2008
Dear Friend, You are still there, and I am glad to get a Christmas letter from you every year. As you know, my parents died at the age of 80 in 1996 and 97; yet you have always been a bit older than they were, and you go right on. Of course I'm glad. Just your presence in this world makes it a little more tolerable—a little nicer—for me. I often wonder whether "whom the gods love die young" and it's only the tough who survive—or whether, since the Old Testament patriarchs viewed a long life as a special blessing from God, we should too. I have a cockatiel who just turned 26. Normal life span for such a bird is 10-15 years—less out in nature, of course. But this little bird, though he has probably had a stroke and he doesn't fly anymore, seems very pleased with life—with sounds,with us, with food, with the other bird. We were urged four years ago to put him to death (after all, a bird who can't fly must be I recently told a close friend that I thought gratitude the driving motive of the Christian life. He is of Pilgrim Holiness background and immediately said, "you've always read too much Calvin". Ha! Calvin read too much Paul, maybe. Anyway, you are one of the people I am grateful to God for. Sincerely,
This wonderful man waited patiently for release from his worn-out body and finally found it in September 2010 at the age of 96.
Prostate Observations
1. Exercise makes it worse. On the two days a week that I swim, I get up more often to urinate that night. The same happens if I walk a lot. Maybe the body simply wants to flush out the (waste) byproducts of exercise? I am thirsty for hours after exercise, no matter how much I drink. The amount that I drink makes no difference to how often I urinate. It just adds quantity to each urination. Maybe swimming stimulates (massages) the prostate, causing it to act up? Maybe it prevents it from relaxing? That is, when exercizing one tightens the muscles.
American Religion 1. Perhaps the core failure is the failure to understand justification by faith. "Simul justus et peccator" (Luther) and "sin boldly" (Augustine) make no sense to American Christians. 2. A Docetism that implies that the physical realm is expendable and only the spiritual realm counts. Eating, sleeping, and sex become major matters of conscience instead of natural acts that bodily creatures take part in. They have misunderstood the apostle Paul's "make no provision for the flesh" and treat the body as if its needs were illegitimate. They are incapable of living naturally; life never flows for them. They are always morbidly introspective; because the body has its needs and demands, and they don't know how to "overcome" them, so they are afraid of them, and they often "fall". That results in more rigid rules and disciplines. As I've said often, people get the religion they think they need. Evangelicals think they need a pretty strict religion. Of course, they think that's just human nature, so that everyone needs a strict religion. But oddly enough, Jesus gave us quite the opposite! They misunderstand him because of their own needs. They create a religion to serve their needs--people always do. 3. Exaggerated piety. The piety of serious American Christians is grossly exaggerated, and they seem in competition to win the "I'm a better Christian than you" prize. Who can sacrifice the most? Who can "keep his mind on Christ" the most? Who can "witness" the most? Who has overcome the most problems solely with the help of Jesus? "Jesus" is the all-powerful answer to every problem, and almost all the newer "Christian music" gushes with "Jesus, I love you". Maybe we should call this "distorted piety"; it is exaggerated well into the distortion range! It is weird and irrational, this need to conjure up great spiritual experiences and dedication. It is also self-centered, self-righteous, self-justifying, and the opposite of justification by faith. 4. Sentimentality and subjectivism. Exaggerated piety and Docetism naturally leads to this kind of "me and Jesus" and "personal relationship" stuff. There's a whiff of suppressed sexuality in it, too--more than a whiff in the many hymns by Victorian women (intimacy with "precious Jesus"). We can't really have that kind of "personal relationship" with Jesus. What he accomplished made a huge change in our <I>formal<P> relationship with God, and we can follow his teachings, but we can't "know" God or Jesus as we know our family or friends--that involves immense self-deception. 