The possibility that I might give up teaching...

Last Friday...our last day before Spring Break...I had an administrator strong arm me on something that I was in good faith on...

I've felt awful about it all week...it's totally ruined my Spring Break...

So...

I've been thinking about leaving teaching for good...

My administrator is a liberal...and is either a radical or no doubt influenced by radical hubris right now...

So I want to make the failure of that path...the path of forcing and bullying and strong-arming one's way through life...

As clear and as stark as possible for her...

And so I don't have to deal with it ever again...

I'm going to tell her the next time I see her that I don't know if I'm going to be teaching for the district next year...and that I'm thinking about leaving teaching for good...

Because I don't like being strong-armed...

And if they can't cut it out...

Then I'll find a new profession...

I want the message to be as clear and as unambiguous for radicals and liberals drunk with power right now as I possibly can...

And if they can't cut it out...

Then there is no reason for me to teach any more...

Because I'm not going to teach or do any of my work...teaching, scholarly, or otherwise...

In an environment for I'm going to be threatened and arm-twisted and strong-armed, all the time...

I couldn't do my best work in that environment if I wanted to...and there's no reason for me to do work on behalf of ideals that noone really believes in anyway...

I'll either find a profession where I don't deal with it...

Or I'll go do something where I'll get paid very, very, very well for the privilege...

This is why I'm not a liberal, anymore...

Because I never, ever, for the rest of my life...want to belong to a group...that bullies good people in good faith...ever...ever...ever...

Not liberalism...not conservativism...not radicalism...not Democrats...not Republicans...

Not any group that does this...ever again...

I'd rather just not belong to groups...to just avoid friends and others who do this...to just give up all affiliations that require that I think or say or do what others want because they fuckin' say so and without regard to my conscience...

I owe an apology to some kids that I strong-armed on Friday, I've been so wrapped up with the pressure from my colleagues to be tough...

Because I'm not doing this, any more...

And I'd rather leave the profession...and all of my work...

For good...

Rather than give into the ugly, self-centered fancies of bullies...

No matter what group they belong to...

Have a good weekend, everyone...

Love,
Ben

What I'll do if I give up teaching...

I've been thinking a lot, lately, about what I'd do if I gave up teaching...

I have decided that if I get fired from this job, that I'm giving up teaching for good...too much headache for too little good...I'll just resign myself to the idea that public education is just too fucked up to be helped or that my perspective is just too fucked up to be helped...as well as all the folks who want more choice and less bureaucracy to run things in public education and in education, generally...

Either way, I'm moving on to something else...

I've been giving serious thought to just giving it all up, frankly...let the cynics run the show...I don't know if I could ever fully do that...but maybe that's what people need...a world where what we have is all we have to hope for...maybe they'll find it in themselves to dream up something better...

But I do need to find something somewhere that supports my full potential rather than always settling for small-minded people always losing focus on the things that matter...

I've been joking with Melissa, lately, about just how original all the folks talking "force" these days as the way to solve all their problems are...

I mean we've never really tried force as a means of solving problems over the course of humanity...we've just always been such pansies...

Jesus' crucifixion...stoning women for adultery and prostitution...the numerous wars dotting the maps of history for land and spoils...religious oppression...oppression of women and minorities...

It's all been one long hippie-fest...

Dumbasses...

It's a thesis which is just so blatantly stupid that I can hardly believe that intelligent people could take it seriously, at all...

And that really is the crux of it...

At some level...I guess my question...is whether people can stop being so blatantly stupid in the face of clear evidence to contradict their poor assumptions about life...

Or whether I should just resign myself to the permanent stupidity of humanity:):):)...

I don't think people are permanently stupid...

Stubbornly stupid, definitely...

But not necessarily permanently so...

They do usually get to right answers after fucking up with the wrong answers after some time...

I'm just not interested in being peoples' guinea pig, any more...

I'd probably work some odd jobs...maybe go into investment banking, like Bill Bradley...

Who knows....anything, for awhile...just to get away from the insanity until it passes...

All I know is that I'm not intimidated any more by all the threats and bullying in so many different arenas that I and everyone else has been dealing with for at least the last 3 years or so, in earnest...

After awhile...threats and punishment gets overused...and then it's just not effective, any more...

And I figure that the scholarly work is only useful if people think it's useful...and if not, then I'd better mosey my way along to something else...

Maybe film?...or theater?...

Who knows...

Anyway...

Just preparing for the worst, since I've seen enough of it, already, in my lifetime...

If you haven't seen Finding Neverland, yet, I highly recommend it...a really beautiful movie...about how lost adults get in their cynicism...and how much they lose track of what it's like to be a child...especially while they are with children...the theme of almost every great children's story and author, really...check it out when you get a chance:):)...

Love,
Ben

There's this girl I've been thinking about...

I have this girl I've been kind of interested in, at school...

Last Friday we sat and talked for about a half an hour at our cars after our weekly trip to the nearby bar, Hoops...

She's a sweety, this girl...she's a math major...and a math teacher...she doesn't know what she wants to do with her life, but she gets a feeling of satisfaction and purpose out of working at our little inner city middle school...

I've encouraged her to become an economist...to use her math smarts for something bigger...as well as being a teacher, of course:):)...I'm learning to encourage the moon from everyone I see...especially someone who might have interest in a life of the mind, but who just lacks the confidence...

In the meantime...I think she likes me...

She's young...she's 23 or 24 (I'm not clear on that one, yet)...she's, by far, the smartest and most confident and most mature and socially aware of the teachers at Eisenhower and of the women that I hang out with regularly...who are often married, at my age...

So being 23 or 24...I think she's nervous, for reasons I completely understand, about taking on what would likely be a very serious relationship...at an age when she's not sure if she's ready to commit...

But it's nice to have intelligent and committed and purposeful conversation with a girl, again...and it's nice to talk with someone, again, who values people more than things...I'm sure, seeing the choices that other girlfriends I've had (I'm speaking broadly, here, rather than just the girls I've dated) that money will be a temptation to her...which I can't offer, right now...it's a temptation that it seems fewer girls than not, at my age, pass up, when they have the chance...though perhaps I'm just being cynical:):)...

Which is fine with me...because while I am fine with greed -- meaning when people value money over other people or over love or over something more important -- and think people should embrace it in themselves...

I'm looking for something better in a woman...so if this girl can't offer it, I'll look elsewhere...not all women live their lives like that...and I have no interest in settling for one who does...

This girl does have a lot of the qualities of someone who might be able to successfully pass up the temptation...

It'd be nice to find a woman who I might actually be able to fall in love with because she really believes in love...for real...they're rare in this age range, I'm learning...

Sadly...

So many women get jaded by bad experiences with love...and I just want to find one who can challenge and support me...and who believes in love...or can believe in love, when the time is right...

In the meantime...she's a friend...and one I can talk with intelligently...and have someone who can half-way keep up...and challenge and support me, too...

I've got errands to run...

Have a great week, everyone:):)...

Love,
Ben

History, people, and judgment...

George Will wrote a column in the Washington Post and our own Lawrence Journal World Sunday morning that got me thinking...

Steroids and Spring Training...

I don't know, frankly, how future generations of people and historians will think and write about Barry Bonds...

I imagine they'll write about him just as he is...

An amazing hitter and scorer who also did steroids...with far less harsh a light with the benefit of time and better judgment than George offers in his column...

But what George got me thinking about...

Was how foolish it is for good people to always try to conform to contemporary standards of judgment...

How history judges us, always, by the standards of future generations...not older generations...since older generations have long since died and are thus not able to write more contemporary histories...

And the whole thing got me to thinking about how foolish it is, period, to live one's life trying to please others, at all...how unpredictable others' judgments can be...

That's how I try to live my life...

And I get better at it the more people threaten to hold judgment over me or to hurt or threaten me in some way...

In psychology...we refer to how punishment loses effect over time because aversive treatment no longer threatens as well after its use...which is why dictatorial and totalitarian regimes often use uglier and uglier punishments and methods over time to keep control of their populations...because the initial methods wear off, over time...democratic regimes, as well, as it turns out...

But the great thing about human development...

Is that it is not based on any government's advances...

It is based on the advancements of peoples...of individuals...and cultures, societies, and other groups of peoples over time...

Governments can facilitate that growth with more adaptive means of providing security while providing for the freedom of its citizens...

Or they can hinder that growth...

In which case...self-respecting people...and really all people, over time...

Learn to value the freedom...and their own learning and growth...over the control of their governments...

...or their teachers...or their parents...or their bosses...or other people with authority...

I'm learning this lesson the hard way, right now, with some students who are following my example in ways I never predicted:):):)...

All people do this in reference to one another...it is just facilitated, best, in freer environments...where it can be best supported and nurtured...

