Art and Artists

   If you cannot evaluate art without evaluating the artist you don't understand art.  I specifically avoid, indeed shun, biographical data about artists.  If their art is expiation for their monstrous private lives perhaps it is expiation for the monstrous private lives of all of us.  Their art is their legacy.  Their private lives should be buried with them and never discussed while they are alive. 

  An artist and herm art are two entirely separate and distinct entities in all cultures.  The art may live and be meaningful long after the artist has returned to dust.  While it is fun to argue about which composers of famous religious music were atheists, the fact remains that the music they composed is sung and revered by believers in any culture affected by the religion depicted in the composition.  

A "critic" is a man who creates nothing and thereby feels qualified to judge the work of creative men. There is a logic in this; he is unbiased - he hates all creative people equally.  Lazarus Long, Time Enough For Love,  Robert A Heinlein, 1973.

 The easiest thing a lazy critic can focus on is some private life peccadillo (or worse) to avoid entirely herm work as a critic of evaluating the art to help the rest of us sort out the good from the bad.   

 The current trend even extends to Jefferson's "all men are created equal" as written by a slave holder who even had children by a favored slave.  He had no choice in his culture. That he could transcend his culture to create a better world where all are equal (even though we are not there yet after 200+ years) speaks volumes about his character not to mention the character of his critics who do not even aspire to the all humans are equal standard. 

 Never trust the teller, trust the tale. The proper function of a critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it.   D.H. Lawrence

You should always read any published author especially a DWM without any biographical data clouding your mind. Words mean what they say, regardless of the personal beliefs and/or cultural influences on the author. The best authors (and artists) transcend their personal foibles to change the world.

Music Is Fundamental

 Many scientific studies have found that if you want your kid to do well in school give herm music lessons.  In fact some studies have shown that students having difficulty in school can improve their school performance by simply getting a musical instrument. They will learn to play it and the learning skills will carry over into their schoolwork.

  Almost anyone can make a joyful noise on a musical instrument, but going beyond that joyful noise to making music, even simple music, requires developing motor and mental skills that are progressively more complex as the demands of the music increase. It is an open ended learning process, there is always more to learn as skills increase.

  I recently went to a concert entitled "More Pianos than Bathtubs" which celebrated a time in our history when one of the major entertainment venues was the parlor piano where guests were invited to sing, or in some cases bring their instruments for an impromptu chamber concert.  An amusing discussion of this phenominon can be found at The Piano In The Parlor

 

Monogamy

 Monogamy is not a description of a relationship. It is a description of a reproductive strategy. 

 Polyamory is default for prepubescent children and non-adults and should be encouraged with the usual precautions for STDs.   In societies where women breed shortly after puberty other standards apply but given modern contraception strategies for men and women polyamory should be the rule until parenting is contemplated.  I am not talking hetero only here especially prepubescent and early teen sexuality.  Sow your wild oats to your hearts content on any infertile ground of either gender to determine what kind of sexuality makes sense for ones settled years which may end up to be childless polyamory.  


 If no children are planned monoamory may well be toxic. My generation gave the world the conceopt of going steady as early as high school, that is, dating only a single partner as long as the relationship lasts. The strain this puts on relationship building is overwhelming as sexuality, having fun on a date, and commitment to a single other who initially you may not know well does not work well.  Even more pressure is on the relationship if pregnancy before marriage is a violation of the norm as it was when contraception was limited to condoms.  Even with reliable contraception for women trying to combine sexuality, companionship, fun, and mental stimulation into a single relationship seems to put too much strain on both partners.   

 Most people contemplating children hetero or homo are monogamous as a tried and proven stable environment for raising children. It is not the only way. Polygamy as usually practiced one male several females seems to work in some cultures as the women share the child raising with the male as a resource provider and impregnator.  Single parenting is outrageously difficult, but possible.  An absent partner providing resources does help. 
 

Autonomous Cars and the Future of Cities

(Mary Sperling) claimed her car from the robopark, guided it up the ramp and set the controls for the North Shore. The car waited for a break in the traffic, then dived into the high-speed stream and hurried north. Mary settled back for a nap….awakened by the jangle of the emergency alarm and by the speedster slowing to a stop… “All cars resume local control….” Methuselah's Children, Robert A Heinlein, (1941) or 1958.  

 With autonomous or even semi-autonomous cars in 120mph+ pelotons on existing freeways and Musk 120mph skates in tunnels in LA, whole metro areas are sprawlsville.  The American life style will not be changed to urban living.  Ford, General Motors, and all the rest will still be around in 2100 promoting sprawl. 

 The car is the most important surviving public status symbol, and Americans at least are not going to give that up.  They will drive less especially locally but providing rides between urban nodes will still be an important status indicator.  Cities, especially new cities, will evolve out of the suburbs with high density urban nodes around regional amenities with complete urban services, restaurants, service establishments and high density housing at all price points for those who choose to live and possibly work in an urban node.  

 The majority of the population will still be economically and ethnically segregated in single family homes and low density apartments in the suburbs, exurbs and now dead rural towns. The current pattern for office commercial segregated in suburban campuses will continue for the foreseeable future. Even working class cars will be high speed semi-autonomous and urban nodes will still require high density autonomous parking for residents and visitors.     

 Freeways will evolve to narrower lanes restricted to autonomous vehicles, with high speed lanes running in pelotons for efficiency and throughput.  Current freeways of three lanes or more with a breakdown lane in the center will in the near future convert to two or more high speed lanes, one transition lane and leave one wide lane with a breakdown lane for non-autonomous cars at existing speed limits and entrance and exit. 

 Autonomous cars will park in high density parking lots on floors limited to small SUVs by floor spacing, served by elevators.  Garages for autonomous vehicles only will be constructed over a major intersection with an existing freeway which is already served by transit and close to developed commercial or urban centers.  The garage may be built over the freeway.  Pedestrian and bicycle access is over the existing sidewalk space on the cross street and transit access over a lane of the cross street.  Cars will enter from freeway access ramps to car lanes inside the garage next to the pedestrian/bikeway.  Driverless autonomous cabs would be available at the freeway nodes for those needing them. 

