Comment on the recent Cleveland kidnapping story.

Click to enlarge: Cleveland kidnapping suspect Ariel Castro.

Neighbors and news outlets have been consumed with the objective normalcy that hid a decade of abuse and unalterably damaged three young girls and their families.

We're hearing again about how unexpected the discovery was, of unspeakable abuse, of heroes, of Stockholm Syndrome, and of a self-preserving communal apathy that allows such things to happen (ie, we jealously mind our own business).

But tell me, how do you distinguish normal behavior that conceals criminal activity from normal behavior that doesn't?

This difficulty doesn't surprise me; criminals are clever, that's how they get away with criminal activity for so long.

 

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Click to enlarge: Which one of these things is not like the others? A real puppy nestled among very similar stuffed animals.

We have difficulty distinguishing the fundamental differences among things that superficially look alike and may even appear identical - cults and religions,[1] dictators and presidents, a helio-centric universe and an earth-centered universe, cures and miracles, etc, and this cognitive reality has created a modern mess in which those who full well know the difference purposely confuse matters by misapplying words and labels to manipulate listeners (comparing George W Bush to Hitler, eg).

(One has to ask, if we truly cannot detect a difference, is there a difference? Yes, of course, just as there is a difference between a Ptolemaic universe and a Copernican universe. Yet despite our understanding, the sun's behavior in the sky remains the same. The more refined your detection and reason, the greater your insight.)

[2013-05-08]

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[1]
A recent TV ad promoting an upcoming documentary on cults (on The History Channel, IIRC), threw in a picture of Billy Graham, the single exception to a collection of other figures we typically associate with cult leaders (mass suicides, brainwashing, etc).

Some would agree there is no difference, but if so, they're just not looking hard enough, and actually expressing an opinion, not an observation.

Someone probably included Graham's pictures just for fun to see if they'd get a reaction. That's one of the problems: Serious examination of serious subjects is hampered by doing incendiary things like this. What good comes of insulting part of your audience from the git-go? It only tells anyone paying attention that you're not taking it seriously.

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Sufficiently large communities must at some point trust experts.

Click to enlarge: The wisdom of crowds: It has been repeatedly shown that given a few conditions that ensure the free exchange of information, groups of people will come closer to good decisions than individuals within those groups.

That goes for everything from healthcare to theology.

Human understanding long ago increased to a point where it became impossible to know everything. In large societies, this means we must trust experts who understand bits and pieces enough to direct the rest of us in decision making.

Expert advice will sometimes be wrong, but a large community with a sufficient number of experts reviewing each others' work will keep those mistakes to a minimum and create rules around how errors and corrections are handled.

If that system is removed, there are no rules guarding our mutual welfare.

A medical example:
If you wish to believe that blood transfusions are morally wrong, you are free to do so (for yourself). Your community will let you die because you believe this. The rules about when and how to safely collect blood, store it, and perform a transfusion, cannot save you. Those things will save millions of others, but they will not save you.

A philosophical example:
Why do we have thousands of Protestant denominations? Because a few folks decided they could determine theological truth themselves. In reality, all that means is each of those thousands of Protestant denominations acts as its own little universal church, in much the same way the Catholic church did and still does today.

[2013-03-13]

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Martin Luther

Why the Reformation Got it Wrong

Because most "reformers" didn't understand or underestimated the principle I just wrote about above.[1]

Rather than assent to a governing Christian body, they chose individual interpretations, and thereby opened the door to more competing individual interpretations with no consensual review to govern their shape or growth. (That last part is important; it's not the new ideas that are problematic, but how they are reviewed and adopted).

Everyone thinks they know better than the next guy, that goes for you and me both, but one of us is often wrong, and in large communities, decisions outside consensus can be dangerous.

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I am of course speaking in the context of a free society that allows the open exchange of both popular and unpopular ideas. This is akin to requiring an open system to observe entropy.

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BTW, my private interpretation can exist alongside (or among or inside) larger ideas I share with others. I'm not advocating we all conform to some dilution of common denominators.

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[1]
The Church (the one and only at the time) was then going through renewal. It's very likely that the same spirit of renewal that led Luther and others to challenge the Church was also renewing it. So the same sincere spiritual reassessment may have been responsible for both the Reformation and for strengthening Rome.

Both Protestants and Catholics may have undergone what we called a "revival" when I was boy.

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Bloom County Hospital

Click to enlarge: One of Berk Breathed's best, a "Bloom County" Sunday strip on hunting liberals. I read Bloom County every day and felt its departure as keenly as I did Calvin's and Hobbes', which is to say, I miss them.