5. Ideological thinking. Evangelicals think like Marxists--ideologically. Everything they read or see is interpreted thru the one ideology, and everything is judged by that. They wear tinted glasses. This results in such nonsense as the Christian Yellow Pages. You wouldn't trust a butcher, a doctor, or a psychologist who wasn't a "Christian"; and such a person wouldn't interpret everything by the ideology. One evangelical assured me that we must elect as president a "true believer" or the country will go astray. 6. Patriotism. This is one of the oddest things, and I can figure out no possible way to arrive at gung-ho Americanism from Christianity. It must just be another case of religion baptising what people like and approve of--religion as self-justification. Nor can I imagine any possible way to justify the consumer society, capitalism, and individualism on a Christian basis. And why have evangelicals been republicans and conservatives when Jesus was obviously a liberal? 7. Idolatry of the family. Jesus never married; neither did St Paul and most of the other apostles. King David loved Jonathan more than any of his wives. Jesus knew that the family could be a distraction and that concern for your family can even be a refined form of selfishness. It is impossible to find this idolatry of the family in the Bible. 8. Conformity. American Christianity seeks to make everyone conform to a pattern of life that is more a product of American culture than of Christianity. Christianity itself posits freedom and questions whether one Christian can legitimately judge the decisions and life of another. God does not lead us all alike--after all, he did not make us all alike. 9. Arrogance about God's will. It's this arrogance that produces the conformity. How can these people be so sure that they know what God wants? If God is anything like what the Bible pictures, he is pretty much beyond human comprehension--and the smarmy false prophets who presume to speak for him are fakes and are actually serving other gods. Evangelicals, like Catholics, claim to know God much better than a mere human being can. That is not because they are saints; it is because they are arrogant--or insecure. That is, they cannot live with uncertainty. That is sad, because life is full of uncertainty. 10. Worship. Evangelical worship is a disaster. It is all designed to make people feel good (sentimentality and subjectivism again). The attempt to make worship friendly, informal, and intimate is misbegotten. That is not what worship is for. Nothing is gained by attempts to update and personalize worship. Subjective sentiments do not validate worship. Centuries of Christian tradition are far more important. In a terminally chatty culture we need to be saved from all that is chatty--even from the magnetic personality of the great preacher. Worship must be based on the nature of God, not on our preferences and tastes. We must offer him the best that humanity has produced in language, prayer, and music--not the garbage of American popular culture. If you get to know Christianity in its more mature forms--as in Europe, where it penetrates deep into everything--you will find none of these American heresies. I was fortunate as a child to grow up among Dutch immigrants. They were Calvinists, and thus they were protected from the shallowness and errors of American evangelicalism. Today, most of their descendants have melted into the American way, I'm sad to say. But there are still some "classical Christians" (as I call them) in the USA--mostly Lutherans (German and Scandinavian roots), Episcopalians (Anglophiles), the Eastern Orthodox groups, and a tiny few of the Reformed (Dutch, mostly).
Jesus was a liberal Issues of social justice are ethical issues and thus issues for Christian ethics. The Bible is full of discussions and references to social ethics. Politics should also be concerned with these matters, if it is to be just and ethical. But it is not mixing in politics for a Christian or a Christian leader to think about these matters and how our faith leads us. Anything can be made a political issue. The fact that someone makes the way we treat people who are different from us a political matter doesn't change the fact that it's a religious matter—something we must be concerned about for religious reasons.
Here's a partial list of social-ethical-religious issues: health care and its cost It is the religious person's responsibility to think about all these matters in the spirit of his faith. He must do what he can to steer discussion and votes to the ethical side of these matters. It is the clear responsibility of religious leaders to teach their people how to think about these matters from a (Judeo-) Christian perspective. To avoid "talking politics"—to avoid something just because someone has made it political—is to refuse to follow Jesus (and if you're Jewish, the Bible is deeply concerned with social justice).