 See also http://jcarlinsv.blogspot.com/2017/05/autonomous-cars-and-cities.html

Technology and the Future of Cities

 With Hyperloops, autonomous or even semi-autonomous cars in 120mph+ pelotons on existing freeways and Musk 120mph skates in tunnels, whole metro areas are sprawlsville.  The American life style will not be changed to urban living.  Ford, General Motors, and all the rest will still be around in 2100 promoting sprawl. 

 The SUV is the most important surviving public status symbol, and Americans at least are not going to give that up.  They will drive less especially locally but driving to the country club or a neighbor's home will still be an important status indicator.  Cities will evolve out of the suburbs with high density urban nodes around regional amenities with complete urban services, restaurants, service establishments and high density housing at all price points for those who choose to live and possibly work in an urban node.   But the majority of the population will still be economically and ethnically segregated in single family homes and low density apartments in the suburbs. The current pattern for office commercial segregated in suburban campuses will continue for the foreseeable future.

 Freeways will evolve to narrower lanes restricted to autonomous vehicles, with high speed lanes running in pelotons for efficiency and throughput.  Current freeways of three lanes or more with a breakdown lane in the center can in the near future convert to two or more high speed lanes, one transition lane and leave one wide lane with a breakdown lane for non- autonomous cars at existing speed limits and entrance and exit. Transition lanes would have restricted access and egress.  All that would be required to facilitate this transition would be to improve the roadbed in the high speed and transition lanes.  Autonomous cars exist today capable of 120-150 mph and transit vehicles soon will be once the need for them exists.    

 Autonomous cars can park in high density parking lots on floors limited to small SUVs by floor spacing, served by elevators.  Garages for autonomous vehicles only may be constructed over a major intersection with an existing freeway which is already served by transit and close to developed commercial centers.  The garage may be built over the freeway.  The passenger access floor will have bus clearance for larger vehicles also at high density enabled by autonomous control.  Pedestrian and bicycle access is over the existing sidewalk space on the cross street and transit access over a lane of the cross street.  Cars will enter from freeway access ramps to car lanes inside the garage next to the pedestrian/bikeway. Once passengers exit the car for local transportation and tell the car computer their expected departure time the car will park itself.   Driverless autonomous cabs would be available at the freeway nodes for those needing them. 

Infrequent transit nodes using grade separated bike, pedestrian, local transit and transit access car traffic as entry to the transit garage. This would create a local traffic and transit interface with high speed autonomous transit which would use existing on-ramps to access the high speed lanes.  These transit nodes would evolve rapidly to high density urban centers.  Cities and suburbs should plan for and encourage these high density urban transit villages. 

 The Upper middle class will commute from their tract mansions to suburban commercial campuses or to a high speed freeway, tunnel skate, or hyperloop node to the city using driverless cabs for the last few mile access as necessary.  

  Service workers and others with minimum wage employment will commute from now remote suburbs, car or vanpooling as needed where high speed transit is unavailable.  

  Depending on what happens with UBI and "Medicare for All" the workers displaced by robotics and the existing poor will move to now dead rural communities.  Assuming UBI and Medicare, the revived rural communities will become vibrant villages of local commerce and art most of which will generate excess funds for local amenities.   



 Suburbs will always be suburbs.  With Hyperloops and 150 mph autonomous cars running in pelotons on dedicated freeway lanes one can live in the burbs and work in cities.  The Pittsburgh-Columbus-Chicago Hyperloop demonstration proposal provides a 40 minute commute from Columbus to either Chicago or Pittsburgh.  At 150 MPH Grass Valley-Nevada City is less than an hour from SF.

 In the outer suburbs the autonomous car will drop you at the garage over the freeway at the regional urban center, probably still low rise and driverless cabs will shuttle you to your local retail, entertainment center, and community place.   

Gender Inclusive Pronouns

 
  My preferred pronouns are "hesh" and "herm"  My preferred honorific is "Myr"

 I was frequently involved in God discussions in the early 60's and found the effort of avoiding the Pronouns for God too much effort and found the shock of using Hesh and Herm in reference to God a useful result in my discussions. Typically it generated the assertion that God was male and that the proper pronouns were He and His. This generally derailed the discussion into a useful discussion of God's testosterone levels. 

  In response to the Feminist Movement's attempt to eliminate "men" as a gender inclusive reference to people I began using hesh and herm as a gender inclusive pronouns in much of my writing. When I discovered James Tiptree's "Myr" as a gender inclusive honorific I immediately adopted it.  When I began to see "hesh" and "Myr" or "herm" in the popular literature without explanation, (I admit to noticing each time) I quit linking to explanatory posts like this one except when it was obviously necessary.

  I also eliminated gender specific pronouns from my vocabulary as a general pronoun and use "hesh" and "herm" as my pronouns of choice whether the gender of the referent is known or not. This is particularly useful in calling attention to gender specific terms like "Actor," Waitress," or "Chairman." Traditionalists be damned. They need their consciousness raised. If it jars their reading or hearing of the term, they still need the consciousness raising. When referring to historical people I use standard pronouns as gender is usually significant.


 I also use the terms when the referent is of known gender but the gender is not relevant in context. Reference to the  gender of the author of a scientific paper with a pronoun was beat into my head by my first partner whose papers in a male chauvinist academic profession were referred to as "HER" papers as if they were therefore less important than "his" papers. They in fact were less important than "his" papers, even though in general they were significantly better. It is no accident that women in science generally publish with initials only. If men are offended by being referred to with gender inclusive pronouns, too bad. They need to get used to it. Particularly the sexist males. They can be sure I intended to insult them with the gender inclusive pronoun.  

 I find the use of "they, their" somewhat offensive in referring to gender queer people, in particular when gender specific pronouns are used for others.  I find the convention trend of using preferred pronoun ribbons more offensive.  It seems that many people are flaunting their cis or trans preference.  If only they  their were offered it would be less offensive.  Personally, I hand out and wear a "Myr - hesh herm" ribbon.  If anyone asks my gender preference I politely respond "Unless you are hitting on me, it is none of your business."