George, I think, is overestimating by far how seriously his opinions will be taken by future generations...

The hard fact of history and reality...

Is that people in every generation...will think for themselves...and make their own judgments about what they think about matters like Barry Bond's steroids use and baseball abilities...and those ideas will change over time...as their thinking changes...

There's a lot that George writes that I appreciate...especially lately, with the more libertarian tone in his thoughts...

But George, like me, probably like every writer...overestimates how seriously his ideas will be taken by future generations...

Who do one thing without any exception...

They think for themselves...

Whether we want them to or not...

And something tells me that the more we try to force our way into their hearts...

The more they will ignore us...

That's something I've learned from experience, unfortunately...

I hope I'll never have to learn that lesson ever again...

Have a great weekend, everyone:):)...

Love,
Ben

Justice...and its counterfeits...

Slobodan Milosevic died this morning, according to Reuters...

Milosevic death robs victims of justice, foes say...

The Prosecutor says justice was denied...and yet something tells me that if the attempts by Milosevic's security officers to kill him would have succeeded, most people would be saying that justice had been done...

So what we mean by justice, often, is that we are able to hurt someone...not just that they are hurt...or that they die...

But that we get the sweet satisfaction of revenge...

Slobodan Milosevic is dead...he perpetrated horrific crimes against humanity...

And the saddest legacy of all that he left with us...

Was the unsatiated vengeance that many of his foes feel in their hearts...no matter how dead he might be...

Love,
Ben

Why I won't settle...

There are two things in the world that I care about more than anything else...

Doing work that helps people in the most substantial ways...and education as the foundation for that kind of work...

And falling and being in love with someone who knocks my socks off...

They are the two most important non-negotiables for me in my life...

Being in love powerfully, again, being most important to me...

I compromise all the time on the first of these...

With a view to always increasing the standards...

Meaning...compromises are always temporary...

Ideals are works in progress...

But when I was in love with Brandi...it was for real...and there's just no other way I could live my life, frankly...

I will make all kinds of compromises in my life...

But I will not settle when it comes to love...

I can't...because I know it's bullshit...which means my partner and I are cheated if I am not with someone who really impresses the shit out of me, as a human being...

All of the women that I've loved have impressed me at some level...

But I need a partner who is more like me...and who will challenge me to be better...and support me in being so...

And as I think about the opportunities for love in my life, right now...I think all the time about how I cannot settle...

I cannot...

It would be a lie...

To me...

To her...

To everyone...

I need a woman who impresses me like no woman has ever impressed me before...

Or else I will always be pining for Brandi...

That is the bottom-line...as much as I hate to acknowledge that...

I know in my heart that I can find a woman who challenges me at the deepest levels to be better...

But I've not known a woman like that in an awful long time...

One day I will...

I'll just keep saying that to myself and maybe it'll make it true...

In the meantime...

I'll just hope that whomever I find...will be someone who will open me up in ways I've never been opened up before...

Which was the case the last time I was in love...

And is the only way I know what real love looks like, any more...

I just realized that I've never given up on anything in life that I really cared about, I don't think...I can't name anything really important that I've ever given up on...

So giving up on Brandi has been about the hardest thing I've ever done in my life...because I so rarely give up on something or someone that really matters to me...

But Brandi's given very few choices on this one...she's clearly not even really interested in friendship...we are acquaintances...and I don't have much option, at this point, to have anything else with her...

But the memory of our love is the standard by which I will judge all future loves in my life, whether I like it or not...and if it means that I'm a bachelor for the rest of my life...that is the way that I will judge all loves...and I won't know love until someone exceeds...and we both exceed...that standard...

It really is the intangibles that matter most in life, I think...and love really does matter most of all...

I think I finally understand the tragedy in this song...

I've got to get something to eat and to finish this IEP:):)...

Have a great weekend, everyone:):)...

Love,
Ben

My reflections on life out of school:):)...

Life after graduate school...has been kind of lonely...

I think it's being in an environment where people take intelligence seriously that I miss...and just being around people who take intelligence seriously...

I love judging debate tournaments for exactly that reason...to be around people who take smart seriously...

But I miss being around it more of the time...

And specifically smart policy study/discussions...and smart people study/discussions...

I miss them...

I took them seriously when I was in school...because I knew they mattered...

But I didn't realize until I left school just how much the world is run differently...how crassly calculating most people are...for purposes that are far less noble than what ideas are best on their merits...and how often these less noble purposes get confused, at best, and are explicitly covered in more noble purposes for purposes of manipulation, at worst, with higher purposes...

I think what I've realizing...is that Einstein was right about problem-solving in its nature...

That we can't solve problems at the level at which we encounter them...

And that most people are busy trying to do just that...which means most people -- as they stubbornly stick with the same failing strategy -- look a little insane...as they keep trying to solve problems the same way that they haven't been able to be solved before:):)...

Most people encounter problems...and they want them solved...and they, often -- if not more often than not -- have very little sense of responsibility in the solutions to those problems, at all...more than happy to pass the buck or to blame someone else...whether or not an adequate solution is available to the problems encountered or not...

And they'll choose the easiest solutions possible, often...even if they do not resolve those problems, substantively and in the long term...

Which leaves just a few people...

To really think about solutions to problems...

And to develop solutions that transcend the level of solving them that has not solved them, thusfar...

Meaning...by the nature of problem solving...solutions to problems must occur at a different level at the one at which a problem presented itself...

Because the level at which the problem showed up...

There wasn't an adequate solution to the problem...

That's why the problem is still around:):):)...

I don't know why most people don't feel the kind of responsibility for problem-solving that I feel...why they don't think at these deeper levels...or take seriously the idea that it would help solve the problems if they did...

I do think that much of it is because...for all our talk about making schools work to support high expectations for all students...

The truth is...

Up until this point in history...

We've not had terribly high expecations for students or for people when it comes to learning...

And the consequence is a lot of adults...who don't feel the same level of responsibility for issues of importance...that they want younger people, and kids, in particular, in schools, to experience...without adults serving as better models...

Which just isn't possible, frankly...

Whether we like it or not...

If we want students or kids or anyone following our lead to emulate any virtue...

We have to embody it...

We can't just demand it...

Because demanding it doesn't provide the example that a child or a student or anyone following us needs to embody the virtues that we say we want them to embody...

And most parents and teachers and other adults are just too used to the "do as I say, not as a do" philosophy of life...that they just don't quite recognize that people can only do what they have examples and leadership for...

A lot of my examples are from history and from stories, luckily...

Because...often...the adults in my life as a child and as a student...

Were good people...

But people who demanded a lot more than they offered...

It's an entitlement problem...

That everyone suffers from...

Rich and poor...educated and uneducated...young and old...

We all just want more than we're prepared to offer...

And it's not a sustainable way to create the room for generating the kind of authentic responsibility that comes when people have more freedom in their lives...

To screw things up...

And to find a way to get them right...

I want to spend more of my time with people take responsibility and the thought that goes into it as seriously or close as I do...

But I know very few of those people...

Because so many people...are far too busy...

Looking after their own asses...

In a world that gives them all kinds of incentive to do so...

And then pretends like it is more honest and that we are more honest...than we really are...

And waits for the sorry ass realities that we all spend time bitching about...to just go away...rather than us taking responsibility for making them better...

And that level of responsibility can only happen with more freedom...and with taking freedom more seriously, generally...

It is severely limited without that kind of freedom...

And the lack of freedom distorts the landscape...

So that people keep trying to use the same failed strategies over and over again...

For fear of facing the penalty for doing otherwise...

It's foolish...and it can only be changed...by people getting more honest about it...

And my life will feel kind of wasted...if I don't at least try:):)...

And the short term results look pretty great, overall, with all of the frustrations that I've dealt with getting us to that point:):):)...

It'll just take more freedom for people to take more responsibility over time that will really improve so many problems that we encounter...and try, foolishly, to demand solutions for:):):) (we are all such dumbasses, sometimes:):):)...

Have a great week, everyone:):):)...

Love,
Ben

Assertive leadership...

After a discipline meeting between teachers today...I think I'm developing specific ideas for how the principles of least possible necessary aggression impact organizational and school change...

Assertive leadership entails a commitment to a whole host of principles...forgiveness, and a focus on behavior change...

Self-determined self-governance as the basis for self-discipline...

And facilitation and collaboration being a better model of developing relationships around building those skills...than is a relationship of strict authority to try to force chance -- futily -- on those over which a person has responsibility...

Authority is valuable because it provides better models of better behavior...and because authority figures are responsible for correcting and improving the behavior of those for whom they are charged with authority...

But the limits of an authoritarian or authority-based model...of governance...of leadership...or teaching...or parenting...of whatever...