People will look at you funny for no other reason than because you believe something they don't, often applying a thin veneer of "I thought you were smarter than that."

I once frequented electronic BBS's (bulletin boards) in the days of 300 baud modems and Internet over telephone lines. (If you don't know what a BBS is, think of it as big IM site in which you used a monitor and keyboard instead of a smart phone[1]. They were essentially chat rooms and file sharing communities).

So one day I arrive at new BBS, log in, and someone asks me where I spend most of my online time. I reply "Bloom County Hospital," which was a BBS run by a Christian guy in town (Glenn Morton I think was his name). It was up 24/7, well-maintained, and a gateway to Fidonet.[2] Glenn's religion had nothing to do with it initially, though once I discovered he was a Christian, we became friends while he lived in town.

So the fellow I'd just replied to responds, "Oh, one of _those_" (with underscores, which in BBS days meant italics).

I asked him what he meant. He hemmed and hawed and I eventually gave the impression that Bloom County was for losers.

I don't tell this story to make a point or prove something; you either care or don't already.

I share it because this space is occasionally nothing more than my autobiography and I'm leaving a bit of digital DNA for those that might care someday, a long time from now, when no one is around to talk about electronic bulletin boards.


[2013-03-22]

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[1]
I used the free BlueWave reader which let you download your messages, read and reply offline, then connect and upload. In those days, your connection was a telephone land line, and most folks used the same line for data and talking, so you had to log on, get your mail, and log off, so you didn't tie up the line.

Imagine that.

I also paid for and used a very nice program called WinQWK. Electronic BBS's used the QWK mail packet format for exchanging messages. WinQWK was an excellent reader and had many of the features you still find in use today in programs like Outlook.

[2]
Fidonet allowed email traffic to and from the Internet. With the right configuration and a few dollars to Glenn (because the gateway cost him money), I was able to use WinQWK to send Internet email.

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I think God grades on a curve.

Click to enlarge: Classic IQ bell curve. Click here for the IQs of famous people > (George W's has to be an error. From most accounts I've read, IQ usually correlates to linguistic aptitude.)

When it comes to speculating where one will spend eternity, evangelicals tend to cut lot of slack to folks with limited intelligence. In the tradition I grew up in (GARB Baptist), I frequently heard adults speculate that God spares babies and the feeble minded who die without making a decision for Christ, holding them accountable only insofar as they are able to understand.

I like this idea.

Of course, intelligence is a sliding scale. Can we then say that a person with an IQ of 100 (average) is less accountable than one of 160 (Einstein)?[1]

Possibly.

If so, there is a set of expectations that accompany the gifts we bring with us into this world. Eg, there are different expectations for an Einstein than a beauty contestant.


Uhhh...what did she just say?? Miss Teen South Carolina 2007

 

It takes courage to profess something that appears childish and foolish to others, even in the company of tolerant peers (because we are also listening to ourselves and we know how we sound).

[2012]

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[1]
I use the IQ scale for he sake of discussion. There are many other influences that can interfere with a person's ability to make informed decisions.

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You hear a lot in a grocery store.

Click to enlarge: Vintage Lucky Charms box. This is how the General Mills Lucky Charms leprechaun appeared when I was a child.

1
[Man talking about abortion to a woman]
"I wish I could kill people I didn't want around. You'd be the first to go."

[202-10-25]

 

2
[Teenager singing]
   Oscar Mayer wieners,
   they're offal-y delicious.

(Sung to the tune of the "Lucky Charms" jingle...)

[5/8/2013]

 

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Say something else in that ear.

"You can make an awful lot of money looking like everyone else. Just ask everyone imitating Apple.

You can make even more money being yourself. Just ask Apple.

You also fall harder and faster alone, but at least you are yourself.[1]"
--Clarence 0ddbody


[2012-08-10]

 

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[1]
Just ask Apple? Not today, but eventually.

One of my favorites quotes:

"For over a thousand years Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of triumph, a tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeters, musicians and strange animals from conquered territories, together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments. The conquerors rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. Sometimes his children robed in white stood with him in the chariot or rode the trace horses. A slave stood behind the conqueror holding a golden crown and whispering in his ear a warning: that all glory is fleeting."
- Gen. George C. Patton

Read those words while listening to this:

Patton End Titles (1970)
 

Patton was one of Dad's favorite movies. I bought it for him on VHS as a Christmas gift and he watched it over and over.

 

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