More at https://jcarlinsv.blogspot.com/2012/06/gender-inclusive-pronouns.html

Gender Inclusive Thinking and Reading

 I invented the gender inclusive pronouns "Hesh" and "Herm" very early in life, and discovered that they helped me think about a supernatural power in a sympathetic way that was impossible with the testosterone poisoned "He."  Even trying to insert God in place of the male pronoun every time didn't work too well.  The testosterone is frequently implied by context.  By college I had learned to think of everyone as hesh rather than he or she even when it was important to tell the difference.  It was the first step to radical humanism as once I began to think of people as hesh it was hard to create differences along any lines since the major pervasive division on gender lines carried over from the patriarchal social system we inherited from God was obliterated in my mind.  When you can't even think in gender terms, differentiation on other human variables is nearly impossible.  Try thinking about that "other" person without gender and note what it does to your mind.  

 For the record, I was a strictly heterosexual male as interested in the hormonal needs only satisfied by a heterosexual female as anybody else.  But thinking of a woman as hesh in spite of the obvious delightful differences did change the way I related to women from the first contact in class or on the street to very intense relationships.  Even my parenting partner was early on a partner with benefits rather than a sexual person.   

 When reading scientific literature I never noticed the scientist's name, by policy, until it was necessary for reference and even then as a footnote on the back of the index card.  Yep, I used them.  Any gender related references were automatically changed to hesh/herm mentally and on the card.   I learned a lot that way.  Some highly recommended papers turned to crap when the DWM was turned into hesh. Or LM for that matter. 

 I have since changed policy a bit as the cutting edge scientists in my family educated me that for a woman to succeed in any meritocracy they had to be twice as good as the average male.  It follows that an accepted paper by a woman has to have twice the chances of being worth reading as one by the average man.  Similarly for professional choices.  Even though I think of them as hesh in the interview I will give interview preference to a woman given a bunch of equivalent CVs or Resumes.   

 Applying the same thinking to reading and rereading fiction has been enlightening and fascinating.  I mentally reassign a gender ambiguous name to the major characters and thinking of all as hesh.  In the mandatory sex scenes some role reversals are needed but it is surprising how often they are not.  It is amusing to think of a sex partner as trans occasionally. 

Humanism in the Real World

 Strength is a prerequisite for humanism. If you don't believe in yourself you cannot believe in others.

 A humanist treats all people as individuals with the dignity and respect they have earned as a human being regardless of any group they may have been born into, chosen, or indoctrinated into at some point in their lives.  A humanist recognizes that humans come with a lot of baggage some of which may not be functional in a modern society, but a humanist recognizes that it is what the individual has unpacked from that baggage which is important, not the baggage itself.  Many men and women from religious and social indoctrination carry a heavy load of baggage of xenophobia, paternalism and misogyny, but to the extent that they have or have not left some of it behind, the humanist will accord respect for the human accordingly.

 A major misconception about humanism is that humanists are incapable of judging other humans and treat all humans equally.  As a first assumption this should be true, but from Tom Lehrer's intro to National Brotherhood Week

I am sure we all agree we ought to love one another, and I know that there are people that do not love their fellow human beings and I hate people like that.

 The real skill in humanism is using behavioral cues rather than assumptions about the baggage that the person appears to be carrying in deciding how to deal with the encounter.  This is not to say that awareness of the baggage is unimportant in interpreting behavioral cues, but it is the cue properly interpreted rather than the baggage that should dictate the human response.

 In dealing with a member of a discriminated against class the humanist is sensitive to and tries to defuse any justified resentment, but accepts it as a reasonable reaction and tries to find human commonalities to build a humanistic relationship on.  Always with the recognition that triggers exist, and can be inadvertently used.  Accepting responsibility for not avoiding triggers is an important part of defusing them.   As an example if I am caught holding a door for a feminist, and she objects that she can do it herself* I simply apologize for being in her way.  I have stimulated conversations with more than one feminist non-acquaintance that way.

 A note on the current bigoted trend of "Color Blindness."  A humanist celebrates the diversity of coloration, face and eye shape, and the cultural traditions associated with that diversity in the human race.  Their history is our history and no group has a lock on superiority in anything.  Humans are "tribal" animals and we naturally gravitate to the lore and traditions of our tribe but doing so by ignoring or denigrating the lore and traditions of the other tribes' leads only to hate and bigotry.  

 Members of an identifiable group must also be aware of the baggage that they carry as a member of the group, even though they have done their best to unpack and discard the worst of it.  As an example I am a member of the white, male, privileged, MBA, financially secure group.  In other words the assholes that run the businesses that run the government and oppress the working class and the disadvantaged.  I have diligently tried to avoid the social disabilities that come with the class of privileged white males.

• Sexism/misogyny. 
• Patriarchal assumptions. 
• Being a winner rather than a loser. 
• Refusing to cooperate or collaborate as an equal.
• Rejection of active parenting. That is marrying a woman to do the job and accepting the costs of child support as freedom to change my mind. Or simply fucking someone to "carry a seed" and not really caring about whether that seed grows properly or not as long as it is born.
• Using material success as a measure of worth. "He* who dies with the most toys wins." 
• Hiring, bribing, or intimidating others to cover one's ass in all of the above.  

 Unpacking religious and social baggage is a difficult and frequently impossible human task.  Castigating all those who have not done so because of their baggage is neither functional nor humanistic.  Those who have managed to unpack and leave behind some of the more dysfunctional bags need all the respect and help from others they can get, and not be thrown under the baggage bus.  For those on the bus education and ostracism are about the only options for a rational humanist, but these options are generational in impact, and those individuals on the bus that have unpacked a bit are critical to the education role, and deserve all the dignity and respect they can find if they manage to leave the bus even for a short holiday.

 As humans are tribal animals tribal religious baggage is the most difficult for a humanist to deal with.  Telling Malala or any Muslim expatriate that she must lose the hijab if she is to be credible as a feminist is one of most dysfunctional tactics I have run into recently.  It certainly is a powerful statement of the misogyny of Muslim men, but until you change the men, we are talking generations here; the hijab is a rational response to that misogyny.  Incidentally fundamentalist Christian and Jewish men are just as misogynist, but society has made more progress in changing their behavior which is the first step in changing their thinking.  It is the men who must change the men to enable the women to feel more comfortable with relaxing the dress codes.

