Between Hope and Despair.

My feelings about the great social issues of my times shift, periodically, between hope and despair. I sometimes think that, Mark Twain was right, a species as idiotic and selfish as ours deserves the shitty government that it gets. "If there were any other intelligent species in the universe," Mark Twain said, "I would join it." Those are the dark days on which to read Shopenhauer.

On other days, however, I say "no." We must not despair. I have a child. I cannot look in her eyes and admit that life is shit and always will be. So we hope and we fight on. Maybe sometimes -- very rarely -- something good happens. I have a lottery ticket somewhere. Purchasing that ticket suggests that I still have some optimism. We must hope, then, that things will be better. We can make them better.

What worries me today is not so much the familiar problems of judicial and political corruption and ineptitude. These problems have become old friends by now. What is especially worrisome today is something that the framers of the Constitution hoped to eliminate all-together: Star Chamber-like secrecy -- slithering, behind-the-back efforts by government officials to hurt critics, dissidents of all sorts, and/or those who refuse to "play ball" with the powers that be.

Yes, folks, that stuff happens in America. People get destroyed, framed for something, fired, ridiculed, trivialized in the media, and so on. These are among the defense mechanisms evolved by powerful interests in our political system for suppressing or marginalizing dissent and the ways that corrupt government officials -- who are guilty of overreaching -- cover their asses, collectively and individually. They are illegal methods, of course, and when the system is confronted with them in a manner that does not allow for denial -- in other words, when there is actual proof of government illegality -- then officials (usually) do the right thing and stop the harassment.

Proof is difficult to obtain. When it is found, it may amount to the proverbial "tip" of the iceberg. There is a whole lot of illegal stuff going all the time -- especially post-9/11 -- thanks to government agents, most of which is utterly pointless and worthless in terms of the "information yield," though it hurts people. It hurts them a lot, especially over long periods of time.

The illegality of these tactics is not a problem for governmental agents, because they are rarely discovered or "provable," as I have indicated. This includes everything from the armies of party loyalists used to generate dirty tricks against the opposition in political elections, to the various forms of skullduggery, illegal snooping, "corporate" theft of documents and data that are used to "control" competitors and/or anti-social forces in a large and heterogeneous society. Many of these efforts were directed at African-American dissidents in the past. Maybe dissidents still are targets.

Much material that has emerged with the passage of "sunshine" laws in the seventies and eighties, suggests that the FBI and other government agencies routinely keep "tabs" on politically controversial and prominent persons: phone taps are allowed secretly, photographs at a distance, Internet monitoring, acquisition of personal data, "observation" and "long-term surveillance" are terms that are sometimes used to describe this sort of thing. I am sure that the illegal computer monitoring and harassment I deal with falls into this category.

In my case, of course, no illegality (by the FBI) is required. I make it a point to post my opinions on-line, including what I think of them. I must admit that I like Scully and Moulder, but as to all others, I am skeptical. New Jersey government is a collection of criminals from organized crime "families" dedicated to stealing and ruthlessness against all critics. Nothing they do in Trenton surprises me.

Privacy and autonomy are threatened as never before, in other words, by all of this post-"Patriot Act" monitoring, which does not make you any safer from terrorism, since the people with false social security information and credit cards tend to be terrorists, whereas those of us who are on the "up-and-up" (whatever that may be) are the most convenient targets for government spooks and shrinks, not to mention terrorists with false papers. How you doing in Ridgewood, Tuchin? How's the "family," Diana? Still up to no good?

In the interests of full employment for America's spooks and snoops, I have decided to invent a conspiracy by a non-existent secret organization to be known as "The American Knights of the Order of Advarks." It is the mission of this organization to restore the monarchy in America. Not the British monarchy, mind you, but a new monarchy and religion based on the bloodline of Elvis Presley. I plan to write a book to be called, The "Elvis" Code. We even have a secret handshake and are led, fearlessly, by Woody Allen in America and by Mel Brooks globally. Eventually, there will be armies of government agents monitoring all three of us.

I can almost hear the computers in Washington, D.C. humming away as the buzz words are picked up: "conspiracy, terrorists, Elvis Presley." Meanwhile back at the ranch:

Because Democracy is noble it is always endangered. Nobility, indeed, is always in danger. Democracy is perishable. I think the natural government for most people, given the uglier depths of human nature, is fascism. Fascism is more of a natural state than Democracy. To assume blithely that we can export Democracy into any country we choose can serve paradoxically to encourage more fascism at home and abroad. Democracy is a state of grace attained only by those countries that have a host of individuals not only ready to enjoy freedom but to undergo the heavy labor of maintaining it. [Norman Mailer]

I am asking you to ponder the risk that we may lose our freedoms and our Democracy -- if we have not done so already -- not to Islamic or other terrorists, but to the fear of terrorists and the loss of our own moral standards. ("It's all relative," people say.)

Yes, there is a risk of terrorism and we must guard against it, but we must not give up our Constitutional rights or make them something that we only pretend to believe in and respect, while secretly violating them with impunity on the grounds that we are government officials involved in the "war on terrorism."

I am demanding that government officials respect my dignity and privacy, treat me as a subject with ends of my own and not as a means to your ends, as a person and not an object. I ask anyone reading these words to refuse to participate in torture or illegal spying, for any political party or public official, no matter what rationale is offered for the practice and regardless of who may be the proposed victim. I am asking you to consider both what you are and what you may be in danger of becoming. Fight to remain free and fully human ... while you still can.

Thomas Jefferson and America's Hope.

Images -- like the portrait that appears above -- may be blocked at any time by N.J. legally-protected hackers.

Adrienne Koch, Power, Morals, and the Founding Fathers (Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press, 1961), $7.95.
The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States (New York: Bantam, 1998), $2.95.


Yesterday I spoke of the need for an articulation of basic values for us. We contemporary Americans, regardless of race or ethnicity, gender or economic status, need to say what beliefs we share and why. We also must be clear-eyed in describing the less than ideal reality we see all around us. If we are now incapable of articulating a foundational and communal set of values or ideals, then we are no longer a nation or a people, even if we share the same geographical space and purchasing habits.

I think that it is possible to state such a set of values. I have tried to offer a hint of what those values may be in "Civilization and Terrorism" and "Manifesto for the Unfinished American Revolution."

In trying to define those values, I will say simply that the United States is an experiment. It is a fragile hope that people can govern themselves, in accordance with a set of principles of moral and political philosophy that will require interpretation by each new generation of Americans, fashioning a structure of government in which power is shared and limited by law.

