I'm sorry (for Brandi Fisher)

I just got back from dinner with a friend I hadn't seen in awhile.

I was listening to this conservative Christian station, of all stations, on the radio. And they had this really nice, quality discussion about sex, intimacy, and relationships that I really appreciated. It did a really nice job - a much better job than most conventional discussions around these issues - of getting to the heart of the emotional issues around sex and relationships for men and women in marriages and long-term relationships that was really an encouraging and affirming message, for me, in particular, as I have been readying myself for a new relationship and the new thinking I have about relationships and what makes marriages and families work.

As someone who came from a family that was fairly dysfunctional, it has been very important to me to sort out such issues. And this discussion was a very nice affirmation, I thought, of many of the underlying emotional issues that I agree with the discussants are important to relationships and marriage and that I am, I hope, on the right track for being a quality husband and father after a rough go, my first time around, as a long-time boyfriend on a marriage track.

And I came away from that conversation with one thought that I wanted to share tonight.

I'm sorry, Brandi. I'm sorry I was such a lousy boyfriend. I'm sorry I was such a lousy friend. I wish I could take back a million stupid fights and petty temper tantrums. And I am genuinely sorry, from the bottom of my heart, about how much I failed you as a boyfriend.

And I'm really happy that you found something better and that you found someone to treat you right. And I'm sorry I wasn't that man when you knew me. And I really hope you're happy and have a great and settled life. I think you'll be a great mom. And I'm sure Greg knows, by now, that you're a great wife. And I'm really happy that you found something good for you and your life.

I'm sorry that the first thing that comes up if anyone Googles your name is a hurt and somewhat mean-spirited post by me trying to get you off my heart. I'm sorry that it's the first impression that many people may get of you, because the truth is that you are a really terrific girl. And I'm really sorry that I was not such a terrific boyfriend. And I'm really glad that you found something better for your life.

I listened to that discussion, tonight, and I heard in these really warm-hearted women's descriptions of men in relationships things about myself when you and I were together, that I was not proud of, when I listened. And I'm just very sorry that I wasn't better for you. I hope I'll never make that mistake again. But I know I can't take back who I was with you, either. And I'm sorry for that.

Anyway, I needed to get that out there for Brandi. And to restore her name with the Googling crowd.

Here's to hoping that everyone takes care of their relationships like the precious gifts they are in our lives.

If you haven't done it already, tonight, tell you wife or husband you love them. Do it often. And show it more than you say it.

So when you say it, the people you love know you mean it.

Love,
Ben

Reasoning and its consequences

I'm working with the kids, this week, on reasoning. We postponed our weekly essay, last week, to work on building arguments with evidence, this week.

It's been a fascinating experience. It's been interesting to see how poorly many kids (and adults) reason. And it's been an interesting exercise in better appreciating why reason matters, even as we perpetually play games with it, rationalizing enterprises that are intellectually dishonest for self-centered or other purposes, or generally demeaning honest reasoning and its role in our lives.

Questions that provoke a lot of conflict, political questions, are the ones, in my experience, where we most often, or maybe just with more consequence, reason in ways that get easily distorted by what we want to believe, what we rationalize for our own purposes, what our predetermined opinions about matters are, or other reasons that offer us and others opportunity to bullshit their way through discussions that need reason to offer us honest resolutions of questions.

I watch this swirl of motivations in kids (and adults) as I teach and as I watch politics.

It is the most square challenge to reasonable solutions to many problems we face.

And power and aggression, in its many forms, complicates that discussion, further, by suppressing conversation that informs understanding and thoughtful engagement.

It's the same problem that we have had since the beginning of time, and certainly since the Enlightenment and the budding commitment to liberal values.

And we have most definitely come forward.

But the temptation to be dishonest for other purposes, to suppress honest conversation and disagreement, to rationalize the use and quest for power with self-centered or other purposes never seems to go away.

Until we more honestly face its consequences, I think.

Those consequences are more honestly faced with freedom, I believe, which is exactly why free cultures and nations are stronger. Because the discussions are more honest, as a consequence of the freedom to talk honestly and not to suppress honest engagement in the name of various reasons for suppression, namely that parties come with predetermined ideas of a conflict that they do not want challenged. The fact that people come to discussions in such a way is exactly why they should be challenged, because it is a sign that they fear that their reasoning or arguments are weak, too weak to be persuasive.

Sam Harris, author of End of Faith, makes an argument in this very vein about Islam and how it is discussed in liberal democracies, that gets, exactly, at the problem of rationalizing power to undermine free discussion.

And these last two days, I have had an opportunity to see just how poorly most people reason.

It is disappointing. It is also a fact of life that has, since the beginning of time, undermined more ideal functioning in liberal and illiberal societies.

Poor reasoning, itself, does not, necessarily, suffocate the conversation. What suffocates the conversation is efforts to suppress conversation that people disagree with or to overpower those we disagree with rather than soliciting and engaging honest argument and discussion that arises out of the poor reasoning that some questions are too hot to discuss and reason openly about.

That is Harris' point, actually. That the fact that such topics are so hot is what makes them ripe for open and honest discussion and reasoning.

That is the purpose behind my discussions in class. To tackle such questions head on. This morning students debated the existence of God, the purposes of religion, the purpose of promoting liberal democratic values, and reasoned through even simple discussions like the likelihood of a student moving to a new city.

But the bottom-line is that what has made this era regressive has been so many efforts by people to use power to shut down honest discussion, to limit legitimate freedoms, and to expand or maintain government power, in lieu of more free and open discussion and respect for freedoms that, themselves, promote more open, honest discussion.

Reasoning has consequences. And one of those consequences is to support the confidence that difficult and important questions can be debated openly rather than suppressed with threats, intimidation, and force.

Reason is the alternative to such a world, which has an ugly, foolish, and irrational legacy for us to study in amazement that people are capable of being so ugly, foolish, and irrational.

It is the reason I take it so seriously.

And I am overwhelmed, everyday, by how little others take reason seriously in the name of any number of unreasoning and unreasonable commitments in the world.

And that, of my many reasons, is one of the most important for why I teach.