Excluding the Other

“Self-consciousness exists in and for itself when . . . it so exists for another; that is, it exists only in being acknowledged” -G.W.F Hegel

My Second Daughter

In our modern multicultural sensitive society, it is unheard of to discuss any parts of exclusion—less known arguing its real existence in post.  I admit I have a hard time saying aloud, or even in a post like this, what I practice every waken moment of my life.  In my mind exclusion is the very essence that separates and makes us better or different from them. How can I be superior if they are not inferior? Superiority effectuates inferiority, the same holds true for all binary relationships. The others are for each individual a mirrored interpretation of what we perceive we are not and have no desire to be.  Furthermore, without exclusion we would have no clear boundaries.  Our own existence would be futile—a person less body.  When we exclude a group or an individual we are subconsciously validating their existence as well as our own.  Over the next few passages I will discuss various types of exclusion such as:  the practice of shunning, my experience as a student in a Chicago Public Magnet School, and Texas.

In the Amish community when a baptized adult has broken the laws of the church they are formally shunned.  The entire community will not talk to or even look at a person that is shunned.  Family members do not eat with or touch anything that is touched by the shunned individual.  The community is carrying on life as if this person no longer exists, a contagious cipher –better yet they are not acknowledging the shunned person’s existence.  Usually a shunned person leaves the community because living an invisible life is not bearable.  Consider the severity of all your friends and family members cutting you off from the very thing that makes you real – relationship.  No one likes to be ignored.  Just think—when you are in a heated discussion with your significant other and they will no longer engage you in the argument.  You get even more frustrated!  So just imagine a whole town simultaneously ignoring you, avoiding you, and not even sharing a meal with you.  To no surprise the shunned person leaves the Amish community and joins a new society where the mark is unknown—validation is very important even if it means abandoning your way of life.

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During my high school years initially to my chagrin, I attended Whitney Young Magnet HS.  To those of you who are not familiar Whitney Young at the time I attended was one of the top schools in the city and third in the state.  My mother was proud and I was disgusted because I could not attend the neighborhood school. All my friends went there, why couldn’t I? I asked my Mother—opportunity she told me.  Well, during my years at WY I became a snob of sorts.  I sneered at my friends from the neighborhood whose schools didn’t have a swimming pool, or computers, or they had to walk through metal detectors.  I stopped talking to them directly because the conversation I felt was pedestrian—in addition I knew that pedestrian meant more then the guy who crosses a street.  But, when I was at WY everyone was like me.  Grade Point of 3.8 was my invitation to the club and I didn’t really know that I was different or gifted or above average until I talked to my neighborhood friends – we spoke different languages.  I excluded them from my inner circle. But in the same breathe I needed them—for my own realization of success.  My relative success can only be evaluated in relationship to something else, someone else.  My success, standalone, is unsubstantiated.

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Over the past few years I have developed a slight repulsion to the whole state of Texas.  I apologize ahead of time if you were born there. But lucky for you if you are reading these words you have gotten out alive.  I consciously decided to exclude Texas about 7 years ago.  In my opinion nothing worthwhile has come from Texas except misery.  Texas is leading the nation in death by execution and has held that ignominious position since 1976.  Texas is also the home to some of the most racially motivated hate crimes and lopsided adjudication—does anyone remember the black man drug by a pick up truck? The Little black girl in Paris, TX receives seven years jail time for shoving a hall monitor—three months prior the same judge gives a little white girl probation who was convicted of arson.

The dirty political tricks played in Texas makes the dead voting in the 1960 presidential race in Chicago seem less delinquent—example–Tom “the hammer” Delay and the gerrymandering of Texas. George H.W. Bush.  Need I say more about why I exclude Texas?  When I fly west I make sure in the flight plan the plane does not fly over Texas.  I have grown to appreciate Chicago much more as I learn and travel to other regions of the country and the world.  If I did not travel or read about other places I would have no comparison for my own town, especially when the comparison is so lopsided.

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Exclusion is a necessary occurrence.  It’s great when you’re the excluder but not as great when you are the excluded.  We all play these roles and try are hardest to be as exclusive as possible as we get older – as our circle becomes smaller and smaller.  The relationship between the excluded and the excluder is interdependent.  One cannot exist with the other.  The mutual validation is necessary.

Does the Crime deserve its Punishment

Youngest Daughter

In this essay, I will discuss Jean Hampton’s revamped justification of the retributive theory of punishment based on the link between our condemnation of an act and what makes the act wrong. In particular, I will argue that she does not adequately determine what makes an act wrong nor does she convincingly portray society’s role in punishment. I will begin by laying out Hampton’s argument from her essay “A New Theory of Retribution”. I will then present my objections to her argument—objections based on Hampton’s description of what makes an act wrong and on the limitations of society to maintain “right”. I will then consider different ways in which Hampton could respond to my objections.

Hampton frames her new theory of retribution as a supplement for the inadequate justification provided for the retributive theory hitherto.  The underlying problem with all the other attempts at justification, she insists, is the absence of the link between what makes an act wrong and our condemnation of that act. Under these other justifications, retribution seems to read more as revenge for the sake of revenge- failing to “link our condemnation of a wrongdoer to that which makes his conduct wrong” (386). Only in Feinberg’s description of the expressive function of punishment does Hampton see the beginnings of a real justification.

According to Hampton, what makes a criminal act criminal, what makes an incident wrongful is the message that the criminal sends when he commits the act. The wrongdoer is trampling on the sovereignty of another individual and is therefore proclaiming that he is somehow of more value than his victim. By stealing, he is proclaiming that he is somehow more worthy of the possessions than the victim. By killing, he is proclaiming that the life of the victim is inconsequential relative to his desire for him to die.  However, there are different ways this message can affect its victim. A person could be subjected to what he simply feels is an inappropriate message; a person can feel insulted and thus be demeaned but has not necessarily been exposed to an objectively  wrongful act. Hampton illustrates an example of when a person can feel demeaned without objectively being demeaned when she describes a white woman who feels insulted having to sit next to a black man on the bus. Alternatively, a person could objectively be treated as less than he is, less than an equal human being (if we are to accept the egalitarian theory of human worth). In this way, one is treated as less than what he is, not simply what he sees himself to be. He is somehow diminished, made worth less than what he was by the transgression of the criminal. “A person wrongs another if and only if (while acting as a responsible agent) she treats them in a way that is objectively demeaning.”

