Scientists often object to the concept of God on the grounds that it explains the universe too easily: You can’t see how it “works.” God is a contextual Theory of Everything. But a reductionist Theory of Everything suffers from the same problem. The physicist’s belief that the mathematical laws of a Theory of Everything really do govern every aspect of the universe is very like a priest’s belief that God’s laws do. The main difference is that the priest is looking outward while the physicist looks inward. Both are offering an interpretation of nature; neither can tell you how it works.Jack Cohen and Ian StewartThe Collapse of Chaos: Discovering Simplicity in a Complex World
“My god,” I said, staring at the headline. “Kim, listen to this.”
It was Monday evening, around dusk. That time of day when afternoon blends like cream into nightfall’s coffee; when the pressures of the day gently subside, slowly replaced by the pressures of the night.
I had nothing to do on Tuesday. I decided I deserved the night off. There’s an intoxicating sense of freedom that comes on the evening before a day away from responsibilities. When all is said and done, the night before is the real time off. Sundays are only sort of free; you have to go to bed early, maybe do homework. If you’re one of those people, you have to go to church. And besides, weekends are usually housework days. Cleaning, laundry, repair, lawn, grocery shopping. Some day off.
But today was a real day off. There was nothing I had to worry about. The work I’d done that day just lifted away as I sat there in the living room with Kim, reading the newspaper. I was in the recliner, my blue journal and a pen asleep on the small table in front of me. I’d done some writing earlier, but after several awkward starts I threw in the towel.
Now I wanted to let my mind be empty, to enjoy the sense of nullity that could come with a day of vacation. Kim was headed in the same direction, I knew, but even more so — she had Tuesdays and Wednesdays off. She was stretched out on the sofa, reading a book.
She looked over at me. “What?”
“Two kids were shot to death in Littleton, Colorado,” I said. “In a Subway.”
“Littleton has a subway system?”
“No, the restaurant.”
“Oh.”
“Check this out.” I read from the news report. “‘I hope it was just a robbery,’ said one of Kunselman’s co-workers. . . . ‘I’ve had more than enough of this. This stuff needs to stop.’ How bizarre is that? To be hoping that a friend of yours was killed because of a robbery.”
“If it’s better than the alternative. . . .”
“That’s so horrible,” I said, and read some more. “Hmm. They listed all these things that have happened since the Columbine shootings, and then this guy who went to the scene of the killing to bring flowers said: ‘Every week, there's something that happens here. . . . This is supposed to be a normal community.’”
“Phh,” Kim said. “There’s no such thing.”
“What do you mean?”
“What is a ‘normal community?’ Is it a perfect little suburb where soccer moms take their kids around in minivans and cheerful dads come home after a long day at the office and play with their children and everyone grows up happy, respecting each other and loving everything? Please. That doesn’t exist. It’s a fairy tale.
“When the massacre first happened,” she went on, “what was the first thing out of the mouths of everyone there?” She looked up at me.
I blinked. “What?”
“‘How could this have happened here?’” she said, with mock hysteria. “‘This is such a nice community. What went wrong? Littleton is normal. This is a normal school. This isn’t supposed to happen here.’ Which means, of course, that it’s supposed to happen somewhere. The kids and parents are used to hearing about this sort of thing. But not where they live. Black and latino kids have gang fights; we’re used to hearing about that. But rich white kids aren’t supposed to shoot each other. That’s an abnormality. More fairy tales. It’s as if we’re saying that the rationale and mindset behind the use of violence reaches some of our kids, but not others.
“Well, which is worse? To believe that this is intentional, or not? Which is more horrifying? To say that we teach all kids that violence is okay, and some kids understand that we don’t really mean it, and some don’t? Or to say that our society purposely teaches some kids that violence is okay, so that they take each other out, and shows other kids — the kids in the ‘normal’ communities — that violence is not acceptable? Frankly, I don’t know which scenario is more frightening.”
“Which do you think it is?” I asked.
“I don’t think it’s either of them,” she said. “It’s not about normal or not normal communities; like I said, there’s no such thing. Normal is about standards, typical states. Normal means what’s usual. Well, in our world, violence is usual. It’s very usual. More than that, even. It’s the trump card. It’s how things get done. It’s like Mao said: ‘Power grows from the barrel of a gun.’”
“But there are other kinds of power.”
“Sure there are. But none are more efficient, more final, more certain than violence. And perhaps more importantly, none have been used as much through history as violence.”
I had closed the paper. “So are you saying there’s an inherent tendency in humans toward violence?”
She smiled and shook her head. “Not at all. But we’re very quick to use it, and it’s what most people see in the world. It’s the way decisions are made. If two countries have a dispute, they go to war. If two men in a bar disagree, chances are they’ll fight about it.”
“Yeah, but a lot of people go to court instead, or settle the problem peacefully.”
“True. But that’s a very recent development. And besides, it’s often seen as a coward’s solution. Can’t stand up for yourself? Go run to the cops. That’s the main idea of our modern era — standing up for oneself, being self-reliant, defending one’s home and family. Or in some cases, one’s gang, or street or what have you. Someone who can do those things — and it requires violence — is considered a ‘real’ man. It’s usually about manhood, although lots of women are giving into that idea now, too. You have to be able to stand up for yourself, or you’re spineless, you’re weak. This usually takes the form of bloodless power plays, but behind it rests the lever of violence.”
“How do you mean?”
“Let’s take the boss and the worker. If you’re a worker, and you constantly let the boss dump on you, you’ll start to feel bad about yourself. It doesn’t help, of course, that your co-workers are probably also giving you shit about not standing up for yourself. So you can have a power struggle with your boss, where you make him look stupid every now and then, or make jokes about his wife (or husband, if it’s a woman), or whatever. But the boss can respond by cutting your hours, or lowering your wage. After all, the boss is the one in charge. If things really come to a head, you can get fired. And there’s nothing you can do about that. Because if you refuse to leave, the boss can have the police come and escort you out. After all, it’s their property.
“Which brings us to the key point about the use of violence: It’s usually used by the wealthy to keep the folks below quiet. The police, for all their good work in building community and keeping the streets safe, are mainly there to protect the property of the people who own the country. If you don’t own anything, the police aren’t likely to be on your side.”
“But they just enforce the laws,” I said.
“Right. And who wrote the laws? Look, don’t get me wrong. There are a lot of laws that have been established to protect the rights of poor people. But that came from long and — ironically enough — violent struggle. What you end up with is a system that provides recourse for people who don’t own a lot, but is still based on the idea that those who own the place make the rules. And how come they own the place?”
“Well, they say property is theft.”
“Right, exactly. Someone had to say, once upon a time, ‘This is mine.’ They were probably talking about land. Land, incidentally, that had the best resources: food, metal, whatever. Well, enforcing that requires the use of violence. Because someone’s going to try to challenge you on it. They’ll say, ‘No, it isn’t. It’s mine.’”
“Maybe they’ll say ‘This land belongs to all of us, you can’t claim it.’”
She nodded. “Maybe. But not too many people are willing to die for that. Especially if there’s another plot of land nearby that will work as well for such a purpose. Either way, you eventually get a bunch of people who all claim to own parts of the land. And some parts are more bountiful than others. And some parts have better shelter. And maybe one part of the land is considered ‘holy.’ So everyone claims to own that part. But when all is said and done, it’s all just made up.”
“It’s totally arbitrary.”
“Yeah. Whoever has the biggest stick wins. Might makes right. That’s what kids learn. That’s what we teach ourselves to believe. And just as important, we teach ourselves that there’s no other way things could possibly be. We learn that the way things are is the way things must be. And as a boon to the system, we learn that the current structure works so well that any different path would be a disaster. We have to keep going the way we’re going, or the world will come to an end.”