Is that authority neither can create self-discipline...which must be self-determined, by its nature...

But also that authority figures may have lower standards for self-discipline, self-governance, the thought necessary for both, and the learning and growth involved with both, than those they are charged with authority over...

Many, many, many people are more thoughtful, better self-disciplined and self-governing out of that thoughtfulness, and learn and grow at faster rates than does our current President or any significant head of state in the world, right now...

Many, many, many students are and can be much more thoughtful, self-disciplined, and self-governing than their teachers and often, their parents...

And democratic cultures have developed all sorts of ways to account for the fact that higher standards are often developed outside of the circles of authority...

More freedom and room for disagreement...a thriving academic and scholarly culture...a respect for youth culture, as much as for traditional culture, as a means of dynamic change within the culture...values and institutions dedicated to the notions of disagreement and challenge -- political, legal, social, cultural, religious, and otherwise --- and even civil disobedience as means of expressing serious and profound disagreements around norms that a society abides by...

And a dynamic, active, and changing culture of norms development and acculturation...which is part and parcel of a thriving and growing democratic culture...

And what is the bridge between these often very tense relationships between these institutions and values and cultures and groups...

Is an appreciation of reason and reasonableness...of engagement and difference...of thought and thoughtfulness...and mutual respect...that creates the space for differences to be considered and bridged beyond mere compromise and political wrangling...

But it's more than than...

Reason is the standard against which our ideas of how the world should be are arbited and should be arbited...

Because reason is the only standard, in the real world, that really counts...

Everything else is just assertion...

And reason needs for us to account for realities that we don't understand, whether or not we understand them...or at least attempting to account for them, better...even when we are not sure...or are often "too sure" (meaning, unwilling to acknowledge what we are not sure of), as the case often is...

And the reality about people is this...

They cannot be ruled from afar and be responsible...or self-disciplined...or self-governing...

A free society...a self-governing society...a self-disciplined society...

Requires freedom...

Freedom means making mistakes...and it means a more and more open forum for debates and disagreements about whether or not behavior is mistaken or sinful or whatever or whether it is constructive or good...

And accepting that reality...allows us to see the opportunities that come with that freedom...

Even as we might wish for the "good old days" of more authoritarian, dependent, and less mature individual and democratic development...

That is true for schools...

And that is true for American and international culture, generally...

I've got some work to get on...

But I'm getting a better idea of how I might apply these ideas to schools and child rearing...in more specific ways...that still hold people responsible for awareness of the larger picture of people and their behavior, generally...

I'll be back soon:):)...have a great weekend, everyone:):):)...

Love,
Ben

Progress...and rising expectations...

We had a conversation after class, today, that helped me understand, better, the issue of progress and rising expectations...

A teacher was commenting that a kid was getting worse...a common lament in a middle school...though one that is generally just a complaint about how far from expectations their behavior seems to be in the moment...

This kid is actually a decent kid...who is off task a lot...and doesn't take school work nearly serious enough...

And I commented to this really very good teacher I was talking with...that he was doing much better...our expectations in the class I work with him in had just increased pretty substantially...so he was still getting in trouble...for more minor issues than in the past...that the lead teacher was tolerating less...because we had found more effective ways of dealing with problem behaviors...

And...largely...because our behavior, as teachers, had gotten better...we had become more self-disciplined...so we could model for kids, better, what it was that we wanted from kids...

And we are becoming more and better aware of both each our own limitations...and each others' limitations...between the two of us...which makes it easier for me to read when the teacher I work with has just had enough...and this kid was just pushing those limits today...

The conversation I had with the second teacher...helped me put into perspective just what I am wanting in terms of progress in the world...

Just how high an expectation I have...and just how realistic I need to similarly be...about how quickly they make that progress...and what all is entailed with that kind of progress...

I've been seeing a lot of it lately...

George Will and Robert Kaplan both wrote pieces, yesterday, basically conceding that democratic development cannot be force...

George Will and Robert Kaplan in the Washington Post...Thursday, Mar. 2, 2006...

Kaplan basically reverses the position of his most recent book to make the argument that forcing democratic change is not desireable (Kaplan's shifting winds are an indication that he hasn't the faintest clue what is going on at the deepest levels policy-wise and psychologically within the international community, right now...and is a needed corrective to the idea that journalists can somehow replace serious policy thinkers to provide the most in-depth analysis of political trends)...

And George Will appropriately invokes the image of one of the greatest conservative political leaders of the 20th century, Winston Churchill, to face the dissappointing realities of trying to force democratic change in Iraq (Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher two of the strongest leaders of the 20 century, though I think there is arguments to be made for the conservative leadership of Charles De Gaul, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Jacques Chirac, John Major, and several other very consequential conservative political leaders in the early and latter part of the 20th century)...

Those are two very important concessions from two very important popular conservative thinkers...

Meaning...a consensus is clearly developing...against the idea of forced change, democratic or otherwise...

And what we are waiting for, now, is for the domestic political trends to catch up with the much more sober and realistic analysis of international trends...

Forced progress is not progress...

Because progress necessarily involves freedom...

It is the inevitable basic requirement of progress among free peoples...

Because free peoples cannot choose and internalize values that others way wish upon them...

Without the freedom to do so...

Period...

Everything else is temporary...

And, at best, gives a signal for more long term development...

And, at worse, undermines longer term development...

Of freely chosen values which are critical to self-governance...which is the reason why such freedom is both needed...and why it is so jealously and rightfully guarded by free peoples...

And we are making progress...

Both in creating more freedom...

And in affirming it as a basic value necessary to democratic or any other kind of important change...for individuals...for cultures...for societies...and for states...

Our international democratic culture is making much progress in this vein...

It's our expectations of freedom that are increasing...

And will forever increase...

As long as we remain free peoples:):)...

I've got a meeting to get to:):)...

Have a great day, everyone:):):)...

Love,
Ben

Big picture...and small...

Big picture...and small...
OK...my friend, Katherine Shelly (I'm still trying to get a straight name on this mysterious woman:):), has got me thinking...

Bonnie, Baylor, and Dutchess...SBPBJ...katherineshelly.blogspot.com...

On my Blogspot post, "Why did I do all of this?"...

Why did I do all of this?...

Shelly writes...

"You will find no matter where you go that some people will care about the rules and regulations and some people will care about results. There are detail people and there are big picture people. Clearly you are a big picture person.

However... the world needs both kinds of people. The big picture people look for where we're going and why, and project our future into a 3-D that we can imagine and dream. The detail people make sure that we get there more or less intact."

I do believe that there is a lot of truth in what Shelly said in that comment...

And I think the quotation by John Gardner that she posts on her blog really seems to get what it is that I'm frustrated with in much of my life...

"Perhaps some day we shall know how to heighten creativity. Until then, one of the best things we can do for creative men and women is to stand out of their light."
-- John W. Gardner

Shelly is totally right...and I actually very much appreciate so many of the people in my life, my personal life and my professional life, who help me take care of the important details of life...

It was one of the biggest things, actually, that I really appreciated about Brandi...that whenever we went somewhere...or did anything...or if we organized anything...that she was so brilliant with all of the organizational details...maybe I didn't tell her or thank her for that, enough...

And there are a million people, at work, who I appreciate for their help around the details of my work and professional life...and really could not navigate my work without their help...

Beth, in the office...Linda and Sheila and Nancy and Jo Annette, for all my complaining about the IEP process...my step-mom, Marilyn, and my dad...for all their help...even Tom, my advisor, when I was in grad school, had a real knack for the details of school bureaucracy...

What frustrates me is exactly what Gardner gets at in that quotation...

It's not my light, necessarily, that I get frustrated with people being a part of...in fact, quite the contrary...I very much want to share that light with as many people as possible...

What I get frustrated with...is that when I make so much effort to get out of the way of so many people...and to just support them to do a great job...that so many people keep finding ways to get in my way...force my hand...to impose a smaller detail on my bigger picture that I am more than open to appreciating and working proactively on if they would just give me the chance to do so without trying to arm wrestle me in that direction...

And much more upsetting to me...to impose a smaller priority on my bigger priorities...because they are foolishly conviced...that if they don't force my hand...then they're smaller priority will be igored...

The irony being...that it is without a doubt in my mind...just the opposite...

The fact of the matter is...that when you force my hand...the consequence will range from either your goddamn lucky that I do anything for you...or certainly that I'll do anything for you, again...to I will resist and avoid doing anything for you...until you get off my back...

If it's important, I'll do it...after I get over what a prick you were for forcing my hand around it...

And people do this to me, all the time...without thinking...and often as a part of an on-going and quiet debate with me about whether they can or should force their way around issues...

