Human Responsibility Versus the Darwinian Struggle Between All Species

The emphasis on the struggle for existence between species supposedly posited by Darwin’s theories regarding evolution is the result of an oversimplification of his ideas, and fails to take into account the scientific revisions that have taken place over the 150 years since he first wrote On the Origin of Species. This generalization is based on a non-contextualized reading and perversion of his works, a lack of integration in the common understanding of newer scientific knowledge about how biology and ecosystems interact with survival, and an ignorance of man’s deep dependence on other living beings for his own existence. A closer look reveals that man can in no way afford to ignore the status of other species.

The phrase most often used to defend the notion that Darwin suggested that man may act with impunity towards other creatures is “survival of the fittest.” This concept, which is often inaccurately attributed to Darwin, was in fact first coined by the British polymath Herbert Spencer in his 1864 book, Principles of Biology. Spencer used the term as a way to compare his theories on economics with Darwin’s idea of “natural selection.” Spencer’s own definition for survival of the fittest was as “the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life.” (Principles of Biology,1864, vol. 1, p. 444)

Although he later adopted survival of the fittest as a synoym for natural selection in the fifth edition of his seminal book, Darwin described the principle in a more nuanced, layered manner:

“Owing to this struggle for life, any variation, however slight and from whatever cause proceeding, if it be in any degree profitable to an individual of any species, in its infinitely complex relations to other organic beings and to external nature, will tend to the preservation of that individual, and will generally be inherited by its offspring.” (On the origin of species...London: John Murray. 1859 [1st edition] p. 61)

Darwin prefaced his discussion on the struggle for existence by explaining that he used the term “in a large and metaphorical sense, including dependence of one being on another, and including (which is more important) not only the life of the individual, but success in leaving progeny.” (p. 62) He followed this with a number of examples to illustrate how checks on population work, and often pointed out that a given species’ level of success was usually entirely dependent on another species:

“I have, also, reason to believe that humble-bees are indispensable to the fertilisation of the heartsease (Viola tricolor), for other bees do not visit this flower. From experiments which I have tried, I have found that the visits of bees, if not indispensable, are at least highly beneficial to the fertilisation of our clovers; but humble-bees alone visit the common red clover (Trifolium pratense), as other bees cannot reach the nectar. Hence I have very little doubt, that if the whole genus of humble-bees became extinct or very rare in England, the heartsease and red clover would become very rare, or wholly disappear.” (p. 73-74)

By drawing connections between whole chains of species and noting the complex relational webs between them, Darwin contributed to our early understanding of what we today call ecosystems. Indeed, without having a word for the ecological niche, he nevertheless set forth a surprisingly sophisticated depiction of it, even highlighting it as the flashpoint of competition:

“As species of the same genus have usually…some similarity in habits and constitution, and always in structure, the struggle will generally be more severe between species of the same genus…than between species of distinct genera.” (p. 76)

As if all of these caveats to the misappropriated notion of unfettered competition between all species weren’t enough, Darwin explicitly said at the end of the third chapter of his book that, in the course of trying to suss out the most advantageous adaptations for success, it would be nearly impossible to take into full account all of the interrelationships involved. “It will convince us of our ignorance,” he noted, “on the mutual relations of all organic beings; a conviction as necessary, as it seems to be difficult to acquire.” (p. 72)

The common misapprehension that leads to arguments that place Darwin at the head of an anthropomorphic, narcissistic worldview is one that contorts the observations of science into moral decrees. Although science can and should be used to inform our conceptions of the world, it is a mistake to assume that scientific theories are meant to determine moral values. By definition, science is provisional; inferring anything greater than the relatively narrow principles discovered by it does a disservice to its cause, and poses a danger for the ideologue, who is less apt or able to refine and revise his grandiloquent philosophies once they are erected.

This becomes apparent when we begin to consider how evolution and concomitant theories have changed over the years. Darwin, of course, did not foresee all of the implications of his own work. He was not a conservationist; during his famous journey to the Galapagos Islands, he collected many specimens of rare flora and fauna. He was firmly rooted in 19th century natural philosophy, conducting dissections and experiments on creatures without the slightest fear that he would disrupt the ecological balance.

Nevertheless, the germs of conservation were inherent in his theories, and laid the groundwork for further investigations that would eventually lead to environmentalism and biological conservationism (not to mention the fields of evolutionary biology, genetics, aspects of modern germ theory, and a host of other scientific pursuits). As relevant as they remain, to end one’s reasoning at Darwin is to ignore the 150 years of new insights that his ideas have engendered.

One example of the way in which evolutionary theory has led to unforeseen paradigms involves the hypothesis that we may today be in the midst of a major extinction. A greater understanding of the ways in which species interact and depend on one another, even when those interactions are removed by degrees, has led to a growing concern among scientists and many laypersons about the current state of our biosphere.

Broad censuses of plant and animal populations were first begun during the time of Carolus Linnaeus a century before Darwin, and survive today as a routine staple of scientific fieldwork. Although originally geared toward discovery and classification, observations in this field, coupled with evolutionary theory and the budding science of paleontology, began to turn toward answering questions about behavior and population demographics. When a researcher would return to a remote spot armed with the notes of a predecessor and realize that the creatures in that area were more numerous, or gone, or had adapted to some change in the landscape, he would begin to wonder how those specific changes had occurred, and what the extent of the changes were. In other words, the general theory of evolution began to find more robust and exacting applications.

Over many years, population data accumulated to the point where it was possible to look at larger trends among varied communities. Meanwhile, paleontology (another field highly dependent on evolutionary theory) had grown increasingly sophisticated, and was offering a fairly comprehensive history of life’s development on Earth. This history included several cataclysmic periods of extinction, as well as a “background rate” of species disappearance during normal times.

Once current population data and pre-historical data were compared, it became apparent that the current rate of extinctions was well above the average rate. In a 2006 article on the subject, John Baez, a mathematical physicist at the University of California Riverside, compared some of the estimates that have been postulated:

“Phillip and Donald Levin estimate that right now one species is going extinct every 20 minutes, and that half of bird and mammal species will be gone in 200 to 300 years. Richard Leakey estimates a loss of between 50,000 and 100,000 species a year, and says that only during the Big Five mass extinctions was the rate comparably high. E. O. Wilson gives a similar estimate. In his book, Michael Benton reviews the sources of uncertainty and makes an estimate of his own: given that there are probably somewhere between 20 and 100 million species in total, he estimates an extinction rate of between 5,000 and 25,000 species per year. This means between 14 and 70 species wiped out per day.” (Extinction. http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/extinction/)

Baez is careful to point out that these estimates are based on extrapolations of known populations – that there are many species for which no reliable data yet exists. The consensus, even among the most conservative skeptics that he quotes, however, shows that the rate is well above anything considered normal.

Image courtesy of math.ucr.edu

The concern over mass extinction would have been impossible for Darwin – he simply did not have the information available to him. Were he alive today, though, there is little doubt that he would have shared this concern, for it originates almost entirely from principles he fathered. It would be imprudent and irresponsible to suppose that because he never mentioned the possibility that we were witnessing a period of major extinctions that he would condone ignoring such information were it presented to him. By the same token, those of us alive today cannot base our conclusions about existence solely on the basis of a few century-old texts.

Extinctions, as unpalatable as they are, don’t necessarily mean that we should care about what happens to other forms of life, though. One thing that paleontology has shown us is that the worst tragedies always give rise to new life, often driving evolution into heretofore untold realms. Why, then, should we concern ourselves with other creatures?

One answer comes, in fact, from the necessity of survival and natural selection. Darwin’s observations about the interrelations of ecological systems included humans as part of the pantheon. This key point, which has caused so much controversy within religious institutions, is what makes our participation in keeping the biosphere in balance so vital. We, too, are subject to the scarcity, competition and other economies of nature, and we are highly adapted to depend on other living beings.

The musings about flowers’ dependence on bees that Darwin made in On the Origin of Species is perhaps of greater relevancy today than ever before. All angiosperms rely on some mechanism outside of the plant for pollination, and for a large proportion, that mechanism is the bee. But recently, North America has been suffering from a crisis that could endanger not only insects and flowers, but humans as well.