I gestured to the article. “Sometimes it seems like the world is coming to an end.”
She smiled. “Exactly.”
“Is it?” The paper was closed now. We moved around as we talked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t think I have access to enough evidence — I don’t think anyone does — to say. There’s probably as much evidence for as there is against. In either case, that’s really just a figure of speech. ‘The world’s coming to an end.’ We don’t really mean that a careful assessment of the available factors suggests a trend in that direction.”
“Some people do.”
“Yeah, okay. They do. But they’re just imposing their vision of the world on what’s around them. A vision, by the way, that suits their political or religious or social agenda very well. Besides, what does it mean for the world to come to an end? Do you mean the planet Earth will ceast to exist? Or that humankind will be eliminated? Or just that our institutions will crumble and dissolve? The questions you ask make a big difference in the answers you get.”
“Sure they do. But we all do that, don’t we? We’re all just looking for the truth that underlies it all. To see the objective reality that’s behind the processes around us.”
She shook her head vigorously. “No,” she said. “There’s no such thing. If that’s what you’re shooting for, you’re wasting your time.”
“You don’t think there’s such a thing as truth?” I asked.
“Look,” she said. “The only order that exists in the universe is the one we dream up for it. It’s all just an imposed order. That’s all religion is. Same with the grand unification theory. And all this stuff we’ve got nowadays about angels. Things happen for reasons, but the reasons don’t make sense in any ultimate framework. If it seems like they do, that’s just because the reasons in question are convenient for that framework. If you do something wrong, and then something bad happens to you, that’s not God’s hand or karma — it’s a coincidence! Period. Did you ever read Philip K. Dick’s book VALIS?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“Do you remember that part about the cat? Why did it get killed? Because it got hit by a car. Why did it get hit by a car? Because it was in the street at the same time as a car. Why? Only the cat knows. Maybe it was chasing a bird. Maybe it was running windsprints. We can dream up a beautiful and plausible design for how the universe operates, but when it comes right down to it, it just does. It does what it does, without regard to morality or justice or even life itself. Fuck life. Life doesn’t mean a thing to this universe. It doesn’t care if we live or die.”
“So then why shouldn’t I kill you right now?”
She raised a finger. “Ah. Why, indeed?”
“Well?” I asked.
“Because being dead not only cuts me off from any future actions I may have wanted to take, but it causes untold misery and suffering among my friends and family.”
“And the action may come back to haunt me. Or your friends and family might seek revenge.”
“Let’s say it doesn’t, and they don’t. So what? Is the prevention of misery not worthwhile in itself?”
“Of what intrinsic value is the prevention of misery?” I asked. “Especially if it means discomfort — or misery — for me?”
“There’s nothing intrinsically valuable about it,” she said. “Not for you. But that value’s relative. You always have to put yourself in the other person’s shoes. Into other people’s.”
“But why? What good will it do me? If my success is based on doing whatever I need to do, then putting myself in their shoes will only set me back.”
“Well, that all depends on what you mean by success.”
“Reaching my goals.”
“Which are?”
“The main one is: Be happy. Content — not just mindlessly joyous. At peace.”
“Those are all very different things. But then the question is: What do those things require?”
“Sometimes they require my not thinking of others.”
“Why?”
“Because resources are scarce. Someone wants to take my land. Like you said.”
She waved a hand. “Nonsense. There are enough resources for everyone. It may require us to cut down on the number of SUVs and diamond rings in the world, but it is possible for humans to reach a sustainable balance with the planet.”
“How about with each other?”
She nodded. “That’s a little trickier, but it’s possible.”
“Fine then. Let’s approach it from another direction. How can I feel at peace when I have so much and others have so little? How can I sleep at night if I’m thinking of starving kids?”
“What should you be doing besides sleeping?”
“Working to get food to them.”
“But it’ll never be enough.”
“You just said—”
“No, I mean that you’ll be up against tremendously powerful institutions that are designed to keep the kids hungry. You’re one person. You can spend your nights without sleep, trying to get food to starving kids. But you’re swimming upstream.”
“Well, that all depends on how much food I can get. Besides, I’ll know I did what I could.”
“But maybe you could do more the next day if you were well-rested.”
“That’s a rationalization.”
“No, it’s the big picture.”
“Does the little picture count at all?”
“Of course it does — that’s all we have in the present tense. But it’s not all there is. And we have the ability to pause and look at the big picture.”
I nodded. “Yeah, but we also have the ability to abuse the big picture.”
“Of course we do. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t see it. The possibility of arson shouldn’t eliminate campfires.”
I paused. “But isn’t the big picture just another kind of imposed order? How much proof is there that your big picture is correct, and the New Testament is wrong?”
“Because,” she said. “It’s cause and effect, with statistics and reality. It’s a science.”
“But Christians claim the same things about the Bible. Try to convince Billy Graham that God’s not real. His God.”
“Sure he’s real. To Billy Graham. Again, it’s relative.” She scratched her nose. “It’s also a delusion.”
“Well, maybe this big picture of yours is a delusion too.”
“Yeah, maybe it is.”
I nodded and smirked.
“But if you can prove that it is,” she said, “I’m willing to admit it.”
“Billy Graham would say the same thing.”
“Yeah, but how do you prove that God isn’t real? You can’t prove to me that the tooth fairy doesn’t exist. Besides, if my big picture is a delusion, then that means that those starving kids are a delusion, too.”
“Not necessarily. Because there are starving kids in the New Testament. The question is, what’s behind them? Why are they there?”
“And what does the New Testament say about that? It says: ‘Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.’ There will always be poor people. Fuck that!”
“Well, there are all kinds of big pictures. And who’s to say that one is more valid than another?”
“Because one says that horrible suffering is okay — notice it’s not usually preached by those who are doing the suffering, but that’s another story — and one says it’s not only unacceptable, but completely unnecessary.”
“That’s a value judgment.”
“Sure it is. And I’m making it. But it’s a judgment based on human lives, and pain, and justice. Not on some arbitrary system of morality that comes from a really old book.”
“The more you talk about this big picture, the more it sounds like a religion.”
“It’s not—”
“Okay, okay. It sounds like an imposed system of order.”
“It’s not. It’s an image, an idea. That’s all. It doesn’t go off and explain all sorts of things, and it certainly doesn’t speculate as to why things are the way they are.”
“But we can make some educated guesses in that direction, can’t we? I mean, kids are starving because they don’t have access to food. Right?”
She nodded. “And why don’t they have access to food?”
“Because wealthy people don’t want to give up their opulent lifestyles.”
“They’re greedy.”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
“Fine. And why are they greedy?”
“Because. . . .” I hesitated.
She nodded. “See, that’s where we hit the snag. There are all kinds of reasons why people are the way they are. And it makes some sense to try to figure out what those reasons are. But there’s no one answer to it all.”
“Look,” I said. “Our actions have consequences. Even far-reaching consequences. So far that we can’t really predict them. But as far as we can, we need to be aware of them.”
“Fine. No one’s arguing that.”
“And for those we can’t see, we have to make an educated guess.”
“Why?”
“Because—”
“Look,” she said. “Don’t we have our hands full already, looking at what we can see? Why do we have to go around worrying about things we can’t see? You get preachers more worried about the eternal soul of the homeless guy than the fact that the guy’s starving to death. Fuck that!”
“Okay, but it sounds like you’re trying to say that we can’t see some things. What about analyzing systems and institutions?”
“What about it?”
“Is it worthless?”
“Who said it was?”
“Order is meaningless, you said. It doesn’t exist.”
“In the universe, I said. Big, grandiose order. Grand unification doesn’t exist. What’s the ultimate equation for a huge cauldron of soup? There isn’t one! It’s just a bunch of broth and carrots and hunks of meat. The same is true of the universe. There’s no invisible men or women in the clouds.”