The purpose of this effort is to guarantee freedom and equality to each citizen as against the power of the State. Given the realities of human nature, this must have seemed a childish dream to the men who drafted the Constitution and put it into practice. Every form of skepticism about whether power can really be limited by law was expressed by the framers. They were not foolish "idealists" or "dreamers." They were not "evil racists," though they were products of their times, limited by the blindness and stupidity of the era in which they lived, while struggling for emancipation from every form of superstition. They were certainly not creating a revolution in order to get rich. They were rich already. The revolution, along with the creation of this nation, cost most of them a great deal, including the lives of family members and friends, or their own lives in some cases.

The authors of the Constitution were flawed human beings, certainly, but at a time when it was still possible to hold lofty ideals without embarassment and to be optimistic about the possibilities of humanity, they insisted that people might be made better by good government. Today the use of these words alone results in laughter and dismissals, as I can attest. We are all too cynical for such beliefs in the post-Watergate and post-Monica era. We must return to an appreciation of the foundational values of American society in order to move forward and decide what those values require today.

In a time that celebrated progress and reason -- despite the horrors of war and rigors of life -- there was still a confidence in the future of a free people that is difficult to imagine today. Despite my moments of despair, I share in that confidence about America. Words like freedom, equal protection and due process were designations of values held to be real and true under the new Constitutional structure. This is because they were and are real and true. Today, I am often saddened and angered at the laughter with which they are greeted. To use such words means that one is called a "fool" or a "child." If so, then I accept the labels. ("Why I am not an ethical relativist" and "John Finnis and Ethical Cognitivism.")

One meaning of the term "postmodern" is an "incredulity toward all metanarratives." (Lyotard) Another attempt to establish a definition of this intellectual orientation ("postmodernist"), however, comes from theology (Paul Ricoeur) and is concerned with the challenge of hanging on to humanism and the universal in the aftermath of the Holocaust, as a hope for humanity.

By this theological-philosophical understanding, to be "postmoderns" is to find a way of living between contradictions in an effort to resolve them. At least in one reading or interpretation of Paul Ricoeur's work, this holding on to freedom and humanism -- as embodied in symbols -- is still possible, as a kind of "hermeneutics of freedom" that allows for social justice. Think of a crucifix or other great symbols, so as to decide what they mean for us today.

The United States of America is based on a hope that people can live freely. "People" is a word that the framers understood more narrowly than we do now. We have learned -- partly from their own principles -- that freedom and equality means that all or none of us must be "equally" free. And yes, the attempt to achieve freedom with equality is an on-going one. The struggle will never be finished. The American Revolution will never be only an episode in history books. ("John Rawls and Justice.")

Perhaps our revolution should never be finished or achieved definitively, because there will be new challenges for every generation of Americans posed by the enemies of freedom, who will always be around. These challenges force us to reconsider our commitments to the foundational values that I am describing. Most importantly, we must be on guard not to become, unwittingly, one of those challenges to legality and freedom ourselves, as we surrender to a fashionable cynicism. Be skeptical, by all means, but believe something. In the immortal words of Ronald Reagan, who is NOT my favorite president: "trust but verify."

Freedom is a scary thing. Many people prefer to be told what to believe or how to behave. They want someone else, an authority figure of some sort, to tell them what is true and what commands to obey. "Most people want to be told what to believe," a torturer once said that to me. If this is true and if you can get away with your crimes by telling people that "it never happened," Terry, then you will not get away with your crimes against me because I know what happened. Furthermore, I have obtained empirical evidence of these sordid events. ("Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture.")

The American Constitution prevents the government from doing exactly that prescribing of moral opinions. It leaves decisions concerning what gods to believe in, or whether to believe in God at all, what to say, how to dress, what party to vote for, or whether to vote at all -- all of these things and many more (like who to love) are for the individual rights-bearer to determine, without interference from anyone. This is true no matter who that person is, or how much money he or she has, or what political friends he or she may have, or what family the person is born into. ("Is there a gay marriage right?")

The Constitution provides government for grownups. Yet what the Constitution tells us makes us mature (moral intelligence and freedom) are things labelled as "childish" in today's intellectual culture.

The American media that looks chaotic and disrespectful of our leaders to other nations is actually performing exactly the role that the framers envisioned and desired: keeping our governors honest -- or as honest as possible when it comes to politicians -- by preserving a climate in which the free expression of ideas often results in the creation of new ideas.

Attempts to censor or destroy my writings make it clear that such efforts are always endangered. One reason for making movies like, say, "Michael Clayton," "Wall Street," or the Paul Newman classic "The Verdict" is that they are mirrors turned on powerful sectors of American society. Great art always tells us who we are. We do not always approve of the reflections of ourselves on screen.

American irreverence and suspicion of pomposity is one of the greatest aspects of our political culture. Commentators like Al Franken, Jon Stewart, or even the much-dreaded Mr. O'Reilly on Fox -- whatever their politics -- are always good for the nation. I love it that Americans refuse to be impressed by politicians. We tend to revere them only after they have left office, which really pisses them off. We must not forget that such freedom to criticize is what the Constitution protects and makes possible.

No system of government or laws will change the reality of human nature, but in America we can confront institutions and powerful politicians with our professed national values and force them to act, to do the right thing. We can ask that they live up to the values found in the Constitution. In general, they will. If they don't do the right thing, then we get new ones who will. ("Presidential Debates.")

The Constitution is about you. It is about what the government cannot do to infringe on your rights. You, the citizen, are most important under the vision of the Constitution, especially under the Bill of Rights. Not some abstraction like the State, or the "collectivity," but you. That's right. The guy or gal who gets on the bus, who goes to the Yankee game once in a while, who discusses politics with his friends in the summer time, while playing Dominos on the steps of his or her building. You are what the Constitution and the legal system are about, ultimately, and you matter more, much more, than ideologies. The State, Constitution, the law are, primarily, instantiated in your relationship with the government and with other citizens.

It is true that rich people and corporations have lobbyists. But then, you also have a lobbyist in Washington, D.C., you've got the best possible lobbyist. The Constitution is your lobbyist. You can show up any time and hold it up for the politicians to see. Don't let them forget that they work for you. It still amazes people who become citizens that they can go and protest in front of the White House. Well, you can. The President may even come out and try to get your vote.

Each time an "error" is inserted in this essay is a further desecration of the documents for which men and women have given their lives in every generation of American history. I consider the continuing ability of minor criminals from New Jersey's corrupt political structure to disgrace American law the most overwhelming evidence of America's decline. If you have children in the United States, this spectacle should frighten you.

This idea of freedom works everywhere in the world. People, individuals with rights, come before the power of the State, which must serve their interests to be legitimate. How can I believe this, given some of my own experiences in America, and all of the corruption that exists in many jurisdictions?