The culprit behind this crisis is a phenomenon called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). According to the Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Research and Extension Consortium, a regional task force formed in 1997 to address pest management in the beekeeping industry, CCD is characterized by “sudden colony death with a lack of adult bees in/in front of the dead-outs. Honey and bee bread are usually present and there is often evidence of recent brood rearing. In some cases, the queen and a small number of survivor bees may be present in the brood nest.”(Colony Collapse Disorder. http://maarec.psu.edu/ColonyCollapseDisorder.html)

No one knows what causes CCD. Hypotheses range from pesticides to parasites to climate change, with many scientists now convinced that the answer may involve a suite of factors.

Regardless of its cause, CCD poses a very real threat to human agriculture and food supplies. To understand why this is, one need only look at the vastness of the beekeeping industry in the United States, and the contribution it makes to food production:

“Bee pollination is responsible for $15 billion in added crop value, particularly for specialty crops such as almonds and other nuts, berries, fruits, and vegetables. About one mouthful in three in the diet directly or indirectly benefits from honey bee pollination. While there are native pollinators (honey bees came from the Old World with European colonists), honey bees are more prolific and the easiest to manage for the large scale pollination that U.S. agriculture requires. In California, the almond crop alone uses 1.3 million colonies of bees, approximately one half of all honey bees in the United States, and this need is projected to grow to 1.5 million colonies by 2010.” ( Questions and Answers: Colony Collapse Disorder. http://www.ars.usda.gov/News/docs.htm?docid=15572)

If bee populations were to decline below sustainable levels, it would cause major setbacks for the growth of many crops in the U.S., which produces as much food for export to other nations as it does for its own citizens. Such a disruption in food supplies would cause havoc immediately in world economies, as food costs rose dramatically. It would also endanger food stocks that are already in peril from overpopulation and shifts in climate. Over the long term, world hunger would spike, and replenishing crops could become a much more difficult process that might never reach the level of output now enjoyed.

Humans’ relationship with bees is, of course, only one poignant example of the myriad ways in which we depend on other species for our own survival. The fact is that we depend on hundreds of other creatures for almost everything we do, from feeding us to producing silk ties to guiding the blind. When one extrapolates to include all of the interconnections between the species we use and the species we do not, almost no living thing on the planet can be excluded from the mix without that loss rippling back to affect humans.

It is this fact, no matter how one wishes to interpret the idea of evolutionary competition, that forces us to concern ourselves with the state of other species. Without them, we too would soon disappear.

It therefore makes no sense whatsoever to conclude from popular conceptions of Darwinian competition that we ought to ignore other species. Darwin never proposed it. Even if he had, it would be folly to narrow today’s understanding of evolution and ecosystem interaction to the parameters of a single man, dead long ago. Finally, the basic principles of Darwinian evolution place us in a position to realize that there are legitimate selfish reasons to pay attention to other forms of life – because we are all connected, both through our pasts and in the present.

How Many Sexes Are There?

This past summer, controversy erupted when South African athlete Caster Semenya won first place in the 800 meter run at the 2009 World Championships in Athletics. Rumors spread that Semenya was actually a man, and the International Association of Athletics Federations ordered that she undergo gender testing. Some – especially South Africans - were livid over the testing (which has not been compulsory since 1992), while others assumed that the results would prove her “real” sex.

The international sensation that Semenya caused was no doubt painful both for her and her family. However, it did briefly highlight a fact that is too often ignored – even feared – in the world today: that there is no black-and-white method for defining human sexuality.

At around the same time that the sports industry was reeling from the Semenya case, Gerald Callahan, an immunologist/pathologist at Colorado State University, released a book titled Between XX and XY: Intersexuality and the Myth of Two Sexes. After considering the 65,000 “intersex” people born each year, he investigated the processes involved in the emergence of human sexuality. He concluded that the supposed dichotomy between male and female is nothing more than a social convention, inaccurate scientifically and damaging to society in general.

“I think the processes that generate sex in human beings are at least as complicated as those that generate fingerprints,” Callahan said in an interview for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s weekly science show Quirks and Quarks in October. “And almost every one of us has a unique set of fingerprints. I began to realize that thinking of this like the on/off switch on a radio wasn’t the right way to think of it, that it’s more like bass and treble. You know the pure bass and pure treble are unachievable, but there’s a million different possibilities in between.”

Semenya is a case in point. It was reported in September that she had internal testes, no ovaries or womb, and testosterone levels that were unusually high for a female. She is what most people would call a hermaphrodite: someone with both male and female sexual organs (though from a technical standpoint, this term is also inaccurate, because hermaphrodites produce both sperm and eggs).

Semenya’s hardly unusual among athletes. Genetic screening for contestants in the Olympics, which ended after the 1996 games, often revealed that “female” athletes were genetically male. According to an article that appeared in the e-magazine Science of Sport titled “Hermaphroditism in sport: More on the latest Caster Semenya allegations,” eight women in the ’96 Olympics alone carried the SRY gene, which normally appears only on the male-associated Y chromosome.

“These eight would have presented with the same results as Caster Semenya supposedly has - no uterus, no ovaries, and (possibly) internal testes. All eight were cleared to compete [as women].”

Sexual abnormalities are not limited to the world of sports. Plenty of average people do not meet the genetic criteria for what society considers “normal.” Yet some of these people go through their entire lives without ever being recognized as different.

Some people, for instance, have only one X chromosome, a condition known as Turner’s Syndrome. Because they lack the second X that most women have, these individuals often do not have functional ovaries, and may not fully develop other sexual traits, such as breasts. Despite this, they look like females, identify themselves as females, get married, and do everything else that double-X women do. According to the children’s health organization Nemours, “Despite the physical differences and other problems that can occur, with appropriate medical care, early intervention, and ongoing support, a girl with Turner's syndrome can lead a normal, healthy, and productive life.”

On the other end of the spectrum are women with XXX Syndrome, who may in fact have up to five X chromosomes! You wouldn’t know it if you saw them on a city street, though. They might not know they have it, either; there are rarely any physical indications of their overpopulated DNA.

The same is true for those with XXY Syndrome (also known as Klinefelter's Syndrome), who are often indistinguishable from normal males. According to the National Institutes of Health, “the XXY chromosome arrangement appears to be one of the most common genetic abnormalities known, occurring as frequently as 1 in 500 to 1 in 1,000 male births…Many men live out their lives without ever even suspecting that they have an additional chromosome.”

Male/female duality debunked: karyotyping, a method of viewing a person’s chromosomal structure, reveals the extra “X” chromosome in an individual with Klinefelter’s syndrome.
Image courtesy of www.genetics.com.au (adapted to highlight extra chromosome).

“Okay,” you’re probably thinking at this point, “clearly sexual ambiguity is more ordinary than we often recognize. But certainly these abnormalities represent the vast minority of humans. Most can clearly be pegged as either men or women.”

Not so fast. If, as Callahan stated, there are a “million different possibilities in between” the traditional sexes, then where on this broad spectrum can we draw a dividing line? If neither chromosomes nor reproductive organs can help us, what makes a given individual “completely male” or “completely female?”

When we begin to look at the hormones that control male and female characteristics – testosterone and estrogen, respectively – the picture gets even murkier. All people produce both kinds, regardless of sex. Though men tend to make more testosterone than women, the actual range of production can vary wildly, even over the lifetime of a single individual.

Although there are average ranges for testosterone levels in both males and females, pinning gender to these numbers would make distinguishing between the sexes more confusing, not less. For instance, a condition in women known as hirsutism causes increased body hair and other “male” characteristics to develop. The bulk of cases involve heightened testosterone levels.

According to the nonprofit Mayo Clinic, up to 10% of women in the U.S. have some degree of hirsutism. Does that mean that these folks have slid downward on the scale of womanhood? For that matter, do all women become somehow closer to male-dom when their estrogen levels drop after menopause?

Perhaps we’re asking the wrong questions when we use all-or-nothing approach. The false dichotomy of male versus female doesn’t fit with the facts. It causes shame and hardship for people like Semenya who are nearer the middle of the spectrum. For the rest of us, we’re doomed to a perpetual anxiety about our masculinity or femininity (not to mention a pernicious social divisiveness).In light of all this, we might want to start thinking differently about how we define ourselves. After all, as Callahan notes in the epilogue to his book, “we are all intersex, living somewhere in the infinite, but punctuated, stretch between MAN and WOMAN.”