“But there’s a city council that controls the city.”
“Most of it, yes.”
“Who are they?”
“I don’t know, but I can look their names up in the record books. I can call their offices. I can touch them.”
“So what?”
“So they exist to my five senses.”
“And anything that doesn’t?”
“Doesn’t exist. It’s the extension of our imagination, designed to comfort us.”
“So there’s no such thing as happiness?”
She narrowed her eyes. “TouchŽ. But of course there are emotions. There is love. There are feelings we have that instruct our actions. What there is not, is an order that assigns us those emotions. There is chaos, there is history, and there is social pressure. But no energies running through us, no auras, no destiny assigned by the cosmos.”
“Suppose we use that as a shorthand for chaos, for history, for social pressure,” I said. “Add them up and you’ve got this thing — call it what you want.”
“I’ll call it each of the constituent parts, because they exist. Auras don’t. The power of Aquarius in Jupiter doesn’t.”
“But suppose there’s an emergent quality to this thing. It’s greater than the sum of its parts. Happens all the time. Can’t we say that that’s the divine? The part we can’t explain: That’s the will of the universe.”
“It’s an artificial explanation for something that doesn’t have one.”
“Suppose there is an explanation, and we just don’t know it yet.”
“Fine, then it’s a substitute for the truth until we figure it out. Cavemen invented scary monsters to explain thunder.”
“And didn’t it serve some purpose?”
“Sure. It let the smarter cavemen lead the dumber ones around by the nose.”
“But I’m not talking about following some external mandate. I’m talking individualized existence and its teachings for wisdom, for higher thinking. Getting into the big picture. So what if people in 4629 decide the emergent quality is the result of a mistake in our math? All I can deal with is what I have here, now. Just like you said. So I call the emergent quality God. What skin is it off your back?”
“Because if you drive over a cat, you’ll say it was the fault of the emergent quality.”
“No, I won’t. I’ll say I wasn’t watching where I was going.”
“Most people won’t.”
“I’m not talking about most people. I’m talking about me.”
“Look, you want to convince yourself that anything we can’t explain is Divine, you go ahead. But don’t believe it means that’s why those kids in Littleton got killed. The only reason we start these debates is to reassure ourselves when tragedy comes. ‘Why do bad things happen to good people?’ What a fucking joke! Like being good is supposed to provide immunity to tragedy. It happens. Deal with it. It has always happened, and it will always happen. So just prepare for it, and help others do the same. And be there for others to whom it has already happened. Because if you ask ‘why’ and don’t get the answer you want, then what the fuck will you do?”
“That’s so cold.”
“No, it’s not!” She was screaming. “That’s burning love, brewed from the fucking depths of my soul! It’s the love that came to me from my friends when my father died! It’s the love that I got from my family when my friend Jonathan died! It’s the love that I got when I broke my leg. It’s real, it’s immediate. It comes when we need it, and we should be ready with it when it’s needed. Not only if the person’s ‘good’ or looks like us or has a dick or uses it for the ‘right’ reasons or lives in a ‘normal’ community. It’s unconditional love. It’s grounded in the undiminished understanding that this love benefits the giver as well as the receiver, but it’s not selfish, and it’s not designed only to feed that urge. It says that misery and pain and tragedy and death are inevitable and unavoidable, so we’d better prepare to meet them head-on. Right now. This second. What would you say to me if the reaper suddenly appeared beside you?”
I stammered. I couldn’t think of what to say.
“What would you say?”
“I don’t—”
“You’d say he was greater than the sum of his parts.”
“So is there any way to answer the question, ‘Why am I here?’” I asked.
“Because,” she said. “On any other planet you wouldn’t stand a chance.”
“No, I mean here. In this skin.”
“Because your parents had sex.”
“No, I mean—”
“You mean why are you in the position you’re in? Why do you have the resources you do? Why are you human and not a dog? What’s your divine purpose? What part of The Plan do you play? Look, you have a purpose on Earth only so long as you believe there’s an order to the universe.”
“There may not be one in the universe, but there’s one on the planet.”
“Oh, yeah? Who’s in charge of it?”
“The IMF, the World Bank, the WTO, the UN, the CIA, McDonald’s, Kodak, Wal-Mart, McDonnell-Douglas, GE. . . .”
She chuckled. “In that order? Okay, so you’re here to work. Sell your mind for eight hours a day. Providing the labor laws don’t slip anymore.”
“But there are alternative world orders being established. Like you said, there are other ways the world could be.”
“What, you’re gonna go join Hezbollah?”
“No, I’ll join the Labor Party. Or an intentional community.”
“Have fun. Write when you get work.”
“Are you saying they’re not viable alternatives?”
“You started out asking me what your purpose was. Is. You seem to have a pretty good idea already.”
“I have some ideas, but no definite sense.”
“What, you want some giant in a greet robe to tell you what the future holds?”
“Look, we have to connect ourselves with something bigger than ourselves, something larger than just our lives. We belong to traditions.”
“So belong to a tradition. What do you need me for?”
“So let’s say I create an amalgam of the people in the tradition to which I believe I belong. Call it a godhead, call it what you want. It’s not perfect, it just represents the things those people stood for.”
“But sometimes they stand for different things.”
“Fine, then — say it’s the best of those things.”
“Ah ha. And how does this amalgam differ from you?”
“It’s not me. It’s everything I shoot for.”
“A future you.”
“A potential me.”
“Fine. What’s the problem?”
“I’m not like most of them. There are some here and there than I can identify with, but most of them are steeped in other histories.”
“There are no other histories. Things happen, whether we remember them or not, and regardless of whether or not our ancestors were there. They still happen.”
“But they don’t have the same impact as things that are directly tied to us.”
“Granted,” she said. “We’re back to chaos. Small wind, small storm. Big wind, big storm.”
“But a small wind can cause a big storm,” I said. “That’s the truth behind chaos.”
“No,” she said. “A small wind can contribute to a big storm. It’s sheer chutzpah to say you’re going to cause a big storm. Even big winds are only contributing. It’s too mixed up. We’re all just butterflies. Some are bigger than others, but in the end we’re all just the same creatures beating our delicate wings.”
“Some of us have bigger wings.”
“Yes, thanks to luck, hard work, and — in many cases — piles of corpses. But if you stop there you’re an idiot. Yeah, power is distributed along a certain axis. First you have to decide if you’re happy with that setup — where the axis is, how it’s designed.”
“No, first I have to figure out where I am on that axis.”
“No, that comes second. Because individuals can move around on it and the structure won’t change.”
“But maybe I can direct the resources more effectively if I’m higher up.”
“Yeah, maybe. But maybe your individual influence will be insignificant. Maybe it’s the whole system that needs washing out. Restructuring.”
“It’s a crap shoot,” I said. “Which way will yield better results? How can I know? Which one do I pick? How can I measure the net result of my work? Am I even doing the right thing? Why am I here?”
“All you can do is trust yourself,” she said. “Look at the available evidence, and make an intelligent choice. If you look back and decide you made the wrong one, well, there’s nothing you can do. You did the best you could.”
“I can’t stand feeling that way.”
“Yeah, but most people probably do. You always feel like you can do more. Get more done. Save more lives, if that’s what you’re trying to do. Fuck it —Êjust do what you can and be happy with your efforts. Concentrate less on the results (like you said, you can’t really measure them anyway) and focus on your effort. What did you do?”
“But that’s just a way of getting out of effective work. ‘Oh, I’m doing my best, so it doesn’t matter if nothing comes of it.’ Gack.”
“Not at all. Be open to reflection and criticism, of course. Listen to what your conscience and other people tell you about results. Do what you think will do the most good. But in the end, the only one you have to answer to is yourself.”
“And the tradition.”