I believe it because it is what allows me to protest the injustices that I have experienced and seen (including defacements of this very essay), while criticizing (publicly) practices that I find objectionable. It is still true that there are not many places in the world where this is possible for a single poor person. I am still alive (so far!) after expressing my opinions. Most places in the world, this would not be true. My daily war against censorship should be visible to the American people. This is when New Jersey should try to block my computer's cable signal, again.

Many political leaders from different parts of the world are beginning to accept this premise of inviolable human dignity. This valuing of the individual leads to an ideal of community. It is not a "heartless individualism for greedy capitalists." There is an ethic of community at the heart of the American experiment. I think it is best articulated, at the outset, by Thomas Jefferson and a few others:

Jefferson offered an incisive criticism of ... egoism and took issue with the attitude of Helvetius that self-love is the root of even our seemingly altruistic behavior. [Mr. Posner?] Jefferson's objections were drawn from his view of [the person] as a social creature rather than from the isolated individual that some eighteenth-century theorists envisioned.

But HOW can virtue be a guide to the pursuit of happiness? Jefferson's answer here moved beyond the ancient philosophers to the inspiration of Jesus, for he considered that the ancients failed to recognize the reality of love and of duties towards others. Jefferson went to considerable trouble twice in his life to collect "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth" from the books of the New Testament. He believed it was Jesus who had set the world on a more humane moral level by teaching the "most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has been offered to man."

Notice that Jefferson's point is about a secular ethics of love leading to liberal or "diverse" political community. This has a lot to do with his choice of the word "happiness," together with "life" and "liberty," in the Declaration of Independence.

Terrorism is a denial of these beliefs. It reduces persons to objects to be destroyed in order to dramatize a political point. You have to make a decision today, at the most fundamental level, about what you believe and where you stand in this global struggle in which we find ourselves placed by history. The people inserting "errors" into these writings are terrorists.

I know where I stand. And I will continue to try to explain what I believe and why it is important. I have that right under the Constitution. So does George W. Bush. Whoever the next President of the United States will be, he (or she) will agree with Thomas Jefferson on this much:

"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man [or woman]." The life of reason involves the free use of mind or body -- it is the life fitting for man [or woman,] in view of the natural capacities of human nature.

George Santayana was so moved by this text that his systematic philosophical theory in four volumes was entitled: "The Life of Reason." ("An Open Letter to My Torturers in New Jersey, Terry Tuchin and Diana Lisa Riccioli" then "Is America's Legal Ethics a Lie?" and "America's Torture Lawyers.")

Americans will not allow anyone to deny us these rights to life as reasonable and dignified persons. ("Is there a gay marriage right?")

No one will threaten us into abandoning our rights nor prevent us, as individuals and (I hope) as a government, from advocating the same rights for ALL other persons, wherever they may be and whatever their condition in this world.

Politics in America.

Ms. Miers has now stepped aside to avoid further embarassment for the Administration. She will be denied the opportunity to be considered for the Supreme Court because she had no support from the President's "base" and none from the Democrats, of course, who should have been pleased.

It was pointless for the President to insist on this nomination once it became clear that there was no chance to establish support for the embattled nominee with anyone -- not with Republicans or Democrats. There was no way G.W. could win a fight for Ms. Miers's confirmation. This is something the White House should have anticipated. Hence, to avoid further embarassment to the President, Ms. Miers got the message to step down.

This nomination -- perhaps unfairly -- makes the Administration look idiotic and cowardly, which is not good for any future political battles. And there will be some. My guess is that Mr. Bush is furious at some of the unfair criticisms directed at his nominee. This was the response to his effort to find a conciliatory "middle-of-the-road" Conservative for the Court. I would be angry too.

The result of this nomination catastrophe is: 1) that Mr. Bush, allegedly, now "feels no need to give special consideration to a woman for this office"; and 2) the next nominee will be acceptable to the far Right, leading to a contentious battle in the Senate, where the Republicans have the votes -- a contentious battle leaving much rancor and animosity in its wake. Great, just what we need. More controversy. More division. More mutual sniping from politicians.

American politics has become a contest in personal destruction, where what matters is what goes on behind the scenes which does not appear in any transcript. The deals are cut when no one's looking, which is exactly what voters should not want in a democracy. The role of "therapists" and other consultants (meaning "spies"?) in these personal destruction campaigns is not clear. My guess is that both sides use them.

It is particularly regrettable that Ms. Miers has now been smeared as incompetent or incapable of performing the duties of a Supreme Court Justice, without being afforded the opportunity to be heard on the issues, or to have a 30 year career as a successful attorney assessed on the merits. American politics has now descended to this level of vitriol and backstabbing, or worse.

Many of our finest Supreme Court justices had no judicial experience and were quite obscure before coming to the Court. I think that Ms. Miers would have made a good Supreme Court justice because she is not an ideologue. Her political and negotiation skills are much needed among those "nine scorpions in a bottle" (Holmes), wearing designer black robes. I wonder if Chief Justice Roberts is going to keep those stripes on his robes? I hope so, because it gives the "Supremes" a Gilbert & Sullivan look.

This may be the lowest point in G.W.'s term in office. He is being attacked from all sides of the political spectrum and insulted in the press. Thus, it is the perfect moment for an independent, who disagrees with 97% of what he says and does -- but who does not like to see people beating up on someone who is outnumbered -- to come to his aid, expressing sympathy for G.W.'s plight and a continuing willingness to support the White House, if only the Administration could come up with a suggestion worth supporting. The suggestions on immigration are not terrible and deserve a second look, even from a pro-amnesty advocate. Iraq is an unmitigated disaster. We should get the hell out of Iraq as soon as a safe means of doing so is apparent.

I say, on behalf of Mr. Bush: "Onward ride the six hundred." It occurs to me that this phrase will mean nothing to people today. It is from a poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson (who?) about the "Charge of the Light Brigade" during the Crimean War. Any resemblance to current events, by the way, is very much intended. It is a poem celebrating heroism even in a foolish or idiotic cause. (See my earlier comment in this blog entitled "An Act of Grace.") I remember a fun movie based on this poem which starred Olivia de Havilland and Errol Flynn. Wouldn't it be great if you were called "Errol"?

I know, I know ... A poem? Are you kidding? Yes, folks, poetry. There is poetry for every occasion.