Tips on Arguing: Pareidolia

In the October 2009 issue of Smithsonian Magazine, an article appeared in which art historian Henry Adams contended that abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock hid the letters of his name in his famous 1943 painting, Mural. Adams’ wife noticed the painter’s name among the otherwise formless mass of shapes in the piece, and once she pointed it out to her husband, he couldn’t help but notice it. Soon after, the world couldn’t help it, either.

But was this couple really seeing what they thought they were?

Perhaps not. Pareidolia - the tendency of the mind to incorrectly assign familiar patterns to images or sounds that don’t actually contain those patterns - is an extremely common phenomenon that could account for what the Adamses perceived.

The human mind is built to take shortcuts by using learned patterns of recognition to fill in gaps in our senses. To illustrate why this is normally so useful, pretend that you are on one side of a picket fence. A dog walks by on the other side. All that you actually see is a flash of fur, a glimpse of a leg. Yet you don’t come to the conclusion that the leg is floating around by itself. Your brain has no trouble figuring out what’s behind the fence, even with this tiny amount of data. It puts together a complete picture, filling in the gaps with your previous knowledge about what dogs look like, how they walk, and so on.

Imagine what the world would be like if you couldn’t draw conclusions based on patterns. Every time you saw a dog, you would not recognize it, even if it was only slightly different than another dog – indeed, even if the same dog walked away and came back. In short, you would be unable to learn anything.

Once in a while, the mind’s automatic gap-filler screws up by creating patterns that aren’t actually there. It’s caused plenty of controversies in popular culture. For instance, as long as rock music has been inciting kids to rebellious acts, some parents have convinced themselves that the artists are embedding Satanic messages in their songs that can be heard when played backwards. And indeed, the parents do hear the messages, at least in their own minds. This is often because someone has already told them what words to listen for. Their minds select the pattern they expect to hear, et voila! Jim Morrison’s lyric, “treasures there,” becomes “I am Satan” when played in reverse.

Pareidolia have even been known to spark conspiracy theories, such as when NASA released the now-infamous “Face on Mars” photographs. The vaguely visage-resembling mound of dirt was taken by a number of UFO enthusiasts as incontrovertible “proof” of artificial construction - and therefore intelligent extraterrestrial life. This group also accused NASA of “covering up” any reports of alien life. The conspiracy theory persists today - although these same people would laugh if you told them that a cloud that looked like a face was proof that there were people inside making it rain (and that meteorologists were covering that up).

What about the Pollock painting, then? Could he really have hidden his name in there? As the article mentioned, “It may not be possible to answer the question definitively unless scientists use X-ray scanning or some other method to trace which pigments were put down first.”

Until then, the jury is out. But don’t be surprised if this turns out to be one more example of someone’s own mind seeing what it wants to see.

Grassroots Astroturfing and Political Terrorism

What Keith Olbermann Reveals About Protesting and the Media

Vietnam War Protest, Washington, 1965

Tea Party Protest, Philadelphia, 2009

Keith Olbermann clearly isn’t happy about the recent spate of protests flaring up around health care in town hall meetings across the country. MSNBC’s infamous left-leaning talking head made his disdain known to the world on the program Countdown last week with an excoriating comparison:

“Not merely spreading lies, but convincing a dissatisfied portion of the population to believe their propaganda and to act out in anger…When Hamas does it or Hezbollah does it it’s called terrorism. Why should Republican lawmakers and the astroturf groups organizing on behalf of the health care industry be viewed any differently?”

The Countdown segment, which featured scenes from some of the various meetings, attempted to highlight the connections between some of the protesters and right-wing interest groups. In one shot, an anonymous protester at a CT meeting wearing an Athem: Blue Cross Blue Shield shirt was singled out as a “likely” member of the insurance industry. Another scene showed a meeting led by Democratic Congressman Steve Kagen in Kewaunee, WI. A protester named Heather Blish was quoted as saying she was “just a mom” and that she had no affiliation with the Republican Party. Olbermann pointed out that her LinkedIn profile stated she had previously been vice chair of the Republican Party for Kewaunee County until the year before.

As Olbermann made his diatribe, the caption that floated on the screen threatened the viewer with “Political Terrorism.” His central message was not simply that some folk had misrepresented themselves: it was that the political Right’s involvement in orchestrating some of the opposition that's occurred surrounding healthcare is equitable to bombing or killing people.

Olbermann’s overblown statements, however ludicrous and seething with hatred they might have been, raise some significant questions about the nature of political organization, as well as the role that the news media plays in covering and “framing” societal issues.

The Right is the New Left

If Olbermann really wanted to prove that the Republicans were choreographing the protests, he need only have listened to NPR's On The Media. In last week’s episode, co-host Bob Garfield recounted an interview he had back in April with Adam Brandon, spokesman for the Right-leaning Freedom Works Foundation, to discuss his association’s leadership in organizing the now-famous “Tea Party Protests.”

Not only did Brandon openly admit Freedom Works’ responsibility for the protests; he also went on to explain how his group acquired the effective tactics it employed:

“When we get our jobs in our organization,” said Brandon, “the first thing you do is you sit down with some of Saul Alinsky’s books, Rules for Radicals. And we read that book and we study that book, and everything that we've been trying to do here comes straight out of those pages.”

That’s right. The Right got its playbook from the Left, who pioneered the very same methods that it now denounces as they come at it from the other side.

Of course, Olbermann doesn’t call it the same thing. He uses the word “astroturfing” (a media term for a public relations stunt performed to look as if it arose spontaneously) to describe the approach behind the tea-partiers and health-doubters. When people like Alinsky and Abbie Hoffman did it, it was called “grassroots activism.”

Aside from connotation, there is nothing that sets the essential technique of these two concepts apart.

To wit: in the 60's, Liberals used their media resources to call people to action, too. Television didn't play much of a role, but alternative radio, newspapers, books, flyers, and so on, were all utilized to get people together.

Granted, most of these were underground resources with little funding, and most didn't have a national distribution. But they were all led by some figure with ties to a political organization, an agenda, and access to a media outlet.

Certainly, though, there must be a difference between two brothers churning out an alternative rag from their basement, and well-coffered political wonks schmoozing with federal officials from their headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue? If not from tools or techniques, what could account for the apparent incompatibility of these wildly divergent images?

It could be argued that the sheer scale of their media operation makes the new protest organizers fundamentally different. But scale has never been part of the definition of grassroots activism. Flash mobs are called together by a single leader using the Internet, which is an international media resource (can’t get much bigger on the scale than that), and we generally place these events under the "grassroots" category, too.

Likewise, no grassroots organization ever restricted people from donating as much money as they wanted to a campaign. And regardless of their closeness to Washington, the people who organize and participate in any protest or rally are American citizens who do really believe in what they're saying and deserve to have a voice as much as anyone else. Their interests and ideas don’t become less relevant just because they have money and connections.

In fact, the most successful such campaign to date came straight from none other than our current president. When running for office, Obama’s operation was referred to as “grassroots” by media and politicians alike, despite having a massive organizational structure backed by millions of dollars and strategists who issued in-depth directives to the volunteers. Millions of Americans legitimized that juggernaut with their votes.

The End of the Radical?

If Right-wing organizers are having such a successful time using the Left’s methods, whatever happened to Leftist rabble-rousing?

A multitude of reasons could be trotted out to explain why the climate for Liberal protest has grown tepid over time. Part of it’s generational. The Democratic Party became a popular haven for ex-activists after the 60’s, and as people settled into their lives they also quieted down a bit.

Another factor that may have caused protesting to drop among Liberals was the end of the Vietnam Draft. Young people coming of age during that war faced the stark possibility of becoming cannon fodder. Scott Lackey, Co-Founder and Strategic Director of the New York-based ad agency Jugular Advertising, summed the indignation it caused him and other young men best on his blog, The New Advertising: “We were personally motivated to convince the government not to send us off to die. And we were loud and noisy about it. Lots of us. And our girlfriends too.”

Other nations emulated the grassroots protest ethic. This protest occurred in Wellington, New Zealand, in 1969.