Here's something I wrote on the subject in 1972. A recurring complaint in all the literature of the “religious right” is that the clergy and the national boards are too liberal. It is certainly true that the educated clergy are almost always more liberal than their congregations. Neither they nor the national boards represent the political mentality of most of their constituents. With this admission two questions arise: Should they? And why don’t they? The religious right simply assumes that they should, presumably because (1) those who pay the piper have a right to call the tune, and (2) representative democracy demands it. The first is a very worldly, secular idea—one that cannot possibly arise from a Biblical conception of the ministry, but only from capitalism ( the world of business). Even in secular employment there is a limit to this: most of us have heard of integrity, and have little respect for the person who sells out to his employer and has no voice of his own. As for (2), the only response is that there’s no reason on earth why a clergyman should represent his congregation. His job is to represent the word of God—to his congregation or denomination. American Christianity would be in far better shape if more ministers had the courage to do this! As things are, we continue to “accumulate teachers to suit our own likings” (1 Tim 4.3). Only the enemies of the word of God support the spineless prophets who say what they want to hear (see, for example, 1 Kgs 22). And as in Biblical times there are plenty of politically astute “prophets” around who actually reverse the whole idea of prophet and support (or refuse to challenge) the wishes and ideals of the people they are called to lead. Why are conservative churches growing? Largely, I’m afraid, because in the free market of churchianity people can easily find a nest that leaves their feathers unruffled. But truth is not democratic. There is nothing Biblical about the assumption that the majority must be right—or even that the stance of the church should reflect the convictions of the majority. When I entered the ministry I became aware that one element of “the world” I most definitely had to leave behind to serve God was the success ethic. The last people I wanted to emulate were “successful ministers”, because it was all too obvious how almost all of them got that way: flattery. Flattery is soothing people, saying what they want to hear, making them feel virtuous and “right”. It is diametrically opposed to the word of God which cuts and slashes at our smug assumptions of righteousness—at our political system, our economics, our way of life. It is very sad to see how stiff-necked our people have become. They will not hear the word of God from his prophets. They will hear only what they want to hear. What a perfect recipe for complacency and spiritual disaster! Back to our questions. Why are the clergy so liberal? Even this question must be examined for hidden assumptions before it can be answered. There is often the assumption that “liberal” and “conservative” are religiously indifferent, a matter of choice, equally viable for the Christian. Democracy has deceived us again: the marketplace approach to truth won’t hold water. Conservatives always want to separate Christianity and politics, because they know perfectly well that when the two are brought together the result is “liberal”. This is not the result of chance or perversity; it’s the only possible result. Your “ultra-liberal” minister may share many of your political inclinations. He may very well wish that the racial problem would just go away. In moments of weakness he may take great comfort in America’s military might. He may secretly wish he didn’t have to pay so many tax dollars to support the welfare system. He may even feel resentment toward blacks because of affirmative action. His natural inclinations may be pretty much the same as his church members’. But he also knows Christianity; it’s his life. The prophets, the New Testament, the “mind of Christ”, the Holy Spirit: all these gang up on him and refuse to let him accept his natural inclinations. He cannot baptize his resentment; he cannot justify it or nurture it. His loyalty to the Word means that he must pray for love to overcome all these feelings. This is exactly what Paul means by the conflict between the flesh and the Spirit. It is also precisely what many conservatives denounce as “soft-headed liberalism”. Sorry. Jesus demands that I exchange my (natural, fleshly) hard head (heart) for a soft one! He insists that I be motivated by compassion, not resentment. If he lives in me I cannot feed anyone’s resentments. He insists that instead of blaming people for their condition I feel for them; indeed, feel with them the pain of their condition. The simplicity and clarity of truth is often a stumbling-block. The simple truth is that Jesus Christ was a liberal and those who follow him are bound to be as well. (Ernst Kasemann begins his book “Jesus Means Freedom” with a most convincing chapter: “Was Jesus a Liberal?”) The Bible is a liberal manifesto, and those who study it most and know it best end up thinking that way. Liberals themselves might prefer to say “sincere Christians differ” (relativism being a particularly serious danger of liberalism), but when pressed most of them would admit that they could never adopt a conservative