A little reminder, boys and girls: the President of the United States is in a difficult geopolitical struggle against global terrorism as well as contending with opponents at home, a hostile media, the ill-will of Hollywood, mounting economic pressures, indictments of close associates, and he can always count on the hostility of the "More-Left-Than-Thou" crowd, which loathes anyone who does not live in the East Village or who has a kind word for globalization. He is embattled. President Bush, Vice President Chenney, Ms. Rice, and possibly Karl Rove must now be regarded as "The Light Brigade of American Politics." I say we join them. Where is your spirit of adventure? (Am I serious?)

The intellectuals are horrified at G.W.'s fractured syntax ("we live in a theocracy!," says Harold Bloom) and the Christian fundamentalists wonder whether G.W. is only twice- or thrice-born, and whether he is a sufficiently "God fearing" man. Some even wonder if -- and they only whisper this accusation -- G.W. is a "liberal." Are you kidding? He lives in Crawford,Texas.

True, there are fewer accusations that G.W. is "dumb." Perhaps Mr. Bush has finally put such charges to rest with his recent perceptive comments, such as his shrewd observation that "most of our imports now come from other countries." It's hard to argue with that claim. The President has the kind of intelligence that most political leaders have and that is not testable on a multiple choice questionaire. After all, it was President Bush who recently pointed out -- echoing Mr. Nixon -- "answers are not the solution."

Yes, this is the perfect moment for me to express support for Mr. Bush, if only to annoy the sanctimonious, "more-politically-correct-than-thou" crowd that hovers for warmth around the Nation magazine, while still irritating the all-white Christian conservatives at National Review, who demonstrate their commitment to diversity by including in their all-white, male, Ivy league and trust fund ranks, at least one guy who parts his hair in the middle and wears a bow tie.

I am with you, Mr. President. It's you and me in this bar fight, sir, against the forces of darkness. Hey, do you think you can get Arnold or Bruce Willis to join us? Maybe?

These divisions in the national psyche and festering hostilities will make it very difficult for the nation to deal with tough issues facing us: such as, coping with the economic challenge posed by the rise of China and India; the growing gap in economic realities in the country; the gender-based, ethnic and racial divisions in a nation that is no longer unified, culturally or politically; rampant nihilism and despair among young people; an increasingly pointless war in Iraq from which we cannot extricate ourselves; isolation in the world; a human rights catatrophe that makes us the opposite of a moral example when it comes to issues like torture.

Let us not forget blatant corruption in American government and organized crime's involvement in politics (but enough about New Jersey), coinciding with the increased importance of money in elections. Corporate greed, excused by politicians, who are sometimes "bought and paid for" by big money. Denial of access to universities or of publishing opportunities for minorities and poor people should also be recognized, and our complaints should be heard.

In light of these crises and the global need for articulation of America's values and concerns at this critical moment in history, it is shocking that the nation with the largest number of political pundits in the world finds its Washington spokespeople forming a mutual masturbation society, while ignoring the global community that, I repeat, needs to hear from us NOW.

Who are we now? What do we believe? Where do we stand as a people, above and beyond party lines? Little things like that require public discussion.

You hang in there, Mr. President, and let's see if we can fight our way to the door. Incidentally, I'd do the same for Senator Clinton. And my guess is that she's just as good a fighter as the President. Maybe a little fancier, she's got that political Kung-Fu stuff down. The President uses the old Texas style, which still works. I guess. Have you seen his boots?

"A Philosophy Born of Struggle."

"Philosophy Born of Struggle" is a two day conference, which takes place on October 28 and 29 at the Wolff Conference Rook, 65 Fifth Avenue, New York. The keynote address will be given by Professor Lucius T. Outlaw, Jr., of Vanderbilt University, "In Search of Critical Social Theory in the Interests of Black Folks." Amongst the many participants is Munayem Mayenin, author of "Dehumanization of Humanity." The conference is free and open to the public. More details can be found at http://www.pbos.com

If anyone gives you a hard time when you show up at the door, just tell them that Cornel West and Richard Rorty sent you. Philosophy is always the result of effort directed at the resolution of problems that are experienced as pressing or urgent, calling for attention and some response. Think of the Marxist literature on the concept of "praxis." Also, John Dewey's work comes to mind.

According to Blanshard and many of his students, Dewey (who was no great lecturer), "biologized philosophy." For Dewey, an act of judgment, which is "the most elementary act of thought," is the "adoption of a plan of action aimed at surmounting some block to the behavior of the organism." We are in desperate need of some original philosophical work right now because there are quite a few blocks to the moral behavior of organisms.

We need to reimagine ourselves in light of new evidence of our biological and empirical natures, together with the moral challenges that we face. We need to think, much more creatively, about how best to make use of all that science has given us and may yet give us, which contributes to our self-understandings, while also thinking -- with equal intensity -- about the very great dangers and difficulties created by the misuse of science or lack of wisdom associated with recently developed technologies of war and industry, but also of social control by unethical psychologists at the service of governments or criminal organizations.

I wish to invoke Bertrand Russell's distinction between knowledge and wisdom, so as to remind people that neither of those things is sufficient by itself. We need scientific knowledge. Yet we also need philosophical (or religious) wisdom, perhaps just as much or more.

In addition to using science to cope with the difficulties created by science, philosophical wisdom requires that we learn to see ourselves as part of the human family, making use of new understandings of human nature to overcome outdated notions of geographical and other boundaries (racial prejudice, for example), in the effort to establish stronger international institutions to resolve disputes and limit recourse to military conflict.

We must begin to reconsider the current distribution of resources on our planet so that more people will lead better lives, even if this means that some of us will be slightly less comfortable. We can feed more people, much better than we are doing now; we can distribute medical services and make education available to many more people, more efficiently, than we are doing now.

These things are not mere "wishful thinking." They are genuine possibilities in our world. (One place to start is with the "ONE Campaign.") http://www.ONE.com I wear the ONE Campaign's and Lance Armstrong's "Livestrong" wristbands, mostly as reminders of all that there is to do. I hope that you will too.

On today's "Good Morning America" t.v. show, a popular crime writer was interviewed and she explained her enthusiasm for forensic science and the brain's hidden secrets concerning dispositions to commit crime. Good and evil are, of course, not essentially scientific matters. And the mysteries of human motivation will not be revealed by any brain imaging technology nor by dissecting the brains of pathological criminals. She forgot the old "chicken and egg" issue.

It appears that choices and mental experiences may alter the brain, as noted in previous comments in this blog, so that persons who routinely resort to crime develop different brains -- in the same way that those who exercise regularly develop different muscles -- probably for complex genetic reasons having to do with the "utility" of aggressiveness early in our evolutionary story.