“Why does the tradition need to pass judgment on us?” she asked.
“Because,” I said. “It’s a legacy that you have to work to be a part of.”
“But I thought the question was one of your own self-conception. So the only test of whether you’re a part of that tradition is: Do you consider yourself to be a part of it?”
“Well, one’s self-conception is key, but it’s not the only thing. There’s an objective examination of the facts that has to take place. I’m not a neurosurgeon just because I say I am. The question is: Does the evidence suggest that I’m skilled in the art of neurosurgery?”
“I’d say it’s more of a science,” she quipped.
“Ha, ha.”
“But you know if you’re skilled or not. Whether I believe you is another matter entirely.”
“Yes, but in order for you to believe me, the facts must bear me out. The same is true for my place in the tradition. I can delude myself just fine. The question is not how I see myself vis-ˆ-vis the tradition, but how the tradition sees me in relation to itself.”
“And how are you supposed to know that?”
“We come back to the amalgam,” I said. “How does this entity view people, and how do I compare with its expectations?”
“So can’t you be deluded about the amalgam just as easily as you can about you?”
“Sure I can, but it’s not as likely. There are infinite mediating factors that we know about ourselves that allow us to convince ourselves that we’re whatever we want to be. We can tell ourselves that we’re not really the way others see us because we know so much more that they never see or hear. But the sense we get of history — and historical figures, and therefore the tradition — is finite. There is a closed set of information that we draw from to understand the past. We can choose to ignore or downplay a fact about someone we admire, but it’s still a fact.”
“So there’s a true state that the past can exist in, but not one for the living?”
“Hmm.” I thought about this. “No, I’d say it this way: We can work only from what is known. For the living, what is known consists of what everyone knows about us, combined with what we know about ourselves. For the dead, it’s only a matter of what’s known about them, combined with their documentation of what they know about themselves. The key to being honest about your idols (and heroes) is being able to incorporate everything that’s known about them into your conception of them as people. And this goes for your relationship to them, too. Can your vision of this person include everything you know about them? If not, then your understanding of them is wrong.
“The same is true about history and society,” I continued. “If you run into a situation or an event that is inconvenient for your worldview, or just doesn’t fit, your worldview may be obsolete. It could be completely, one hundred percent wrong.”
“Or it might just be slightly off.”
“Yes, but consider physics. If one apple, or one aspirin, or one piece of paper — anything — ever fell upward, it would mean that the theory of gravity is completely wrong. It would blow it all to hell.”
“But that’s what the theory of relativity did,” she said. “Only it didn’t blow it all to hell, it encompassed Newton; it engulfed the theory of gravity. It said: ‘That’s kind of how it works, and that holds true under most circumstances, but it’s really just a subset of this theory.’ It was more a modification.”
“Fine. But my point is that if the initial assumptions are flawed, then the final outcome is likely to be wrong. Not likely — it will be wrong. It’s just a matter of how long it takes to become apparent. So when we come to an inconvenient fact, the first question should always be: ‘Could my framework of assumptions be wrong?’ And the the answer should be — it always has to be — yes. You always have to be willing to admit that everything you know and believe is wrong. That’s the essence of having an open mind. If you’re not willing to admit that, you’re just pretending to have an open mind. And really mean it — we can tell each other all day that our minds are open. Only the person himself knows how true that is.”
“So anyway. . . .”
“So anyway, that’s the test of a comprehensive framework of assumptions, of a sensible worldview. The answer is not to disavow any sense of large-scale understanding, but rather to maintain one that is flexible. One that is always able to change and readjust. Not that it should just flex in the wind and point whichever way the wind is blowing. But rather open itself up for all perspectives and try to embody diverse opinion and fact, even that with which you might disagree. Only then does the world make sense.”
“No,” she said. “It doesn’t make sense. It only seems like it. We can find evidence to support our conceptions, but then — bam! — along comes some new bit of evidence that shoots it all to hell. What do you do? Most people just ignore the new evidence. So here comes another one — bam! And if it fits, you’re vindicated. And if not, you ignore that one too. And so on, until you convince yourself the planet is six thousand years old, and angels are flying around downtown.”
“And there’s no middle of the road between being suckered in like that and atheism?” I asked.
“Not one that makes any sense. What, you’re going to believe that there’s an order in the universe, but it’s subject to laws of rationality and logic?”
“Okay, let’s take your athiest view. Suppose something makes me step out of the street moments before a bus comes whizzing by. What do I attribute my good luck to? A neuron in my brain firing at just the right time? Or a gust of wind?”
“Why not attribute it to good luck? What’s wrong with being lucky? Being lucky makes more sense than believing there’s a guardian angel watching over you. Or whatever you call it. Besides, angels only emerge from positive experiences. So where’s your angel while you’re getting mugged?”
“She’s keeping me from getting killed,” I said.
“Oh Christ,” she said. “Okay, fine. Let’s try the opposite. Let’s posit the existence of goblins. Because these angels are supposedly bringing the world to a stable good state — heaven on Earth and all that. Well, the goblins are bringing it to a stable bad state. How about that? So while you’re getting mugged, your guardian goblin is introducing your girlfriend to someone incredibly witty and sexy whom she’ll eventually dump you for. You’re making a decision which one you believe in — angels or goblins. And they’re all just imaginary friends.”
“But that can help!” I insisted. “It can be comforting to embody chaos like that, to put a face on the universe. Who wants to feel like they’re just wandering around in the dark, just randomly having good things or bad things happen to them?”
“Look,” she said. “There’s nothing inherently wrong with imaginary friends. I respect someone who believes in imaginary friends much more than these angel freaks that you meet all the time. Why? Because an imaginary friend isn’t perfect, and they’re not sent down from heaven by God. They’re imperfect. They’re capable of making mistakes.”
“But angels aren’t perfect.” I paused. “Okay, some people say they are. But most people like ‘em just because they’re on our side. They’re in our corner. And in a world where it’s easy to feel like not many people are, that has some value.”
“Sure. It lets us ignore our commonality as people and focus on invisible things perched on our shoulders.”
“But suppose you don’t feel that commonality.”
“Lots of people don’t,” she agreed. “There aren’t too many preachers out spreading the gospel of human similarity.”
“It’s not a very comforting gospel,” I said, “when you look around at all the bad shit happening.”
“Maybe not,” she said. “But it’s the only thing that’ll make things better in the long run.”
“So without a god, how do we get morality?”
“Well, you’re assuming that gods bring morality with them. And they do, to an extent. Each god gives you a set of morals to live by — but each one is different. What makes the morality of Christianity more moral than that of Judaism? Or Hinduism? If there are more Christians, does that make their religion ‘correct?’ Because they killed more heathens? Is the gospel a selfish gene? Or is Christianity correct because its text is older than the text of another religion? And how do other religions come about if there’s one True God? Let’s say we adopt the Islamic line and assume that Allah is the one true god. So if I have a religious experience that isn’t congruent with Islam’s teaching, does that mean that Allah appeared to me, and I misunderstood his message, or that I’m delusional, and only thought I saw Allah?
“Now, if you mean to sidestep this discussion (which is a mistake, in my opinion), we can talk about personal conceptions of god. But how do we craft one of those? What’s to keep us from sculpting one that happens to approve of whatever we’re doing? The point is: With or without a god, our morality comes from our parents.”
“What about orphans? Or children of neglectful parents?”
“Well, let me backtrack,” she said. “There are millions of influences trying to get to us all the time. Parents decide, at the most crucial time, which influences will have access to us. If they’re not around, then other people take on the role — other relatives, social workers, foster parents, nuns, what have you. Teachers play a major role, too. The point is that what we see while we’re first figuring out the world forms the foundation from which we go out and interpret the rest of our lives. Other experiences may allow us to compliment that foundation, or even change it completely, but the elements of our value system are formed in childhood and adolescence.”