 I have always selected female professionals when available when I had a choice, using the assumption that a female had to be twice as good as the average man to even have a chance in any professional role.  That is based on the reality that the average man who is successful in a professional position may be far to the left on the competence curve and still be able to compete in a paternalistic society.  Sorry, men, half of you are from the bottom half of your class.  Even in professional schools where women face discrimination even today.  Factoring in the discriminatory entrance barriers it is easy to believe that more than half the men end up in the bottom half of the class.  The few women who graduate are generally near the top as they have the Mrs. to fall back on if the going is too tough.  Men are always suckers for intelligent, competent women and the sex bait is difficult to resist, even if a Mrs. is the hook.

  Humanism is a fundamental change in internal attitude that may or may not be accomplished in even a single lifetime.  It is simply a constant struggle to avoid categorization.  A personal anecdote may be illustrative.  As noted above I select among women medical professionals for care.  Nonetheless I have always been aware of the fact that they were female, and the stray mating dance thoughts always had to be repressed.  Especially if they were attractive in the gender sense.  Perhaps it is simply age, but I realized after a recent routine physical that I had finally made it over the gender hurdle and the doctor was just that: a professional doing herm job competently.  It wasn't that I didn't know she was female, I chose her for that reason, and it turned out that she was attractive, but after the first visit, hesh was "just" a competent doctor, and I was paying attention only to that as hesh was still in the evaluation stage of choice as a PCP. 



*Gender reference intentional.
  

Why I Am Not a Feminist

 Because I am a humanist.  A humanist treats all people as individuals with the dignity and respect they have earned as a human being regardless of any group they may have been born into, chosen, or indoctrinated into at some point in their lives.  A humanist recognizes that humans come with a lot of baggage some of which may not be functional in a modern society, but a humanist recognizes that it is what the individual has unpacked from that baggage which is important, not the baggage itself.  Many men and women from religious and social indoctrination carry a heavy load of baggage of paternalism and misogyny, but to the extent that they have or have not left some of it behind, the humanist will accord respect for the human accordingly.

 As unpacking religious and social baggage is a difficult and frequently impossible human task, castigating all those who have not done so because of their baggage is neither functional nor humanistic.  Those who have managed to unpack and leave behind some of the more dysfunctional bags need all the respect and help from others they can get, and not be thrown under the baggage bus.  For those still carrying dysfunctional bags education and ostracism are about the only options for a rational humanist, but these options are generational in impact, and those individuals that have unpacked a bit are critical to the education role. They deserve all the dignity and respect they can get in spite of some residual prejudices.

 Men and women are fundamentally different biologically, emotionally, and in the roles they play in insuring that the next generation of humanity is an improvement over the last which is a fundamental evolutionary drive for all sexual animals.  The mating dance in most species is clear evidence that females will refuse to mate with less than the best male available.  Whatever being the best means the female and the male will invest significant time, energy and genetics in being best.  Males tend to be show-offs, brightly colored, bigger and more aggressive (expendable) while females tend to be drab, and blend into the scenery so they still can get the offspring to self-sufficiency even in the absence of the territorial protection of the male.  The male's primary role in the progeny project is to provide a safe and bountiful space for the female to nurture the young.  

 In pre-industrial societies the division of labor between men and women was unforced, with women taking on the productive jobs that were compatible with child care, clothing provisioning, gardening, feeding the family, and housekeeping.  Generally the productivity of women was an investment in the family, rather than income producing.  The men, relatively more expendable after conception, took on the more time and labor intensive jobs on the periphery of the settlement that were also dangerous:  Hunting, grain farming, herding, and warfare.  Men also took on the local jobs that were essentially uninterruptable, smithing, building, etc.  For this productivity men were paid so that they could exchange their labor for other useful items they couldn't make. Most of the pay was spent on things useful to provide the safe and bountiful space for the family.  Some may have been reserved for capital improvements in his own productivity, or hiring others to boost his productivity.

 Industrialization had a profound effect on the economic value of the productivity of women in the home. The 18th century mills were primarily devoted to production of cloth mainly cotton which effectively eliminated the economic productivity of spinning and weaving in the home.  The sewing machine and the clothing factories was the final nail in the coffin of homemade clothing as a value producing industry compatible with child raising.  In the early 20th century home appliances mainly the washing machine improved the home productivity of moms to the point that homemaking, shopping, cooking and serving were the last remaining home economic activity that were compatible with raising children.

 Industrialization had an equally profound effect on the economic role of men.  No longer could the smith compete with a home forge, he had to tend an industrial forge that was running 24/7.  A wagon wright (archaic terminology intentional) no longer could produce a wagon, much less a mechanical vehicle in his shop at home; he was tied to an assembly line metaphorically catching a wheel bouncing off the floor to attach it to the axle.  The wagon came on schedule and the wheel bounced on time, and the worker could not even pee until a relief showed up. This set the pattern for a man's job in any role in industry.  Inflexible long hours on the job, that were well compensated as wages were relatively inconsequential compared with productivity of the enterprise.  If the genetic imperative of producing a reproducing adult carrying his genes was a need for a man, the Faustian bargain of enabling a less physically demanding but more important parenting role in the absence of a functional father for their parenting partner in exchange for the long, demanding job outside the home to provide the resources for caregiving, nurturing, and socializing their children to reproductive adulthood.

 Management of these soul crunching enterprises reinforced some of the more antisocial characteristics of males: competitiveness, aggression, and lack of concern for their fellow humans of either gender.  It has always been known that "Nice guys finish last."  Not that it was necessary but science has caught up:    From a SciAm Book

Research shows that nice people are more likely to get and keep a job, but they tend to earn less and get passed over for leadership positions more often than their more demanding colleagues.