A punishment of this transgression is to show that the act was wrong. The act, contrary to the opinion of the criminal, was not warranted by any discrepancies in the value of the victim and the criminal. Punishment, says Hampton, is “the victim’s value ‘striking back’ and in this way proving itself” equal. The defeat of the criminal is proof that the criminal is not worth more, as he claimed. Punishment is rectifying the moral falsity that the criminal uttered when he claimed that the victim was lower and replacing it with a truth. Punishment is not diminishing the criminal, and here the distinction between being subjectively injured and objectively injured comes into play, it is simply lowering the criminal’s subjective assessment of his value back to where it objectively belongs. In this way, the goal of punishment is establish goodness, to proclaim the moral truth of relative human value.

Correcting this misconception on the part of the criminal through pain, Hampton continues, is not merely justified by the alleged sadistic streak of retributivists. Society cannot simply reaffirm the victim’s value through a ticker tape parade and call the thing settled, the purportedly high value of the criminal must be lowered for the victim’s value to rise. As much as the community could claim that the victim does not have less value than the criminal does, the loss on the part of the victim would count as evidence that he does. If the victim can do to the criminal what the criminal did to him, then the criminal can’t claim superiority. The criminal must suffer, he must “experience…defeat at the hands…of the victim (the OED definition of ‘suffering’) in order to be demeaned to his true value. When punishing, the undoubtedly clear and common association between pain and defeat is taken advantage of.

Therefore, the punishment is the negation of the morally false message the criminal made when he committed the crime. It negates the claim that the criminal and victim are not equal in value. What made the act wrong was the message and our desire to punish the criminal is a desire to correct that message and thus negate the wrong.

Hampton’s version of the retributive argument melds in well with our practice of punishment. It doesn’t punish the innocent as our current justice system attempts to avoid. As it only seeks to reaffirm the relative values of the agent who claimed the moral falsity and the victim, one who could not be considered an agent would not be punishable. In this same way, the system would not punish those who were or somehow became mentally handicapped after the commission of the crime because the ‘responsible agent’ who claimed the inequality didn’t or no longer exists. It is gone “as surely as if the criminal had died.” This should not be mistaken with any kind of moral education that would let those who have reformed off the hook. If the agent still exists, the true relative value must be enforced regardless of the individual criminal’s attitude. It is for the sake of goodness, for the sake of moral truth, that this punishment must occur, not for the education of the criminal.

Hampton’s version of the retributive argument also melds well with the concept of proportionality practiced in our justice systems. The degree to which the criminal lowers his victim can be replicated in his punishment. The more severe the punishment, the lower the punishment brings the criminal, the larger was the discrepancy between the value he claimed for himself relative to that of the victim. Hampton’s version of the retributive argument, unlike the other versions of the retributive theory, allows for restrictions on punishments internal to the theory, without needing to be ad hoc. Punishments must keep in mind that the goal is not to lower the criminal to a bestial level, which horrific punishments such as enslavement or torture would do. The goal is to deflate the criminal’s impression, to make him an equal of society, not to cause him to lose value in some way. A true adherent of Hampton’s retributivism would find truly inhumane treatment, regardless of his crime, insulting- he is, after all, still human. A truly retributivist policy  toward constructing punishments, according to Hampton’s justification of  it, would give the best expression possible of the value of the person hurt by the wrongdoer subject to the limits placed to maintain the criminal’s equality and humanity.

Although Hampton’s argument is persuasive, a few notable flaws in her argument suggest that her claim was more ambitious than she could adequately prove. The most significant issue with her theory is her claim that what makes an act wrong is the message behind it. This implies that the act itself is only as wrong as it is a conveyor for the message but this supposition does not match our reality. If it were solely the message that we had a problem with and not the act, we would be equally horrified by a really convincing essay on why Greg has more value than Pete as we would Pete’s death by Greg. Not only does the act itself provoke condemnation regardless of the message, but the claim that society is solely motivated by a desire to maintain moral truths is a bit lofty. If it were our society’s responsibility to proclaim moral truths, our government would have to counter even the most trivial messages with counter-messages. Should Greg publish a book proclaiming the inferiority of Pete, the government would have to publish a book proclaiming the equality of Pete and/or proclaiming the falsity of Greg’s claims. This responsibility Hampton claims for society is an ambitious one indeed. Why would we limit it to claims of equality? Should we collectively decide another moral truth, would not society be compelled to make sure all complied? We generally agree that adultery is immoral, what prevents our society from affirming this moral truth?

In response to my objections, Hampton could first deny the similarities between writing a convincing essay and murdering someone. Although a persuasive essay may provide some very good reasons why Greg might be considered Pete’s inferior, it proves nothing whereas Greg murdering Pete, right or wrong, provides evidence of Greg’s superiority. Until that evidence is negated by Pete’s dominion over Greg, no matter how much society claims that the two are equals, the incident stands to prove otherwise. Moreover, to the additional objection that the act itself is horrifying, independent of the message, Hampton could simply disagree. We find a brutal decapitation more horrifying than a death by gunshot in a gang fight because the former displays that much less respect for the victim, that much more desecration and alternatively claims that much more relative value for the transgressor. The other objection that this maintenance of moral truths is a little much to ask of society proves more difficult to refute. Hampton could either suggest that society does and has attempted this but is unfortunately limited either by means or by a collective understanding of said moral truth, or she could suggest that she does not claim more than the one moral truth that she has mentioned so far. She could go so far as to claim that the function of society only needs to adhere to the maintenance of that one moral truth and not moral truths as a whole, anyway.

Overall, Hampton’s theory provides a comprehensive and direct justification of punishment. It adequately compares to our system of justice with respect to proportionality and allotting responsibility, responsibly (not punishing the innocent) and does not fall into the notorious ‘bedrock foundation’ justification that other retributivists have attempted to use as justification with unsatisfactory results. Although, I have seen flaws in her description of what makes an act wrong and in her description of the responsibilities of society, there are refutations available to my claims, which I acknowledge as debatable although not all seem acceptable.