Such evolutionary accounts need to be enhanced with cultural investigations and understandings that are unique to each offender's social setting. Thus, it appears -- once again! -- that the story of mind and brain is a reciprocal one, a kind of "symbiosis" (look it up, if you don't know the word) and not a one-way street. There will never come a time when prescription medication will cure the anti-social tendencies of persons.

Psychiatry will never be more helpful in understanding the mysteries of human "being in the world" (Sartre) than any of the humanities, in some ways it does far worse. You will learn just as much about why people do things from artists as you will from scientists, maybe more. Developments in psychology and psychiatry have led to new obstructions to the exercise of human freedom that may be more insidious in the long run than any that we have ever faced before. Aldous Huxley writes in Brave New World Revisited:

Pavlov's findings have important practical implications. If the central nervous systems of dogs can be broken down, so can the nervous systems of political prisoners. It is simply a matter of applying the right amount of stress for the right length of time. At the end of the "treatment," the prisoner will be in a state of neurosis or hysteria, and will be ready to confess whatever his captors want him to confess.

A professional torturer once stated what I call the "Tuchin/Riccioli principle of torture," named for some torturers I once knew: "Most people want to be told what to believe." The self-proclaimed scientists who do such horrible things to their fellow human beings -- many scientists, from all over the world -- do not necessarily suffer from brain pathologies (maybe in some cases they do), but are, paradoxically, the authorities entrusted with defining "normality" (what's that?) for the rest of us. Every society has devoted resources to the development of such "interrogative technologies." These are the concerns arising from scientific psychiatry today that may give us pause. For example, according to Mr. Huxley:

In Britain, where the process of manipulating minds below the level of consciousness is known as "strobotic injection," investigators have stresssed the practical importance of creating the right psychological conditions for subconscious persuasion. A suggestion above the threshold of awareness is more likely to take effect when the recipient is in a light hypnotic trance, under the influence of certain drugs, or has been debilitated by illness, starvation, or any kind of physical or emotional stress.

The struggle for philosophy and against the subtle restrictions on our freedom now available to governments making use of these techniques is an on-going and a very troubling one. In this new struggle, the American tradition of reflection on the values of freedom and equality -- values that are enshrined in the U.S. Constitution -- is more important and more threatened than ever before.

You have a right to philosophy. Do not let anyone deny you that right. You have the right to think and speak freely, under the U.S. Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. No one can take these rights from you. They are not a gift. They are part of your human endowment that must be respected by all governments and experts. We must fight to make it clear that all efforts to silence us will fail.

Minds, Brains, and the Dalai Lama.

Colin McGinn, The Mysterious Flame: Conscious Minds in a Material World (New York: Basic Books, 1999), $24.00.

Some scientists are upset that the Dalai Lama has been invited to speak next month to a gathering of neurologists in Washington, D.C. Why would neurologists wish to hear from the Dalai Lama?

Neurobiologists have researched the phenomenon of "brain state alterations" among meditating Buddhist monks and report bizarre findings. Rather than the brain causing changes in mental experience, it appears that mental or spiritual experiences -- choices -- can produce changes in the neurochemistry of the brain. This research suggests that the mind/brain relation is much more complex and reciprocal than we have ever thought. Probably no simplistic, materialistic reductivism will be satisfactory as an explanation of the phenomenon of human consciousness or its effects. This is especially true in a time when the physical world is less physical than it used to be, meaning material reality is recognized as much more dynamic and undefined than it seemed to, say, Issac Newton.

By making the choice to meditate, these Buddhist monks can bring about, voluntarily, drastic neurochemical alterations in their brain-states, according to Dr. Richard Davidson of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, "... the increased levels of neural activity in the left anterior temporal region of the brain [occurred] after persons [took] a course in meditation." New York Times, October 19, 2005, at p. A14.

It appears that the mind can affect the brain directly. Furthermore, this work suggests that there is a connection between spirituality and ethical behavior -- behavior which is socially beneficial. Persons who are able to produce, through will power, these changes in themselves become more happy and compassionate people in society. Enlightenment leads to goodness.

"The control of mind over matter is startlingly illustrated by recent research by a team at Stanford University Medical School. A study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science described how patients using high tech imaging equipment were able to focus on their brains and control activity in one of their pain centers through mental exercises. Dr. Sean Mackey, co-author of the study, claimed the ability to control chronic pain in this way, with practice, 'could change people's lives.' ..." Philosophy Now, February/March 2006, at p. 6.

The serpent in this garden is Dr. Nancy Hayes, a neurobiologist at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Jersey. (It had to be New Jersey.) Dr. Hayes finds such research dismaying to her own view of things and wishes to prevent the Dalai Lama from speaking to the scientists because, she claims, talk of spirituality makes "us the equivalent of the flat earth society."

Let me see if I can figure out this person's problem: 1) She dislikes spirituality because it is "irrational" in her judgment, so she is concerned that 2) religion not be confused with science -- since science is what highly rational and educated people, such as herself, happen to respect.

Being an atheist or agnostic, a Darwinist (I "believe" in evolution), and an advocate of science -- when it comes to the investigation of nature -- may help to soften the blow when I say that Dr. Hayes is mistaken. Science does not have an exclusive on all forms of intellectual inquiry. Moral, aesthetic, political and many other questions will never be answered by conducting an experiment. Furthermore, there are some phenomena -- including the mysteries of mind/brain relations and the reality of human spiritual experiences, which are quite natural by the way -- that are amenable to study by scientists and humanists for different purposes, with different objectives in mind, in different ways, all at the same time. The results of these studies may enrich one another.

Fortunately for science and the First Amendment, research into these fascinating phenomena continues and the Dalai Lama will speak to the scientists after all. Dr. Carol Barnes, President of the Neuroscience Society of America, refused to cancel the talk by the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism and, wisely, she wishes to encourage this research.

In a second fascinating article by Laurie Goldstein, "Witness Defends Broad Definition of Science," The New York Times, October 19, 2005, at p. A15, Dr. Michael J. Behe, of Lehigh University, defended the increasingly popular theory of "intelligent design" -- which is not the same as "creationism." According to intelligent design theory (which I do not accept) "random natural selection" in Darwinian evolution is rejected in favor of intelligence or "rational pattern" as an explanation of genetic alteration.

By focusing on patterns of rationality or intelligence in nature, some scientists hope to explain how "complex biological structures arose." These theories are distinct from, but compatible with, holistic accounts in physics that explain reality in terms of an "implicate order" (Bohm) or "emergent phenomena" (Capra). In summarizing an earlier phenomenological argument against a simplistic mind/brain identity theory that says that mind is reducible to the "brain thinking," Professor Colin McGinn says:

Suppose I know everything about your brain of a neural kind: I know its anatomy, its chemical ingredients, the pattern of electrical activity in its various segments. I even know the position of every atom and its subatomic structure. I know everything that the materialist says your mind is. Do I thereby know everything about your mind? It certainly seems not. On the contrary, I know nothing about your mind. I know nothing about which conscious states you are in -- whether you are morose or manic, for example -- and what these states feel like to you. So knowledge of your brain does not give me knowledge of your mind. How then can the two be said to be identical?