The following generation didn’t feel the need to protest as much in the same manner as the last. David Kennedy, Stanford historian and author of the book “Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945,” pointed out in a New York Times article in April that “This generation found more effective ways to change the world. It’s signed up for political campaigns, and it’s not waiting for things to get so desperate that they feel forced to take to the streets.”

Possibly the biggest blow to the modern protest movements, though, was 9/11. Immediately after the attacks, dissent of any sort would be used to question a person’s patriotism. In an update to an article that first appeared in the Columbia Journalism Review in 2002 about the globalization protest movement, journalist John Giuffo said, “In terms of the…movement, 9/11 changed a lot…The drama of the globalization-related protests was play-acted anarchy compared to our glimpse of the real thing that fall morning, and it seems like we’ve lost our collective stomach for such measures.”

By the time the U.S. had recovered from its post-9/11 fever, pent-up Liberal activists channeled their energy into the 2008 presidential campaign – which, of course, resulted in the victory of one of the greatest political organizers of all time. The Activist became the Establishment.

Framing Public Ignorance

Protesters in New York campaign against bonuses to AIG executives after the global collapse of the financial system. AIG was contractually obligated to pay the bonuses.

To be sure, activism on the Left hasn’t completely disappeared. Over the past few years, demonstrations have been congealed around such causes as the Iraq War and the Global Credit Crisis. They’ve largely been ignored, but they’ve been around. Is it likely that Olbermann would refer to any of these as political terrorism? Or Obama’s campaign?

Probably not.

If Olbermann’s invective isn’t enough evidence of well-poisoning aimed at the Right, take a look at the angle FOX News chose: on August 12, the news agency released a report by Bill Sammon titled “Press Largely Ignored Incendiary Rhetoric at Bush Protest.” The article referred to a 2002 incident in which then-president Bush was accosted by left-wing activists during a fundraiser in Portlad, OR.

“Although reporters from numerous national news organizations were traveling with Bush and witnessed the protest,” the article said, “none reported that protesters were shrieking at Republican donors epithets like "Slut!" "Whore!" and "Fascists!"”

FOX made a conscious effort to contrast coverage of the 2002 protest with the current hubbub over healthcare – particularly the more violent fringes of the movement. The implied message of this article was that the “liberal media” was going easy on its political buddies.

Portland, OR, 2002

Although the article sounded more like agitated whining than impartial analysis, the story did raise a salient point. The facts that a news source chooses to include – as well as the ones it leaves out – make a huge difference in the way the public comes to understand an issue. The way the story is “framed” matters as much as the story itself.

Ever since partisan media outlets like FOX and MSNBC have risen to national prominence, framing has intensely worried media scholars. The representations that news media build for their audiences, if not carefully watched over, can cause all sorts of distortions in public perception. At their worst, systematically biased portrayals (whether intentional or not) can result in a complete failure of the public to understand what’s going on.

This is exactly what happened at the beginning of Hurricane Katrina, when a popular misconception about the evacuation resources at the disposal of poor residents in New Orleans contributed to the deaths of hundreds of people. During a 2005 panel lecture at Stanford University, Hazel Markus, co-director of the Research Institute of Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, explained how news sources got it wrong:

“Most media and individual accounts reflected a middle class view of the world. This view assumes that the sensible response to the impending hurricane was to evacuate. And by implication, those who stayed made poor choices, didn’t take control of their circumstances, and bore responsibility for their plight. This focus on problem individuals and victim blaming was very prevalent in the mainstream media in the first week of the coverage. There was almost no effort to try to think about why evacuation strategies might be stratified by income, or to represent Katrina from the point of view of those who could not evacuate.”

In that case, assumptions that factored into the way the story was presented led to the loss of lives - and the blaming of victims for their own fates. Presumptive journalism doesn't usually lead to such dangerous conclusions. But if it's cost lives before, it can do so again. Self-scrutiny is essential in preventing that.

The kinds of concerns that Markus and other academics are voicing haven't trickled down into the mainstream conversation yet. But they have influenced the ways that media venues portray themselves. Specifically, the news agencies have become much more adept at abusing framing techniques for their own purposes. That bodes poorly for those of us who need the media's contextualizing apparatus to penetrate the hype and rhetoric.

The service that makes journalists and news corporations vital to our political and cultural institutions is their ability to investigate and contextualize events so that the audience can place them in a proper perspective and come to its own conclusions. On the whole, America’s mainstream media today flunk that test. The sources that uncritically buy into staged events are being gullible (or advancing an agenda), and the sources that hyperbolize are being myopic and reactionary. Both are equally misrepresentative. Both hinder the conversation rather than setting a tone for discussion. And that makes everyone less informed.

What, then, is the short-form context of the health care nay-saying campaigns? You might as well call them grassroots, since they fit the bill synonymously. They matter, but they're full of bad information and consist of fewer supporters than they'd like the world to believe. We should listen to them. Correct them where they’re factually wrong, and negotiate the points on which all can agree. After that, muddle through the remainder – because we’re all still going to be in this together tomorrow.

That's truth. Not political terrorism.

Picture Credits:
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The Word Family Game

Discovery:

Adapted from Sentence Contruction: Writing and Combining Standard English Sentences, by Alice C. Pack and Lynn E. Henrichsen (Newbury House Publishers, 1980):

“There are four classes of content words: Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, and Adverbs.

“A content word in one class usually has related forms in other classes. All these related forms make up a word family.

“Some word families have forms in all four classes. Others do not.

Example: A grateful (adjective) man may show his gratitude (noun) by thanking someone gratefully (adverb). (In English there is no verb form to express this idea of being grateful or showing gratitude.)”

***

The following sentences all contain several unusual forms of content words. Most are real words, but one in each sentence is not. This fake word is an imaginary “fourth member” of its word family.

For instance, in the sentence, “The boy cleves,” the false word “cleves” is an imaginary verb form that completes the word family of cleverness, clever, and cleverly.

Can you tell what the false words are, as well as the three real members of their word families?

(NOTE: The answers are based on the lists in Sentence Construction. Other sources may differ.)

***

SENTENCES

1. You don’t have to review your tax form by yourself. It’s transferable; advante with a corrector.

2. Time may not be limitable. Humans cannot computably measure our temporariness.

3. At the moment when Pinocchio became a boy, did his soul essentialize itself, or was it reminiscently acquisitive?

4. Even before the coffin enters the chamber for a wake, funeral home directors preparatorily solemnize their space. The goal is to balance an atmosphere of familiarity for loved ones with an atmosphere that is endurable for acquaintances.

Image courtesy of factoidz.com.

Intelligent Design and the False Divide Between Evolution and Religion

Discovery:

The unstated major premise behind every argument Intelligent Design proponents employ is that science can somehow be used to support a supernatural cause. Everything boils down to this one (not inconsequential) assumption. It’s the reason that these and other promoters of “creation” models fight to have their ideas taught in science classrooms.

This assumption is wrong by definition. Science is defined by a particular method of gathering and evaluating information (the scientific method). Anything that proposes to call itself science must therefore follow this method. ID does not and cannot follow it. By calling itself science, ID confuses the compatible realms of science and theology, actively undermining the integrity of both.

To understand why ID doesn’t fall under the purview of science, it’s necessary to understand what science does as well as what it does not do.

The testable hypothesis is the crux of scientific method. A testable hypothesis is an answer to a question, phrased as a fact which can then be shown to be accurate or inaccurate through some form of experimentation.

For instance, you may start with the question, “Why is the sky blue?” You might form several hypotheses from this question, such as “The sky is blue because there’s a giant mirror up there reflecting the ocean.”

There are two potential outcomes when you formulate your hypothesis. If the mirror is there, then you’re correct. If the mirror isn’t there, then you’re wrong, and must offer a new hypothesis.

Although the mirror example may seem ridiculous to us these days, that’s only because we’ve been up there. We’ve seen for ourselves that there cannot be giant mirrors in the sky; we’ve tested this hypothesis. It failed, but until a few hundred years ago it would have been a perfectly viable notion.

By scientific standards, the ID hypothesis is much worse than the mirror hypothesis. Why? Because a mirror is something that we can observe. It exists in the material world, and not outside of it.