A debate that they have, generally, thought very little about...and that they, for whatever reasons, think that I'll appreciate their point of view if I just see just how much they can get me to do...if they just make clear how I have no choice in the matter...

When the truth is...that when they do that...when I'm in good faith...they are goddamned lucky that I am doing anything for them, at all...

Just once...in my too short life...

I would give my left kidney...to be work with people...to date someone...to study somewhere...

One day...I'd just like to be around people...

Who just let me be...just let me be me...

Who let me excell...and suck...and just be myself...

Without all the pressure...and without forcing my hand...and without trying to get their way...

Without trying to impose themselves on me...or their preferences...or their ideas...or their high horses...or whatever the fuck they feel like they just have to impose on me and everyone else or else the world is just going to fall apart or go to hell in a hand-basket...

When the sad irony to all that foolishness...

Is that I and everyone else...would do a whole hell of a lot more for everyone...for every cause...

If people didn't push us all around so goddamn much...

I don't admire pushy crusaders...for big causes or small...who self-righteously bully their way through difficult or even simple issues...

They annoy the fuck out of me, is the truth...

And they get in the way of my efforts...

To surpass their expectations...not just meet them...

That's the small-mindedness of it all...

I've got to go give a neighbor a ride to the grocery store...

Have a good night, everyone:):)...

Love,
Ben

How fear distorts perception...and life...and how freedom offers us a better way...

Melissa and I watched this really great documentary, tonight, called A State of Mind, about two North Korean gymnasts, that was an amazing and rare inside look at North Korean society...

The girls are very talented...and the film is almost a propaganda film for the North Korean government, it's so uncritical of what is being said and what different points of view are on the problems in North Korean society...though still a fine documentary...

But the thought I came away with strongest from this film...was a much stronger appreciation for the freedoms in democratic societies...

It is always so ironic to me...and something that never fails to amaze me...

How much peoples in freer and more democratic countries like the United States...will perpetually take those very freedoms and democratic guarantees for granted...constantly calling for more limitations on their freedom...more harsh treatment in the name of doing good...and remaining stuck in fear about those freedoms...that often quickly dissipates...the more openly those freedoms are practiced...

The girls in this movie...are disciplined...they definitely love and respect authority...in a way that is spooky, really, much of the time...so much do they adore Kim Jong Il, the North Korean dictator who has starved and so seriously repressed his people...

They are every parents' dream...

And it is a creepy dream to watch unfold, I must say...

The movie gave me so much more appreciation for all of my students...for all of their independence...and rebelliousness...and the chaos that often unfolds when they get a chance to exercise their freedoms...that they can and do learn better social norms for mutually managing that freedom...

It's amazing to me...how a society like North Korea...can be so obsessed with group loyalty...at total expense of both individuals...and consequently...of individual responsibility...or any responsibility, much of the time...the Arduous March, the most recent bout of mass starvation that North Korea experienced, is blamed on American and Western economic sanctions (a bad policy, I must admit) rather than as a natural consequence of North Koreans' foolish faith in Communist totalitarian rule...and the fact that North Korea is dependent on the United States and other Western countries for foreign aid and that those same countries are wholly independent for food and all of their economic needs and live with an abundance unprecedented in human history does not seem to phase the film's North Korean citizen commentators...

More than that...is the fear that the North Korean government...and North Koreans live with...and which leads to terribly irrational policies...their fear of the West and American imperialism being the most obvious...but other examples including the lack of free international markets to compensate for problems like food shortages (and issue that Amartya Sen has commented on, at length, in books like Development as Freedom, and which he understands all-too-well in his own home country of India) and the longest lasting and most serious border movement restrictions during the SARS epidemic, despite no confirmed cases of SARS being discovered in their country...

This fear borne of too little freedom and openness, often producing more fear, is a problem all over the world, I believe...it is more pronounced in less open societies like North Korea...but it is present to one degree or another in all countries, including democratic countries like my own home country of the United States...it profoundly distorts understandings of the world outside the boundaries of those fears, in my study and experience, and it makes progress along a whole range of issues more difficult because of this distortion in peoples' perceptions of reality...

The beautiful thing about this movie...is demonstrating just how good and decent North Koreans...like good and decent Americans...can have so many distorted and foolish beliefs about their own world and the world outside of their study and experience...how North Koreans often see the failures of their Communist system as the function of their struggle to be self-reliant and independent of international pressures for them to give up their Communist system...and how those pressures are, generally, counterproductive, making North Koreans more resistant to the influence of the democratic community and more committed to the Communist model of government that is so responsible for so many of their miseries...

And Americans do the same...afraid of the world outside of their study and experience...afraid of the very freedoms that make them so great...and carrying around so many irrational attitudes and making so many irrational policies in the name of those fears and distorted perception...

It's the long story of humanity's history, really...and it is a history replete with profound mistakes and self-destruction and destruction to others borne of such fears...and a distorted sense of what fears are justified and what fears reflect the persistent paranoia of humanity facing new challenges...many of which are, in part, further facilitated by the freedoms that offer them the opportunity to deal with those problems more effectively and responsibly...

Our fears so often produce obsessions about experiences unknown...that distort our sense of the realities behind those fears...and our sense of purpose in the face of realities that we are concerned about...

And the saddest legacy for humanity...

Is that no matter how many people these fears and our failure to let them go has killed, imprisoned, oppressed, limited, and otherwise hurt...in the 20th century, alone, nevertheless over the course of humanity...

We still cling to them...like a security blanket that never offers any real security...

And we still, thus, live with the problems that the fears, themselves, and not even those things that we are afraid of, create for our lives, together...

Drug use and abuse is an excellent example of obsession created by fear...both for and by drug users and abusers...and for and by those who seek to legally restrain people from using certain illegal drugs...

All for naught...a drug war that accomplishes almost literally nothing...and drug abuse that is a self-destructive waste of potential and life...

Fear of foreigners -- as opposed to a reasonable fear of terrorism, where being aware of foreign involvement in terrorism might be relevant -- is a similar irrationality held tight to by North Koreans and Americans, alike, no matter how much it hurts both natural born citizens of those countries and those seeking to get inside their borders...

So many fears that parents and teachers have for children only create obsessions for those children with defying the adults responsible for their welfare and rebellion that often leads to the exact problems that those adults are so concerned about...

And the irony is...it is the free and independent nature of democratic societies...and of the individuals who live in those societies...that makes them so much stronger and more productive and smarter and more decent and generous...

As theologians and our religious forebearers discovered long ago...

Our consciences are better developed...with a respect for free will...rather than with the terribly concering obsession with group and national loyalty and security at the expense of freedom and individuals that more traditional societies like North Korea regularly engage in...

I definitely recommend this documentary...for an inside look into North Korean life...and for an inside look at a totalitarian society...

And for a well-deserved appreciation...for the freedoms...that democratic societies like the United States...offer the people within their borders...

And a reality check...for all of those who romanticize a society of more serious deference to authority...the fears that produce restrictions on our lives...rather than creating freedom to facilitate greater responsibility...for our individual lives...and our general welfare...

And the movie helps me to appreciate those same freedoms...which...no matter how much hardship I have experienced from our still far too punitive and harsh and controlling tendencies in American society...are available to me...on a level unparalleled in much of the world...

And which I would much rather practice imperfectly and not always with consequences that are fair or constructive...

Than not have the freedom to practice them at all...

A reflection that inspires me...to take advantage of the life I have...no matter how imperfectly experienced...in a country where I have more freedom to live it well...than perhaps any other country in the world...

Have a good weekend, everyone:):):)...

Love,
Ben

Being myself...being with people who are themselves...and being better people, together...

I've been in kind of funk, today...just thinking about the times in my life when I've been a real shithead...of which there has been plenty...

You know what kind of life I want...as much as possible...

I want a life...

Where I can be myself...

And where others can be themselves...

Shitheadedness and all...

Not to rationalize or excuse the shitheadedness...

To face it honestly...

But where I can be with people as I am...and as they are...and not as we wish that we were...which just seems kind of a waste of a life, really...

Since it's bullshit...

I want everyone around me...

To feel at ease...

About their racism...their homophobia...their sexism...their immorality...they're drug use...they're violence...they're greed...their laziness...their self-centeredness...they're sectarianism...they're hate for foreigners or Republicans or Jews or whatever...and to face up to their bullshit...and then just love and accept themselves and each other for it...

To just be themselves...and face up to their lesser selves...they're baser qualities...

And to just feel accepted for them...and to accept themselves for them...and...ideally...to accept me for them, as well...

To me, that's what real love is...everything else is bullshit...

And I'd like to meet a woman...someone who does that better, as well...someone who loves others and herself, for real...someone who can love people even for all of their bullshit...without making excuses for it...but without wanting to control them or hurt them, necessarily...we all want to control or hurt people, of course...but someone who wants to avoid doing either, as much as possible...