stance in faithfulness to Jesus Christ. The American mind balks, but “liberal” and “conservative” are not equal options for the Christian; in the Bible almost all the good guys are liberal and the conservatives come off smelling pretty rancid. To follow Christ is to deny our “natural”, self-interested way of thinking. It’s a process of repentance: revision, turning from what we naturally think and want to a new way of thinking and wanting. We cannot follow Jesus and think like everyone else. The American Way of Life is not the way of the cross! If we take him seriously, our thinking and our lives will be radically different (even “radical”). As Americans we were all raised with a fairly blind patriotism and a strong belief in works (the merit system, earning your way, etc). The natural man is no liberal! He finds it easy to mock the liberal, because so many of the liberal’s ideas and programs are not in his own self-interest. The liberal knows that; he just happens to believe in something beyond self-interest. It won’t do to blame our “liberal” educational institutions for the clear evidence that education liberalizes people (to do so is to assume the noxious doctrine that people are only products of their environment). A simpler explanation comes to mind: “the truth will make you free”. Truth is liberating and liberalizing. Education is by nature pretty destructive of the authoritarian mentality; higher education is worthless if it doesn’t get us rethinking many of our cherished presuppositions. Besides, as George Buttrick used to say, the young conservative is an affront to nature”. By the way, we are talking about mentalities. Obviously there is nothing in Christianity to force anyone to swallow the whole liberal agenda. There have been some colossally misguided liberal programs (though their heart was usually in the right Place), and actual politics becomes a terribly relative matter. Political expediency and appearances may have more to do with programs like affirmative action and bilingual education than any realistic assessment of the needs of the people involved. Harvey Hornstein’s book “Cruelty and Kindness” reports a great deal of research shows that people who describe themselves as conservative are much less likely to help someone if that person is different in some way—e.g., black. The author shows that the “us vs, them” mentality is basic to the conservative mind-set, while an inclusive mentality (”we’re all in this together”) goes along with liberalism. After reading Hornstein’s book I sat down and made my own chart of the two mentalities and added in the Biblical mentality to see what correlations I could find (see box). The most unholy alliance America has ever seen is that of “conservative” Christians who claim the Biblical tradition and the conservative political mentality, which is utterly unbiblical. There is no basis for such an alliance in the Biblical tradition. The only basis is the authoritarian attitudes of the people who hold to both traditions. Apparently they don’t realize how destructive the two traditions are of each other. At worst the devil has blinded their minds. At best, they are following Jesus only so far: as if he has nothing to say about our political views. Conservatives have always held that their view is the only one that is realistic about human nature. Liberalism outside the Jewish Christian tradition may indeed seem sentimental, but that tradition gives it a strong basis in the greatest reality of all: God’s love and grace. (written 1972)
Christian Mentality 1. Every human being is of tremendous value. I must love and help my neighbor, even my enemy. Questions of race, class or nation do not affect this value. 2. Concern for the non-competitive (the poor and the weak) is an obsession in the Bible. 3. There is no interest in the survival of wealth or business; only in the common good. 4. The Biblical mind is certainly not individualist, though the effect of Biblical teaching is to give more value to the individual as such than ever before. 5. Social justice and compassion are the Biblical themes; the Bible refuses the idea that a free market system is in itself a just system. 6. The powerful New Testament emphasis on freedom rules out the authoritarian mind-set for believers and groups of believers. Jesus was not kind about people in authority! It is hard to imagine an early Christian - supporting police, military, and rulers the way some “Christians” do today. 7. Jesus certainly appeared soft to the leaders of his society; he constantly and consistently weakened the rigidity of the law, reduced its hardness, lightened the burden. He yielded all the absolutes before human need. 8. Property is downgraded, though not eliminated (as in communism). Persons and their needs are foremost. 9. To condemn sinners is to condemn ourselves. Jesus acted to help—to increase their self-respect, rather than to punish. 10. We are taught that the only value of money is the good we can do with it. It is a distortion to hoard it, to accumulate it, to find security in it. 11. Self-interest may be what moves most people, but it is unworthy in God’s people. 12. Jesus was certainly the least defensive and most open and accepting of human beings. He seemed to encourage the same in his followers, even if it leads to a cross. 13. Grace is free. Thank God he does not give us what we deserve!
