Look, Look, Look! Say, Say, Say!

     A few days ago somebody posted the picture of the cover of a book -- a first grade "reader" -- that was popular in the mid-fifties, and for some years on either side of that time.  It was entitled, "Fun With Dick and Jane."  I remembered that book -- or one of its many clones -- because that is the book that was used in my own first-grade "learning experience."

     The editors of that series of books had decided that a "phonetic" approach to reading (which had characterized language-learning and pronunciation for a long, long time) needed to be replaced by the new, more scientific "look-say" method.  The theory was that if you just see the word enough times, and are made to say it, you will remember it.  If that strikes you as more of a "stimulus-response" approach to learning than acquiring knowledge by discovering phonetic rules of pronunciation and interpretation (and proceeding from there to meaning), you might be right.  Be that as it may, I have been told that they discovered, or popularized, this happy method shortly after World War II, which was a decade earlier.

     The characters who were in that book -- those books -- lived in a plain vanilla world that was somewhere between white picket fences (and I do mean white in both senses of the word) and the migration to the suburbs that figured prominently in the times in which they were published.

     Appearing in the cast of characters was Mother, of course, and Father.  Then Dick, and Jane, and little Sally.  And who could forget their beloved pets, Spot the dog and Puff the cat.  I think that Spot was vaguely male, and Puff was vaguely female. (I don't think they ever said, so I'm just going by remembered impressions.)

     At any rate, the books (which had a large and contextually appropriate picture at the top of each page, and a few lines of printing at the bottom) went like this:

     See Spot run.
     Run, Spot, run!
     Run, run, run!

     Look, Jane, look!
     Look, look, look!
     See Spot run!
     Funny, funny Spot!

     Oh! Oh! Oh!
     Stop, Spot, stop!
     Stop, stop, stop!

     As you might suppose, this new approach to reading was great for the sales of many "basic readers," as they were called, and the educational establishment registered its enthusiastic approval of this new, scientific "Look-Say Method." (Experiments had apparently been conducted, and the appropriate statistics verified and published.)  I think it had been originally called the "See-Say" method, but I am not sure about that.  Anyway, phonics were out as the basis for learning pronunciation, or as an aid to learning meaning, or discovering where words come from.  Look-Say was in.

     You will notice that the thoughtful and scientific publishers made sure that increasing "complexity" was not left out.  The exclamation point could be discussed as a point of emotional excitement (!);  and the two-syllable word, funny, was smoothly slipped in.  And there was that catchy rhythm that marched forward in common time:  left, right, left, pause, left, right, left, pause.  This educational experience went on page after page, day after day, book after book.

     If you realize that pretty much the entire baby-boom generation was nurtured on this (may I say it?) drivel, you may have some understanding why things have turned out for them the way they did.  When the Boomers took to the streets of San Francisco (and elsewhere) a few years later, they were chanting slogans like "Peace and love," and "Give peace a chance."  At least they had gotten beyond "Peace, peace, peace! Oh, oh, oh!  Love, love, love!"  Which I, at least, would call progress of a sort.

     All this does not justify writing a post, except for what caught my eye in the comments section of the post -- a joke.  No doubt it is an old joke -- joke, joke, joke! -- but I had not heard it before.  Here it goes:

     A first grade teacher gets out of her class at the end of a school day and heads for her car.  She notices that she has a flat tire.
     "Oh, oh, oh!
     "Look, look, look!
     "Damn, damn, damn!"

     Thought you'd like it.

In The Beginning

     I used to think that God was a Mathematician.  I now think that He only took it on as a serious hobby to be indulged at the end of a long and busy day.  "Good -- that's One.  Good, that's Two.  Good, that's Three," and so forth.  After getting to Six, He could see where it was going, and was tired.  "Here comes Seven, and I'm taking a rest from all that."  Maybe He delegated that whole business of Mathematics to the Archangels, at least for a while.

     After a long, restful Sabbath He aroused Himself and had other things on His mind.  Like Adam.  And a Garden with Trees.

   

One Word

     So this morning, I was sitting on my porch reading a good book when the nice woman -- black, I may say, to give proper honor to her and her ethnic traditions -- who works for the U. S. Postal Service and kindly delivers our mail every day, came by on her daily rounds.

     I had been thinking about her particularly since yesterday, and felt that I had one word for her.  So, as she handed me our mail, I said:

     "One word:  Jesus."

     "Amen," she smiled.  "Amen."

     And that's the truth.