The purpose of the scientific method is to discover and describe natural processes, such as how clouds form. This is also the limit of science – it cannot be used to investigate anything outside of the natural world. The scientific method can only be used on hypotheses that fall within the realm of material testability. A supernatural creator is by definition “outside” the realm of purely natural processes, and therefore impossible to prove by scientific means.

How would one go about studying a being that is outside of observation? How would a scientist perform a controlled experiment to learn about the properties of something that purportedly does not have normal physical properties?

This is the entire problem with Intelligent Design. If you claim that the mechanism of creation is something that by definition cannot be proven using the scientific method, then you are dealing with something other than science – which is where it ought to stay.

* * * * *

Of course, that’s not what ID proponents will say. They’ll tell you that the “evolutionists” are trying to disprove god. They’ll tell you that they see things like irreducible complexity and the “fine-tuning” of the cosmological constants as evidence for creation that “Darwinists” ignore.

Both of these claims are misleading.

Many real scientists are atheists, it’s true. Their personal beliefs may or may not be a result of their scientific knowledge. It’s just as likely that many people who started out as atheists are attracted to science, rather than being actively deconverted by what they learn later on.

Whatever the case may be, focusing on the relatively high proportion of atheists in scientific pursuits ignores the fact that many scientists follow some kind of religious teaching. You’ll find every kind of belief system among scientists, from Christian to Pantheist.

Although our concern is with evolutionary scientists in particular, tenets of evolutionary theory have been independently verified in nearly every scientific field (the observed microevolution of viruses that made the “swine flu” and the subsequent vaccine possible, for instance). Because of this, most scientists accept the basic concepts of evolution, no matter what field they work in. So it’s not inappropriate to consider the scientific community as a whole.

It shouldn’t be surprising that so many religious people are comfortable with evolution. Many of the ancient religions, some of which are still around, practiced Earth worship, which is friendly to evolution. So are Deists, who believe that a god set the universe in motion but no longer actively participates.

Buddhists have long embraced the theory. As Radhika Abeysekera points out in her book, Practising the Dhamma with a View to Nibbāna: “It is also interesting to read of the Buddha’s description of life on Earth…Incidentally, this description is similar to the description of evolution given by scientists.”

Christianity as a whole does not reject evolution either. In 1996, Pope John Paul II said that evolution was “more than a hypothesis,” and that Charles Darwin’s ideas were sound, provided they took into account God’s responsibility for creation. A few years later, USA Today ran a story in which Pope Benedict XVI made a more nuanced proclamation:

"I find it important to underline that the theory of evolution implies questions that must be assigned to philosophy and which themselves lead beyond the realms of science," the pope was quoted as saying…Benedict added that the immense time span that evolution covers made it impossible to conduct experiments in a controlled environment to finally verify or disprove the theory.”

Although Pope Benedict’s comments are slightly more contentious than Pope John Paul’s, both are willing to accept the basic concepts of evolution without feeling that their faith need be threatened. That’s because most scientists and most religious leaders understand the very thing that Intelligent Design proponents do not: science cannot disprove a god anymore than it can prove it.

The misconception that the ID community pushes about there being some anti-religious component to evolution may be in part a reaction to a sense that science has somehow stripped off the perceived strength of their chosen god. But this need not be the only way to think about it. Yes, a vast number of phenomena can be explained by natural mechanisms that don’t “require” a god. But that doesn’t mean that those are the only mechanisms that have ever been at work.

As my mother, a devout evangelical (though not fundamentalist) Christian, is fond of pointing out, who’s to say how god chose to manifest the universe? Who’s to say god didn’t use the natural mechanisms of the Big Bang, chance, and punctuated equilibrium as a method of creation? Evolution doesn’t dispute any of these possibilities. It only disputes the idea that it can prove god through them.

* * * * *

The other wrongful portrayal that ID proponents present – that evolutionary scientists ignore criticisms of their own theory – is just as much hogwash. Even Darwin made changes to the theory during his lifetime.

Evolution today looks like Origin of the Species only in its most basic principles. Scientists are constantly tweaking their ideas. The entire reason that they use the scientific method is because it allows them to open up more questions.

This is not a weakness of evolution. It is its strength. Theories never go unchanged – Newton’s theories of motion, for example, had to be overhauled when Einstein came along. That’s how science works. It’s always provisional, building on ideas that work and discarding those that don’t.

There are legitimate debates about how evolution works, too. We debate how to draw the family tree. We wonder whether most changes are adaptive, or if factors like genetic drift also play a major role. We update our models of species classification, and adjust timelines when new evidence comes in. Although, as Pope Benedict said, we can’t go back and get all of prehistory into a lab, we can make plenty of testable hypotheses. Evolution has been borne out in every one of these.

One of the most famous examples of using the scientific method to make a prediction about evolution was conducted by a team of scientists from the University of Chicago, the Academy of Natural Sciences, and Harvard University in 2004. This team looked at fossil evidence of fish to figure out what a transitional fossil between two species should be and what layer of rock it should be buried in. They then looked at geological maps to find out where in the world they might be able to find this fossilized fish. Their prediction turned out to be entirely correct: they discovered Tiktaalik roseae, a perfect fit between lobe-finned fish and the earliest known tetrapods.

The theory of evolution is, well, always evolving. But despite what ID claims, these changes support the theory rather than contradicting it.

So what of the other objections that Intelligent Designers lob against evolution? Unfortunately, most of them employ fallacious logic, are outdated or irrelevant. The reason that they work is simple – it takes much less time to make a false claim than it does to demonstrate why that claim is false. The ID community has all day to come up with illegitimate claims against evolution (far too many to go into here). Scientists can only devote a small portion of their time to explaining why those claims are wrong; most of their time is taken up by actually performing scientific investigations.

Besides, the few legitimate criticisms that ID proponents do have are also criticisms that are being investigated by real scientists, using hypotheses that can be tested. Having legitimate criticisms doesn’t make your ideas scientific.

The way that ID portrays it, evolution is an all-or-nothing scenario. Criticism of any part of the theory becomes a rebuttal against the whole thing, and any acceptance of it becomes a proclamation of atheism. These falsities constitute the real damage that they do to science – and human culture as a whole.

It should be noted that one cannot speak on this subject without a warning to scientists as well. A few voices in this community have adopted the thinking patterns of ID and actively sought to deconvert people to atheism via scientific evidence. It’s fine to be atheist and to promote atheism. Atheist scientists must be careful, though, in how they approach the argument. Science may certainly inform our beliefs about the world, but it cannot have the final word on god. Just as it can’t prove, it can’t absolutely rule out the existence of otherworldly beings. Nobody should pretend that it can.

Science can’t draw conclusions about things it can’t test. You can’t test a supernatural being. Because of that, Intelligent Design proponents can’t make testable hypotheses, and cannot correctly claim that their ideas belong in science classrooms.

The cultural wedge that Intelligent Design tries to force between religious communities and science is a damnable false dichotomy. For this reason it shouldn’t be taught anywhere.

Picture Credits:

1. Religion among Academic Scientists: Distinctions, Disciplines, and Demographics

2. The Search for Tiktaalik roseae

Podcasts: Media Democracy, Whenever You Want It

Journey:

National Public Radio is doing it. The Economist magazine is doing it. Your own sister may even be doing it.

Podcasting has become an international phenomenon that may change the very nature of television and radio. Yet relatively few people know what it is, and even fewer have yet to grasp its potential.

In the simplest of terms, a podcast is an audio file. Much like an mp3, you can download it from the Internet onto your computer or iPod, and then listen to it at your leisure. The most obvious advantage of this format is that, unlike a conventional broadcast, you don’t have to be tuned in at a particular time or place to receive it.

But there’s so much more about podcasting that makes it more attractive than “traditional” media.

Dan Carlin should know. Since 1989, he’s been immersed in media production, first on television and later on the radio. Today he makes his living as the host of two podcasts – Common Sense with Dan Carlin, a righteously indignant political talk show, and Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History, wherein he recounts historical events through narrative.

Carlin was an early adaptor. Back in 1995 – ten years before the first modern podcasts – he was hosting a radio program called Crossfire. “I got a call from a guy from a software company,” he says, “and he offered to pay me more than I was making at that time.” He ended up working on a project with a web development company called Homebrew Networks that would put his audio content on the Internet.

“We wanted to demonstrate to people what was possible,” he says. Thus was born the first incarnation of his Common Sense show.