“But a lot of kids rebel against the way they’re raised.”
“Well, not completely.”
“Sure they do.”
“No, not really. Not too many kids decide that cannibalism is the way to go.”
“Because they’d go to jail.”
“That’s part of it, but it probably has more to do with the value of human life — however subjective and/or fleeting — that they learn in the early years.”
“Okay. So most of our morality comes from mom and dad.”
“Or mom and mom; or dad and dad; or Uncle Freddie and Aunt Hill.”
“Yeah, yeah. But if they’re not coming from a divinely-inspired set of morals, what are they using?”
“Well, the church is just one source they have for teaching kids about right and wrong. TV is another. Of course there are lots of different TV shows, but most of it’s just mindless entertainment. So kids learn how to be mindless. Then there’s the market — and this probably has more influence than TV and movies and music combined. But it’s never part of the equation.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“There’s no question that the market has its own values and its own morality that it requires of its participants.”
“Values like?”
“Like only the bottom line matters. Like get ahead by any means necessary. Like eat or be eaten. These are things we live. We might never say them explicity, but they are the rules of the game. We may hear about how important it is to be good or else we’ll go to hell. But if your job — meaning food for your kids — requires you to pay workers in Indonesia four dollars a day, then that goodness becomes a lot less relevant. And the same thing is more or less true of crack dealers.
“But the market is a human fiction,” she said, “just like any other. We could be living in a completely different structure if we wanted.”
“Are you a communist?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “This isn’t about what I am or am not, what I prefer or don’t. Maybe I like capitalism. The point is that capitalism has consequences and requires a certain belief structure. And belief structures reproduce through indoctrination. So maybe I spoke too soon when I said the market is stronger that radio and TV and movies. It’s strong partly because it works through those mediums, and in such a way that we don’t even notice it! When was the last movie you saw that mentioned capitalism, good or bad? It’s a nearly invisible way of replicating itself, indoctrinating us without our knowledge.”
“Not all belief structures have to use indoctrination,” I said. “Really good ones can survive on open discussion and debate.”
“Yeah, but they’ll have to defend themselves eventually, because the other belief structures are going to try to silence it, if they can.”
“But there will always be rational people who can keep the rational belief structure alive.”
“Unless they’re all killed.”
I sighed, a long, uneven sigh. I looked up; it was dark now. “So,” I said. “I guess it all comes down to love.”
She scratched her head. “Well, yes and no,” she said.
“What do you mean, yes and no?”
“Okay. There’s no question that love is going to be the salvation of our civilization, if ever there will be one. But at the same time, we shouldn’t think of it as a panacea. It’s not a cure-all. There are some things that love alone won’t fix. If I—”
“Well, of course it’s not just a matter of love,” I said. “What I’m talking about is a suffusing of love into our consciousness. It’s not a cure-all, but without it, everything else is doomed to failure.”
“Yes, but here we have to be careful with what we mean when we say ‘love.’ There’s love between men and women, romantic love.”
“Or women and women, or men and men.”
“Of course. That’s not what we need. There’s plenty of that in the world already. We’re overflowing with that kind of love. What’s needed is love for all humanity. Everyone loves their mother. Most people love their spouses, their kids. But who loves — I mean, really loves — their next door neighbor? Or more importantly, who loves the people across the tracks, who have less in common with them than their neighbors do? Or the people in the next town? Or in another state? Or another country? It’s easy to love the people we live around, but—”
“No it isn’t,” I said. “It’s hard as hell to love the people we live around. I used to hate the guy in the apartment next to mine. He was a shithead.”
“Right. So the question is: Who loves shitheads?” She smiled, but went on. “Seriously. Who loves that guy? And what possible reason could there be for loving him? Maybe your religion guilts you into liking him — love your neighbor, blah blah blah. And maybe there’s an internal motivation. Wanting to feel good about yourself and all that crap. But suppose you don’t feel that way. Maybe you don’t take your religion too seriously. Suppose you’d rather take the path of least resistance and ignore him. Or suppose you get a thrill (maybe one of few in your life) by provoking him. What’s the benefit from love in that situation?”
“Because. It’s the golden rule. Do unto others—”
“Yeah. But again, you’re only doing it because you hope to get the same treatment from him. Suppose, then, that you felt absolutely certain that, despite all the love you show a person, he’ll always treat you like shit. Does it make sense to even bother?”
“Sure it does.”
“Why?” she asked.
I hesitated. For a while.
“It does have to do with reaping and sowing,” she said finally. “But it requires a more complex picture. It can’t just be a matter of doing the right thing — of loving others — because you want it for yourself. It has to be because you want it for everybody. Say you’re dealing with this guy and you’re one hundred percent nasty to him (because you know he’s going to be nasty to you, and you figure there’s no point in going out of your way to be nice). He takes that negativity and feeds off it; it’s the stuff of his day. And he’s probably used to that. So he’s nasty to someone else, and they’re nasty to the bus driver, and the bus driver is nasty to a woman on the bus, and she’s nasty to the mailman, and he’s nasty to his kids.
“But suppose you’re only 90% nasty. We’re at the sliding doors now, the butterfly flapping its wings. Maybe that lower degree of nastiness produces the same feeling in him. But maybe it means he’s just a little less nasty to the other person. And they’re a little nicer to the bus driver, and maybe the woman is at a state where your 100% negative attitude — filtered through all those people — is enough to piss her off, but where she’s able to laugh off a 90% level of nastiness. The question is not only how does the world make you feel, but also: As a member of the world, how do you want to make others feel?”
“Sure I’m a member, but just one of six billion.”
“Well, you’re screaming in the wind, no doubt. But the whisper that comes out can have an effect. The butterfly in New York doesn’t cause the tornado in Japan, but she contributes to it. And depending on the conditions in the system, the beating of her wings may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Some people call it the ‘toppler;’ that last link in a chain of events that causes a big change in the system. The tiny little bit that’s needed for the tornado to develop. That’s the power of our language. That’s the real power we have over each other. Sometimes it’s totally insignificant. But sometimes it’s the toppler.
“And this goes for everything in the world,” she continued. “The amount of love in society, political change, environmental preservation, whatever.”
“If I recycle one piece of paper, it’ll save on tree.”
“Or maybe the demand that your piece of paper satisfies could have been needed to clear-cut a forest.”
“It’s pointless to think that way,” I said. “Besides, the powers that be have more clout that us common folk. A rich butterfly that can afford to buy a big wind-producing machine can bring about more tornadoes in Japan than a butterfly without one. And if the other butterflies don’t want a storm, what can they do?”
“Right,” she replied. “But if three thousand butterflies all beat their wings at the same time, maybe they can cancel the machine out.”
“Probably not.”
“Okay, maybe not. But let’s say the rich butterfly with his windmaking machine provides 6,000 units of wind, and a storm brewing in Japan only needs 3,000 units to become a tornado. So maybe the other butterflies can’t equal his 6,000 units, but if they create 3,500 units, that’s enough to stop the tornado from happening.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But there’s probably another butterfly with another machine pumping out 3,000 more units of his own somewhere else.”
“Fine,” she said. “So long as there’s another group of butterflies flapping together to keep it from mattering. Usually it doesn’t work, because money talks and power concedes nothing without a demand. But on the other hand almost all of the good things that we take for granted — the weekend, for instance — are there because a lot of butterflies were flapping their wings at the same time. They might not look alike, these butterflies, and they probably don’t agree on everything, or even most things. Or maybe they don’t agree on anything else. But in that instance, they got together and flapped their wings in that certain way, and stopped the tornado from happening. And we get to sleep in on Saturday and Sunday as a result. The machines are turned down for a while. But eventually they’ll get turned on again. And then the rest of us have to start flapping again. It never stops. But the flapping has an effect.”
