{"id":106745,"date":"2018-02-19T12:00:55","date_gmt":"2018-02-19T12:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=106745"},"modified":"2018-02-18T11:06:54","modified_gmt":"2018-02-18T11:06:54","slug":"the-us-needs-eureka-moments-re-vetting-displacement-discernment-integration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2018\/02\/the-us-needs-eureka-moments-re-vetting-displacement-discernment-integration\/","title":{"rendered":"The US Needs \u201cEureka!\u201d Moments Re: \u2018Vetting\u2019; \u2018Displacement\u2019; \u2018Discernment\u2019; \u2018Integration\u2019!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cEureka!\u00a0 Eureka! (I have found it!)\u201d <\/em>
\n–Archimedes<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving played with fire, one knows
\ninner forms, inner function.\u201d<\/em>
\n-\u2013Kijima Hajime<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Let\u2019s first debunk the \u201cfake news\u201d!\u00a0 Famed scientist and mathematician, Archimedes, probably did not cry out \u201cEureka!\u00a0 Eureka!\u201d <\/em>(Greek for \u201cI have found it!\u201d) when he sat in a public bath in Syracuse, Sicily, discovering one of his\u2014and our\u2014\u201claws of buoyancy\u201d!<\/p>\n

But, as with most good, apocryphal stories\u2014the parables in the Bible, for example\u2014there are grains of truth, lessons to be vetted and discerned\u2014pieces to be integrated into the bigger puzzle.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the story\/myth: Hiero, the local tyrant, suspects a goldsmith of replacing a measure of gold with silver in a golden crown.\u00a0 Hiero contacts Archimedes to verify his suspicions.\u00a0 But\u2026, how?<\/p>\n

During a trip to a local bathhouse, \u201cthe Arch\u201d observes that the more he sinks in the bath, the greater the displacement of water.\u00a0 And, that displaced water correlates with his body\u2019s weight and volume!\u00a0 Now he reasons: gold is heavier than silver; therefore, a crown of silver and gold would be bulker than a crown solely of gold\u2014thus displacing more water!\u00a0 \u201cVoila!\u201d <\/em>he cries (or, more precisely, \u201cEureka!\u201d<\/em>)\u00a0 <\/em>And he leaps out of the bath, runs naked through the Greek colony, declaring his discovery.\u00a0 (Whether or not the ladies were amused or alarmed is not reported\u2026.)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a good story about the way critical minds work: they \u201cvet.\u201d\u00a0 They test ideas and propositions.\u00a0 They theorize and test their theories and then they vet their own conclusions with careful observations, records and consideration.\u00a0 They test\u2014again and again.\u00a0 It\u2019s a shining example of \u201ctrust, but verify\u201d:\u00a0 The critical mind trusts the methodology\u2014the scientific\/methodical\/hypothetical approach.\u00a0 But the results need to be noted, verified, repeated.\u00a0 Modulations of methodology and results also need to be noted and recorded.<\/p>\n

Can the US Empire learn a thing or two about critical thinking?<\/p>\n

In addition to his \u201claws of buoyancy\u201d\u2014much less apocryphal than the bathhouse story\u2014the Arch thought a lot about levers.\u00a0 \u201cGive me a lever big enough,\u201d he said\u2014\u201cand a place to stand\u2026and I will move the Earth.\u201d\u00a0 (When imperialist Theodore Roosevelt spoke about his \u201cbig stick,\u201d was he echoing the ancient Greek?\u00a0 Or merely being \u201csalacious\u201d?)\u00a0 Do we have levers big enough now to \u201cmove the Earth\u201d?\u00a0 Do we have \u201ca place to stand\u201d?<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with \u201cvetting.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2017 it seemed to have become a wing-sprouting, ubiquitous neologism.\u00a0 That\u2019s because Trump had campaigned on \u201cbuilding a big, beautiful wall\u201d along America\u2019s southern border\u2014\u201cvetting\u201d illegal aliens, as well as legal immigrants, passing through Mexico.\u00a0 Now that the victorious presidential candidate intended to carry through with his campaign promise, the opposition party suddenly balked: unfair to immigrants!\u00a0 Unfair to \u201cdreamers.\u201d\u00a0 Not in the \u201ctradition\u201d of America\u2019s \u201cnation-of- immigrants\u201d policies.<\/p>\n

What balderdash!<\/p>\n

Odd how our \u201copposition party\u201d\u2014either one–always seems to make its strongest case\u2014and loudest complaint\u2014at just the wrong time!\u00a0 I recall John McCain squawking about \u201ccampaign finance reform\u201d before that (s)election.\u00a0 After defeat, not a peep!\u00a0 (Why would he bother?\u00a0 He had lost, and he was a one-trick pony!)\u00a0 Back to the old system!\u00a0 After the 2016 election, we suddenly heard much more strident voices about the phoniness of the \u201celectoral college\u201d!\u00a0 When those vocal chords had belonged to those convinced they would win both popular and electoral votes\u2014they had been mum on the subject!\u00a0 Not justice, not fairness, but opportunism rules our day.<\/p>\n