A LETTER TO THE CINCINNATI LIBRARY I have lived in Cincinnati since 1985, and in that time I have been in the library at least once a week and taken out over 6500 books. I read at least two hours a day. I am a hard-core library user and reader; I rather think libraries were invented for people like me. I was not happy when the card catalog was dumped. I was even more unhappy when it became necessary to go "online" to look anything up. Even worse, one must now have a library card and password to look something up. How stupid! With the card catalog anyone could find out what was in the collection. Now you must have a card and password. Why shouldn't the information be available to anyone? That's what libraries are for! There is no need for "security" (the current American shibboleth that is ruining our society). In the library itself you cannot simply go to the catalog; you have to go on the Internet. Why? And until recently you could never find a free computer. (There are now a few short-term computers—a step forward.) Nor are there any computers dedicated to the catalog (always already in the catalog) and therefore quicker and more convenient. Now there are many more computers, but not where you need them. They are all in a teenager babysitting department on the second floor. Why should a library serve teenagers who want to play games? And why do so at the expense of the people who love and need the library because they read? What is a library for? Why the huge expansion of the "popular" library? To serve more people? But a library exists to serve READERS. True, only 6% of Americans read even one book last year, so there are fewer and fewer readers. So much the better for us! Libraries are about books. I have found it well-nigh impossible, by the way, to find CDs of classical music. They are not filed by composer but by a stupid "acquisition number", which has no meaning and does not place recordings of the same thing together. Nor are they separate in the web catalog. Sometimes it's hard to tell what's a recording and what's not (scores, etc). Fortunately I have a large collection of my own; but how difficult it is for those who do not! I miss the departments and the experts that went with them. Most of the books I take out are in the stacks and must be sent for. It was easy and quick the old way: I handed the expert a library request form, all filled out. He sent it quickly to the stacks, and five minutes later there were my books. Now he must retype all that information into a computer—isn't that dumb?—and wait for the person in the stacks to respond. Every trip to the library makes me late for something else nowadays, because everything takes a lot longer than it used to. It is pitiful the way Americans think they have to adopt the latest technology when what they had worked just fine (fixing what ain't broke, it's called). The computer stuff is newer, but the old vacuum system worked much better. You were crazy to remove it. I have 15 or 20 minutes to collect 8 or 10 books on a trip to the library. It has worked well for years. Now it takes me 25 or 30 minutes, and I emerge with fewer books, because I run out of time. I wanted a book in music. I finally found someone on the third floor who helped me but warned me it would take a while and then sent me to the second floor to pick up the book! Another floor, another stop, another ten minutes. It's miserably inconvenient. Then there is the dehumanization of the whole experience. All those helpful people and useful conversations in the departments are gone. Even the checkout people—whom, of course, I got to know over the years—have been replaced by machines. And the machines demand a password, which the people did not (why should they?). The machines hate me, and so far I have wasted lots of time on them and failed to check out a thing; I have always had to find a human being after all—and would have preferred one in the first place. WHY are you doing this? People are what makes the library useful, and you seem to be thinning out the people. I have to wait behind other customers for the few who are left. We need people partly because the computer answers no questions and misunderstands half of what we ask of it. I once looked for a book called Words About Words (I'm an editor by profession) and it gave me 3000 responses. That kind of thing happens all the time. The search engine is a pain, and only experienced employees seem to be able to get it to do what it should do—and even they often admit defeat. I use two computers all day in my work—have for 20 years. I am not a computer idiot. But I have realized over the years that there are many things computers don't do well. For example, it is faster and more accurate to invoice our advertisers by hand—yes, handwritten! Infatuation with computer technology strikes me as infantile. It results in blindness about how things are best done. I could go on—I'm a writer! I just want you to know that the library is no longer a pleasure for me, but an ordeal. I'm sure my comments will change nothing, but over the last few months the irritation has made it necessary for me to express myself!