“Yeah, okay. But in keeping with the idea of different perspectives, shouldn’t we be thinking about a whole new system, where the rich butterfly doesn’t have such an unfair advantage? Where the machine doesn’t exist at all?”
“Go ahead. Lemme know how far you get.”
“I might get nowhere. But that doesn’t mean it’s not the right way to act. The most likely outcome isn’t always the best one, or the one we should shoot for. In fact, most of the time the best one is probably the least possible. Or maybe it’s almost impossible. Doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Sometimes we have to reach for the impossible.”
“Sure,” she said. “But if you do that long enough, and never get what you’re reaching for, you’ll burn yourself out. Achieving a victory has other ramifications aside from the fact of the victory itself. It’s an inspiration to other folks moving in the same direction. It’s a motivating factor for those who aren’t involved.”
“So we should choose tiny, easily achieved goals, so as to feel good about our progress.”
“Well, but that’s not progress. It’s just lots of tiny bits of movement. The key is finding a balance between aiming high and keeping one’s feet on the ground. Neither too far nor not far enough shall ye go.”
“Well, who’s to say which is which?”
“It’s a personal question.”
“And one for the tradition,” I said.
“Sure, fine. But then there’s another question. I guess it’s related, in a way. It’s about adhering to principles, and fine-tuning our actions in accordance to them. Nonviolence is a good example. You can aim for a total overthrow of the ruling class, and maybe you’ll get violent Spartacists looking to do the same thing. That’s a lofty goal, and you’re both seeking it out, but if you believe nonviolence is a prerequisite for any revolution you’ll be involved in, you have to make that clear. A revolution isn’t a revolution unless the modes of power are changed. Not just a rearrangement of who’s on top of the system.”
“So you’re saying that a violent revolution isn’t really a revolution.”
“It might be,” she said. “But it probably won’t be, since violence breeds violence, and those who win the war will have to use the same kinds of force and coersion that were used by the old ruling class. It’s just a swap of people, not a change in the way the system works. Either way, that was just an example. What I mean is that without principles behind them, a person’s goals can be used to justify any means they require.”
“So where do those principles come from?”
“Didn’t we already cover this? They develop from the context we live in. So mostly parents, but also the culture at large, what the institutions around us do, and so on. We human beings are incredibly adaptive creatures — we learn how to survive in the midst of whatever situations we find ourselves in. So we’re molded by the people around us.”
“Society’s to blame.”
“Yeah, it is. But since we’re all members in society — and have the ability, however small, to modify it and contribute to its influence — we’re to blame, too. Or, if we’re working against the evil and counteracting it with something good, then we’re to be commended. Each person reflects society and the way they’ve been treated, but they also direct: they determine what other people will reflect. We can’t decide how other people will act, but we can decide what role we’ll play in their lives. What they get from us. And that can matter.”
“So is violence ever justified?”
“Is it?”
“I’m asking you.”
She smiled. “Well, that may not be the right question. Or at least it’s not the first one we should ask.”
“Why not? You just went on and on about principles. Well, what about principled violence?”
“But when you start talking about justified violence, it becomes very easy to suit that justification for your own purposes. Find someone who believes there are some instances where violence is justified, and chances are they’re the exact instances where he would like to use violence. So that’s not the best place to start.”
“So where do we start?”
“The real question is: Where does violence come from? Why do people use violence?”
I shrugged. “Because they don’t see another alternative.”
She nodded. “In some cases, yes. But again, it’s easier to pick up a gun and claim there’s no alternative than it is to really explore and investigate — and make use of — those alternatives. The other question is: Whose violence are we talking about? A woman who kills her abusive husband is using a very different kind of violence than her husband.”
“No she isn’t. She’s just using it for different reasons. It has the same effect.”
“Well, not really. An abusive husband is violent in order to get control and power. He seeks to conquer, to make the woman submissive and to enslave her to him. But when she uses violence in response, she’s seeking freedom from that enslavement. And the same is true of slave revolts, anticolonial uprisings, what have you.”
“But they’re all struggles for power,” I said. “They’re all looking for control.”
“Right. But the dominant forces (battering husbands, oppressive governments, gaybashers) want control over other people. Those fighting back (abused women, colonized people) want control over themselves. And here we come back to the question of a revolution. It can happen that a group fighting for control over itself finds itself fighting for control over other people. Priorities shift, and balances of power change. So the true goal of a revolution, again, is not a new regime that exercises power over the people, but for the people to have power over themselves. Over their own lives. And this requires a different kind of violence, if we can say it’s required. So that’s one question.
“Now then,” she continued, “you mentioned power, and that’s really key here. But power doesn’t exist all by itself. First of all, it’s constantly changing. Those with power now haven’t always had what they have. At times they’ve had less, at times more. And with this constant change comes fear. If you’ve got power, you’re always worried someone’s going to try and take it. Shakespeare was right — there’s no more worried head than the one that wears the crown.”
“Except that nowadays there’s not much power in the crown.”
“Sure. So the Queen of England isn’t worried about folks trying to take the throne. Instead, she’s got the same worries as the non-royal rich people: CEOs and the upper one percent. Car alarms, home security systems, gated communities. Walled off, even! There’s nothing they fear more than someone coming to take their shit. And the scary thing is that this leads them to support policies that leave innocent people dead.
“Let’s say a black man is found walking around in one of these communities at night. The police approach him and for some reason he doesn’t immediately lie down. They shoot him, because they assume immediately that he’s there to swipe their merchandise. And the police are acquitted, because the mandate from the people in charge is clear: None of ‘those people’ are allowed in this part of town without a gardener’s uniform. This paranoid fantasy of members of the underclass coming to loot and pillage is the driving force behind city planning and architecture these days.”
“But it’s not their stuff that people really want,” I said. “It’s power.”
“Sure. But it’s a lot easier to grab a rich man’s BMW than it is to grab his decision-making power. Or his tax cut lobby. Or his corporate authority structure. But again, that’s because there are all kinds of things keeping that from happening. Union busting, government counterinsurgency programs, political imprisonment and assassinations. You try to fight the power — really fight the power at the top — and you’ll face a backlash. That’s totally natural, that’s how it works. And it’s because of fear. Those with power are afraid of those who want to take it.
“And this is also true on a smaller scale. So say in a ghetto, someone with more money is going to be very worried about getting robbed.”
“And that’s a real fear, because people in a ghetto are more desperate for money.”
“Right. Now, I’ve never lived in a ghetto, so this is all speculation. But of course people in the suburbs aren’t scared of their neighbors, for the most part. They’re scared of the people on the other side of the tracks. But those on the other side of the tracks are scared of each other. Put six rabbits in a tiny cage with one carrot, and see what happens. The same rabbits act very differently than they would if they were in seperate cages. Now, I don’t want to reduce the complexities of human existence to simplistic rabbit analogies, but it’s a framework for the discussion. And I think it’s safe to say it’s not too far from reality. Twenty years ago, a song called ‘The Message’ came out. The lyrics said: ‘It’s like a jungle sometimes / it makes me wonder how I keep from going under.’ Sort of the same thing we’ve got here.
“The folks in the suburbs benefit from keeping the rabbits in their cages. Get them to fight with each other, to steal each other’s stuff, and they’ll leave you alone. It’s a pretty simple case of divide and conquer. If they’re busy burning Compton, they’ll stay away from Simi Valley. If they’re mad at the Asians who own the corner store, that takes attention away from the white CEOs of the banks, who are really calling the shots. The reality of the ghetto is not an accident, whether it’s a ghetto in Krakow in 1935 or a ghetto in Los Angeles in 1995. It’s not a natural course of events. And it’s certainly not due to laziness or low morals among the people in the ghetto. The cages are real, they come from decisions that are made by people on the outside, and those decisions have intentional consequences.”