Carlin believes that podcasting can raise the bar of public discourse, especially among youth. “The level of engagement is much different,” he says. “We get a lot more college-aged people than we ever did before. We’re reaching segments of the population that it’s important to reach. When you’re that age, you’re still idealistic about politics. By the time people reach the age of the average radio listener, they’re done thinking about it.”

Since 2005, podcasting and its video counterpart – known as vodcasting – have blossomed, driven particularly by young web natives. The ability to access a file from any computer in the world at virtually no extra cost to the provider (or the listener) makes it an enticingly inexpensive investment with a limitless possibility for exposure. Unlike television, newspapers, and radio, there are no transmitters, presses, or other distribution costs involved. Any person with an Internet connection and a microphone can create one.

When iTunes burst onto the music scene, podcasts piggybacked on its success, taking advantage of the programs’ user-friendly browsing and listener-generated ratings system. Add to this the fact that an individual podcast can theoretically exist on the Internet forever, and you had all the makings of a media revolution. Thousands of podcasts now exist, covering topics that range from philosophy to Marie Dubuque’s Easy Peasy Gardening.

Carlin’s success as a podcaster is an illustration of the profitability of what, for all its advantages, remains largely a niche media product. “On the radio, 10,000 people in the area might be able to hear me,” he explains. “I’ll probably only appeal to about 2% of them. On the Internet, I’ll still capture that same core percentage, but of a much larger pie: everyone in the world.”

Podcasts have also brought back an age-old dream of amateur content that began with the advent of radio.

In its earliest days, radio was flooded with amateur broadcasters who conducted many groundbreaking experiments, often out of their own homes. In his book, Radio and Television Regulation, historian Hugh Richard Slotten says, “amateurs tended to view the spectrum as a new, wide-open frontier, akin to the American West, where men could pursue individual interests free from repressive authoritarian and hierarchical institutions.” He points out that in 1912 the New York Times estimated that there were several hundred thousand amateur stations in existence.

That same year the government passed the Radio Act of 1912, which required all broadcasters to obtain licenses. This was the beginning of a series of regulations that would eventually consolidate broadcast ownership in the hands of a powerful few for most of the 20th century.

It remains to be seen whether podcasting will meet a similar fate. For now, amateurs – and professionals – have found a new frontier.

Carlin hasn’t regretted his move from radio one bit. “It’s the best job I’ve ever had,” he says. “Being in traditional media is horribly overrated, especially from a creative standpoint. In radio, for instance, your boss is the program director. He’d always be telling you what to do. But these people are the ones who failed at the same job you’re doing. It makes no sense. Now, nobody tells me what to do, and I’ve never been more proud of my work.”

Health Insurance: Not Like Car Insurance

Inquiry:

In an interview with NPR’s All Things Considered this afternoon, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) talked up his committee’s proposals for health care reform. Although Hoyer spoke of retaining choice for Americans, host Robert Seigel pointed out that under the proposed plan people would effectively be penalized for not having insurance, because it included a 2.5% tax.

In response, Hoyer said, “Everybody needs to have health insurance, sort of like everybody needs to have automobile insurance. The reason for that is that we know accidents are inevitable, and we know as well that illness is inevitable.”

Whether one believes in mandatory health insurance or not, Hoyer’s analogy is poorly constructed.

First of all, inevitability has never been a precedent that lawmakers have applied uniformly. Death is more inevitable than sickness and much more likely than being in a car accident. Everyone dies. But no one would force you to buy life insurance.

Despite sharing a moniker, health insurance doesn’t resemble other types of insurance in other important ways. Most forms of insurance are meant to protect against some kind of unexpected catastrophe, such as a flood or fire. Some aspects of health insurance address the same kind of event, but the bulk of a health plan pays for what, in other realms, would be called maintenance. Annual checkups are not akin to car accidents; they are more like tune-ups. Your tire rotations aren’t paid for by Progressive. You don’t call AllState when your toilet backs up. You call a plumber.

If you decide not to call a plumber, though, the only person who suffers is you. The same is true if you ignore your health. This illustrates yet another area where Hoyer’s reasoning falls apart. Not every type of automobile insurance is mandatory. The only coverage mandated by the state is liability. Why? Because in an accident that involves two people, the responsible party needs to be able to repair the damage they’ve caused to someone else.

This distinction is vital. If you drive into a tree, it’s your problem. If your car gets broken into, it doesn’t affect anyone else. These kinds of insurance are not mandated precisely because personal risk is a personal (not social) responsibility.

Finally, automobile insurance is at the most basic level a voluntary “opt-in” cost. That is, you can avoid participating in insurance simply by not driving. Plenty of people do this. But you can’t live without your body. This makes compulsory health insurance an inescapable ultimatum that amounts to a tax on being alive. It takes away your freedom to not participate.

When then-candidate Obama unveiled his ideas for health care reform during the elections, he made a lot of noise about avoiding any kind of mandatory system. This won more support from self-identified Democratic voters during the primaries than Hillary Clinton’s plan, which included coercive structures. Siegel mentioned this to Hoyer during their discussion. Hoyer dismissed him by pointing out that Obama recognized the need to compromise. But it wouldn’t be Obama who would be compromised here – it would be the voters.

Health care does need reform. A nationalized system may be the best way to accomplish this. But there are better methods available to us than ones that rest on false analogies.

Tips on Arguing: Margin of Error

Inquiry:

Ever notice the way that news organizations will pelt you with polling data during an election cycle, and then wonder why the actual results defy the polls? There are a lot of reasons this happens, but one of the most pervasive is due to a misunderstanding about something called the margin of error.

Every survey contains an inherent margin of error that is calculated using methods developed by statisticians. The primary reason for doing this is that survey-takers only talk to a portion of the total population, and they can never be completely sure that those people are representative of the whole group. Some people lie. Some people forget to vote. Others change their minds. And there’s always the possibility that the people you didn’t ask would have given you completely different answers.

Figuring out what the margin of error is in a given case requires some mathematical background. Fortunately, this is often done for us ahead of time, and knowing how to interpret the result is a simple process that takes less than a minute. It’s so easy to do that any reporter who fails to account for the margin of error is practicing shoddy journalism.

So, let’s say that Bob and Carl are running for mayor of Blandeville. The night before the election, a poll of 500 registered voters reveals that 44% are in favor of Bob, and 51% are in favor of Carl (the rest are undecided), with a margin of error of ± (plus or minus) 4 percentage points. Carl must be a shoe-in, right?

Not necessarily. The margin of error shows that any of these numbers is likely to be four percent below or above what the pollsters determined. So, what the poll really says is that Carl’s chances may be as low as 47%, or as high as 55%. Likewise, Bob’s support may be anywhere from 40% to 48%.

Since Carl’s lowest score (47) is less than Bob’s highest (48), Bob may actually be ahead. Nobody who pays attention to this will be surprised if Bob ekes out a victory tomorrow.Don’t be fooled by people who ignore a margin of error. It can make all the difference.

What Other People - Part 3

The third and final chapter.

The drive back was ensconced in silence. Marianne slouched in her seat, resting her feet on the dashboard and pressing her forehead against the window. She didn’t look in my direction, and I kept my own eyes on the road. I was relieved to retreat into the automatic functions of driving. It allowed my mind to wander without confronting the reticent outcast to my right.

My thoughts were riddled with worries and questions. I replayed the scene that was still fresh in my memory, pondering whether I should have watched more closely. Marianne’s previous mood had been a cover, and I had known it. But complacency had lulled my reactions into an impotent haze. Now a sandstorm of ash and cigarettes whirled behind my eyes, clouding my confidences. Joe’s last words repeated like a foreboding soundtrack, and I couldn’t help but feel that they applied more to me than my friend. Although I hadn’t committed any crime, it would be a long time before I could show my face around Ken’s without intense pangs of shame.

We entered Marianne’s driveway and I cut the engine. She still did not move or speak, so I stared out the windshield. The lowest branches of the tree that hung over her drive waved broad shadows in front of me. Black leaves tossed and writhed, dragging the tree-fingers toward the ground. Autumn would arrive soon to sever them. The drained weights would collapse and blow away, so that the newly freed branches could rise tall against the sky once more while they slumbered in peace. If we sat in the car long enough, we might see it happen.