I'm tired of fake overwhelming genuine...and cyncism overwhelming idealism...

I want someone in my life who takes being genuine and being idealistic and being a sweet and vulnerable and being decent to others seriously...

And someone who has a sense of humor...a sense of proportion and perspective about life...a sense of what matters and what doesn't...

And a vision of life not based on spite or control or vegeance or superficiality or money or whatever stupid fuckin' things people base their lives on...

I want someone who I instantly know is an amazing person...because she makes me want to be a better person in her presence...

It's been a long time since I've met a person like that, nevertheless a woman...

Maybe that's what I'm missing...

Meeting people who inspire me, again...

Because anyone who wants to control me...

Does not inspire me...

And anyone who wants to control you...

Is not really a friend...

Or anyone who really cares about you, at all...not really...

They're your jailor...not someone who loves you...

And I'm just not interested in living my life with someone who wants to control me...

I want someone who can love me...and continue to grow...and give me space to grow...and to not believe in some mythical time or place when they are done growing...and impede everyone else around them, as a consequence...

People who want to control me...or who rationalize a right to control me...will lose my company, soon enough...

I just don't have any use for it...or for them...as long as trying to control me is the way they relate with me...

How hard is that?...to not want someone to control you?...to just want someone to love you...and to trust you...and to trust that when you fuck up...absent all kinds of foolish efforts to scare and pressure you...that you'll take responsibility for your bullshit...

Someone who lives with a sense of purpose...without having to control people...and specifically...to control me...

I'm not Bill Clinton...I won't settle for Hillary Clinton...

I want someone whose heart I can trust...which is very rare, these days...

I do have to say that despite what shitheads adults can be on this count...that the next generation, in my school, at least, looks like they do a better job of this...no surprise, of course...and a reason to hope...

But there's got to be at least one woman from this generation who I can trust and who challenges me and supports me in a way that facilitates growth for me, in this regard...

Because if there's not...

I don't see much use in working on behalf of any cause...

None of them really inspire me all that much...without the opportunity to think freely about them...and choose them freely...and to not have people trying to force my hand, all of the time...

No friend who does that is much of a friend, at all, as far as I'm concerned...no family member really loves me who is looking to control me...

And I don't need anyone's love...which is conditioned...on the right to control me...

And as painful as it is to live without some people in my life...

I'd rather live without them...

Than live with the lie...that it is okay...or constructive...or good...to control me...or anyone, for that matter...

People can be good...and still live with the ugliness and bitterness in their hearts...that leads them to want to control others...

But being good also means facing that ugliness and bitterness...

Contemporary entertainment...movies...music...theater...

It's penchant for darkness...it's tendency towards ugliness...so much of the cynicism and unoriginality...

Reflects our own ugliness...and bitterness...and darkness...

We should definitely embrace it about ourselves, I think...

But without facing it...

Our culture stays mired our own desire to escape from ourselves...who we really are...our real lives...fantasizing of a life where pain is avoidable...

And leaves us the shitheads that we become...when we refuse to take responsibility...for our shitheadedness...

Personally...I'd rather live with the hope...that people can and will transcend this less honest...less mature way of avoiding the tough work around being good and decent people...rather than faking it...to avoid all of the pain...

Than live with the dishonest reality...that we are all really doing our best to be better people...to be the best people that we can be...to be decent to ourselves and one another...

When we spend so much time trying to avoid what nasty, bitter, ugly people we can be...

It is our only hope, really...

And I'd rather live with the hope...

Than the ugly reality...like it's better than it really is...

How petty and immature and small most people can be...

And I'd like just one woman whose view of the world is bigger than all of that...

George Orwell's 1984 features Winston Smith...a man disillussioned by the totalitarian world of Big Brother...who seeks love...to try to find some hope...amidst the bleak realities...of total control over his life...

What we need is not some middle ground between totalitarianism and freedom...between total control and love...

What we need...is more freedom...and love...generally gentle and decent guidance and engagement...and sometimes a stronger hand, when nothing else seems possible, and when a stronger hand will help and not make things worse...but always realistic and thoughtful and loving...

Not some pale imitation based on some artificial middle ground...between totalitarianism...and freedom...

We need a world...where people live out of their consciences...and where we are more readily and often and seemlessly engaging each other...and living out of more independent...and more genuinely interdependent consciences...

And I'd rather hope for that world...

Than live with this one...pretending that it is the best that the world has to offer...

How anyone could look at this world and think that it is the best that people have to offer...or presume, arrogantly, that we will ever pass the laws and make the rules and pressure for change and force a world that will be the best that we have to offer...

Is well beyond me...it is hubris in the extreme...it is what the Greeks warned us all against most, in all of their philosophy and literature...

And now I know why it was the most serious of human errors that the Greeks wrote about...

As someone who has been guilty of it, more than once, myself...

If humanity is unredeemable...it is our own damn fault...because it is our responsibility...to redeem ourselves and one another...

And if we can't do that...then our hopelessness is not the result of something beyond us...

It is the result of our own goddamn cowardice...

And then there really is no really good reason to save or redeem or protect or defend us, anyway...

Because we haven't earned defense or redemption...

And then it really doesn't matter...

Any of it...

Either we find the courage...to be better people...

Or there's no reason to debate it, at all...

Because none of it really matters anyway...

And none of us matter, either...

Being better means freely facing our ourselves...our strengths...our flaws...our talents...our weaknesses...

And we do that best...

Without pressure...without force...without vengeance...without hate...

We do it best with love...and with honesty...and with a commitment to freely giving up our worst behavior...to be our best selves...

Everything else is us giving up...

And while quitting is not unredeemable...

It's not a virtue, either...

And certainly shouldn't be held up as the standard for goodness...when it is clearly cowardice in disguise...

And I just have no time for cowardice...

And I would like to meet one girl who is similarly unwilling...to accept that kind of cowardice in herself...

Today I'm facing my own cowardice...

In hopes of meeting a woman who similarly aspires to be a similarly worthy and decent human being...

I don't understand how so many people can live the lie about themselves...and pretend that it is the truth...

But I know one thing is for goddamned sure...

I'm not fooled...

And I'll stand for a higher, more honest, more decent standard...as long as people stand for a lower standard for themselves and for others...

It makes me so sad that people would settle for so much less for themselves...

And I'll hold them to a higher, more honest standard...

Until they can do it better for themselves...

We've got a movie we're in the middle of...A Very Long Engagement, starring Audrey Tautou...I guess I'll get back to the movie and do some cleaning...

And wonder about how long we can lie to ourselves and each other with impunity...

Have a good weekend, everyone:):)...

Love,
Ben

The root of all evil...conceit...human stupidity...and too little Red Stripe...

After a very long week...working through the remaining pain in my heart around Brandi...and dealing with a bureaucracy that, too often, seems intent on getting in my way...

...and listening to teachers have the dumbest ideas about how to improve student achievement...rather than doing the work to get a fire underneath these kids' asses around school...and a fire under their own, as well...

I have decided...that there are many things that impede progress for humanity...

Avarice...ambition...cynicism...hate...vengefulness..control and power...greed...lust, sometimes...and maybe even some gluttony...definitely a lot of sloth...and wrath...and envy...and whole truckload of vanity...

All kinds of ugliness...of aggression...disguised as nobility...

And a whole lot of people lying...to themselves...and to one another about all of it...

But none of it is the biggest human evil...

The biggest human evil...

Is the conceit that many people have...that their ignorance doesn't really matter...

It's stupidity at two different levels...

The first is just having no real clue about what's involved with a deep sense of responsibility around the issues that people claim to deserve an audience for their views on...

And the second...is pretending that not knowing...doesn't matter...

When it clearly does...to any dumbass...not trying to defend their own goddamn conceit...their own goddamn ego...

Pretending like it doesn't matter...

Or trying to get around the tough issues...by playing at the margins of the smaller ones...

Because...ultimately...

Stupidity is one big lie...

It's the lie...the self-deception...that being smarter just doesn't matter...or that you can't do it, anyway...

I'm not talking about more simple and innocent ignorance...

I'm talking about arrogant stubborn stupidity...

The kind that likes to pretend that it knows better...when deep down...it knows damn well...that it doesn't...

It's the kind of stupidity of a Michael Barone of U.S. News and World Report...writing about the world as if he really does understand it better than all those intellects who outclass him...

Or Robert Kagan...

Or David Horowitz...

Or Christopher Hitchens...

Or Noam Chomsky...

Or Rush Limbaugh...

Or Bill O'Reilly...

Or Michael Moore...

Or James Carville...

Or any number of pseudo-intellectuals...who often have interesting contributions...