I nodded. “But the people in the suburbs are in cages, too.”
“Right,” she said. “And that’s the final irony. This system leaves everyone in a kind of prison. Of course, the conditions in the suburban cages are a lot nicer than those in the ghetto. But they’re still cages. There’s a lot of fear, a lot of confusion, a lot of rage in those suburban cages. So if you’re a kid caught up in all of this, without a firm grasp on dealing with that confusion and rage, maybe you find some guns and shoot up Columbine High School. Or look at that day trader in Atlanta a few months back who went nuts and killed his family and all those people in his ‘office.’ He was under such immense pressure from the economic system, which is aligning against working folks, and eroding the structures of support like community organizations and unions. But look at what happened in the media after that happened. There was a brief discussion about how day trading is risky and unstable, but most of the news was about how crazy this guy was and how random the incident was.
“In Columbine, all we heard for two solid weeks was about how horrible the video games are, and how the music made these kids into killers, and how the Internet taught them to murder. But in Atlanta, the very obvious economic pressures that drove this man to the brink of insanity got almost no scrutiny. There was no mention in the media about how the whole system is like that, even though we all know it. Everyone’s worried about the future. Everyone knows that the stock market could crash any day now. Everyone’s in debt. Everyone’s struggling to keep their heads above water. Everyone’s looking for something to cling to. Everyone’s in cages. But we’re convinced that our illusions are less painful than reality.
“What we need is not a system of different people in different cages, like Stalinism or some other state-controlled structure. What we need is a system without cages. And it’s not impossible. We can do it. But we have to start by considering what we want. Even if it’s something that’s never happened before doesn’t mean it never will. Do you think abolitionists thought slavery would always exist in the U.S. because it always had? Because some form of slavery has been a mainstay of human existence for all of history? No. If it’s wrong, it’s wrong, and we can do better. And we’re back to the question of the supreme order. We’re told that the order we’ve got is the only one possible. That it’s an order ordained by nature. But that’s bollocks, because there is no order that’s ordained by nature. Slavery was said to be ordained by nature — not to mention the Bible and the Constitution. But that was all smoke and mirrors. The same is true today.”
“But those with power aren’t going to give it up without a fight,” I said. “So how do we make that change without violence?”
“Maybe we can’t,” she said solemnly. “Is violence justified in that case, considering the counterviolence it’ll cause? I don’t know if I can say. And there’s a larger issue. Even if the counterviolence dies down, what we end up with is a system that is still based on coersion and force. It’s not a system of free association.
“If I take your candy bar, and you beat me up and take it back, you have your candy bar back, but there’s no guarantee I won’t try to get it again. Or try and steal the next bar you get. I’m always going to want what you have, despite the force you use to make sure I don’t get it. So the question is: Why do I want it in the first place? Why don’t I have a candy bar of my own? And that’s where history comes in. Maybe it’s my own fault I don’t have a candy bar. Maybe not. Either way, the real tragedy is that under our current structures, the question doesn’t even get asked.
“But let’s even say it is my own fault that I don’t have a candy bar. Suppose you decide to share some of your candy bar with me anyway.”
“Then I’m a sucker,” I said.
“Maybe,” she replied. “Or maybe you’re demonstrating that we don’t have to live in a world based on a philosophy of ‘Keep your hands off my shit or I’ll beat your ass.’ Maybe you’re showing me that there’s another way.”
“And maybe you’ll just take me for all I’m worth.”
She nodded. “Yeah, maybe. But maybe I’ll realize — especially if it happens over and over again — what’s really going on. Unless a person’s mentally unstable or refuses to use their brain, they’re going to start thinking about what’s happening and consider their role in it. Maybe we’ll both be changed by the experience. Maybe the next time around, when I have a candy bar and you don’t, I’ll be more likely to share it with you.
“Maybe violence is needed in some cases. But maybe it’s only a quick fix that really doesn’t solve anything. There are other ways of making change, ways that aren’t based on force or coersion. And the real question, then, is whether or not these methods are effective enough to bring about enough change to quell the desire for quick fixes. Or do the conditions brought about by a quick fix justify the methods used? Violence may seem necessary at times, but is it ever justified?”
“Is it?”
“I’m asking you.”
I smiled.
“Is there any way to establish a third option?” I asked. “Between dogmatic religious fanaticism and total withdrawal from questions of spirituality? Can you make a leap of faith and stay grounded in reality?”
She chuckled. “Only if you’re willing to strand yourself over a chasm of uncertainty. If your feet are on the ground, but you’re reaching for god, your midsection is hovering over an abyss.”
“Yeah, but that’s true for everyone. I mean, athiesm isn’t a guarantee, either. You agree that there’s such a thing as happiness.”
“But it’s more of a stretch to believe in a god. There’s more uncertain ground to cover.”
“Fine. But suppose we develop a kind of scientific faith, one based not on ancient books or hallucinations or orders barked at us in a special building once a week, but on our own experience with a living divine presence.”
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s say I stay up really late one night writing,” I said. “Because I can’t sleep. Even though I have to get up early the next day.”
“Okay. So?”
“Let’s say the reason I can’t sleep is because I drank a lot of coffee that evening and it’s keeping me awake. Doesn’t it make sense to say that there’s something about the story that needs to get itself written? That this is compelling me to work on it?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “You decided to drink the coffee.”
“Yes, I did.”
“Well, why did you make that choice?”
“For a number of reasons. I was hanging out in a coffee shop with friends. But part of it was because I wanted to be awake and enjoy the evening.”
“So how does this have anything to do with what you’re writing?”
“Because!” I exclaimed. “Once I leave the coffee shop and go home and check my email and watch some TV and get ready for bed, I’m still wide awake and have no choice but to break out the pen and paper and have at it.”
“Is there something especially compelling about the subject you’re writing on?”
“Yes, but that’s only one factor out of many. And that’s the point. The order emerges when we’re able to recognize so many factors pointing in a certain direction, seemingly without any coordination. The order we create — or recognize, depending on your point of view — is an acknowledgment of that pattern, combined with a hypothesis about where it’s going, with a touch of our own hopes and desires thrown in. That’s the divine. That’s how we relate to the universe rationally and spiritually at the same time. The chasm we’re stretched across isn’t empty, it’s filled with elements from both sides of the leap. Where they meet is the river of belief. It’s not fact, but it’s not fake either. It’s kind of in-between. A sort of quantum wellspring of reality. It’s where happiness comes from. It’s a turbulent mixture of tangible evidence and . . . something else.
“Look at cognitive psychology. Look at neurochemical evolution. Look at the consumer price index. Look at cycles of culture. In every case, you find patterns and motion, melody among dissonance. And sometimes what looks like dissonance is really melody.”
“And vice versa,” she said.
“Absolutely!” I replied. “Simplicity that looks like complexity, and vice versa. Chaotic patterns and patterned chaos. Maybe it’s all accidental. It could be, we agree on that. But maybe it isn’t. At this point we have about as much proof for one as for the other. And this isn’t Chicken Little — we all know the sky isn’t falling.”
“Most of us, anway.”
“Right. But at the same time, something caused the Big Bang. Something allowed life to exist on land. Something or somethings pushed me to write that night. A mystery of science is a form of spiritual quandary: How are you going to approach it? Religions tell us only to see those facts that fit the mold. But the scientific, athiestic response breaks everything into quarks and electrons. But with the patterns we’ve begun to see, the divine force driving our perception is the ability to step back and look at it another way. These days it’s not a matter of not being able to see the forest for the trees; we can’t see the trees for the microscopic bark and leaf scrapings. So what is a tree? In how many ways does it exist, and which ways mean the most to people and why? And what does a tree mean to you?