No account of mind/brain relations that is false to the rich, technicolor phenomenology of being a conscious agent -- a freedom in the world -- will be persuasive in the long run.

I know what it feels like to love a woman. "Neurons firing" is not exactly the first description of the experience that comes to mind. To be sure, we are animals with fancy brains, but part of the mystery of those brains is their inexplicable capacity to produce consciousness and all that comes with consciousness -- not only the capacity to create a Ninth Symphony or a Sistine Chapel, but also the ability to appreciate such works, or something as seemingly ordinary as humor, a smile, or a wink as opposed to a blink. (See "Has science made philosophy obsolete?")

Back to the laboratory folks. Incidentally, you may wish to take a philosophy course before you return to your research.

"The Laughter is on My Side."

In yesterday's New York Times, scientists reported frustration at the failure to achieve any progress in diagnosing or treating psychiatric illness on the basis of ever-more sophisticated brain imaging technology:

"... the hopes and claims for brain imaging in psychiatry have far outpaced science, experts say."

Here is a bit of scientific wisdom for you:

"After almost 30 years, researchers have not developed any standardized tool for diagnosing or treating psychiatric disorders based on imaging studies."

Benedict Carey, "Can Brain Scans See Depression?," in The New York Times, October 18, 2005, at p. F1.

I do not have the heart to explain to these researchers that their efforts may be based on a "category mistake" (Gilbert Ryle), and doomed to failure. As Kierkegaard warned, over a century ago, "you will not find consciousness by looking down a microscope."

Of course, consciousness is dependent upon cerebral states, but it is not identical with those cerebral states.

You cannot discover the mind by dissecting the brain, just as you will not find dreams, hopes, wishes, fears or memories inside a blood vessel. No matter how many brains you dissect, the mind will escape you. The very hope for such a thing is a logical error. It is like asking whether your refrigerator is a Catholic or if your hunger is orange. It is, literally, absurd.

The mind is as much a cultural and philosophical artifact as the brain is a biological one. The brain is an organ in the body; the mind is an abstract concept that emerges from the acquisition of language within a cultural context. They are mutually dependent, certainly, but quite distinct. ("Mind and Machine" and "Consciousness and Computers.")

This is not to suggest that the mind is a ghostly entity, existing above or beyond the brain. There is no ghost in the machine. This need not involve acceptance of Cartesian dualism or any religion. You must have a brain to have a mind, to achieve consciousness, even if brain and mind are not the same thing. ("John Searle and David Chalmers On Consciousness" and "Robert Brandom's 'Reason in Philosophy.'")

We can take pictures of brains, but no one has a picture of consciousness, except for works of art or books, whose reality leads us to infer the existence of conscious and intelligent beings who must have created such things.

If I see a film, for example, then I may conclude that conscious and intelligent beings made it -- unless it is a "Three Stooges" movie.

Yet mind is indeed something different from brain: mind is linguistic and cultural; mind is social as much as it is individual. Thus, two persons with identical (or "normal") brains will develop very different minds or mental lives based on such factors as the languages they learn, the historical epochs in which they live, the educations that they receive, genders, races, sexual orientations, and so on. ("The Galatea Scenario and the Mind/Body Problem.")

As you read these words, you are in contact with my mind through its work, "my" writing these words. My brain, however, is not found splattered on your computer screen or on my keyboard. I hope. Yet I certainly need my brain in order to share the contents of my mind by writing and publishing my texts.

And yet, there is an added mystery in the mind/body debate resulting from the ways in which language functions in my absence. Think of Jacques Derrida's work. ("Jacques Derrida's Philosophy as Jazz.")

You may come to read these words when I am in the grocery store or taking a shower, a day or one year after I wrote them.

Nevertheless, I am still "present" in my words which are on the screen. I am present for you -- especially for you -- as you read right "now."

The metaphysical issues found in this foregoing paragraph may keep philosophers busy for years.

This raises the great difficulty with mind: Where is the mind located? In a sense, my mind is with my words, wherever you find them, you find me, or it; the mind is in its products. On the other hand, my brain (I hope) is located with the rest of me, physically, wherever I happen to be right "now."

Notice, once more, the magic word "now." Indexicals?

My now is different from yours. You are reading this sentence in your present tense; you are in your now. At the moment when you read this, I am perhaps shopping for books at Barnes & Noble, or buying tickets to a movie, or dreaming about the woman I love in my now. I may even be having sex -- ideally with another person, not just by myself -- now. ("Richard and I.")

Remember William Blake? "... infinity in an hour ..."?

Well, this is it. Right now. Each of us is in the present tense. Yet we may inhabit different moments in time. I'll have to devote an essay to McTaggart's proof for the unreality of time. Unfortunately, I am in a hurry and don't have the time to write it today. ("A Review of the T.V. Show 'Alice.'")

Our "meeting of minds" is taking place "in" language, in the Forest of Arden. The scientists cannot find that magical meeting place under a microscope, nor with a telescope in outer space. They can not see it with a CAT scan nor with an MRI machine, yet it sure is real. Best of all, it is a place where we can be safe. They can't hurt us there, here, where we are right now.

No X-ray will see us in the Forest of Arden. No salesmen show up and knock on the door. There is no IRS. No one can torture us in this psychic space. Your neighbor may be ... Madame Bovary or Audrey Henkel. You may bump into Myra Breckinridge or Hamlet at the grocery store or in the library.

I much prefer the Forest of Arden to what is laughingly known as the real world because I can find the person I am looking for here and say things to her that I need to say. ("Shakespeare's Black Prince.")

Kierkegaard's warning is more necessary now than ever before:

Don Quixote is the prototype for a subjective madness, in which the passion of inwardness embraces a particular finite fixed idea. But the absence of inwardness gives us on the other hand the prating madness, which is quite as comical; and it might be a very desirable thing if an experimental psychologist would delineate it by taking a handful of such [behaviorists] and bringing them together. ... If you meet someone who suffers from such a derangement of feeling, [a brain, but no mind,] the derangement consisting in his not having any feelings, you listen to what he says in a cold and awful dread, scarcely knowing whether it is a human being who speaks, or is a cunningly contrived walking stick in which a talking machine has been concealed. It is always unpleasant for a proud man to find himself unwittingly drinking a toast of brotherhood with the public hangman; [see the New Jersey Supreme Court's most recent death penalty decision,] but to find oneself engaged in rational and philosophical conversation with a walking stick is almost enough to make a man lose his mind.