Be Happy Papa!

Amiri commands: Be happy Papa! He is one of grandchildren (2 boys and 2 girls).  I come in contact with him more frequently than any of the others.  In fact, I see or speak with every week during the school year, mainly because his school and afterschool are only two or three blocks from my home.  Given I do not own, nor do I want to own a car, our closeness is really convenient for Iyonna (my oldest daughter) to use my home for various occasions.

This past week she had to go on a business trip – so Amiri invaded my world.  He takes over as soon as he busts through the door. He knows I have a TIVO and I saved “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” the animated series for him to watch. As he jumps on my bed he demands – Papa switch to Star Wars! I demand that he take off his shoes and put them in the other room.

The week was full with taking him places – places I like to either see him simply have fun in or places I want him to experience with me so that I can share my insights. To watch Amiri in full motion is to catch a glimpse of joy.  He never stops talking; he walks slowly because he is more interested in the conversation than in getting to any destination.  It’s just the opposite for me – I walk fast to avoid boredom.  We have this way of walking where I demand that he walk directly in front of me so that I’m always on the verge of stepping on his heal – this is the only way I can keep his pace up – there’s no way to stop him from talking!.

We went to the Chicago Historical Museum on Monday, Tuesday Millennium Park for Music without Borders, Wednesday Miniature Golf in Lincoln Park and Thursday the Art Institute.   The Art Institute experience was the most endearing.  There, we took a stroll through the Modern Art of 1910 to 1950 European art scene.  It began with the strangeness of Salvador Dali in all his Surrealist drama.  Amiri asked all the right questions – why were the faces broken; was the scene a dream or nightmare; was it a puzzle that could be put together, and I answered as best I could, but I promised that we could come back until he got comfortable with all stories and provocations that modern art tends to inspire.

It was even more noticeable to see Seth and Amiri talk about art.  Seth is a writer looking for his muse and I want him to test his talents by using some of the imagery of modern art. We are planning to spend some time next week at Modern Art Museum. Maybe I will report more after that experience.

Looking At My Kids – Disruptive Imagination – It’s in the genes

When my children were first born, like most fathers, I inspected their eye color, nose shape, skin tone and other immediately noticeable features – seeking to identify those that offered a hint of similarity too my own . This tendency to survey never stops – it only takes on broader subjects. It’s important to me to see in my children the traits, talents and even perspective that echo my own. Sure its vanity, but fatherly pride would have it no other way.  On a deeper level there are lasting traits, ambitions, drives that a father wants to have continued on in the world, those things that are at his core more profoundly related to his happiness than simple physical resemblance.

One of those traits is a style of thinking: disruptive imagination. As can be seen in Mackenzie’s “The Self as Fiction”, in which he deconstructs Locke’s notion of identity, or Tara’s “Filling the Hole in the Soul”, which focuses on Sartre’s hole. Their essays pose questions similar to that of the mythic trickster. It’s the trickster’s capacity to surface distinctions previously hidden from sight. In these acts, he is the author of the great distance between heaven and earth, standing as a kind of mover in space and thought, a boundary-crosser. The scaffolding used is his interpretative play with the canonical arguments that dare question “truth-or-false”.  In other words, the style of reasoning is “in short, all too self-authentication”. That drive that I search for within my off spring is that of the trickster.

Through not a trickster, Hamlet’s maxim serves well to state this trait that “nothing’s either good or bad, but thinking makes it so”.  I speak of trickster as “he” because all the regularly discussed figures are male.  There is no shortage of tricky woman in this world, of course, or women in myth fabled for acts of deception, but few of these have the elaborated career of deceit that tricksters have. The trickster is the antithetical figure that culture requires to open space, uncover and disrupt the very things that culture is based on.  He knows neither good nor evil yet he is responsible for both. He possesses no values, moral or social… yet through his actions all values come into being.

My argument is not, however, that any of my children is trickster.  Trickster is abstraction enough, already distanced from particular embodiments like Hermes and Coyote.  Actual individuals are always more complicated than the archetype.

My own position, in any event, is not that I fostered a troop of tricksters but that there are moments when our practices demonstrate of art and this myth coincide. I work by juxtaposition, holding the trickster stories up against specific cases of their imagination in action, hoping that each might illuminate the other.

Fictional Self

In Chapter XXVII of his Essay Concerning Human Understand, John Locke argues for a system of determining the continuity of the person overtime.  Locke begins his discussion of what he calls “personal identity”, by distinguishing “the person” between other forms of identity present in an individual human being.  He asserts that an identity is an entity that is distinct from its surroundings and has only one origin of existence.   He then defines an individual as a composition of three distinct identities: 1) the collection of atoms that physically composes a “the substance” or “the body”; 2) the moving, breathing, and living animal, “the man”; and 3) the reasoning, remembering, and conscious mind that informs a human, “the person”.

Lock argues that we should, and in our common language do, define the identity of the “self”, by using this last identity. Using Cartesian logic, he holds that this self is the entity which one perceives oneself to be– “it being impossible for anyone to perceive without perceiving that he does perceive” (322, B).  He also holds that the self one is consciously aware of being is identical – can be said to be the same – as all person one can remember being.  He advocates this definition regardless of whether the material or immaterial substance one remembers being is the same as that which he is now.    Further, he claims a person is the same as another person, if it “considers[s] itself as itself, the same thinking thing in different times and places” (322, B). And by this he means, that a conscious being is the same person for all of the times it can remember existing, specifically remember thinking and doing the thoughts and actions of that former person. This account requires heavily on the faculties of our memory.  I will show that Locke’s argument holds, in light of our improved understanding of memory.  But also that this new understanding of memory might shift our idea of our former self from a stagnant to a dynamic entity.

Before he expounds on his idea of personal identity, Locke strengthens his account by rejecting and undermining alternative accounts, specifically accounts that place one’s identity in their animal life, or “immaterial soul”.  Locke first addresses our physical body, “the substance”, which he thinks most would agree does not define our personal identity.  He defines this “body” as a collection of “particles of matter” which composes the physical characteristics of an individual.  He holds that although the arrangement of the particles, or atoms, is not pertinent to their identity, the presence of each is:  “If one of these atoms is taken away, or one new one added, it is no longer the same mass or the same body” (320, A).  However, he holds that any rearrangement of the particles constitute the same body.  By this logic, as we eat, we add atoms to our body; we change the substance which we are. Interestingly. Locke does not invalidate “the substance” as an idea of identity because of this apparent impermanence, but rather because it is intuitively not the self that we perceive.