Overload the system, and there can be no \u201cvetting\u201d!\u00a0 Much of our problem in the US today is not so much about \u201cfake news\u201d (a major problem in itself), but about a glut <\/em>of news\u2014both the fake and the legit.\u00a0 We are overwhelmed!\u00a0 What, and whom, to believe?<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t like \u201cvetting\u201d?\u00a0 Do you like your skin?\u00a0 If you don\u2019t like \u201cvetting,\u201d remove your skin\u2014a \u201cvetting\u201d agent between your internal organs and the enveloping world\u2026of dust, toxins, microorganisms, etc.\u00a0 How about your lungs\u2014\u201cvetting\u201d the air you breathe, taking in oxygen, expelling CO2? \u00a0How about ideas?\u00a0 If we are lucky, we are \u201cvetting\u201d throughout our lives: determining what works, what doesn\u2019t; who are the \u201cgood kids,\u201d who are the \u201cbullies\u201d; what\u2019s smart and what\u2019s dumb; what lessons to take from teachers, parents, books, the arts; and what to file away\u2014there if we need it (if we can discern).\u00a0 Cerebellum and cerebral \u201cvetting\u201d\u2026to maintain physical and mental balance!\u00a0 And moral balance, too!<\/p>\n

Why wouldn\u2019t we want to \u201cvet\u201d who comes into America and who does not?\u00a0 Trump is right about this: \u201cwithout borders, you have no country.\u201d\u00a0 He might have said, \u201cWithout skin, no body; just an exoskeletal-muscular system and a blob of organs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Our \u201cnation of immigrants\u201d mantra is nonsense.\u00a0 We\u2019ve been a nation of conquerors <\/em>from the beginning!\u00a0 The greatest growth in our numbers occurred in the 16-year period following the French and Indian War to our American Revolution!\u00a0 Americans don\u2019t like to pay much attention to that war\u2014probably because it had much more to do with defeating France\u2019s \u201cIndian\u201d allies than with defeating the 60,000 French colonists.\u00a0 Britain\u2019s 1,600,000 American colonists (in what would become the US eastern states), led by our \u201cGreat White Father\u201d\u2014General Washington\u2014easily made mincemeat of the \u201csavages\u201d allied with the French.\u00a0 (\u201cSavages,\u201d btw, is how Jefferson referred to our \u201cOriginal Peoples\u201d in our \u201csacred\u201d Declaration of Independence.\u00a0 Of course, most Americans never get past the first few flourishing, hyperbolic sentences.\u00a0 \u201cAll men are created equal\u201d!\u00a0 Really?)<\/p>\n

Having defeated the uppity, dandified French and their \u201csavage\u201d allies, we\u2014i.e., the Brits–were now free to import boatloads of folks from Europe\u2014mostly poor Brits, some Dutch, some Germans.\u00a0 \u201cImmigrants!\u201d\u2014though, of course, only wealthy white men could vote!\u00a0 (We were also mercilessly packing non-immigrant African Blacks into sailing \u201ccattle cars,\u201d destined for \u201cconcentration camps–i.e., \u201cplantations–in the South.)\u00a0 We had nearly doubled our population by 1776\u2014the year of our own \u201cGlorious Revolution.\u201d\u00a0 And we\u2019ve been growing like crazy ever since\u2014more than 160-fold since 1763!\u00a0 (And about 150% in just the past allotted 3-score and ten\u2014about my lifetime up to now!)<\/p>\n

And what was all that \u201clargesse\u201d about?\u00a0 Helping out \u201cthe wretched of the earth\u201d?\u00a0 Much more to do with getting wealthy on slave labor in the South, indentured servitude and close-to (and sometimes worse than)-\u201cslave labor\u201d in the factories in the North.\u00a0 Much more to do with constant displacement of those remaining \u201csavages\u201d in that vast Western \u201cterritory\u201d conquered from Mexico.\u00a0 More to do with consolidating the Empire, knitting it together with railroads, and stretching past its borders (it\u2019s skin!) to conquer the Caribbean (by 1898; we already had the \u201cMonroe Doctrine\u201d justifying all that, didn\u2019t we?), and then across the Pacific to conquer the kingdom of Hawaii, the betrayed Philippines (handy \u201ccoaling stations there!), butting heads with land-starved Japan, and always justifying all our conquests, all our \u201cinterventions,\u201d with pleasant-sounding platitudes; e.g.:<\/p>\n