 They earn less because nobody really wants to be an asshole, and being an asshole is a necessary attribute for a leadership position.  From supply and demand theory a soulless enterprise will have to pay more to induce people to be assholes.  It therefore follows that assholes make more than nice guys or nice gals.  Human females fall heavily into the nice gal part of the humanism curve and it would seem reasonable for feminists to be trying to raise compensation for all in the nice people jobs.  Instead feminists seem to be pushing to compete for equal access to the high paid asshole jobs.  There are a few women that fall on the asshole end of the humanism curve and since they are competing with the average male asshole they generally do well in proportion to their distribution on the curve. Adequate pay for equal work in the nice guy positions primarily occupied by moms and people of both genders with more important things to do than being an asshole like students, artists, and care givers does not appear on the feminist agenda.

 A few feminists advocate for parental leave for both genders, but being a parent or a potential parent is a disqualification for leadership unless your name is Zuckerberg or you are in a comparable situation. While the interviewer may not ask if you are sterile or a non-parent, there are other ways of determining if your loyalty is to the corporation rather than humanity.  Note that a male active parent carries the same disability as a mom or a potential mom. Take too much time off to referee or even cheer a child's game or take herm to a tournament and watch the promotion bait for a salary increase fly off the hook.

 There is a reason that moms are mostly women.  As a male mom at times I can attest that raising children to be productive and responsibly reproductive humans demands a lot of time, energy and emotional investment in those children.  From oxytocin, to breast feeding natural forces have generated a strong emotional bond between women and their children.  The nurturing investment in the gene pool is natural for women as they know for sure that the genes of the children are at least half hers given modern biology knowledge and instinctively for biologically naive women. 

 The medical revolution which reduced maternal and infant mortality to insignificance and relatively reliable conception planning which became possible in the early 20th century had a profound effect on the last remaining home activity: child raising. When one conception could be reliably considered to be one reproductive adult, and women could reliably control their own fecundity without the consent of any man, a family size of 2 to 4 children became optimal socially, further freeing up women from the ties to the home.  Nonetheless, the demands of proper parenting of even a few children limit the kinds of work outside the home that women can consider even after the last child is in (pre) school when the father is in the socially traditional and absent provisioning role or as unfortunately all too common absent in any role.  The soulless corporate enterprise managed by assholes insures that most of these jobs that allow time for parenting are minimum wage or less (see tipped servers) and are generally held by moms either voluntarily or of necessity.  Just another reality for most women that is ignored by feminists and one of the major reasons I object to the label.  The men and women fighting to raise the minimum wage do not call themselves feminists.

 A major waste of time and effort by feminists is trying to change the nature of the mating dance of humans as sexual animals.  Normal male attention getting behavior: What used to be called chivalry; commenting on the attractiveness of a female; offering trinkets, food and drink; displays of their male prowess to strange women; even quiet appreciation of the attractiveness of a woman are all condemned by feminists as treating women as sexual objects.  In other words they are trying to change the mammalian male view of the female of the species. Men may come to appreciate other attractive attributes but the first thing a dry prick looks at are the secondary sex attributes.  They don't even need to be conventionally attractive but they have to be female.    

 Everything that feminism has done since it became a movement in the last half of the 20th century has at best hindered women in fully participating as sexual humans in society.   Changing the language to pretend that male dominance does not exist.  Male dominance is a historical artifact of the dependence of reproducing women in many cultures, and in an industrial society.  Demanding access to asshole positions and the pay that goes along with them.  And suggesting that moms working or stay at home are an affront to feminism. 

 Finally and probably the most important reason I am not a feminist is that almost all feminists of all genders discourage successful women from contributing to the human gene pool whether they choose to become stay at home moms, or continue to be successful in contributing economically in the society while parenting. The mommy wars are not over.  A proper feminist of either gender is childless, usually permanently so, in order to avoid the parenting penalty inherent in any job.

Jesuism

 Paul is the reason I am not a Christian. God is the reason I am an atheist. Jesus is the reason I and many nominal Christians are Jesuists.

Paul is dead, but seriously… just this morning I was trying to come up with a term that would encapsulate my atheistic attitude toward Christianity (within which religion I was loosely raised) and permit my admiration for Jesus himself. I thought I might have coined the name "Jesuist" and Googled it…

Anonymous on https://jcarlinsv.blogspot.com/2008/11/why-jesuist.html

 Jesuism in the West is an atheistic worldview based on the teachings of Jesus as documented in the Gospels including the recently discovered Gnostic Gospels of Thomas and Judas. A Jesuist rejects the supernatural accretions to the stories about Jesus as mnemonic and marketing devices typical of the age, and rejects all theistic references including self-references by Jesus as metaphorical devices to communicate with the prevailing Jewish and Pagan religions.

 To understand Jesuism one must understand the concept of radical respect for all people taught by Jesus in the Beatitudes, the Good Samaritan, the Adulteress, and indeed in all the stories involving Jesus directly. While Jesus believed in the eventual judgment by his God to help formulate and sell the radical concept that all people are to be accepted as brothers and sisters, the Jesuist will accept this as part of the religious culture Jesus dedicated his life to changing. Jesus was a Jew who believed in the Abrahamic God concept, but his rebellion was against his own God and the religion of the Jews he was immersed in.

The Jefferson Bible is a useful condensation of the traditional teachings of Jesus and could be considered the Holy Book of the Jesuist. Thomas Jefferson winnowed out the story and teachings of Jesus the man for us in The Jefferson Bible. He littered the floor of the President's office with trash from the bible created by Paul and others, until he had distilled the essence of Jesus from the rest of the bible. I claim Jefferson as the first Jesuist, he certainly was an atheist, (politically a Deist.) The Jefferson Bible is a concise and readable way to discover the ministry of Jesus.

 Part of the traditional Unitarian “Affirmation”

Unitarians believe in
…the brotherhood of man
The leadership of Jesus...

could be its doxology.

 Jesuism is really designed for Christians who, having lost faith in Paul's Christ have moved back to the Gospels for meaning and morality. Once they get comfortable without a savior many of them find they don't need God either. Particularly the God of the OT and Paul who was more worried about idol worship than people treating each other right. They can salvage most of their 'Jesus loves me' conditioning with Jesus as exemplar rather than God, and even worship in their same church.