Favorite Aphorisms In what does barbarism consist, if not in the failure to appreciate what is excellent?—Goethe The glory of God is man fully alive. —Irenaeus A day spent without the sight or sound of beauty, the contemplation of mystery, or the search for truth and perfection, is a poverty-stricken day; and a succession of such days is fatal to human life. —Lewis Mumford The spiritual is a quality perceived as other than physical or purely intellectual. It is not opposed to the natural; it is a natural part of life. —William James Technology makes all kinds of things possible, but how many of those things are necessary—and how many would we not have bothered with if technology had not made them so easy. The tail wags the dog, and we can do without a great many new technologies. The invasion of one's mind by ready-made phrases can only be prevented if one is constantly on guard against them, and every such phrase anaesthetizes a portion of one's brain. —George Orwell A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. —William James Modern churches have lost intelligent believers by going either liberal or literal. —William James Habits of the mind literally become structures of the brain. We should to the last moment of our lives continue a settled intercourse with all the true examples of grandeur. —Plato The beautiful teaches us to love without self-interest. —Immanuel Kant As long as we regard elitism as a dirty word, and the superego as unadulterated repression, we cannot maintain a civilization; we can only watch it come apart.
Getting Around The air transportation system in this country is essentially broken. Every flight between major cities is delayed. The time scheduled often includes an hour or two on the ground. All the major airports and "hubs" are over-scheduled and congested. I have not had any flight at all in the last four years that took off and arrived on time, even considering that "on time" includes far more time than it used to. I used to fly Cincinnati to Philadelphia quite regularly; my parents lived in Philadelphia, and a brother still does. It's a 55-minute flight, but it is now scheduled for 2 hours and 15 to 30 minutes. Still, never has one of those flights been on time. The last time I flew it (in June) we were held on the ground in Cincinnati: congestion in Philadelphia. Notice that they load up the plane to get the passengers out of the terminal and clear the gate for the next plane, even though they know they cannot take off. The passengers would be far more comfortable waiting in the airport, but the passengers no longer matter. When we arrived in Philadelphia it was discovered that the jetway at the gate could not be used for such a small plane. (Everything is small planes now; the big ones are all parked in the desert in Arizona.) No one was smart enough to match the plane to the gate. It's a wonder they can even fly the planes! But these small planes have built-in stairways. True, but it is against their rules to use that stairway where all the passenger traffic is by "jetway", since there may be"security issues". (The whole system is paralysed by insane"security issues".) While the crew agonized over that we all missed our connections and transportation, sitting there on the ground ten feet from the gate. Passengers are just cattle. Returning from Philadelphia I discovered the whole airline was running 4 hours late out of Philadelphia. (That's pretty normal in the horrid Atlanta airport, but it seems extreme for Philadelphia.Probably it was traceable to Atlanta, Delta's hub. Delays there routinely affect the whole Delta system.) In fact, when I added up the hours from since I left my brother's house to when I walked in my door in Cincinnati, it turned out that I could have driven it in less time than it took to fly it. And that is usual now.That's why I say the system is broken. You fly to save time, but flying now doesn't save any time! Because it takes so much time—usually a whole day to go anywhere at all—flying is no longer worth the trouble. I have had two other 4-hour delays in the last few years, and for both I was stuck in the plane! Pure torture! The idiot stewardesses nag you to obey their stupid rules (Americans love rules—whatever happened to the spirit of freedom? Ride a plane with a bunch of Italians or Spaniards if you want to know what freedom is like). One told me I could not leave my seat for the whole 4 hours. I ignored her; she shouted at me; I continued to ignore her and went to the toilet. In both 4-hour delays we were 50 feet from the gate,but they don't want us back in the terminal or at the gate, because all the hub airports are over-scheduled; there are too many people in the terminal, and there are too many planes waiting for gates.So they herd all us cattle into dungeons (metal tubes with no view and lousy ventilation and very little space to move) and they try to make us sit perfectly still while they thus abuse us. Yes, it