Just as the air seemed to grow crisp with a hint of the northerly shifts, Marianne turned and broke my reverie.

“Am I a ‘bad’ person?” she asked in a firm but colorless monotone.

“I don’t think you are. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here.”

She snorted. “Don’t pay me lip service, Emmitt.”

I shrugged. “I’m not. You do some bad things, but so does everyone. I think you’re good, matter of fact.”

“How can you think that?”

I considered this for a moment.

“All that stuff you write and make – what is it you’re trying to create?”

“I don’t know… something beautiful… but it doesn’t make a difference. Everything’s ephemeral.”

“That’s true, I guess.” I gazed once more at the tree. “Anything you create will be destroyed, or fade.”

“I just want to be remembered for something. Something beautiful.”

“Remembered by who? People are ephemeral too. And a long time from now, after you’re gone, it won’t matter to you if anyone knows who you are.”

Marianne shifted uncomfortably in her seat, pulling her shirt down to cover her stomach. “I know. That’s why I can’t do it… Emmitt, I’ve destroyed so many things.”

“So have I. But it’s okay.”

Her voice grew impassioned for a moment. “No, it isn’t!” She twisted back around to face the window again.

“You’re right. It’s not okay. That’s what I mean. It’s not supposed to be. Things are tough to handle, and they often hurt a lot, but that’s the part that’s okay. It’s how life is.”

“Mark – I should have known this would happen,” she replied, still facing away. “He was always an earthquake, and they never leave anything but damage behind. Here…gone…nothing.”

“It’s how life is,” I repeated. I didn’t know what else to say.

“Life. Do you believe in past lives, Emmitt?”

“I don’t know.”

“Me neither, but I’m starting to. Did you know that I don’t know how to swim?”

“Really? Why not?”

“My parents tried to teach me when I was young, but I refused to go in. Water terrified me. I couldn’t even look at a full sink without freaking out. I didn’t understand it. As I got older, I began having nightmares about it. I would be in what seemed to be a river, in the bluest-greenest waters… submerged. I could see the sunlight above me, somewhere just overhead, but something held me back from it, pushing me down. Bubbles everywhere. Beautiful bubbles of every size would swirl around me, running past me. I’d try to catch them, to grab anything. My chest would be in so much pain – aching and stabbing. But it was never any use. I’d just flail without moving. Then the sun would turn grey – and I’d wake up. It was horrible. I had the same dream over and over, for years.

“Then, one day, my mother and I were in New York City, and we stopped at a fortune teller’s. Before I said anything about the dreams or my fear, she told me I had drowned in a flood on the coast of Indonesia. And before that, I had been murdered in Estonia, also by drowning. She may have just made that stuff up, or gotten her cues from something about me. They do that a lot… it’s a good trick. But maybe she knew something I don’t.

“I’m still not sure about past lives, but if they do exist, then my karma must be pretty fucked up. I must have done some terrible, terrible deeds. It’s the only way I can explain my life now. But I guess that’s just how life is, right?”

Not sure how to reply, I cast my eyes toward Marianne’s house. From the outside, it appeared venerable and historic, a classic colonial accessory on a wooded hillside.

Wooden beams rose from the short front porch to the slanted overhang, where the second floor protruded slightly. Marianne’s living room windows were visible from here, though they were currently cloaked in draperies and obscurity. Inside, lives were led in haphazard styles. Miniature universes were created and tailored to the individuals who inhabited them. Across the street, where ostensibly similar houses stood, were other hidden microcosms. Could a person ever fit into any that was not his own?

“I don’t think you did anything to ‘deserve’ all that,” I said, looking again at Marianne.

“You’ve no clue all the things I’ve done.”

“And you don’t know what I’ve done. I’ve done some pretty bad shit, too.”

She waved my statement away with her hand. “Not as bad as me.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. It doesn’t matter. That you recognize it as bad for you, that you’re sorry for it, is the first and most important step to getting beyond it. In this life.”

Now she turned toward me. “But how can I? Nobody else will forget what I do, no matter what. They always remember.”

“Marianne. Some people never forgive. Some things break. But you’ve got yourself. The only person who has to deal with it is you. And no one else can stop you from doing that.” For the first time since leaving the bar, Marianne smiled. A genuine, pleasant smile. Her bloodshot eyes grew crystalline once more.

“You know what I see when I look at you, Emmitt? I see kin.” She moved toward me, gently turning my head with one hand. Her lips met mine, slow and warm. It was comfortable. I felt the tenseness in my shoulders relaxing. And then, in a sea of fluid motion, the embrace ended.

“I cannot walk among the dead,” she said, gathering her purse. “I’m so tired I might pull a Rip Van Winkle.”

“Okay.” I felt her absence already.

“You may not be self-assertive enough yet,” she quipped, opening the car door to the crickets and stray cats outside. “But you’re good at taking care of people. I don’t know which is more important. Still, thank you.”

“What for?”

As she stepped out, Marianne said, “For taking care of me.” She closed the passenger door before I could react. I watched her walk to the porch, fumble with the lock, and disappear, consumed by the deeper blackness beyond her door.

Then I started my car and pulled away, knowing that the next time she called me I would not answer.



#

What Other People - Part 2

The second chapter of a three-part story.

I drove down the lamp lined Division Street with Marianne in the passenger seat as she rifled through a CD case. She was too drunk. She flipped incessantly, unable to locate the album she desperately needed to play for me.

“You’ll absolutely adore the Appleseed Cast,” she raved for the third time, pausing in her search and subsequently losing her place. “You’ll thank me for this later, I promise.”

“It makes no difference to me,” I replied. I was concentrating too hard on not swerving or crashing to worry about what was playing on the stereo. The current refrain of radio static had been satisfying enough during the past five minutes. I could drown my reeling head in the white noise.

She resumed scouring the pages. “It’s just… I know you like Radiohead… and The National… it’s sort of a cross between…” she came to the back of the case once more. “Goddamnit! I know you’re in here,” she railed at the sleeves full of round plastic. “You’re always here.”

She started over again.

Marianne’s mood had improved significantly over the course of the evening. Her naturally discordant personality continued to shine, but the potentially volatile attitude that recent events could have engendered didn’t seem ready to surface. Maybe she hadn’t had time to fully process the implications of being snubbed. Or perhaps she held tenaciously to the hope that the Mark debacle was only a hiccup on their path to reunion. Whatever the reason, the evening had been noticeably absent of any mention of the ex-boyfriend. Now, we were both placidly distracted by the liquid high of vodka and wine. The promise of beer and song to come kept our spirits elevated as well.

“It’s all right if you can’t find the CD,” I assured her, glancing over. “You can play it for me when we get back to your house. Later.”

“No, no. Now,” she said, not taking her eyes from the pages.

“All right… look, I’m almost out of gas, and I don’t want to have to get it when I’m even more wasted, and tired. Is it all right if we stop at the gas station up the street?”

She waved my comment away with one hand. “Go ‘head. Man’s gotta do yadda yadda.” She flipped another sheet, then stopped and looked up at me. “You, know, Emmitt, you never stand up for yourself.”

“What does that mean?”

Marianne pulled a lipstick from her green purse and stared at herself in the mirror through the darkness. She applied it as she explained. “Whenever anyone suggests anything, you go along with it like you don’t have an opinion. It makes you look weak and indecisive. And I know that’s not how you really are.”

I swerved slightly into the next lane, but quickly readjusted. “I don’t usually care what happens. I’m just sort of there.”

“Sure you care. I can tell, at least when you’re with me. You make comments. Your face always betrays your mood.” She puckered her lips at the mirror, then snapped the cap back on her lipstick.

“You’re saying my expression betrays me? I have a bad poker face?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. You don’t smile when you’re frustrated. Your eyes get dark and far-off when you feel isolated. When you enjoy yourself, you’re more animated.”

“Those are just my moods, though. They don’t always come from what I’m doing.”

Her voice grew consoling. “Sometimes, though, you end up doing things you don’t really want to, just ‘cause someone else does.”

“Sometimes.”

“When you do that, you’re like a washing machine on a spin cycle. Like you can’t figure out where you are.”

“So what?”

Her tone got hard again. “So tell me what you want. Be more assertive.”