 You will hear them talking about Jesus ministering to the poor, the prostitutes, the gays, the fishermen, and other common people. You will also hear them focusing their religion down to the Second Great Commandment:

Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself

with the gloss of Matt 25:40

As ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

 It is the teaching of radical respect for all people which separates Jesus from all of the religious teachers of his time. Until Jesus, religion was all about us vs them, 'We are the world's sweet chosen few, the rest of you be damned.' After Jesus it was more of the same. Fortunately, Paul hijacked his charisma and caused the preservation of the synoptics to document it, incidentally preserving the message of radical respect to be rediscovered by those who can relate to it.

 There are theistic Jesuists. Some might call them Synoptic Christians since for them the NT stops before John. But they believe Jesus is the Son of God by the Holy Spirit, who was sent to earth to teach the humanist message of Love your neighbors, all of them, even the Samaritans, respect the poor, the meek, the thieves, the whores and even the people who hate you. In short how to live this life. Many of them take the next step and don't worry about an afterlife believing that how they live this life is all that matters to God.

 There is little of Christ in their beliefs but they call themselves Christians for traditional reasons, as many of them are found in traditional Christian Churches. Some call themselves Progressive Christians; I would call them theist Jesuists.

The Humanist Teachings of Jesus

 It is clear to me that this historical person was a human that lived and died in the usual human fashion. He believed in God, but was not one himself. He was the earliest documented humanist, and I think all humanists, theistic and atheistic are indebted to him.

 37...Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38This is the first and great commandment.
39And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
40On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
Matthew 22:37-40 (King James Version)

 In particular when the neighbor explicitly referred to was a member of a hated group that had just caused Jesus to 'shake the dust off his sandals' for one of the most serious breaches imaginable of the social contract of the time.

 In a desert community refusing hospitality was probably comparable to refusing to help an injured man by the side of the road. The chances were good that one refused a drink of water, could dehydrate before getting to the next stopping place.

 But he was not telling us to love just the nice neighbors, but all of them. This of course does not mean approving of everything they do, but that violations of the social contract must be dealt with love rather than hate.

  With the gloss of Matt 25:40
"As ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." the explicit humanism of Jesus becomes quite clear.

 I find Jesus to be quite human, quite humanistic, and radically respectful of all people. No wonder they killed him.

 Cynic and Pharisaic teachings were an important component of the message of Jesus but it was his synthesis of the important ideas of both, and certainly his showmanship in presenting the synthesis that made his message so important for its time. The fact that there are still many people trying to emulate his teachings no matter how corrupted, although some are going back to the gospels only, that makes Jesus so important in western religions.

A distinctive feature of Stoicism is its cosmopolitanism. All people are manifestations of the one universal spirit and should, according to the Stoics, live in brotherly love and readily help one another.
Wiscidea

The Historical Jesus

 Jesus as a normal 30+ male of his time probably had a female companion who was with him during his ministry. Illiterate as nearly all women of the time she created an adoring oral history embellished as all oral histories are for mnemonic as well as story telling reasons. She probably helped him hone his message, I see a lot of anti-misogyny in it, at least in the context of the time. No man thought up the tale of the unstoned whore.

 As I understand the 'Q document' its very existence as a 'document' is an inference. I find it much more likely that Q was a companion of Jesus for much or all of his ministry, had a good memory for what he said at the various gatherings and related those to the disciples along with other lore that may have been less important to the disciples in their cult building. Hesh probably was what would be termed today a groupie, probably was not literate, as it is unlikely that hesh had any relationship with the priesthood. The reason I am using “hesh” is that I find it probable that Q was female." And yes, I think of "Q" as Mary Magdalene.

 Also I think Mary was much more important to the ministry of Jesus than the men who wrote the histories would even think of giving her credit for. I suspect that social conversations between the two were instrumental in developing Jesus' overall gospel of respect and love for ones neighbor.

 In any event the story if you will or oral history which was probably the case in that illiterate culture was probably originated by a companion of Jesus in his travels.

  This oral history was picked up by the disciples who as tradespeople of the time were probably also illiterate. At some point literate followers of the cults generated by Jesus were induced to write down the various oral histories, three of which were canonized along with John's commentary. The rest were destroyed, lost, or in the case of the Gnostics buried for posterity.

 I have no problem extrapolating the Synoptics back to the original oral history and stripping the mnemonics and worship to get to the radical theistic humanism of Jesus.

 What I get from the story is a humanistic and anti-religious message. Radical for its time and place. Certainly God is there but it is a personal not a male religious God. I find a strong feminine influence on the message. Admittedly a lot of soup from one oyster, but when the oyster is strongly and uniquely flavored, it may not be a useless soup. Even for an atheist.

 The existence of a cult whose names and characters have been preserved in the stories argues strongly for the existence for a leader for that cult. People do not generally risk reputation and possibly their lives for a cobbled together philosophy or religion. Also crowds generally do not gather for panel discussions of religion or anything else. The cult had a spokesperson, Ockham's beloved razor says the spokesperson was Jesus and that he assembled and preached the stories that form the basis of his ministry.

 The other very strong argument is that a contemporary religious charlatan needed a God like man as a marketing tool to be the savior for his followers who he had convinced were sinners in need of a savior. This charlatan hijacked the charisma and one of the miracles associated with Jesus as the basis for his savior Jesus, now Christ Jesus. The fact that his followers accepted the transfer of the charisma from Jesus to the Christ argues strongly that a popular preacher existed within their lifetimes who could believably be thought of as the Christ.

 If you strip the obvious miracles, especially the resurrection, which Christians cannot do of course without destroying their faith, you find a charismatic itinerant preacher, who integrated a consistent message of radical humanism and independence from the god mediators, priests, and shamans. It was a theistic culture so it is not surprising that he would believe in God. The core of his message was to develop a personal relationship with God directly, no priests necessary or even desirable, and treat all humans as neighbors to be respected, aided when necessary even at considerable cost to yourself, and loved as one loves oneself....

 Cults are not started by committees, which for me argues strongly that there was a historical person that was the basis for the Jesus cult for which there is some historical evidence, Paul's Christian Cult. for which there is ample historical support, the Gnostic cults, for which historical documentation has recently been discovered, and other cults rumored but for which no documentation exists.