is a form of torture. We were already abused from the beginning. I refuse to fly in the morning, so I booked my flight to Albuquerque for 4 PM. The airline took the booking but changed it a week later to 11 AM to suit their schedule. The extra five hours will be spent sitting in their hub airport. If I don't accept that change (which essentially ruins my day, and maybe the next day too) they will charge me a fortune to back out of the arrangement. I also felt abused having to arrive at the airport long hours before the flight: an airport is a rotten place to spend any time (only a plane is worse), and you can't have friends with you anymore. Then there's the stupidest thing of all: it's called "security" checking, and it has nothing to do with security, and I don't care about security anyway. I flew for years with no security checks, and it is no safer now with them. The security system at American airports is stupid and infantile. It's also theatre, and Americans are gullible enough to believe it's necessary and efficacious. It delays things a lot, and it's insulting. Did you ever have a teacher who made the whole class stay after school because one or two kids acted up? Didn't you hate that teacher? Then you should hate the security system. Millions of people are insulted and inconvenienced every day, and treated like we live in a totalitarian state—AND become used to people in uniform pushing them around—because once some fanatics hijacked and crashed a few planes. Don't you resent being punished for what they did? Isn't that a perfectly asinine way to deal with the fact that there's nothing we could do about it and no way we could have prevented it? I haven't been thru any major airport in years where I was not delayed. And the reason is simple: there are too many planes trying to take off and land. In Atlanta there are more than 3000 takeoffs and landings every day (something like 1500 planes use the airport in a day). There are not enough gates to handle them. There are not enough runways. Often in Atlanta you will wait up to an hour after landing to get a gate—and I've seen it much worse than that. For one thing, like LaGuardia (which at least has the excuse of being very old and built out into the bay) Atlanta has a situation where after you land you must cross a live runway to get to the gates. Who designed that? You usually wait quite some time after landing to cross that runway, because it is busy with takeoffs. One small thunderstorm can throw Atlanta many hours behind, because it's all scheduled too tight, and no one seems to have thought of thunderstorms (which are, of course, perfectly normal). And when a storm has delayed takeoffs, the late takeoffs delay the arrivals by preventing the runway crossing. Dumb, isn't it? The same thing happened in Houston in August: a thunderstorm after we landed made every plane going out at least two hours late. They call it a "weather delay", but why would any thinking person accept that? How gullible do they think we are? Isn't it really stupid NOT to expect thunderstorms in Houston in August? Not to plan on them, work around them? It's not the weather; it's the badly-run airlines and airports. Note also that hundreds of planes were delayed most of the evening, and the airport was jammed with people, yet all the restaurants (except McDonald's) closed before 9 PM, and there was no food, only drinks. Another example of American mismanagement. (In Albuquerque at lunch we were told that the food would take at least half an hour. You would think that an airport restaurant would be better managed than that. In most countries it would be.) If you get on the plane at JFK you will soon find out that your plane is Number 40 or 45 for takeoff, in other words, you will spend at least the next hour on the ground. That is built into the schedule; you didn't really think that to fly from New York to LosAngeles now takes two hours longer than it did five years ago, did you? After an hour or more of delay in New York and an hour or more at the other end, the airline will claim an "on-time arrival". Flying was really nice in the 60s and 70s, even the 80s. Flying is now torture, and everything the airlines do to stay in business only makes it worse. Do you think they feed you or give you drinks during those delays? Not a chance. One of my 4-hour delays was a transatlantic flight, and the crew explained that they couldn't feed us because there would be nothing left for later on. And we couldn't drink because alcohol cannot be served on the ground but only in the air. I demanded tea, and got it, but you have to demand. The things they get away with are a disgrace. They now charge you a lot for everything, from a beer to a checked bag. They fly the smallest planes they can fly to save money, so you are always cramped. Well into the 90s, maybe past, Delta flew wide-body jets between Cincinnati and New York. Now they are 50-seaters. Continental flies 35-seaters to their