I sympathize with Kierkegaard. I have had conversations with walking sticks. In America, many of them are lawyers. Worse, some are judges.

Now consider this letter sent by John Paul Sartre to R.D. Laing, appearing in Laing's study of Sartre's Critique of Dialectical Reason:

... what attracted me in your works was your constant concern to find an "existential" approach to the mentally sick. Like you, I believe that one cannot understand psychological disturbances FROM THE OUTSIDE, on the basis of a positivistic determinism, or reconstruct them with a combination of concepts that remain outside the illness as lived and experienced. I also believe that one cannot study, let alone cure, a neurosis without a fundamental respect for the person of the patient, without a constant effort to grasp the basic [existential] situation and to relive it, without an attempt to rediscover the response of the person to that situation, and -- like you, I think -- I regard mental illness as the "way out" that the free organism, in its total unity, invents in order to live through an intolerable situation. [Like being tortured and raped?] For this reason, I place the highest value on your researches, in particular the study you are making of the family as a group and as a series -- and I am convinced that your efforts will bring closer the day when psychiatry will, at last, become a truly HUMAN psychiatry. ("'The Stepford Wives': A Movie Review.")

An Act of Grace.

Norman Mailer, The Time of Our Time (New York: Random House, 1998), $39.50.

There have been times when writing was considered an act of grace, a form of almost supernatural intervention in the ordinary affairs of the human imagination. ...

Jack Richardson, "The Aesthetics of Norman Mailer," in Robert F. Lucid, ed., Norman Mailer: The Man and His Work (New York: Little & Brown, 1971), p. 193.

Meeting a literary hero or a famous actor can be a disappointment. One is inevitably shocked to discover a person who is ordinary in social interaction, but still a compelling force on stage or as a voice on the page. This is part of the mystery of art. One expects an epiphany and is often left with an impression of dullness.

I have met only a few of my literary heros -- Gore Vidal, Norman Mailer and the literary-political essayist and journalist Christopher Hitchens, other famous writers are not exactly "heros." I have also met or encountered many other types of "celebrities" from our entertainment culture. There are more of them every day. One of the unusual features of life in Manhattan is the frequent sighting of famous faces in places like coffee shops or grocery stores.

At the Time Warner building in Columbus Circle, I saw a world famous actress -- one of the most beautiful women in the world -- riding down a long and very slow escalator. I was moving up on the escalator next to hers. We were almost face-to-face at one point when, without missing a beat in the conversation with the people that she was with, she saw me -- really saw me -- taking in my particularity, offering the merest hint of an acknowledgment. The intense scrutiny directed at me suggests a powerful actorly curiosity about interesting "specimens," such as myself. I felt like a frog about to be dissected in a high school biology class.

The surprise I found in that familiar and lovely (yet strong) face, is the intelligence and authority that she projects. Her public persona is clownish, but this is not a woman you ever want to try to bullshit. Her body language is defensive, which makes sense for someone in her position. There is a toughness in her manner that is usually missing from her screen persona. This suggests that no movie role has yet allowed for an expression of all of the aspects of her personality.

I planned for days to see Norman Mailer at a signing ceremony in a bookstore, having read his work for years. Call me Virgo. Virgo rose early that morning, though the signing would not take place until evening. He was tired. He was working on an essay that had stagnated with a discussion of the technicalities of linguistic philosophy. Virgo faced that familiar difficulty of mastering the details of an argument that he rejected, coping with the seductiveness of sharing the philosophical space of another mind, whose "fundament" (fundament is an important word for Mailer) was hostile to Virgo's own theoretical foundations, if still attractive by its power and elegance.

You cannot absorb another person's philosophy and try to match or defeat it, without also stealing a little of its power. This is an insight that explains some of early man's concern to take a physical part of a defeated enemy or a weapon, as a trophy or prize ... a heart, scalp, or possibly something more symbolic these days. Maybe today's winner in a struggle between two Alpha males in suburbia gets the best parking spot.

Virgo arrived early to pick up several copies of Mailer's books for signing, chatting with other admirers, while scoping out the talent in the room. There were several attractive women, but they seemed angry. They were waiting to ambush the aging lion, so as to confront him with his "misogyny." I was hoping for a ringside seat. To mix my metaphors, if this was to be a bear baiting contest, then I was betting on the "gray" bear -- even if I agreed with the women on the merits of the issues.

Sympathy is a mystery. You have to fight for your friend in a tavern brawl, even if you kick his ass afterwards for getting you both into trouble in the first place. Men.

Do women understand such things? "You and your friends are so childish!" My response: "when you're right, you're right. In fact, even when you're wrong, you're right." I make it a point to agree with the women who matter to me, regardless of what they say, because all of them are tougher than I am -- and much tougher than Mailer will ever be. Worse, they're usually right in their criticisms, even if they fail to understand why we sometimes have to be childish in order to hang on to what they love most about us.

True to form, Mailer arrives with a beautiful woman on each arm: one is his wife, Norris Church Mailer and the other a model or actress whom I do not recognize. The Pulitzer and National Book Award winner's hair is now completely white, he is walking with a cane because of a knee injury, and yet the impression is youthful, quietly vigorous. Mailer is about my height, 5,' 8" or slightly less, but only in physical stature. In every other way, he is bigger than I am or than most of us can hope to be.

Mailer can still go a few rounds with you and -- if you drop your right -- he may well nail you with a solid punch to the jaw that drops you. Never take him lightly. As fighters get older, they all become punchers because they can't dance as much. Mailer must still be fearsome on the ropes, like Marciano or Frazier working on the body of an opponent.

He banters with the women who have come to harass him. He handles the predictable objections with a deft touch, with wit and some charm. They are unpersuaded, but willing to listen. He is not to be taken lightly by them. It is unresolved whether they can think beyond their platitudes and jargon. With someone like Mailer, they will have to. With me too, I hope.

Mailer speaks for about fifteen minutes and does the obligatory "buy this book" routine. We form a line to get signatures for our first editions. As I approach, I catch his eye and we smile at one another. We chat about his "Open Letter to Fidel Castro" and he tells me that he met Castro. We like each other right away. The impression is too strong to be mistaken. There is real warmth between us. For a few moments, the surroundings are forgotten and we both realize that, if we met in a bar or at a party, we might become friends. Maybe we did become friends. An encounter with a very famous musician and a discussion of his work was the only other time that I felt I had an impact on someone world famous shortly before his death.