But rarely have anything of any deep significance...

It's conceit that pollutes our democratic discussions...and undermines a more honest and reflective and intelligent discussion...

But at its base...this kind of conceit...is just foolish...and stupid...

It's like the conceit of a faith-healer...

When a surgeon is needed...

The surgeon may not have perfect answers...

But he, generally, has better answers than the shaman...or the mystic...

And the political world, especially...

Is so full of shamans and mystics and faith-healers...preaching the word of God or the universe or whatever their angle may be...and knowing not a really a damn thing about what is involved with being responsible for the issues that they preach about...

That it is the most foolish form of stupidity that I can imagine, really...

Innocent ignorance steps out of the way...and lets someone who knows what they're doing do the heavy lifting...

Arrogant stupidity...keeps insisting on getting its way...even though it doesn't deserve it...

Because it's just figured out...that it can manipulate to get its way...

And because the people involved just want their way...and they don't want to engage in all of the energy and effort and thought and debate and rigorous standards of all of these things that are involved with really knowing what the fuck you're doing...

It's just arrogance...that hasn't been humbled, yet...

And stupidity...that just doesn't see what a dumbass it is yet...

Stupid is as stupid does, as Forrest Gump says...

And we'll all survive stupidity...

Though it does have consequences...

And if we're smart...

We'll stop pretending that stupid and smart doesn't matter...

And start taking more seriously the task of understanding issues far more thoroughly that we do, currently...that we always seem to have plenty of opinions about...smart...stupid...good, bad, and ugly...

Maybe this generation we can beat this stupid cycle of progress impeded by human arrogance...and stupidity...

By raising and being an example to a generation of kids...

Who all take smart seriously...no matter how much or how little they excel at it...

And if we can all learn to set aside our foolish conceit...

That our ignorance about...whatever...doesn't really matter...

When it so clearly does...

And the smart thing to do...would be...

To embrace it all...face it honestly...have a beer...and just be a little smarter about it in the future:):)...

I've got a Red Stripe calling me at home:):):)...

Have a good day, everyone:):):)...

Love,
Ben

Have you ever bet your life on something?...

Have you ever believed something so strongly...believed in its capacity to change the world for the better so powerfully...

That you bet everything on it?...

I did...

I've been feeling like that was a bet I would never get credit for, lately...

But something tells me that I couldn't have gotten as far as I've gotten, this far in life...

Without something of substance to it all...

My principal has been really great, lately...

I think she's maybe trying to create the space for me that I need...I hope...

I've always said...that...after Conrad Jestmore...my high school speech and debate coach...and later high school drama teacher...

That the most important thing I've ever wanted from my coaches and teachers and bosses and leaders of all kinds...

Was to just get the fuck out of my way, much of the time...

And my principal...is not just a great teacher...

She seems to be trying to do just that, lately...

Which I really appreciate...

What I need, now...is a muse...

Our school psych...the girl I had the big crush on...has a boyfriend...

The math teacher, though...the one who was friendliest to me when I first arrived at Eisenhower...

Is single, as far as I know...

And she does seem to glow, these days, when I look at her:):)...

She reminds me a lot of Brandi, actually...

Though she does seem to be learning to get over her young idealist's cynicism...

I don't know...I just know I need to get over this pain that I feel on my heart letting Brandi go...

And Brandi not talking with me has left me a little gun-shy about getting into a relationship where I might really fall in love, again...

But Molly did ask me out the first time we hung out...

So I guess it's my turn, this time...

I was just...so deeply invested in Brandi...

My heart just feels so bad...so terribly bad...letting go...I think I'm the only one who will really know how terribly my heart has ached letting Brandi go...

I would have done literally anything for Brandi...

And now I barely know her...

It's the most tragic thing I've ever experienced in my life, really...

No matter how painful...and unfair...the financial and employment troubles I experienced after grad school were and are...

Losing Brandi is definitely the most tragic thing that I've ever experienced in my lifetime...

I sometimes wonder if she'll ever know just just how powerfully I loved her...how deeply I was invested in her...just how much she took for granted...

I'm pretty sure that I'm the only one who will ever really know...

It's amazing how much love will inspire you to do things, isn't it?...

That force...and pain...and threats...never could...

Brandi will probably never know just how integral she was to helping to shape me...and my ideas...

Noone will, I don't think...except me...

I don't think I've ever cried so much in one evening...I'm sure I've had some pretty weepy nights...but it's been a long time since I've cried like this...

I don't think Bob Marley's No Woman, No Cry has ever felt so sweet to me as it does tonight...

I better try to sleep, now that I can...

Goodnight...

Love,
Ben

After Neoconservativism...

Francis Fukuyama just became the American conservative international policy scholar, of note, as far as I'm concerned, after his Sunday New York Times editorial on February 19th...

Francis Fukuyama...After Neoconservativism...

After reading this brilliant article, I am ashamed to admit that I have not read The End of History, the book that made Fukuyama famous...I'm familiar with its thesis of liberal democracy being the end of humanity's political development, and believe there is much positive to be said of that thesis (though I very much see a much longer view on humanity's political development, that, as DeToqueville wisely observed, stretches far beyond governmental institutions as each of us play a role in guiding its course)...a thesis that he comments on, briefly, in this article...

I'll have to read a copy as soon as I get a chance:):):)...

Please check out this article, when you get a chance:):):)...

Love,
Ben

For the most part...we're all in this boat together...

I was just telling Melissa...about my fundamental issue with politics...and all of the most serious problems among people today...

Which is...

That we are constantly fighting...and engaged in power battles...and arguing...and identifying...

With one group against another...with one ideology against another...with one political party against another...with one kind of people against another...

Now...there are clearly times when we have to act when people are acting destructively towards us or people we love...or people we care about...or people we identify with or ally with...and, sometimes...given trust in the relationship...when they are acting destructively towards themselves...

And the terrible and needless tragedy to the whole thing...

Is that better ideas...stronger thought...about how to deal with the problems that face us...

Not only transcends ideology...or groups...or parties...or personalities...or whatever...

But that the largest picture...

Is that policy...ideas...politics...conflict...whatever...

Is supposed to look out for all of us...for all of our interests...

Each of us...

And all of us...

As much as possible...

It would serve all of us, better...

If we thought of each of us...like family...

And by family...I mean a strong family...

Where everyone really does look after everyone else...

Or, at least, that is the standard that they aspire for...and are held to...

Jay P. Greene is a Harvard education policy thinker who just came out with a really exciting book about vouchers and public school reform that I was perusing, today...

But the one thing that struck me while I was reading it...was...

That what has always bothered me aboout education policy debates...

Is that...sometimes...it's as if...some people argue about education policy...like we're arguing for some kids' success...and not others'...like some kids' success...has to come at the expense of others'...

Rather than all kids' success...being something that we're concerned about...and that we hold ourselves to the highest expecations around...and that we all root for...no matter where they go to school...no matter it gets paid for...no matter what stronger or weaker choices that adults make in supporting the success of all students...

And that's the same I feel about all people...

That policy...that our discussions about people...

Need to be looking out for the interests of all people...all the time...as much as possible...

Sometimes those interests come at odds...and we need to sort through that fairly and with integrity to all the people involved...

But...generally...they don't come at odds...generally...supporting each person...means supporting all people, better...

And all policy discussions...and life discussions...need to happen in that larger context...with that larger purpose...with that larger idea in mind...

It's one of the things I love about this movie...

That sense of love...that sense of family...where...despite all our quarrels...

We're looking out for one another...

For real...

Not fake...

And when we're not...

That we feel and hold one another to a sense of accountability to that ideal...

That falling short is not an excuse to give up on the ideal...

It is recognized honestly...to hold each other and our ourselves accountable...to live up to that ideal...

And the fundamental ideal...for each of us...

Is that we do good in this world...out of a sense of free will...out of a freely developed and freely chosen conscience...

Not because we're scared of one another...and not because we're scared about what others might think about us...

But for real...

And that we cut through the bullshit...through the denial...around how not living up to that ideal means that won't get there...no matter how much we try to, futily, force our way...ultimately...to nowhere...

Without our consciences...without our higher and highest selves...guiding us..

There is no way...

And coming to terms with that...

Is the only way...

To get where we want to go...

Everything else...

Is illusion...

And self-delusion...

And deception...

And self-deception...

It is...

Denial...

And there is no way out of it...

Until we face it, honestly...

For the most part...

And as much as possible...

We're all in this boat together...

And there is no way out of that one...

No matter how much we ignore it...

No way...

Obviously Osama Bin Laden has to be captured...or die in the process of capturing him, if he threatens those trying to capture him...

And obviously we need to use good judgment about who we can trust more and who can trust less...