“I do tell you, when I have an idea. It just doesn’t happen that often.”

“No,” she countered. “You say, ‘is it all right if I stop for gas?’ You even have to ask permission for that, and you’re the one driving. Don’t do that shit. Say, ‘we’re stopping for gas, bitch. Deal.’”

“Do I have to say it like that?”

“Nah. Say it your way. But be firm. Girls like that.”

“…is that a joke?”

“Don’t ask! Even if I didn’t intend it as one, that’s what it was for you. Just laugh.”

“All right, all right,” I said, feeling harassed. “Ha ha. Happy?”

“Don’t be sarcastic.”

“I can’t help it.” We pulled into the gas station.

“Neither could Nietzsche, and he went crazy.”

“He had syphilis.”

As I opened my door to fill the car, she looked me sternly in the eyes. “And you’ll get it too, if you don’t say ‘no’ once in a while.”

I pumped the gas, the crisp black air of evening sharpening my senses and driving out some of the alcohol’s effects. I thought briefly about what Marianne had said. She was right: I did sometimes let things go that bothered me. It was part of what made me capable of my tolerant friendship with her. But it often led me to uncomfortable situations, or circumstances that inwardly I felt were not excellent uses for my time.

I watched the numbers rack up on the display, dizzying in their climb. I became temporarily mesmerized by the tick-tick of the screen. Then the hose jerked with the sudden halt of current, and my brain snapped once more back to attention, this time with a new resolution. I would try to consider my own opinions more and speak my mind more often. As long as I wasn’t being offensive, anyway.

I slipped back into the car, and we were off. We pulled into the parking lot of DeNiro’s Bar and Martini Lounge a few minutes later.

Marianne and I weaved our way across the pavement arm in arm. She was worse off than I, but my own balance was too debilitated to correct hers, and instead I stumbled around in the same ungainly fashion. The weekend crowd choked the entrance with coiling clouds of smokers, furiously puffing so that they could rejoin their drinks inside in as little time as possible. As we neared these patrons, the blue-green neon of the sign above cast sickly shadows upon their faces. They parted for us, slow and inept. I looked around, smiling stupidly. I could see the pockmarks and blemishes, the badly handled makeup highlighted by proximity. From inside, the cacophony of a local band emitted regular squeals and thumps.

Directly in front of the door stood Joe, the bouncer, like the chieftain of some wayward tribe. Despite his bulky shape and intimidating gaze, Joe was a friendly guy who loved to discuss philosophy and quantum physics. In a past conversation between us, he had mentioned Hegel, Bohr, and Aquinas in a single breath, leaving me dumbfounded and impressed. Being a bouncer was a secondary passion, something that his body appeared incidentally designed for. He was nonetheless good at that, too, and took his position seriously.

He towered in front of me. “Evening, Emmitt. Marianne.” His bass voice carried over the throng.

“Hey, Joe!” Marianne cried, a little too gaily.

“You guys all right tonight?”

“Sure, Joe. You?”

“I’m well, thanks, but that’s not what I meant. You both look like you’ve had your fill already.”

“Oh, nooo,” Marianne interjected. “Not even close.”

Joe took a long look at her, then turned toward me. “Listen,” he said. “Normally I wouldn’t mind, but we were raided last night. Apparently there was a complaint. Someone drove out of here a little too drunk. We can be held responsible for these things, and we can’t afford to have our liquor license suspended.”

“I know, I know,” I responded.

“I have to pee, Joe,” Marianne beseeched. “Can I please go pee?”

“Look,” he replied, turning to her with a pained expression. “Go to the bathroom. Then come right back to us.”

“He’s my ride,” Marianne snapped. “Where else would I go?” She slid past, into the dusky innards of the bar.

Once she was gone, Joe’s manner became more confidential. “Emmitt, I can’t let you come in while she’s like that. Not tonight.”

I pondered this development. It occurred to me that this could be an opportunity to assert myself, to push a barrier and see where it got me. “Are you positive there’s nothing you can do? Is Ken around? I could talk to him.”

“Yes, he’s here. He’ll tell you the same thing I just did, though.”

“Do you think I can ask anyhow? Marianne’s had a pretty bad day.”

Joe sighed. “All right. Stay with me, and I’ll get him for you. I can’t promise anything.” He pivoted on one foot and opened the door for me. The crashing of the band on one end of the main bar drove itself like a sledgehammer into my skull. Sweat and strong perfumes hung in the air like stalactites. I faltered slightly in my step, following him to a door adjacent to the bar. It read “Employees Only.”

“Wait here a second,” Joe commanded, and disappeared. As the door shut behind him, I caught sight of Marianne careening through the crowd to my right. I waved, and after a moment of hesitation, she understood and came over. Her hair was strewn haphazardly over her forehead, blackish and shiny in the dull red lighting.

“They gonna let us in?” she asked.

Before I could reply, Joe returned, trailed closely by Ken. Ken had a kindly bearded face that matched his disposition. He regularly drank with his customers, or joked around with the staff. When he laughed, his round belly heaved below the band t-shirts he wore. He reminded me of a deposed Santa Claus. Tonight, though, Saint Nick looked as if he’d had to put Vixen down for rabies.

Marianne spoke up first. “Ken, you’re not going to kick us out, are you? You wouldn’t do that.”

Ken sat himself on a nearby stool. “Marianne, dear. I don’t have a choice. This is beyond my ability to prevent.”

“No, no, Ken. It’s all right. See, we’re already here.”

“Not yet,” Joe interjected. “You know better.” He moved away from us back to the door, but stayed inside. I knew he was was listening to make certain that his employer’s decisions remained final.

Marianne scowled. “Ken, we came all this way. You know us. You know we won’t cause any trouble. We can stay. Nothing will happen.”

“Marianne, honey, I don’t expect you guys to do anything. But look: I have no way of knowing whether there are undercover police here now. I guarantee that there are cops waiting down the street. I have a full house, and every one of these people is a potential liability. So are you, simply by being here. I can’t take the risk of letting you two become worse than you are. You’re more than welcome, any other time – just please understand that tonight is unusual. It’s for your protection, too.”

“How can you say that? We’re okay. We’ll be careful.” Marianne’s eyes turned to lakes, the banks overflowing. “After all I’ve done…”

“It’s obvious that you’re not okay,” Ken replied. “You’re swaying and slurring right now, as you speak. I can’t.”

Marianne tried a new tactic, but was sobbing slightly between her sentences. “I helped you build this place up, Ken. I told my friends… I helped you, and you’re kicking me out.”

Ken’s belly heaved heavily as he sighed. “Understand, please. I’m very grateful for your support. I respect you, or else I wouldn’t be reasoning with you here, now. You’ll always have a place here.”

“No, no.” Marianne was crying unabashedly. A few curious customers were staring at us. I felt I had to do something, so I touched her on the shoulder.

“We can go somewhere else, or home, or come back tomorrow. It’s all right.”
She shoved me away. “No, we can’t! They kicked us out! We can’t…”

“Listen to Emmitt,” said Ken. “He’s making sense – he knows there’s no hard feelings. We’re still your friends.”

“You wouldn’t do this if you were my friend! Never!” She was practically screaming, and half the bar was watching her. She twisted angrily on her heels and strode towards the door. I ran to catch up with her, but she was outside by the time I could react. I shot a bewildered look at Joe, who was still guarding the entrance from the inside. He shrugged at me and shook his head.

Then, before either of us could stop it, Marianne caught hold of the ashtray, a garbage-can-sized receptacle that sat a few feet from the door. She lifted it off the ground and hurled it at the wall of the building. The smoking patrons yelled and scattered as ash, sand, and butts flew in all directions. A short black girl in a tank top who’d been caught in the spray tore in the direction of Marianne.

“What the fuck – fuckin’ whore!”

“What? What? C’mon!” Marianne turned back around, posturing with her arms thrown in the air. I got to her just as Joe, with his inarguably insuperable force, grabbed the other girl. We pulled in opposite directions as they continued to scream at one another. “…fuckin’ – rip out every one of those extensions!” rang in my ears.

I dragged Marianne away. She was too winded, drunk, and upset to resist much. Behind us, Joe called. “You just ruined it for yourself, you know!” She gave him the finger, then gave up and followed me.

*****************************