Mailer is pressured by a bookstore employee to move on with the crowd, but he takes the time to write something in Spanish for me and to spell my name correctly, not just signing the book. We exchange comments of a personal nature, thereby creating a subtext that says: "We see each other." He then bursts into a smile and I realize that the blue eyes of the writer -- call him "Aquarius" -- whatever his age, are those of the kid in high school who always got you into trouble and managed to escape unscathed. Then I realize that I am also smiling. A secret is shared. Male bonding. On the subway train going home, I open the book and read the final paragraph of the Foreword:

"... So I can have the hope that this book may stimulate your sense of our time, and will even offer its marrow to all the years in which so many of us have met as friends and antagonists, as fools and philosophers, witnesses and protagonists, alive in our actions and upon occasion rich in our power to meditate upon the perversities and wonders of our world, our arena. In effect, this is a book that nearly all of us have created in our own minds; each book vastly different yet still related by the web of history, the style of our lives, and the river of becoming that we refer to by the most intimate and indefinable of words, the most mysterious word of them all -- time. Time!"

Subway Melody.

Riding subway trains in New York every day is a treat. It is an adventure that is unique to this city. Passengers are entertained by musicians or comedians, kids perform dances or play home made percussion instruments, poets recite their works.

Sometimes passengers get a chance to observe live theater. People insult each other, declare their love, get into fist fights, commit crimes and have sex on the subways (the presence of police officers has curtailed some of the anti-social stuff that was so common in the early seventies). The trains are a part of the daily lives of millions of people, from every walk of life, ethnicity and economic level. Mayor Blumberg rides the subways. The subways are a kind of underground city, which is (sometimes) a lot more democratic than the above-ground city. Subways are the id; sidewalks the ego; and penthouses are the superegos of New York.

During the past several days cops have been everywhere in the system. Other security precautions have also been taken because of new threats to blow up trains during the rush hour. I want to ask any terrorists who come upon these words -- it is reported that terrorists like to search the Internet -- why they believe that killing a bunch of people, like me and my family members, will help their cause?

I am not rich. I have my share of troubles. I am not an apologist for the government, though there is a lot of what the U.S. government does of which I happen to approve (also plenty that I loathe). Although I love the USA., I am sometimes highly critical of the Bush Administration. I have no influence on public events. I am no international corporation. Tell me why you want to kill me. If you want to blow up, say, New Jersey ... I may be a lot more sympathetic. Just kidding. But why hurt people who are only struggling to survive, even in Jersey?

Most of the people on those trains are working every day, tired, baffled by international events (as most of us are), hoping to love and be loved by a few others, so as to find a little happiness in their lives. They want to get home and rent a movie, spend a little time with their loved-ones (me too), before going to work again. Why would you want to hurt them, us? How can doing such a thing help you? How does it make you anything but evil, regardless of the faith that you hold or the ethical beliefs that you claim to hold? Struggle for justice, legally, as I do. Make your arguments -- preferably publicly -- but avoid violence. I know about anger at injustice. For that reason you must never commit the crimes against others that have been committed against you -- because you're better than they are. (See "What is it like to be tortured?")

No understanding of God or religion can make such an action, violence against the innocent, anything but morally repulsive. Hurting someone, like me, for saying this publicly only makes it more repulsive -- and cowardly.

There is some part of you that knows that hurting innocent people is evil. I am hoping that I can speak to that part of you, deep inside, that still feels compassion and sympathy for others and that hopes to bring to justice the monsters who hurt others, like Terry and Diana. It is that part of you also that is saying this to yourself: Do not hurt your brothers and sisters, your fellow human beings, for any cause. No matter who says something different. Make peaceful struggle for justice your cause. Do not "condition" people; don't presume to provide them with a "correct" view of life, but argue for your view concerning the most persuasive or best option. Don't try to force it on people.

A bomb that kills or maims thousands of innocent people, that does economic harm to my city, and makes life harder for ordinary people who live here, will only hurt the cause of those responsible for it. You will gain nothing while losing any chance of persuading Americans of the justice of your cause, to say nothing of what will happen to you if you are caught -- and you probably will be, if you live -- so why do this? Don't do it. And before you decide to become a "suicide bomber," because it sounds heroic, consider what that first word means. Think of those who love you. For the sake I my loved-ones, I will fight (legally) for justice.

Nothing makes hurting or killing innocent people O.K. Nothing excuses or justifies it -- not even the fact that others may have done the same to those you care about or yourself. There are better ways to communicate. Express your opinions, shout them to the world, fearlessly, but do not injure innocent persons. Trust in legal institutions, internationally or domestically. They're not much, but they're all we've got. Keep your fingers crossed. Try to avoid New Jersey.

Hate is not the answer to any dispute. Violence will only lead to more violence. Think.

How to be a teenager.

For an image to accompany this post, see http://www.tu-chemitz.de/phil/leo/bilder_neu/politicallycorrect.jpg (If the link does not work, try Google images for "political correctness.")

N.J.'s hackers prevent me from posting images, or accessing my writings at MSN, while suppressing my second book and obstructing all publication efforts.

I made the trip out to JFK late yesterday evening, waited for hours for my daughter's plane to arrive (it was about an hour late), carried her bags, took a cab home ("$45.00 plus tolls," gulp), because she was "too tired to take the train." I tried to communicate by hand gestures as she listened to her CD player, told her how much I missed her and loved her ... all of it so she could say: "Duh ..."

This morning, however, she was very talkative and explained that she had purchased a souvenir for me in Canada, better known in our home as "Rachel McAdams Land." If she makes me see The Notebook one more time I'll go into convulsions.

Life with a teenager is an alternative universe in which the same person, in an instant, is transformed from a gregarious, warm and affectionate child into a surly, angry, taciturn stranger from the land of semi-Goth, wearing black Converse high tops "as a sign of mourning for the human condition."

I would not give it up for anything in the world. I have no idea why it is true, but I love kids, even teenagers. It's adults that I can sometimes live without. My daughter is a world traveller (China, Canada, plans for Spain, to say nothing of Disneyworld when she was younger).

It occurs to me that most of the people I love, whatever their ages, are children. Both women who are closest to me are child-like, there are several kids that I love, and my mother in her mid-eighties still plays with her grandchildren and will always see The Wizard of Oz.

It may be a curious genetic mutation that runs in my family. And yes, the women I love are family. If it is, then I am not complaining about it because preserving a bit of childish wonder and innocence may be essential as a coping mechanism. Maybe there is a bit of a child-like quality in me. You think?