 But again, God was the dominant social paradigm at the time atheists and secularists really were non-existent. Even a personal God independent of any religion was radically humanist for the time.  

 I see no religious establishment in the sayings of Jesus. He was in all sayings directly attributed to him giving religion back to the people. Jesus was using the prevailing paradigm of God to teach, but the focus was on being a better human being to and for other humans. In other words you learn from God how to be a better human.

 I am not talking about The Lord Jesus of Nazareth I am talking about the human preacher Jesus, who was using God to teach his fellow humans humanity. I suspect he believed in his personal relationship to God and believed that his mission from God was to teach what he taught.

 Certainly the radical theistic humanism of Jesus in the Synoptics before the passion has much to teach Christians and atheists alike. It is true some of the idealism is over the top, but none the less effective as an ideal if not a practical paradigm for living.

 In some payoff scenarios turn the other cheek seems to be an extremely effective strategy in game theory known as tit-for two tats. Opponent defects once, cooperate. If opponent defects twice retaliate. Practically: If hesh smites the other cheek, kill herm.

 There is a good reason that much of modern Christianity, the 'Progressive Christians' have for the most part reduced the entire law and the prophets, that is the whole Bible, to this teaching of Jesus. An atheist can learn simply by studying this and its context.

 "Love thy neighbor As thyself." In those days as now religion made a good living selling self-hate. Jesus is clearly stating that all humans are worthy of self-respect. You can't get much more humanist than that. Theistic humanist? Of course theism was the language of the time."

 I find the evidence for the existence of Jesus, the itinerant preacher and entertainer, persuasive. He would be a great televangelist today and as then he would refute all the Pauline garbage preached by the followers of his competitor in the religious leader industry."

 What would Jesus do? If he were alive today would he have a television ministry based in a megachurch in Marin County? It sure wouldn't be in LaLa Land. Would he be regaling against the preachers of hate for your neighbors of the wrong religion, color, or sexual preference? Would he be successful?

Thinking about dying

There is no reason for amazement: surely one always knew
that cultures decay, and life's end is death.
Robinson Jeffers The Purse-Seine, 1937

Charles Fiterman on facing death.
Beliefnet Discussions - Beliefnet.com: "I have bladder cancer and was given 6 to 18 months. I think I'm facing it fairly well. I ask daily what am I doing with my time that justifies the pain and expense and inconvenience to others of going on. When the answer becomes bad enough I will do the right thing." Written on 2/25/2005.

 Charles died June 19, 2005 at The Palliative Care Center & Hospice of the North Shore, 2821 Central St., Evanston, IL 60201. Hospice care is not a death panel, it is a death option. It should be a basic right for all people.

-----------------------------------------------------------

 As a youth with a lifetime ahead one has plenty of life to waste even if one is vaguely aware that death is somewhere ahead and final. So one wastes it discovering what is of transient value and what might be of more value to self and society. In midlife one is so busy with creating value for self, family and society that thoughts of the end of life seldom intrude.

 Accepting the reality and finality of death, does not lead at all to fear of dying today or any day. When the time comes that the mind and body cannot maintain their integrity they will cease to function. In the meantime there are many things that a person needs to do to affect the society of which hesh is a part to make that society more humane and friendly. Some of those things will have lasting effects, some perhaps will have none, but all are important reasons for living today, and as long as one can affect others in the society.

 After the creative torch is passed to children and/or the creative successors at work, 50 is as good an age as any, that the end of life becomes apparent and one reflects on the contributions one has made, and what still is left to be done to help those carrying on the legacy. Telling stories about life lessons learned is a common solution, either live if one is fortunate enough to have the successors nearby, or in writing if not. Self-published books whether they have surprising impact far beyond their intended audience of friends and family, or which languish on shelves to be discovered by a later generation are all important. The value is in the creation, not the result.

 I know of one atheist who is struggling to stay alive to finish volume IV of an immigrant's life story that is resonating with another immigrant from a different country in a different era. Worthless? Easing into death? I think not. But the pressure of impending death is powerful, and the work left to be done is reason enough not to go quietly into the night.

 Death might well be described as a condition when affecting others is no longer possible. It is nothing to fear, if one has affected others properly they will carry on the task of making society a better place for humans, and life in the larger sense goes on, even though the no longer useful individual is not a part of it.

 Today I can see people I have affected taking the society to places I cannot conceive, but which I approve of. Whether I die today or some day in the future I am content. But I am not finished affecting others in my society. So until the time comes when I can no longer do so I will continue to live my life so that it is worth dying for. Thanks, Forrest Church.

 Just recently I passed some advice from my father, a great athlete, to his great grandson who will probably not be a great athlete but who is trying to learn a sport for fun. Maybe my grandson didn't even listen, but the time I spent with the memories of my father and the love I still gave and received from him makes his death merely a release from the pain of the cancer that took his life."

 I would suggest that some people that are long dead are still creating meaning in the world today regardless of whether they ceased to exist at death or are entertaining God in Heaven. Homer, Socrates who influenced Plato through him the world, the human Jesus, Shakespeare, Monteverdi, Mozart, just to name a few. Even the apocryphal sweeper who was "building a Cathedral" or the scribe that wrote Timothy. As Lincoln, Luscomb and many others have said "There is no end to what you can accomplish if you don't care who gets the credit."

 There is incredible meaning to today and every day if you know the kid (maybe your own) you rescue from the barrio may make it to the Supreme Court. It is true that some days are wasted, either through lack of opportunity, or laziness, but you never wake up planning for that when you know that the days left are limited.

 I am not looking for immortality, which seems like emptiness forever to me. I would rather do what I can each day to affect my chosen society to make it better, more beautiful, and more livable for all in it. Some days are better than others but the meaning is in the attempt.

As Edna St. Vincent Millay affirms;

My candle burns at both ends
It will not last the night.
But ah, my foes and oh, my friends
It gives a lovely light.
"First Fig" from A Few Figs from Thistles

 Possibly my favorite poem. How better to explain the value of a day in a finite life.

 Accepting the finality of death does not mean courting it. It simply means that eventually it will happen, and that nothing will follow. I have found that atheists in general avoid risky thrill activities because they know that death is the end. I have many things to do in my life to continue and build on things I have already done. I am in no hurry to finish, but if death came tomorrow or today, I am content that what I have done was worth dying for.