\u201cGive me your tired, your poor; your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pretty good for a platitude\u2026, but, what about \u201cdisplacement\u201d?\u00a0 Archimedes discovered the correlation between body weight, volume and displacement of water.\u00a0 It was measurable, quantifiable.\u00a0 In the US, we ignore \u201cdisplacement.\u201d\u00a0 Yeah, sure\u2014we brought in all these \u201cpioneers\u201d from Britain, etc.\u2014but what about the \u201csavages\u201d displaced?\u00a0 Yeah, sure, we bring in all these tawny, olive-skinned people from southern Europe\u2014some relatives of mine included!–but what about the people \u201cdisplaced\u201d in our factories, spewing pollution to the now unemployed, no-longer-needed \u201cdeplorable\u201d masses?\u00a0 (And consider this, George M. Cohan, et. al.: No doubt we would have far fewer people wishing to immigrate here if we made far fewer wars \u201cover there\u201d!\u00a0 And, is it not strange that no one talks about the Ehrlichs\u2019 \u201cPopulation Bomb\u201d anymore?)\u00a0 The more the merrier?\u00a0 Really?<\/p>\n

Is our \u201cLabor Movement\u201d getting a bit too big for its britches?\u00a0 Let\u2019s pollute the \u201cMovement\u201d\u2014bring in more immigrants!\u00a0 Let\u2019s crowd our laboring masses into crime-ridden cities like Chicago and Detroit where they can be better \u201cmanaged\u201d by political \u201cbosses\u201d and our militarized police.\u00a0 And let\u2019s just keep feeding the masses their fast-food slop, and fake-news and glut-of-news B.S.! The people are overwhelmed!\u00a0 They cannot \u201cvet.\u201d\u00a0 Education has been displaced by political, rhetorical nonsense.\u00a0 Media, including \u201cthe Arts\u201d\u2014their own kind of \u201cmedia\u201d\u2014for the most part: titilate, inundate, reiterate, eviscerate and regurgitate!\u00a0 They don\u2019t educate, certainly don\u2019t elevate.\u00a0 Whether it\u2019s a TV \u201canchor,\u201d late-night mouthpiece \u201chost,\u201d Hollywood predator-producer, or some other hyped-on-self-importance android\u2026for the most part the name of the game is degrade and evade.\u00a0 Students at the \u201cbest\u201d universities do not learn \u201chow\u201d to think, but \u201cwhat\u201d to think.\u00a0 Techno-humans (and non-humans) displace the extended family, the nuclear family, the individual, et. al..<\/p>\n

It takes most of us a long time to \u201cdiscern\u201d: to put the puzzle pieces together, to vet ideas and notions, weigh, observe and correlate.\u00a0 Do people still read books?\u00a0 Is there time?\u00a0 I finally got around to reading Upton Sinclair\u2019s \u201cThe Jungle\u201d last year!\u00a0 (One upsetting, unsettling capsule of a lesson learned: \u201cAdulteration\u201d!\u2014of food, of truth.\u00a0 It\u2019s been an egregious, omnipresent fact of life since Sinclair\u2019s time\u2026and before\u2026.)\u00a0 I still haven\u2019t read \u201cWar and Peace\u201d!\u00a0 Much as I like Mark Twain for work like \u201cThe Mysterious Stranger,\u201d isn\u2019t it time for our public schools to replace \u201cTom Sawyer\u201d with \u201cThe Jungle\u201d?\u00a0 Might we replace \u201cJulius Cesar\u201d with Brecht\u2019s \u201cMother Courage and Her Children\u201d?\u00a0 Could we be a little more \u201crelevant\u201d?)<\/p>\n

Life is short; and the grains of sand flow ever-faster through the hour-glass, and the algorithms now reach \u201cconclusions\u201d before we passing mortal beings can even stammer out a premise.\u00a0 What are our \u201chuman\u201d values now?\u00a0 The very notions of \u201chumanity\u201d and \u201cThe Humanities\u201d seem fading flowers.<\/p>\n

One idea still lingers: after the vetting, and the discernment and recognition of the pain of \u201cdisplacement\u201d–the idea of \u201cintegration\u201d remains.<\/p>\n

After the old monuments are dismantled, what new monuments can we assemble?\u00a0 Do I have the right to destroy a man or woman\u2019s pride in his\/her heritage because it differs radically from my understanding?\u00a0 Does that \u201cother\u201d have a right to destroy my pride?\u00a0 Where are the teachers to help us understand our history, to help us reconcile our differences; to help us recognize who we are, who we have been, who we may become?<\/p>\n