Houston hub, and almost everywhere else. Business is bad, but that's partly because flying has become such a bad experience. Which came first? Does it help business to make the passengers miserable? Is there a well-run airline, where the passengers are treated decently? On those tiny planes they often simply don't turn off the seat belt sign. It's supposed to be a safety matter, but it is definitely not. It is crowd control (that's what most "safety" regulations are all about). Often it is because the stewardess wants clear aisles to serve the drinks (such as they are). The hell with your comfort; they just don't want you to be able to get up and walk around. On at least a third of my flights in recent years the sign was never turned off, and Americans are so damned obedient that I was often the only one (or one of two or three) who ignored the stupid sign. On one flight I had a real prostate attack (no wonder, with all the stress of flying these days) and could not stay in my seat. They don't care; they want us to be obedient. They threaten legal action if you don't utterly obey crew members. The only actual value of the seat belts is for ten minutes around take-off and landing. Otherwise they are useless, except for crowd control. Just another example of how you can manipulate Americans by claiming safety and security. (They mumble something about "unexpected turbulence"!) Most people can't think enough to realize that safety and security have nothing to do with it. When picture IDs were first required I pointed out that they had absolutely no security value, but Americans swallowed it, as they swallow all the propaganda they are fed. They are timid and fearful people, and therefore gullible. They deserve to lose their freedom, and they have. I might add that the last two times I returned to Cincinnati, after the usual gross delays, we were so late the airport was closed when we arrived. In one case the airline had assigned an employee to greet us, but she didn't know where the light switch was, so we entered the airport in the dark. The jetway was completely dark, the lounge mostly dark, but the corridors had their dim overnight lights on. The airline is so badly run that they can't even be sure their employees can find a light switch. My last flight was from Albuquerque to Cincinnati. It can't be done non-stop anymore, so I went thru Houston. It used to take 2 hours nonstop, and on a nice-sized plane. It was a pleasure in 1998. This time it took me 11 hours, and it was a nightmare. But nightmares are routine now. The plane was tiny, the service bad, the Houston airport miserably overcrowded and way behind schedule. But if it's going to take a whole day I will never do it again. I am unable to deal with such an ordeal. I can fly to Paris in less time, way less. (Air France flies from Cincinnati.) The US system is broken and rotten. Next time I will drive to Albuquerque (two short days) or take a train (two days, and very restful). Both are far better than the airlines. I have said "never again" so many times in the last few years that I think I must keep my word and give up flying. I refuse to reward the wretched airlines with my business. They don't deserve it, and like so many big businesses in our country I hope they all go bankrupt and get replaced by something better. I am very sorry to see so many business bailouts. We even had a chance to get rid of General Motors, and we didn't! I find that hard to forgive. What is good for General Motors is invariably bad for the country. Ten years ago even, flying was far better. But the real culprit is the "hub" system and its recent concentration. It funnels millions of people thru a handful of overcrowded airports and guarantees that everywhere you go it will take you about four times as long to get there as it did 20 years ago. And for whose convenience? Strictly for the convenience (and profit) of the airlines, who serve themselves a lot better than they serve their customers. In fact, in this area as everywhere else in our society, service is practically dead, a mere memory. Note that most airlines are now charging you $20 to check a bag. As a result, everyone is trying to carry everything on to these little planes they are flying, and the planes are already too tiny and overcrowded. People bring food on, because they won't be fed. People probably take tranquilizers in order to face the ordeal. I should have. Flying is horrible, and along with many of our writersI have decided not to do it again if I can possibly help it. My traveling years are over, as they are for so many people, because the airlines have made it such a miserable experience to fly. (And they are wondering why business is so bad!) If only we had a decent train system!
The Great English Mystery Writers Catherine Aird Ellery Queen (USA) (everyone seems to know Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, & Dorothy |
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