 An atheist would spend their last 24 hours if they are aware of the fact will spend the last day with friends and relatives giving and receiving love and thanks for all the joys and gifts received over the life of the dying person. This will be of great value to the atheist by making the end a wrap up of a long and meaningful life. Certainly there will be loose ends, but these will bequeathed in life rather than in some soulless will. I know this as a fact having experienced it twice. I know of but was not present at assisted suicides that were uniformly described as poignant but generally happy experiences for all.

 "I have been to many atheist 'Celebrations of the Life Of .....' There is no mourning. Death is the bookend that says the person's active contribution is over, but those who knew and loved herm remember and celebrate all of the contributions the deceased has made to their lives and celebrate the Legacy of the deceased.

 I have been to many Christian funerals, where mourners sing sad songs and hope against hope that somehow their prayers will help the dead avoid Hellfire and damnation. And also secretly hope that when they die they will also avoid Hellfire and damnation.

 The 'High point' in a Requiem Mass is always the Dies Irae. The day of wrath and anger when the trumpets will sound and the dead will be judged. It is always scary music: Pay attention sinners! Get right with God or Hell awaits! Kind of fun to sing, but I wouldn't want to be a believer in that wrathful God. I particularly like the Tuba Mirum from the Berlioz Requiem. The brass blares from the four corners of the hall "You are Damned" the chorus responds musically "I have hope?" The horns repeat, louder. "NO WAY." The chorus tries again. Again the horns deny. Finally the chorus gives up and joins the horns in the damning chord.

 It is for this that we gather at the death of a friend? No, thank you! I much prefer the celebration of a friend's Legacy: To contemplate all those volumes on the bookshelf that we can remember at will and share with others when appropriate or necessary."

REMINDER
The world began the day that I was born
and on the day I die the world will end.
Between these dates there will have been
matters of great importance.
John Dobbs

 I have no problem with the fact that the world began on the day that I was born. From my predecessors, alive and dead, I was left a rich legacy of a valuable space, filled with beautiful music and wonderful people. Many of those wonderful people are dead, some long dead, but I can still appreciate their art and thinking from their legacies. Each day I look forward to the exciting challenge of incorporating as much as possible into my space. I eagerly do what I can to make the space even more valuable. Then, with as much love as possible I pass it on to those who will pay it forward.

REMINDER
...there is nothing I can leave
on the final date
but a legacy of urgencies.
John Dobbs

 If I have lived my life well, and loved enough, there will be many around willing and able to deal with those urgencies."

 With the kind permission of Bob and Louise Decormier, and with my greatest respect and love: I will end with a poem by Louise's Father from a collection of the same name. 

LEGACY
by
John Dobbs

I leave you this space
which I have occupied
temporarily,

now clean as a vacuum
to hold short sorrow,
and brief remembering.

There are no shards,
no broken statuary.
I had no idols.

The proud thoughts
and the humble things
remain unshattered.

I leave you this valuable
and useful
space.

The Believer's Brain

In a recent book The Believing Brain, Times Books, 2011 Michael Shermer makes a strong case that the human brain is necessarily a belief engine. His case is that pattern seeking and assigning agency to the patterns is a survival trait built in to the brain and that we believe first and think about it later, if ever. In my experience this is as true of atheists and skeptics (including Shermer) as it is for religious believers.

As many will testify dragging a belief, say about UFOs, out and trying to ask whether the belief is justified or not is extremely difficult for most people. Whether you are for 'em or ag'in 'em you just cannot decide that you just don't know. My experience is that most people can't be unsure on any belief based subject. Which is to say, if Shermer is right, on all subjects. It as if "I just don't know" doesn't have a home in the human brain. 

Even Shermer falls prey to this syndrome. He spends many pages debunking UFO's, ESP, God beliefs, political beliefs, etc. It seems his confirmation bias won't admit data that casts doubt on his skeptical belief system. Not at all unusual, and in effect his bias is proof of his thesis. I would not argue that any of these belief systems are true, but in many cases e.g. God and ESP, there is enough data to indicate "I don't know" is a reasonable position to take.

"That's right!" has many homes in the brain for decisions affecting beliefs. The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex which is the center for rational evaluation of data is effectively shut down when first evaluating new data. The orbital frontal cortex the emotional center in the brain and the anterior cingulate cortex which is the conflict resolution center are both active. These centers essentially decide whether or not this data conflicts with my belief system.  Once a emotionally satisfying resolution of the conflict, that is to throw out the conflicting data, the reward mechanisms in the ventral striatum kick in. See P 260. for the experimental data. This makes a lot of sense, in the modern world "I don't know" gets in the way of many necessary decisions. Which stock to buy, which way to bet on a business decision, etc, as they say, it is better to go with the gut, i.e. the belief systems in the brain, and just do it.

The escape hatch for this belief reinforcement is the scientific method, which is the way we can after the fact check on our belief systems. But as Shermer points out even scientists have beliefs which shape their protocols, and may in fact be testing only things that reinforce their beliefs. Shermer ends with the belief that "The truth is out there, and although it may be difficult to find, science is the best tool we have for uncovering it."

One of the reasons I enjoyed the book is that he makes a hard scientific case, which is materialistic and rational, for woo-woo. Maybe I am belief disabled, or I had the wrong upbringing and went to the wrong school, but I have never been able to understand how extremely intelligent and rational people can believe weird things. I think I understand it better now, but I am still an outsider looking in.

Whether you are a believer, skeptic, or that rare breed I call "acred" who agree with Lazarus Long in Time Enough for Love (Robert A. Heinlein, 1973) that "belief gets in the way of learning," you will find this book extremely helpful in dealing with believers of any persuasion. It seems the "La, la, la, I can't hear you" is a built in function of most human brains. According to Shermer it is an evolved necessary brain function for dealing with decisions under uncertainty. As my world class athlete father would frequently state: "Don't think, you weaken the ball club." A fascinating and apparently nearly ubiquitous attitude. Shermer's insight provides a useful tool for understanding all those morons that don't agree with you.