It is not a dreamy, nationalist, \u201cmelting-pot\u201d fantasy we\u2019ve nurtured, about forming a \u201cgreater Union\u201d\u2014as Lincoln had it.\u00a0 (Shall we tear down the Lincoln Memorial or blow up Mt. Rushmore?\u00a0 The greatest mass-hanging in American history was ordered by \u201crail-splitter!\u201d and \u201cIndian-fighter!\u201d President Lincoln, when hungry, destitute and desperate Sioux \u201cIndians\u201d wandered off their open-air-prison-\u201creservation\u201d to gather food for their starving families.\u00a0 Over 30 hanged in a few shivering moments.\u00a0 A spectacle to teach them kind their place!)<\/p>\n

Whom shall we lionize; whom condemn?\u00a0 While victorious and prosperous Americans were jitter-bugging during the \u201cRoaring Twenties,\u201d German children were starving in the streets\u2026and their parents prayed for a \u201csavior\u201d!\u00a0 Who is \u201cinnocent\u201d; who is \u201cguilty\u201d?\u00a0 What generation has been free of folly\u2026or delusions of grandeur\u2026or solipsistic violence?\u00a0 Is the pain of disenfranchised Palestinian children less keen than the \u201cnever-forgotten\u201d pain of the Jewish holocaust?\u00a0 Is that holcaust less terrible, or more terrible, than the holocausts of North and South American native peoples\u2026, or those holocausts in Ukraine under Stalin, or in Russia during World War II when 20 million died; and Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Dresden?\u00a0 Their embers burn in our hearts evermore.<\/p>\n

Not a greater \u201cnation-state\u201d to win the competitive economic battles ahead\u2014and possible sanguinary battles\u2014with an emergent China, a peristent Russia, or some new alliance based on the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) or OBOR (\u201cOne Belt, One Road\u201d\u2014China\u2019s own super-version of the American rail system that knit our land-empire together, and our Interstate highways that changed our culture forever)!\u00a0 Nein!\u00a0 Nyett!\u00a0 No!\u00a0 <\/em>We need a greater Eureka <\/em>vision now!<\/p>\n

When I think about \u201cintegration\u201d it is Martin Luther King\u2019s words that I hear\u2014about \u201call God\u2019s children\u201d being \u201cfree at last.\u201d\u00a0 That is the \u201cfreedom\u201d and \u201cintegration\u201d of a greater vision, a greater calling.\u00a0 But, how can there be \u201cfreedom\u201d without knowledge, without understanding?\u00a0 (\u201cWhere shall wisdom be found?\u201d Job wondered.\u00a0 \u201cWhere is the place of understanding?\u201d\u00a0 And, a long time after, \u201cThe Preacher\u201d pondered: \u201cIn much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.\u201d\u00a0 And yet, he pondered: \u201cA wise man\u2019s heart discerneth both time and judgment.\u201d)<\/p>\n

On this tiny, threatened planet–this electron whirling around our flash-bulb-sun–can we possibly transcend to a higher vision\u2014a Carl Sagan\/Archimedes kind of vision of that miniscule \u201cblue-dot\u201d of Earth in a spiraling galaxy? Transcend to a sensibility that courageously vets ideas and concepts rationally, educates our children honestly, and recognizes\/discerns the pain we have inflicted by displacement, \u201cdeplorable\u201d put-downs, and our ignorance and prejudices?<\/p>\n

Can we rectify the names (as Kung Fu-tzu\/Confucius taught)?\u00a0 Can we correlate, and balance the equations? Judge between real gold and fool\u2019s gold?\u00a0 Is it too late?\u00a0 Is it time to give up?<\/p>\n

Then, who will tell the children?<\/p>\n

______________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Dr. Gary Steven Corseri is a m<\/em>ember of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment.<\/a> He<\/em> has published and posted articles, fiction and poems at hundreds of venues, including,<\/em> TMS (Transcend Media Service<\/a>)<\/a>, The New York Times, Village Voice, Redbook Magazine and<\/em> Counterpunch.\u00a0 He has published 2 novels and 2 collections of poetry, and his dramas have been produced on<\/em> PBS-Atlanta and elsewhere.\u00a0 He has performed his poems at the Carter Presidential Library and Museum and has taught in universities in the US and Japan, and in US public schools and prisons.\u00a0 Contact: Gary_Corseri@comcast.net<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As with most good, apocryphal stories\u2014the parables in the Bible, for example\u2014there are grains of truth, lessons to be vetted and discerned\u2014pieces to be integrated into the bigger puzzle. Here\u2019s the story\/myth: Hiero, the local tyrant, suspects a goldsmith of replacing a measure of gold with silver in a golden crown. Hiero contacts Archimedes to verify his suspicions. But\u2026, how?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":84067,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}