Lock shows that although we are constantly different substances, we are each but one “man”.  He also discounts this entity as a basis for the identity of one’s self.  He states the different substances that we are at different times, comprise the same animal, as long as it is held together to sustain to one “common life”.  Locke uses the example of an oak tree to illustrate the difference between an organism and a substance.  He holds that while a substance is “only the cohesion of particles”, an oak composed of growing and changing branches, leaves and roots, is “an organization of parts in one coherent body partaking of one common life (321, B).  He suggests that all forms of life – plant and animal – share this definition, including humans.  He goes on to illustrate, however, that the “man” should not be considered parallel to “the person”, because his continuity is not necessary for continued consciousness and contiguous identity.

Locke uses the analogy of the prince and the cobbler to illustrate further his distinction between our identity as a man and a person – and to advocate for the latter as a more useful system of determining identity.  In this analogy, he presents two characters a cobbler and a prince.  He posits that somehow the past thoughts and memories of the prince suddenly “enter and inform” the body of the cobbler and vice versa.  He says that although it would seem evident that the prince is the same man as before, there is still a degree of continuity in the cobbler’s existence.  He did not disappear, rather only his immaterial conscious has been transposed.   He says intuitively in this scenario we would conceive of the cobbler’s self as not restricted to his animal existence, not in his “body” or “man, but rather with his thoughts and memories.

In the analogy of the cobbler and the prince, Locke brings up a possible alternative idea of identity.  He says that one could argue that the soul of the cobbler was now present in the prince, and contiguous with the cobbler before the transfusion.  Locke directly addresses and refutes this account – that we are the same person as long as we are informed by the same soul. Locke agrees with the idea that an individual is composed of both material and immaterial substances, and that these are independent entities. But he rejects the notion that we should characterize our account of personal identity simply on this indefinable, immaterial substance – or as he calls it, one’s “numerical soul”.  Locke posits that there is no evidence to suggest that one’s immaterial substance is unique or original to that individual.  Here, he distinguishes between the conscious of a person, and the substance in which that “consciousness is annexed to”.   He believes this to be a substance that is permanent in an individual throughout his life.  He believes also that this soul may inform different persons within one individual throughout his lifetime. He leaves open the possibility that this soul may inform different bodies at different times.  He states that “there is nothing in the nature of matter why the same individual spirit may not be united to different bodies”.  But he claims that regardless if they share the same “numerical soul” they are not the same person unless they share a contiguous consciousness.

He uses the example of Nestor and Thersites at Troy to deliver this point.  He says, “…suppose it to be the same soul that was in Nestor or Thersites…this would no more make [Thersites] the same person with Nestor than if some of the particles of matter that were once part of Nestor were now a part of [him]”(325, A).  Here he uses a parallel objection to his dismissal of “the substance” as identity.  He illustrates that in the same way our physical self’s do not account for our identity, our immaterial substance, whatever that may be, cannot be said to contain one’s self without containing our present continued consciousness. Locke supports this claim by examining the possibility of reincarnation.  He argues that if his soul inhabited another a long time ago, he would feel no responsibility for their actions; “For whatever any substance has thought or done, which I cannot recollect and by my consciousness make my own thought and action, it will no more belong to me, whether a part of me [his immaterial or material substance] thought or did it, than if it had been thought or done by any other immaterial being anywhere existing” (328, A)[1].  This is the first instance which Locke’s presents his goal in creating his account.  He argues that although it may be impossible to understand an identity that is not one’s own, these concept of “person” or “self” should be used as “forensic term[s]” – that allows us to address the concepts of blame, praise, responsibility, and punishment.

He discusses humans’ unique ability to recognize one’s thoughts and actions as their own.  He says that through this perception, of our thoughts and ideas, we construct a concept of a self.  He believes that this self is a person that is the same as any other person at any time, along as it remembers and recognizes itself as once being that person. In modern psychological research, babies are placed in front of a mirror at a young age.  When they are able to understand the entity they observe in the mirror is in fact themselves, they are said to have “self-awareness” or “self-consciousness”[2].  Most of the babies, later in life, probably do not remember this first awareness. Locke would likely argues that this means that these adults – although the same humans– are not the same persons as those infants.  He argues that the self holds in it memory all of the knowledge of past thoughts and actions it has done, “Anything united to [the self] by a consciousness of former actions makes also a part of the same self which is the same both then and now”. (328, B).  Even considering the same man, Locke argues it is not right to attribute (or punish) an action done outside of this scope of consciousness.   Even the actions or thoughts of our same human, or same “immaterial spirit”, are not part of one’s self, unless currently in its recollection.  In short, sameness of memory by Locke’s account is metaphysically necessary and sufficient to the sameness of persons.  You are “the person” that you remember being in any stages of your life. Regardless of the man or the soul of either in question, you are not any “person” you cannot remember being.

The philosopher Thomas Reid posited a famous objection to Locke’s account of personal identity; by stating that Locke’s account intuitively Is not sufficient.  He argues that any valid definition of identity necessarily conveys transitive equality, but Locke’s account this is not the case.  Locke posits that you are any person that you can remember being – but Reid points out that the person you remember being, also remembers being different persons, some of which you do not remember.  Reid uses the example of a retired general who as a young man was a soldier, and as a boy stole an apple.  He asks what if the general remembers being a soldier, but not stealing the apple.  By Locke’s account, the general is the same person as the soldier, but not as the boy.  However, the soldier does remember stealing the apple, so therefore Locke would say the soldier is the same person as the boy.  But, as Reid argues, it is counter intuitive to think that the general is the same person as the soldier, and the soldier is the same person as the boy, but the general is not the same person as the boy; identity, it would seem, need be transitive.