And that judgment will always be subject to thought and experience...

But...for the most part...

We are all in this boat, together...

And it will be a much smoother and more productive and smarter ride...

If we all learn to have discussions about the voyage...

With everyone in mind...

And not just the groups we try to hide within...

Scared of some or another group of people...

That's what Martin Luther King taught...what Ghandi taught...what Jesus taught...what the Buddha taught...what the enlightenment thinkers taught...what America's Founding Fathers taught...

James Madison's famous Federalist Paper #10 is dedicated to this theme...the theme of factions...

Madison is talking about how factions manipulate government for their own purposes...

But the general idea...is that there are many among us...

And the truth is...that...it is often...

Us...

All of us...

Who divide ourselves in different groups...

Losing track of the bigger goal...

Which is a world that looks after all of us...

For the most part...

One big loving family...

Are there members of the family who fall far below the standards of decency and humanity and respect for differences of thought and conviction and all of the values that we take for granted?...

Definitely...

The people who killed their fellow Muslims over this whole cartoon nonsense in Denmark and France...

Definitely fall far below the mark of basic expectations of humanity...

Hamas...rationalizing terrorism...to get a better land deal from Israel...

Obviously fall far below the mark of basic expectations of humanity...

But...generally...

We are all in this big ass boat together...

Looking after one another (or at least we should be)...

Working to lift each and all of us up...

Rather than giving into our worse instincts...

And lifting ourselves and others up...

Means embracing those worse instincts...

And then heading to higher ground...

We all gots 'em...

To we might as well ante up...

Embrace them...

And head to higher ground...

Together...as much as possible...

And always working to reach back...

And lift others up with us...as we head to the highest ground:):):)...

If you haven't seen Elizabethtown, yet...I definitely recommend it...

A pretty remarkable love story...and story of family...

Have a good week, everyone:):):)...

Love,
Ben

This note is for Brandi (since she's been reading, lately)...

I didn't want to upset you by writing, directly...

But I did want to tell you to check out Elizabethtown, when you get a chance...

There are a million coincidences in this film...

But the big thing that I thought only you would appreciate as much as me...

Was the custom-designed car-trip home by Claire for Drew...where Claire (Kirsen Dunst) has Drew (Orlando Bloom) stop off in Memphis...to check out the National Civil Rights Museum...and Sun Studios...they play U2's Pride in the Name of Love while he's looking at all of the displays that I thought, for sure, they would never put into the film...

And then he goes through Wichita on the way home...

Oh...and an ex-fiance with a overengaged academic career...named Ben:):):)...

It's another great Cameron Crowe flick for anyone wanting to see Cameron Crowe's second great love story...

Highly recommended:):)...

Love,
Ben

Building a Better World

No school tomorrow...President's Day...and I have plenty of work to do...so it will be a refreshing bit of time to get some of that work done...

I finally got a bit of insight, today, that I've been needing this week...

I've been kind of discouraged, this week, about why I care so goddamn much about serious thought and helping others...when it hasn't always paid off for me, in a more self-centered way...meaning, financially or whatever other kinds of ways that many people center too much of their lives around...

The insight I got...

Was that when I feel shitty about me...or choices I've made...

Generally...it's because I've not really cared much about others...and how my choices affected them...I've cared about myself more...

And I just don't want that in my life...

I like caring about others...

I like caring...

I like giving a shit...

Even with all of its disappointments...

And even with all of the disappointments I feel with myself, sometimes...

I like having my heart open...

Even with all of the pain...and lessons to be learned from that pain...that an open heart invites...

What I miss, I think, actually...

Is not my naivete about caring about others...about giving a shit about the world...

It's the taken for granted feeling that this is how good people should live their lives...

The feeling I had when I was a kid...

Before a lot of cynical folks tried to convince me of just how naive my idealism and compassion were...

Francis Fukuyama has an article in today's New York Times that a good friend of mine sent me that I'm enjoying reading very much, right now (I haven't finished it yet...it's a pretty long, involved, and very thoughtful article)...that kind of gets at this feeling...

Francis Fukuyama...After Neoconservativism...

So does an article I read by Daniel Pipes in the Winter 2005/2006 edition of the National Interest...

The National Interest...

The theme that both of these articles picks up on that I really appreciate...

Is the need for some sense of idealism to guide us...

And for me...that idealism is a feeling that I can just take for granted...

That caring...about doing a great job...about others...about life...

That it really matters...

That it's a good thing...

Even with all of its disappointments...

The shittiest choices that I think any of us make in life...

Are the ones where we just didn't care enough about something...

About others...about ourselves...about doing a good job...about being thoughtful...whatever...

And I just take for granted, again...that idealism...that caring about my deepest values...about aspiring to be my best...even as I fall short...often...

That caring...about others...and about doing a great job of looking out for others...

That this matters...that it matters independent of any cynicism that I or anyone else might feel in the moment...

That's what idealism means...

It doesn't mean naivete...we just associate it with naivete...because many of us feel most idealistic when we were more naive...because we didn't know about all the pain that the world had to offer us...and we sometimes get stuck in that pain...and that's when the cynicism sets in...

When idealism, ironically...doesn't need for us to be naive...or unaware...

Even though all of us who at least at a certain age know the times when we knew a lot less than we do, today...

Idealism just needs for us to give a shit...for us to care...about others...about ourselves...enough to open ourselves up...to new ideas...to new thinking...to questioning whether we might be wrong...to questioning our most sacred assumptions...

I love caring, is the truth...I hate the disappointment...but that's not because I hate caring...it's because I love caring...and disappointment is a natural function of caring...and having the world be less than my ideals...which is perpetual, as long as I am always and forever expanding my ideals:):):)...

You know what my best memories of life are?...

When I cared so goddamn much...

And I didn't even think twice about caring...

Because I hadn't accumulated all this crazy pain and disappointment on my heart:):):)...

That's why I have such fond memories of that summer in 1998:):):)...

I was naive, to be sure...I was young...and totally in love...and I really had no clue about the world...

But I also just cared...without questioning it...I just cared...because I knew...that that was the right thing to do...no questions...I just knew that I cared...and that's what animated my idealism...and that's what animated my life:):):)...

You know why I love Dar Williams' February so much?...even though it's so terribly sad and needlessly tragic...very much like Brandi's and my break-up?...

Because it is so clear just how much she cared about the guy that she's singing about in this song:):):)...

It's so beautiful...if you ever get a chance, you really gotta check out this song...February...

Maybe Katherine's right:):):)...maybe I'm just being a drama queen:):)...

Life doesn't always work out the way we want it to...and sometimes we fall flat on our faces:):):)...

But you know what?...

I would definitely...without a doubt...rather fall flat on my face...trying to do some small or great good in this life...than fail doing anything else...

Because it matters to do good...it matters...not to be a perfect person...which doesn't exist...but to be a better person...to be someone who is thoughtful...who makes choices...and sometimes fucks up...but then makes better choices from the lessons learned...

And having that kind of outlook on the world...

Makes all of the failure...and disappointment...and pain...

Well worth it...

That feeling...that taken for granted feeling that caring...that idealism...that doing the right thing....and that loving ourselves and each other through all of the successes and failures, the moments of inspiration and the moments of disappointment...that all of this matters...

That feeling is worth more than any price that you could ever put on anything in this life...

It's the feeling I love most, in this world...

And there is no price you can put on that feeling...

And nurturing that feeling among young people...is one of more worthy ways that I can imagine living my life:):):)...

I have much to contribute in my lifetime, I think...

But maybe that more sustained sense...of commitment...of idealism...of caring and keeping my heart open...no matter the obstacles...no matter how many obstacles...and how many disappointments I face along the way...

Maybe that's the most important legacy I leave with my life...

Because it is out of that idealism...that sense of possibility...and hope...and commitment...

That everything else flows out of:):):)...

Is just so goddamn priceless...

Living a life that you love...

And loving it enough to feel it to its fullest:):):)...

Have a great week, everyone:):):)...

Have a week that you can give a shit about...

Love,
Ben

Liars...the whole lot of us...

If you haven't seen Chicago, yet, I definitely recommend it...

What I love about this movie...is how much it bears witness to what liars everyone is...

Good people...not so good people...low down, dirty people...

We're all liars...

To others...but more difficult to disentangle...to ourselves...

We lie for self-preservation...

We lie to look better...to others...and to ourselves...

And eventually...we can't keep the lies straight...

We're smarter, better, more moral, more decent, more talented, prettier, less profane, whatever the fuck...

Whatever it is that we want to be...

We end up fooling ourselves and others...into believing that we are more of it than we actually are...

Or that someone...somewhere...in some far off place...often in the past...

Was more of those things...and we just have to live up...

Rather than the more uncomfortable truth...

