Conflict

Difficult Times

A 12 year-old Little League batting champion faces a major league pitcher who has just won the Cy Young award as the best at his trade.  Fifty pitches.  Fifty swings.  The kid hits nothing but air.  Electrocuted with frustration, the boy then does his all-star best to transform his Louisville Slugger into toothpicks.  

Why?

Did the pitcher make him miss?  

Did his misses make him angry?  

That would be the easy answer. 

The popular vote, I bet.

 But as when we say

 the sun rises in the east,

 the truth is far more illuminating.  Read More

The Invitation to Expand

 

The Covid-19 pandemic may be the most powerfully positive worldwide event in my lifetime of 77 years.  There are at least three reasons.

First, its disruption affects virtually everyone on earth in ways that are painfully unforgettable.  At the very least there is the specter of insecurity over however our future unfolds––individually and collectively.

As such, this disruption may very well be motivating enough to inspire action that creates a worldwide capability to respond constructively to crises that affect the human family as a whole.

The response I speak of is one that transcends superficial identities such as nationality and any form of social status.   

Second, a healthful response cannot be achieved by causing others pain.   The brutality of 911 prompted the US to say, basically, let’s go to war.  Challenges like Covid-19, though arguably more dangerous than 911, are immune to such immaturity.  The only meaningful response is one rooted in collaboration.

We are blessed with a distinct, if not unique, opportunity.  One where only an authentic appreciation for our common humanity will result in an outcome favorable to all. Read More

Here Or Not At All

There’s a powerful lesson in the story of Nobel Prize winner, James Watson, and his opinion that black people are intrinsically less intelligent than whites.  As harmful as Dr. Watson’s views on race may be, more harmful is the anger directed at him for holding those views.  

In 1962, Dr. Watson shared the Nobel Prize for describing the double-helix structure of DNA, making him a founder of modern genetics.  Forty-five years later, in 2007, he told a British journalist that he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa,” because, “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours, whereas all the testing says, not really.”

Watson recently affirmed his provocative contention in a documentary portrait of him aired on PBS.  A New York Times article about the program included this statement: “…and scientists routinely excoriate Dr. Watson when his name surfaces on social media.”  

That’s a loaded verb, excoriate.  It means “to censure scathingly.”  Synonyms include: abuse, assail, bash, blast, attack, and savage.   Read More

A Precious Gift to Ourselves

While improving society is a noble aspiration much in demand today, its achievement is greatly determined by who each of us brings to the table––i.e., how we manage ourselves.  

Conversely, our immaturity in managing ourselves is the reason society needs so much help.  Even those of us hot to change the world often show up wearing the cement shoes of judgment, blame, and any of the other accoutrements of unmanaged fear.  

Why is this?  I, of course, do not know.  But I have a guess at what might be a top contributor.  Our inability and/or unwillingness to be responsible for our feelings. Read More

There’s Always A Healthier Choice Than Good Riddance

One of the competitors at this year’s U.S. Open Tennis Championships was disqualified for verbally abusing the umpire.  An opinion piece about the incident in the Times was headlined: “A Crude Rant Gets Fognini Booted From the Open––and Good Riddance.”  In at least one way, Fabio Fognini’s verbal outburst and the Times’ “Good Riddance” were very much the same: a reaction of anger born of unmanaged fear.

Except that the Times’ headline was actually more harmful.  Perhaps unwittingly it encouraged its many readers to infer that demonizing people who do crazy shit is a more effective way of creating a healthier world than growing compassion for them. Read More

"The push to change the words “nigger” and “injun” in Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, because the so-called offensive nature of those terms might limit today’s readership and appreciation of that literary classic, is a wonderful opportunity to reflect on how we avoid taking responsibility for our feelings––and therefore miss the chance to become more awake, more whole, more useful friends to one another."

The Essay: The Gold in Niggers and Injuns