“A conception of the universe that allows us to see trees as potential telephone poles only is doomed to self-destruct. So is one that sees them as quarks and electrons only. So is one that sees them as something to sit under while writing poems only. So is one that sees them as reincarnated dead people only.”
“So you’re talking about a theory of everything,” she said.
“No,” I said. “More like a set of theories of all things. Not one tool that does it all, but a group of tools to achieve perspectives uncommon to the standard gaze. There is no one way, no single answer. If you think there is, you’re wrong. Multiplicity is key. Trying to essentialize all the universe into one idea is a dead end. The magic formula — the true theory of everything — is a complete understanding of how all those conceptions work with one another, and compete with one another.”
“But that’s impossible.”
“Of course it is. So the best we can do is to approximate, look at trends and patterns, and switch perspectives often. Only by constantly looking at the box we’re in, and moving outside it, can we reach any sort of harmony with ourselves. If you ever stop trying to learn ‘why?’ you might as well be dead.”
She nodded. “But even that structure can be used to suit one’s needs. If you notice a pattern leading to something good, that’s the presence of the divine. You see what you want to see. But if it leads to something bad, what is that?”
“It could also be the presence of the divine,” I said. “It’s time to lose this idea that the divine is absolutely and only good. The real truth in such a conceptualization is that the divine is everywhere at all times. But it’s not really a matter of a pattern being good or bad; the element itself is essentially value-free. The only thing making something divine is its ability to connect things that appear to be disconnected, random. Suppose a pattern is found in a dynamic system, and it points to an undesired outcome (this is about as close as we can come to good versus evil without subscribing to a dogmatic morality). We might freak out and call it the devil’s work. But suppose that pattern turns out to be a tiny segment in an even larger pattern. What level of desirability does that larger pattern suit? And what if this larger pattern is part of an even larger one? If we look at it this way, we eventually ask what the largest pattern is, which is akin to asking: What’s the mind of the universe? And only the most naive simpleton can really believe that humans will ever know this. So it becomes a matter of faith. What do you think the big picture is a picture of?
“And it’s not merely a religious question, by the way. Scientists have to decide what level they’re going to focus on, and how simple or complex they’ll make their questions, and their worldview. And this is a philosophical consideration, with practical implications. But at the higher levels, it’s more or less the same question: What is the big picture a picture of?”
“But once you decide that,” she said, “you have to fit all your perceptions into that image.”
“Or else reconsider the image. In any case, the image shouldn’t be a dominating force. It’s a backdrop. It’s a setting for the smaller pictures; it’s a context. It should be flexible, to allow for seemingly arbitrary elements within it. But again, the whole kit and caboodle should be open to change. And it doesn’t have to be one thing — it can be multiple things at the same time. And that’s the key: To see things from as many directions as possible at once.
“Take you and me, for example. If someone were to walk into this room right now, they wouldn’t necessarily know what we have to do with each other. You could be my sister. Or I could be your boyfriend.”
She chuckled. “Or both.”
I laughed. “Yeah, or both. Or you could be a census taker and I could be a resident. Or we could be roommates. Or we could be cousins. Or complete strangers who happen to be in the room together. Maybe you’re married to my roommate’s best friend and we’re waiting for them to get back from the movies. Maybe your lesbian partner is a CIA spy who’s out on assignment and I’m a secret service worker here to protect you. All of these are possible.”
“Ah,” she said, raising a finger. “But the person walking into the room could do some research and find out what the real relationship between us is.”
I nodded. “Yes, but suppose for a moment that we’re in a play, and in that play you’re my mother. Now since we’re about the same age, you’d have to wear makeup and use other tactics to appear to be my mother. But in the context of the play, the relationship between us is mother and son. And people would believe that, if we did it right.”
“Yeah, but in reality it’s something different, and research would prove that. We’re not both things at the same time.”
“Yes, but while the relationship between us in ‘real life’ is one thing, we’re also co-stars in real life, in the context of the play. If someone wrote a story about us, we’d be characters in it, while simultaneously sharing whatever other relationship we have. I am my mother’s son at the same time that I’m a taxpayer.”
She nodded.
“Here’s another example,” I said. I ripped a piece of blank white paper from the journal and drew a series of dots. I showed it to her. “What is this a picture of?”
“It’s a cross,” she said.
I nodded, smiling. “Yes, it is. If you connect these dots along the straight lines they’re in, you get a cross. Show this to anyone, and they’ll tell you it’s a picture of a cross. But it’s also a bunch of dots. You have to choose to connect the dots in order to see a cross.”
“But it’s automatic. You can’t look at it and not see a cross.”
“Maybe an alien could,” I said. “Or someone raised in a place where Christianity was unknown. Or at least the cross shape. Actually, it’s not even a bunch of dots. It’s ink on paper. Our mind groups them into dots, recognizing where the ink gathers together. In any case, the scientific view — the rational one, the strictly athiest view — is that this is only ink on paper, or if you want to be generous, only a series of dots. In that view, to call it a cross is to see things that aren’t there. You say it’s a picture of a cross, and that it’s impossible not to see a cross. And most people would agree. But what is it that makes us think that way?”
“Well, what is a line? It’s a bunch of dots. So this is just a spaced out line.”
“Right,” I said. “So how many dots does it take to make a line?”
“Two.”
“Right. You can make a line with two dots, but how many dots does it take to force you to make a line? If I show you two dots, do you have to make a line out of them? If I show you sixteen dots in a row, is that necessarily a line?”
“It depends on where they are in relation to each other, and how close together they are.”
“Ah ha. So we’re back to context. Are we allowed to ask that question? Is it a line, or a line segment? Are we allowed to have segments? What rules are we bound by? Are we allowed to see this as something other than a cross?”
“What do you mean?”
I took the paper back and scribbled numbers under the dots. “Now what is it a picture of?”
She traced the path of numbers from 1 to 36 with her finger. “It’s a spiral,” she said.
“What makes it a spiral?”
“The numbers.”
“Right. That’s a way of someone else telling you what to see. Let’s call that a political view. You’re being ordered to look at it as a spiral. But like you said, when you first look at it, it looks like a cross. It still does. If we were to connect the dots according to the numbers, it would be harder to see the cross. Filling in the lines in a certain way kind of closes off the other possibilities, but not completely — it would still be possible to imagine it as a cross. As it is right now, though, it’s all three: a cross, a spiral, and a bunch of dots.”
“And ink on paper.”
“Right. But suppose I see something else.”
She stared at the paper.
I waited.
She looked up at me, then back at the paper. Then up at me. “Like what?”
I smiled. “Well, I’m not much of an artist, but let’s pick an easy one. What if we connect all the dots on the outer edge? Then the ones inside that circle? And the ones inside that one? Then what do we have?”
“A bunch of concentric circles.”
“Well, yeah. Ellipses, really.”
“Whatever.”
“Or let’s connect them this way: Two, three, one, four, ten, eleven. . . .” I pointed to the numbers as I spoke.
“You get a zig-zag.”
“Right. But whatever picture I choose to see, it can still be seen as all the other things. And science can call itself the ‘real truth,’ since all the pictures are just ink on paper. But any moment when something more than ink on paper appears, you’re in the presence of the divine. There’s no value judgment on the image — it’s not good or bad. Maybe it’s what you want to see, or maybe it’s the last thing in the world you want to see. Those are questions about ideological manipulations of the divine. But the fact that you see anything at all, besides ink on paper, is proof of something beyond the five senses. Something bigger than ourselves. And whether you consider it to be secular, like traditions of people, or religious like a god, the fact is — and I think we’ve proven that it is a fact — it exists. Maybe we won’t ever understand it. Maybe we can’t.”
“Probably not.”
“Probably not. But whether we understand it or not, it’s there.”