That we are, all of us...constantly self-actualizing...

Constantly becoming more and more what we want to be...

And...consequently...always seeing more and more clearly...just how much we fall short...

And the people who see just how much we fall short...

Are the ones who try to hardest...

Because everyone else doesn't really try enough to really be able to see the difference very clearly...

Amos Hart, the character played brilliantly by John C. Reilly, married to Roxie Hart, cleverly portrayed by Renee Zellweger, is a perfect example of this kind of self-deception by the Average Joe...

Amos lies to himself and others so often about how well his relationship is going with Roxie -- to avoid looking bad for others -- that he completely loses track of the lies...which Billy Flynn, Roxie's never-lost-a-case criminal defense attorney, played by Richard Gere (whose triple threat dancing, singing, and acting performance in this movie bowled me over) brilliantly exploits in Amos' testimony at Roxie's murder trial...

John C. Reilly is so brilliant in this movie because he understands how a good man, an average man, can lie to himself and others so much, to not look bad for others, and still be a good man...it's really an incredible performance...by all the leads and supporting cast, if you ever get the chance to see this really terrific little musical...

It's the most important role that academics and scholars play in our lives, really...

To help us all keep track, better, of all the lies we tell to ourselves and to each other...

And to still have faith in us...even when we don't deserve it...

But...generally...because we do...despite our foolish self-deception...

The major reason why good people lie...

Is pressure...repression...unwarranted force...

Social repression...political repression...legal repression...

And in more autocratic countries...military repression...

And scholars...particularly the best scholars...

Are those among us who can help us see through that deception and self-deception, better...they help us keep track of truth more carefully...they strenghten our standards for truth-telling...and they help us adopt laws, norms, rules, ideas, etc., that will better account for our natural human tendency toward self-preservation in the face of threats...

The best academics, in my experience, get that reputation...because they make stronger arguments...that help us see, better, our hypocrisy and self-deception...

Lesser academics do a poorer job of this...because...like most people...they, themselves, are caught up in the self-preservation...rather than doing their job...which is to help the rest of us to see through it all, better...

By the way...Richard Gere totally got robbed of a Best Actor Oscar nomination for this movie (Adrien Brody was pretty fuckin' good for the Pianist)...no way that Nicholas Cage in Adaptation beats Richard Gere in Chicago...the only one that beats him in that category of the performances I've seen is maybe Brody, who was brilliant in that movie...

Richard Gere, alone, will knock your socks off with his incredible acting, tap-dancing, and singing in this last great Best Picture Oscar-awarded picture...

I've got to go get my haircut...

Have a good weekend, everyone:):)...

Love,
Ben

Goddamn if we aren't some stupid motherfuckers (humanity, that is)...

The fantasy of leaving public schools, heading off to some private university, and blowing off the dumb people of the world has really been hitting me, this weekend...

It's a nice fantasy, isn't it...that you can just get away from all of the stupidity...and find a world of all kinds of smart people to avoid all of it...

The problem is...

It doesn't exist...

We are all dumb, at some level, is the truth...every one of us...me, especially...

What I love about teaching, right now...is that all of the kids...no matter how smart or not they are...are learning to live with and identity with one another, better, no matter where they are situated academically in the classroom...

That matters to me an awful lot, really...

Because I identify with everyone, really...no matter how smart or dumb...

I just get tired of having my efforts limited by people with smaller worldviews...

And I get tired of those same people not taking smart seriously enough...

I just will not settle...no matter how much people fight me...no matter for how long...

I will not settle for a world...

Where some people are smart...

And some people are dumb...

And where there is no expectation that everyone can be smart...

I won't settle for that world...

No matter how much people fight for the freedom to not be accountable to more intelligent standards...

Don't be accountable to higher standards, I say...

Just don't expect to be taken seriously, in the process...

And if you want to be taken seriously...

Then learn to deal honestly and constructively with intelligent criticism to improve your thinking and your efforts...

And...if not...expect to be criticized constructively and intelligently until you do (and you should probably expect, realistically, to be criticized less fairly and less intelligently, as well, just to have some idea of what you'll probably have to deal with in the world, fair or not)...

I just don't understand why less bright people don't see how it's in their interests to be smarter...

And how smarter people don't see that it's in their self-interest to have more people to be smarter...

Instead...we...too often...live in these very different worlds...or hold ourselves and one another to very different standards...

Which is just stupid, really...

Because we all live in the same fuckin' world, for goodness fuckin' sakes...

So it makes no fuckin' sense for us to divy each other up...

Into special education classes and gifted classes and general education classes (except when it serves a specific need, with a view to integrating people into shared educational and social experiences)...

We're all smart, at some level and with something...

And we're all stupid, at some level and with something and, generally, many things...

So we might as well face that and then work to hold each of us to similarly high standards of thought, creativity, and performance...

I identify with a guy like Joe Nye...or Amartya Sen...or Abraham Maslow...or E.O. Wilson...or Milton Friedman...or Ronald Coase...or Stephen Jay Gould...or Stephen Ambrose...or James McPherson...or Sarah Lawrence Lightfoot...or Robert Sternberg...

But I want everyone to identify with a guy like Joe Nye...

And to understand how important his work is...to their lives...as much as to some scholarly community that they feel is disconnected from their lives...

And to understand, better, how intelligence reflects a better understanding of even day-to-day realities...not just the big picture...

Some days...I want to escape...into a world of more intelligent people...who can just take me away from all of the inanity of everyday life...

But then I remember that that world doesn't exist, really...

Because a world of exclusive intellect...

Is an imaginary world...

But it ignores the obvious reality...

To anyone with their eyes open...

That we all have to live with one another...no matter how smart or not we are or aren't...

I do enjoy and prefer to talk with other who care about intellect and ideas like me...like I enjoy and prefer to talk about movies with people who really care enough about movies to develop a critical eye for them...or how I enjoy and prefer to talk about art with people who really care enough about art to develop a critical eye for art...or theater...or whatever...

I would reframe Thoreau's observation that most men live lives of quiet desperation this way, for the twenty-first century...

The world is crawling with people living lives of insignificance...making quiet and sometimes not-so-quiet arguments for why the insignificance of their lives and the way they live them should be ranked as live of deep purpose and significance...

And while those peoples' lives are worthy and important, in and of themselves...

They only rank as significant...if they aspire for significance...

And they can only aspire for significance...if they make an honest effort to contribute something great to the culture...

And in the meantime...smaller priorities are...well...smaller...

And they should be treated as such...

And most people...aspire for very little, really...

And so they don't recognized as lives of deeper significance...

Because they never really tried, really...not really...and because they wouldn't take the critical feedback when they got it...

That doesn't mean that any of us have to be intelligent all the time...noone is smart all the time...everyone is stupid, at some level, some if not much of the time...

But everyone does need to aspire...

Because as long as they don't...they aspire for so little...and their smaller worldviews will constantly interfere with the efforts of those who do aspire for greatness...

The conceit of the average person...that they should be taken more seriously than they deserve...no matter how little they've aspired or deserve such serious attention...

And the conceit of the also-rans...those who have aspired, to some degree, for greatness...but who never really achieved it...

Undermine the efforts of everyone...including those who achieve greatness...

To reach higher...to reach beyond their grasp...

As my friend Matt Toplikar says...it feeds their fantasy...of a life without change...without the need to grow...to challenge yourself...and to be challenged...

It is a stupid and self-defeating notion...

That just keeps everyone stuck...

And undermines efforts to innovate...and to develop new ideas...and to transcend the more serious of the mistakes of the culture of the day...

And it always...always...ultimately fails...no matter how stubborn and persistent peoples' stupidity and recalcitrance is...

Because there is no growth in the culture without it giving way to better ideas...

And ideas...like it not...are what drive the culture...

There is no growth in the culture without new ideas...

And there are no new ideas without greater freedom...

No way around that one...

So that is the only direction that the culture can take...if it is to grow itself...out of all the problems that it has created for itself...

I've got to go take a neighbor to pick up her stuff...

Have a good weekend, everyone...

Love,
Ben

I've been noticing all the negotiating...

As I listen to it on NPR...

As I reflect on it over the course of my life...

As I watch it in my school...

As I am a part of it, daily...

I think...

Thank god we don't study negotiators in schools...

Because, generally...

They fuck everything up...

Our honest sense of the world, first and foremost...

And an honest sense of themselves...and ourselves...

I sometimes wonder if anyone really cares about the merits of a discussion...

If all people care about are getting their way...

I sure know very few people who care about the merits...

And a lot of people who always want to get their way...

The girl I want to marry...is more committed to doing good...than to getting her way...

I don't know that I've met that girl, yet...

But I'll keep my eyes open...

Love,
Ben