Successors of Locke’s account have offered a solution to the transitivity problem.  They shift Locke’s argument from saying that a person is the same as another person only if he can remember being him – to instead say: one is the same person as another if he is connected to the person through memory, either directly or through a chain of persons.  For example, if Person A is the same as Person B, he either remembers being Person B, or remembers being a person that remembers being person B.  This could only be similarly extended: remembering a person that remembers a person that…etc.

Whether or not Locke would agree with this adjustment is open to debate. At several points in his essay he talks about being different persons throughout one’s lifetime – this would seem impossible using the contemporary method of chain memory, because it would seem that all of one’s persons would be remembered by at least of one’s of their other persons.  Regardless of his potential view on the matter, this adjustment creates a credible account of identity that deflects Reid’s objection. Through this adjustment we can examine if Locke’s account is, as he argues, the best tool for determining, forensically, the continuation of one’s self.  However, we must first consider the implications of new research in cognitive science that has changed our understanding of memory.

Observers citing advances and discoveries in the cognitive sciences might dislodge Locke’s account on the basis of the “frailty of memory”[3].  As it were, by Locke’s account, the extent to which I am the same as another person is purely a function of my memory.  Scientists now tell us memory is itself is partly a function of our mind’s, and likely our consciousness.  This is not to say that our memory is purely a function of our will, but rather that our will alters our memory significantly and definitely.  It would seem, in light of this information and Locke’s argument, the identity of a person is determined by the thing itself.

Modern cognitive science blurs the distinction many Lockians have made between vertical memories and false memories.  Scientists say all memories are constructed by your present mind, and indeed consciousness.  The self beyond its current consciousness is a conception that is never truly identical to reality, whatever that may be.  In our dreams for example, we change our thoughts and actions of both the past and the present persons that we, consciously, think we are and were.  Any successor to Locke’s philosophy could solve this problem by limiting the argument to memories during one’s waking state.  However, cognitive science now suggests that our waking minds similarly reconstruct memories as conjures them.  We actively construct everything, as we conceive it in our current consciousness, including who we remember ourselves being, and what we did.  These reconstructions are invariably falsified if not completely imagined.  Professor at Washington University Elizabeth F. Loftus refers to this phenomenon simply as “creating false memories”[4].  She claims that “remembering” involves imagining and thereby reproducing the event in our minds, and in the process constructing what we call our “memory” of them.  Our minds have no imprint of events that have happened to us earlier in our lives.  We actively construct our memories not by mirroring the events, but rather by remembering the concept we conjured the last time we remembered them. In the process, each time we remember an event we change the specific facts of the episode; and thereby change the identity of our former selves⁴.

It would seem along with transitivity, an account of identity ought to have permanence.  In light of cognitive science’s characterization of memory – that it is malleable – it would seem impossible that a former self could be permanent.  Even one’s present conscious, dominated by almost instantaneous “sensory” memory, is subject to construction, and therefore detachment from reality[5]. If you are, (are identical with), who you remember being, and who you remember being is constantly changing, you are, logically, constantly changing. Some might dismiss Locke’s account in light of this evidence, arguing that any concept of identity needs permanence for validity. But let’s purpose that Locke stuck to his guns on this issue.  He could argue that our conception of a self may be primarily fictional, but, despite this, it still exists as our conception.  In this sense, we may exist in the manner we construct.   This concept would parallel the existential idea that our reality is bound only by our choices.  Whether or not our lives or thoughts are affected by an outside world, it is worth considering that our identity may be in our own hands.  The self may be a fiction, and we may be the authors.

Locke’s goal in identifying the continuity of a person is to decipher the true meaning of our concept of self, and use that definition as a forensic tool, so as to allocate responsibility, praise, blame, and punishment.  He stops at several instances to illustrate that to punish a person for something they did but cannot remember, is a kin to punishing a person for the actions of an

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[1] After he shows this, he illustrates that he finds it more probably that our souls are not reused, but our only for our individual consciousness.  He states, “I agree, the more probable opinion is that this consciousness is annexed to, and the affection of, one individual immaterial substance” (328, A).

[2] “First Levels of Awareness as they unfold early in life. http://www.psychology.emory.edu/cognition/rochat/Rochat5levels.pdf
[3] Reports of cases argued and determined in the Supreme Court of Alabama By Alabama Supreme Court, 2004.

[4] “Creating False Memories” Elizabeth F. Loftus, Washing University at St. Louis
[5] “Roughly speaking, the sensory register [the most instantaneous of our memory systems] concerns memories that last no more than about a second or two” Cognitive Skills Determine Learning Ability. Susan du Plessis. Audiblox.

Filling The Hole in The Soul

The Hole by Jean-Paul Sartre exposes many aspects of the concept of holes, the more obvious physical and the conspicuous metaphysical holes. According to Sartre the hole, void, or abyss is an empty dreary place that we humans have the yearning to fill up. The chance of human life begins with the penetration of a hole.

My Second Daughter

According to Sartre the ephemeral filling of the this hole is evidence that the women has the need to be filled and the man has the desire to fill.

Our very existence depends on filling the two small holes in our nose with air, we constantly exhale and inhale rhythmically to no avail, and the crevasse remains empty of a tangible substance.   The hole in our face we start as children to fill it with our fingers, then we graduate to fill it with food, then some adults continue the fixation with (some would consider) salacious and corporeal behaviors.

Then we have the metaphorical hole—the inner sanctum—the soul hole. The compulsion to fill the soul hole is one of the catalysts for human altruism, religion, and spirituality—better yet–the existence of social justice. Adam Smith tells us in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, “How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it.”  I am not inclined to discuss the nature of man for the purpose of this discussion I assume nature to mean desire.

However, I am inclined to say the desire of man according to Sartre’s essay is to fill a hole, and that hole, in this case is in the less fortunate stratum of society.   Altruism has been debated oftenl times throughout history, it has even been quantified. Gary S. Becker, a Nobel Prize winning economist, created a math model on the societal effects and intentions of altruism. Altruism is an enigma. Sartre’s essay simplifies the phenomenon.

In line with Hegel’s master-slave dialectic, the person of power needs the powerless. The hole filler needs a hole to fill. Whereas the powerful views him self as complete, (he-the powerful is bountiful with economic, human capital, and material possessions). There is still a void in the soul. The soul-hole may not be engorged.   For he, the powerful, in a capitalist economy may have contributed to the condition of the persons he is inclined to help.

