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.  

Last spring, for instance, according to the Times, Eric Lander, the director of the Broad Institute of M.I.T. and Harvard, made a toast commemorating Dr. Watson’s 90th birthday by noting both Watson’s contribution to the early days of the Human Genome Project as well as his flawed thinking in later life.  An outcry (excoriating Mr. Lander) led him to apologize and say that he was wrong to toast Watson at all.  He called Watson’s views despicable, abhorrent.  He meant, I’m sure, Watson’s views on race, not DNA.  Not that it mattered.  Watson’s racial theories seem to have made it impossible for Mr. Lander to acknowledge the man for any achievement.

Such excoriation is anger, and where there is anger there is always unmanaged fear.  Fear is a consequence of perceived lack of safety.  Fear unmanaged harms.  

So what’s to be afraid of when it comes to Watson?  Certainly reputable scientists can easily demolish his conclusions as well as make the case why those conclusions, given Watson’s scientific pedigree, are particularly dangerous in our world of strong racial bias.  One needn’t be angry to accomplish that.  

What’s the fear, then?  What’s at risk?  Why the verbal equivalent of banishing the man to another planet––after a good whipping?

Two answers come to mind.

First, as I believe Eric Lander demonstrated, the fear of becoming an outcast, of losing prestige, security––from being out of sync with one’s professional or social community.  To see Watson as an exceptional scientist who, somewhere along the way, developed some very unscientific ideas that are inimical to the health of humankind still leaves room for compassion, respect and kindness.  And perhaps a certain gratitude for the reminder of the attention that issues related to race demand.  But it seems that for some of us, holding simultaneously both rejection and appreciation is too heavy or complicated a load.  Especially when the strident voices of judgment surround us.

This, of course, is far from unusual.  You don’t see those who vilify Trump celebrating the fact that, without his toxic presence, the transformation of Congress that took place with the 2018 election wouldn’t have happened. 

Which brings us to the second, and much more dangerous, reason we excoriate Dr. Watson.  We hold him responsible for our anger.  

We feel the enormous pain of his ideas fueling the world’s bigotry, and we mistakenly conclude that those ideas are the cause of our pain.  They aren’t.  They’re only a trigger.  

The cause is how we define reality, and the degree we are fixated on our definition.  To the extent we attach our happiness to other people’s behavior is the extent to which we create our own torment.  

At least that’s how it has worked for me.  I struggled for years trying to blame others for my pain.  Parents, the world at large, you name it.  I couldn’t make it stick.  It never led to happiness, only to more distress.  Desperate for relief, I sought help among those who seemed peaceful, even joyful, while operating in the midst of the world’s craziness. 

Responsibility for my pain, for all my feelings, I had to finally admit, was on me.  I’m the one who created the reality that said, in essence, “If this happens, I’m going to be (fill in the blank).”  

I learned that the purpose of anger is to alert us to some fear, some vulnerability, that is asking to be freed.  I learned the value of reframing every situation from the largest, most healthy perspective I can––as a sacred gift in service of my intention to grow a peaceful heart.  I learned that my middle name needn’t be excellence.  Just persistence.  And most importantly, I learned that my happiness must be found here, in this very world––with all its wild and crazy characters, including myself––or not at all.