The complete person has no where to go. Once you are complete, fully complete there is nothing left but death. The powerful capitalist in this case may indeed be disposed to excavate his soul by creating an internal hole and simultaneously create societal holes in the form of the less fortunate, in order to have more holes to fill–internally and society at large; a provocative dichotomous relationship. Unconsciously (maybe), he is destroying to rebuild—acquiring capital to give it away, a simultaneous capitalist philanthropic being.

The benevolent capitalist will feed the hungry, filling two holes simultaneously–the hole in the face and the soul-hole—his soul. But what does he feed him? Generally, charity foods are staples, the absolute necessities (starches, breads, canned foods etc). The complete, will not engage the de void with lavish delicacies—for he, the devoid is unworthy of the joys of complete fullness, just the temporary sub standard transient fulfillment of musing the fulfilled.

The French gastronome Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, argues in his book The Physiology of Taste (1825), “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.”   If the fulfilled would dare feed the empty the same things he eats he would be admitting that they are equals or similar and clearly they are not–They cannot be if the delicate balance is to be kept.   Sartre spoke of the greasy and the slimy foods. The poor is feed the fluffy and the dry. Nonetheless their carnal need to eat is fulfilled. The whole receives a much larger reward from feeding than those being fed. Altruism perpetuates his life.

Altruism is not a constant occurrence amongst philanthropists; the idea is constant but not the action. The soul-hole is like a gas tank—its driver will ride on “E” (all the while acquiring more wealth and creating more holes)—before cyclically desiring to correct society’s failures, by patching up the holes he created—thus filling his tank, to once again empty it for survival.

The delicate balance is a unique homeostatic atmosphere.   Each one which is powerful has its own threshold for vitality. The moderately powerful may offer advice, volunteer a paltry amount of time, or just acknowledge the indigenous existence. The meagerly powerful may do even less. The homeostatic nature of the altruism life cycle is purely on an individual basis. Some will allow ride the soul-hole on “E” for miles needing a tow, while others are persnickety and refill every 50 miles. The fulfilled (wherever the lye on the spectrum) must have an internal mechanism that indicates their need to replenish the soul-hole. Just as one knows their car and how long they can ride on “E” before filling up.

The relationship between the fulfilled and those they designate as empty is fragile. The small amount of empowerment through material or intellectual gains is the one aspect the fulfilled have to lord over the indigenous. For so called empty is thought to have kept the soul-hole on full. Napoleon Bonaparte once said, “Religion is what keeps the poor man from murdering the rich”. The balance between the poor man and his full soul and empty belly, and the full belly of the rich man and his hollowed soul—they need each other—one more then the other. The poor man seeks solace in spiritual riches. Therefore, his power if realized is much more substantial. For the rich man depletes his soul most times at the expense of the poor man in the plight of obtaining fiscal wealth. Thus he starts the cycle all over again.

At the end of Sartre’s essay he talked about man’s need to become God and the premise is impossible. The selflessness at the root of altruism is considered by some Christ like. Sartre says, “Thus the passion of is the reverse of that of Christ, for man loses himself as man in order that God may be born. But the idea of God is contradictory and we lose ourselves in vain. Man is a useless passion”. Man desires to create then fill physical and metaphysical voids in a vicious cycle for the reminder of his life. When the desire is gone and the void is filled man ceases to live. If we all had exactly what we wanted and none of what we needed the quest would be futile. And we would all be empty, hollowed, void, empty spaces—white walls in an apartment.

Tears Not Shed – The Legacy of Philosophy and Politics

I’ve boasted on my boys Seth and Mackenzie often. Today it’s time to turn to one of my daughters – Tara. Tara came into my life later and from an unexpected source. We’ve had to work a little harder at building a relationship than I had to with my other children. With my other children, the foundation of our relationship was built on the many meals, readings, trips, talks and simple parenting. My relationship with Tara started with an unexpected phone call. She was 19 and curious.

From then on we worked slowly and steadily to carve out a unique space. Enter philosophy and politics – Tara has the same fire to effect the world as I do. She unlike me is a “limousine liberal” without the limousine – neither of us have limousines – she has the maternalism – I’m too pessimistic to care if anyone is saved! Her basic view is that education will free her opponents from the faulty views they hold. I don’t care about teaching my opponent – I just want to them to shut up! If not shut up, know that they have been out maneuvered – it’s all about tactics for me – not saving them from their stupidity.

Tara and I talk each day about what is going on in the world of politics, where she likes to make note of the on going “wing nut” responses to Obama’s crusade to crush their soul’s. As for me, I simply like the ironic giggle I get from their foolishness. Obama’s campaign was really the opening that has led to the deepening of our father – daughter relationship.

She was the person who got me interested in volunteering for the campaign – the following letter she wrote sometime in September of 08.

[listen to song first] I feel that way. I write to you because I think you know how I feel, where I am coming from, and the struggle that we have all been on for so long.

If it matters, I am an African American single mother-This election means more to me than I can find the words to describe. I love this country despite all of our history.

And yesterday, I cried my last tears, after I watch the venomous, vile, and vitriolic display at the McCain-Palin rally unfold over the last few days. I was raised in a Southern Baptist church, and I was taught as a young child when things look bleak and you are backed up against a wall you just let go and let God. We as AAs have been subjected to the system and have the philosophy ingrained that we have to accept the things that we can not change.

Well here and now damn it–I have cried my last tears yesterday. I am going to fight!

I love the principles that our country was founded on–and I hate what some people are resorting to. And we will fulfill the promise of a More Perfect Union.

This is the election that will either save or end my life as I know it–nonetheless I will be different. I am different.

Just as I find comfort in the sentiments of an old negro spiritual, I find comfort in the words on your blog. You express–in clear succinct terms what I am feeling, what I am going through, and how I can make it to the other side. I can’t cry any more.

This moment has ignited a new found sense of civic duty, civic pride, and civic virtue that I have never experienced before. I owe it all to the residual effects of being an organizer.

Al, keep on telling the people how important this is.

Keep telling them to push one step further.

Keep telling them my struggle is our struggle .

Tell em’ not to cry.

Cause I cried my last tears, yesterday.

Confession – Mack’s Lament

Mackenzie, my youngest son wrote the following and requested that I read and respond.  Mackenzie is currently studying at Yale University.  In so many ways Mackenzie is the most mature – wise – of my six children.  He has demonstrated the humility and depth of grace that it took me until my late 50’s to understand – no less exhibit.

In the next post I will write my a fuller response, but in short, his confession to complex reasons for combating violence by recalling his experience is understandable, noble and smart.  He seems to have gotten caught in the “justification trap” – that any act that gives him an edge over others is purely tactic and somehow demonstrates a flaw in his character.

It’s another version of “if a program such as affirmative action” is a benefit to me, then I am less than others because it was used to justify my inclusion. The fallacy in this formulation I will describe in my next post!

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

When I was a freshman at Northside Preparatory High school, I was beat and robbed by fifteen or so members of the Almighty Vice Lord Nation (AVLN). The group, one of whom I cordially met, in a business setting let’s say, found me outside of a party in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago.

A year after the event, I chaired the Youth Advisory Board of the Illinois for the Violence Prevention Authority. I led a group of motivated youth around the State, promoting peaceful alternatives such as after school programs to supplant gang activity. At every violence convention I would deliver my speech. I evoked my pain and suffering to suggest the evil within the actions of the Vice Lords.

I described sitting in the emergency room, waiting! There, I contemplate the pain and humiliation I felt because of the cowardly actions of those fifteen hooded teens. There in that waiting room, through prayer and contemplation, I resolved that I must do my part to inspire peace in our mostly middle class community, to deter young children from ignoring the morals they were taught in school to become a AVLN, a Gangster Disciple or a King. From Champaign, IL to Streeterville, from the North side of Chicago to the South, I told to all that would listen, that gang members banged because they lacked the basic respect needed for civility in a community. I told social workers and Law enforcement officers alike that their job was to instill in “high risk” youth, preferably at the youngest possible age, the faculties of respect that would forever lead them away from violence. It wasn’t that they were bad people; they just hadn’t been taught how to be good yet.

Years after the event, I replicated that speech as one of my college essays, again describing that summer night as a transformative experience that permanently changed my outlook on gang and youth violence. However, this was not entirely true. For, in the emergency room, as I fingered the numb, inch-wide gap splitting the back of my head, I knew I had lost time, dignity, jewelry, and around a quart of blood, but I also knew what I had gained: a ticket to success via sympathy express.

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

We spent the day shopping, charting mall after mall like valley girls. I picked up a fitted, a striped blue and black button-up, and a fresh silver (plated) chain. Saif copped new white Airs, and Obi bought the cleanest Rocafella polo outside of Jay-z’s closet. We weren’t G’s, and we definitely weren’t styling; but it was our first high school party and we wanted to dress for the occasion.

After we equipped – straight laced our adidas, cocked our caps to rapper angles – we took the 147 bus to McDonalds to game plan. Obi called up Zanib – our ghetto connection – to get the where and when. She didn’t pick up. The day could have ended there in unbearable disappointment, but a few Mcchickens later she texted the precious details: 10 O’clock, 7236 Bell, second floor. We were a little scared of the 296 at that time of night, so we got my brother to drive us.

I remember the two flat surrounded by circles of blacks and Latinos smoking cigarettes and holding bottle-shaped paper bags. Obi rang the doorbell. It seemed like a year passed, before a thick Chicana woman dressed in sweat pants and a tang top that might have fit her daughter, came down the stairs. “Who do you know here?” she asked, sniffing the preppiness that permeated from underneath our clothes. She rolled her eyes, as we answered in unison, “Z”.

The party had two rooms: a packed dance floor blasting juking music, and a smoky den with coaches lined against the walls. We waded through the first room to find a good wall space to post-up on. As we soon discovered, the girls weren’t actually there to dance. No, most were in a constant search for their friend located somewhere on the other side of the room. Our droughts ended when a pair of girls, no older than fifteen, approached. They wore jeans and double x white t’s. They had been around the room, comforting every lonely wall fellow with a small gesture of sympathy. The one would hold the others hands up as she grinded her waist against one of us lonely few. She juked like this with each of us for about two minutes without a word or a glance, before moving on.

We left the room after an hour, each of our tallies stalled at one. We plopped down on a coach in the den. Before we said a word to one another, a black boy in a number 5 Jalen Rose Bulls jersey accosted us. “Looking to buy weed?” he asked to no particular one of us. Not as much because we were looking to get high, as we were petrified to reject the offer, we agreed to buy a dub sack. “Wait here, lemme get my guy”. A half hour or so later, a tall black man approached us, his palm clenched at his side. I remember watching his gold chains jostle for position on top of his wife beater as he walked towards us. He stopped at the foot of the coach, towering over us, starring blankly. I extended my twenty. (We had spent the half an hour, discussing this precise transaction). He swiped it, replacing it with three small nuggets of some sort of shriveled flora. I say flora because I still wonder what plant it might have been; as a clueless freshman I knew it didn’t resemble marijuana. As much as we knew we were duped, we knew we were powerless in the situation.

Tired and angry we stormed out of the den, out of the house. We navigated through twenty or so partygoers, and were half way down the block before we were called back. “Hey Joe!” shouted the leader of a growing throng of blacks and Latinos. “Why your hat cocked right man?” He was a tiny Hispanic teen, wearing a Yankee cap that slid around on his head as he walked. The tall dealer flanked him on his right.

“Whatchu GD[1] or something?”

”Nah man. Sorry, stupid mistake,” Obi responded, readjusting his cap. The statement had barely left his lips when it collided with angry knuckles. The punch knocked him back, but not off his feet. He recovered, then darted down the street; about five chased after, lead by whom else but our dealer. Saif and I shouted to him, “Go to Touhy!” “Go to Touhy!” – as if a hundred eyes would provide the safety fifty couldn’t.

“What an idiot” I said turning to Saif, “now they’re gonna get’em for sure”. I thought at the time that, like grizzlies, gang-bangers only pounced when you tried to flee. I started back down the street, looking back to see Saif, motionless, with his head in hands, and about ten paces behind me. I kept walking.

But as I swiveled my head around, five stood in front of me. “I’m not…anything,” I negotiated in vain. One of them grabbed my chain. It snapped off my neck as another punched me back. “I’m really not anything…” I said again. At that moment I was punched from behind, this time knocked to the grass beside the sidewalk. Amid the thuds, the stomps, and the ruffling of my pockets, I could hear the chant “Ve-El, Ve-El …” A car pulled up along the sidewalk, and I saw the footsteps of another assailant coming my way. He cleared the group to the side and took out his aluminum bat. Over and over again he bashed my head, and I could only protect myself with my hands and prayers.

One was answered; a resident witnessing the incident ran into the street and blasted a shot into the air. Lords scampered away. I got up and panned around the block. I saw the man that saved me, a chubby black man in his mid forties, and I saw Saif arising bloody. The man took us into his home a few houses down, washed us off, and called for an ambulance to come and get us.

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

Honestly, I wish I could speak my rhetoric still. I wish I could tell you that this experience sparked my metamorphosis from and apathetic observer to righteous defender of peace and harmony. I wish I could tell you that every kick and every swing broke my shell of ignorance, until like my skull it was pierced and I could see the virulence of gang violence and the hopelessness of those involved.

But, on the real. I been known gang violence was wrong. I knew it when my Dad told me I couldn’t ride my Mongoose north of Pratt after eight. I didn’t need the embrace of a Louvillse slugger to know that there are packs of black and brown youth that have no better thing to do or place to be, then mugging kids outside of high school parties. I didn’t needed fifteen staples sealing the gash in the back of my head to know that all of it was useless and sad.

Unmoved, I sapped it for everything that it was worth. I took my tear-jerking story, and got myself into a lofty executive role on a fancy sounding advisory board. Then I took both of those labels, victim and advocate, and I got myself into college. I knew that my labels combined into my desired application persona, a ghetto black kid that’s knows how it is.

I don’t regret working the system. I do regret not speaking to the matter at hand. I regret every word I wrote, every speech I gave, every plaudit I received. I regret them because I know, and worse I knew, that I was only telling them what they wanted to hear: shit’s rough in the streets. I knew, as chair, my job wasn’t to promote policies or encourage conversation about who these gang bangers were; my job was to reassure, to tell social workers and enforcement officers that they fought a righteous battle against a monstrous enemy. I helped demonize Vice Lords rather than help understand workings of the Almighty Vice Lord Nation. By evoking my “innocent” suffering, I justified every dollar put in police pockets. No contest, by not speaking up, I stamped my approval on all their practices.

I should have told them all the truth. I should have told the policeman I met in Carbondale, as well as the neighborhood watchman I met in Uptown, that it’s not about how many eyes see a crime, it’s about what those behind those eyes do after they witness.

I should have told the teacher I sat down with in Springfield that her 8^th grader wears his oversized cap not out of any allegiances, but because triple X New Era hats are the last sold, and the first on sale. The reason I had a cap that fit and Joe didn’t is the same reason, my brother sold me fake weed. The same reason I got jumped. Not because they’re punks, ignorant to human decency. No, its cause they’re poor, and I’m, well, less so.

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[1] Gangsta Disciples. A rival gang to the Vice Lord Nation.

Nothing Left???

December 24 – My mother died twelve years ago today. I never really grieved. My life is upside down – I never grieved.

I look back over the last years and see – loneliness – separation – stupidity – angst, but not grief. Since that mourning I’ve turned my life into a low volume scream. I ran away from my family for security – to only find that I had lost all the security to a dream. I knew the first night after leaving that I had lost my grounding. It does not take long to know what you miss as you float out beyond your life’s rock. My mother was that rock. It was the bright shinny life that Susan offered that confused me – it was never real – depending on intellect not heart tends to confuse or so I suspect.

As I look back, it is easy to self select the moments that make the premises you’ve used reasonable – tactics without grounding

• Blackness demands understatement
• Responsibility ends at some point
• Loving is unworthy yet being responsible
• Controlling the conversation is only another way to stop the conversation
• To is less important than For
• Anger last
• Complexity covers sadness

I recount these moments now because of fear. I’ve scaled down my life into a corner so small that it can barely be seen. My children – no longer see that I miss them, maybe even care. I use to know people – could be counted on as a friend, no more – even my body no longer feels real – bloated, stiff, breaking down. The only connection left is my intellect – it sustains the hope I have for reclamation. The only reason I write is to honor this last hope.

One of the long thought themes for authors was that by writing it would open up the possibility of immortality. A lasting memory that was invoked into the ether and by this single act a life would be lived again. Ah, if that where true, I would never stop telling of all that I had broken, flipped-off, lost, overestimated or simply shown little respect to. Grounding – Grounding – Grounding!

It was those early morning conversations with my mother that grounded me into the day. This has never been so clear as on this day – fourteen years later. I’ve told myself it was all those years where my mother made a routine of discussing what should happen after her death – where the files where for this and that – the clothes she wanted to wear – the hymn the choir should sing – which dish set should be given to which granddaughter …. on and on. The detail project management of the event was rehearsed over and over a thousand times. What she never told me was what I should do with Xmas.

I only remember traveling back to Detroit to spend those days with her – Xmas. She was and is Xmas. It was not that she was very hooked into all the trimmings – she did demand that we travel to Eastern Market to buy a fresh tree. Yes, she had already made arrangements for the kids and later Joyce to engage in activities that would entertain them – basketball – swimming – and a combined family gathering with other members of the local cache of relatives. It was automatic – she was the center of Xmas.

Christmas ended twelve years ago – Its deconstruction began – year over year – it has decayed. Death – separation – disillusionment – each year that has followed her death another piece crumbles. It takes on new depths each year. I’ve heard – even read the psychological information about it, but feeling it is much different than thinking about it. The tightness across my stomach – the stiffness in my neck – the numbness of my left foot, all contribute joyless wonder to this “white Christmas”. My life feels like the grey mess mashed up against the curbs – not snow – not sleet – salted and fading.

Reputation: Building on Trust

Business Reputation: Creativity and Happiness: Reputation: Building on Trust

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