A Nation of Fantasists

     I've been reading Wendell Berry (again), and ran across this passage in his recent book, What Matters?  It is the introductory paragraph of an essay which he wrote in 2009.

     "As our economy has been showing us for the past year or so, we have become a nation of fantasists.  With a kind of abject credulity, we have come to believe in the power of money alone to bring forth goods, to believe that money itself is a good, to believe that consumption is as vital an economic activity as production.  We think that shopping is a patriotic act and a public service.  We tolerate fabulous capitalists who think a bet on a debt is an asset."

     There I went, favorably quoting a man who does not pay proper respect to the god of our civic religion, Mammon, and the capitalists his faithful priests.

     But we are a nation of fantasists -- political fantasists left and right, media believers, Hollywood afficionados, technology-addicts, militarists, ideologists, and theological speculators.

     However, reality is beginning to prod us awake.

     But awakening from our fantasies may be as troublesome, frightening, and sickening as coming out of a long-induced drug stupor, or a hang-over.  "What has been going on while I have been out-of-it?" we begin to ask ourselves.  "And worse yet, who knows what was I really doing when I was out of my senses?"

     Then, of next importance, the further questions:  "What do I do now?  What will happen next?  What should I be preparing for?"

     The good news, and the bad news, is that other people are asking the same questions, and are talking to each other.  That is good news for two reasons -- the first reason being that we are not alone, that other intelligent people are addressing the same questions; and the second reason being that some practical answers have begun to be suggested. (Although largely, but not completely, ignored.)

     The bad news is also two-fold.  First, we can no longer tell ourselves that everything is okay, and that we can continue with business as usual and things as they are, it's just human nature, inevitable, etc.  We are sick, and we know it.  Second, we can see that the people who are still caught in the left-right paradigm, or caught in the would-be world-encompassing media-narrative, or pre-occupied with American (or religious, or Christian) exceptionalism, or narcissistic selfists, are not going to be much help;  they -- as once we; perhaps still we -- are a big part of the problem.

     The world is not Disney-world, or church-world, and it is not even "western civilization."  Mammon is a false god, a demi-god.  And both God and the Devil are wide awake.

Thinking About "Personhood" in America

     I am enjoying reading through Wendell Berry's most recent essays, just published (2015) as Our Only World.  In one of his essays, entitled "On Receiving One of the Dayton Literary Peace Prizes," he begins this way:

     "When we were notified of this award my wife, Tanya Berry, uttered a sound that closely resembled laughter.  She better than anybody knows how willingly I have risked controversy, and how much I have enjoyed it, especially when I was young.  In my favor I can only say that I have never killed or physically harmed any of my enemies, or wished to do so, and that I don't carry a pistol.  The only thing I would really enjoy shooting is a drone."

     Which reminded me about drones.  Which in turn reminded me about corporations.  Which in turn reminded me of a recent decision of our All-Legal Supreme Court, which Mr. Berry also comments on elsewhere in his book (p. 86):

     "The legal definition of a person evaporated when the Supreme Court defined a corporation as a person.  If a corporation is a person, contrary to all previous usage and to common sense, then personhood can be conferred upon virtually anything merely by decree.  Issues are thus quickly carried not just into vagueness but beyond the bounds of language."

     I was further reminded of the recent increasing admiration of police dogs, who have long been militarized into a "K-9 Corps" (ha, ha, get it?  yes we all get it).  From being used as "bloodhounds" to track escapees from chain gangs (Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke), they were then given the training to attack "rioters" (in Selma, and in any number of other places and circumstances), and were further trained to "sniff for drugs," which made them proxies for violating the Bill of Rights, with its prohibitions and restrictions on searches and seizures.  Dogs work quite well without any respect for the need of a warrant issued by a judge.  And best of all, perhaps, they might even be trained to register what we could euphemistically call a "false positive" on the appropriate signal from a duly authorized "handler."  They are now increasingly thought of, with police and media and popular reverence, as noble "veterans" when they "fall in the line of duty."  How long until they are granted virtual "personhood" status?

     Personally, I am not ready to give dogs, even military-trained dogs, "personhood" status, but I must admit that I'd sooner recognize them as persons than I would any "corporation," which is, after all, a legal fiction at best, or a legal fig-leaf, or a legal grimoire at worst.  The dog is, at least, a living creature.  It shares a substantial amount of DNA with me, and by virtue of being an animal has, or has been thought to have, some kind of soul.  ( The word anima once meant "having breath, soul, current of air."  It meant the kind of creature that the Lord God thought worth saving along with humankind at the Flood. )

     I further think that the instituting of a "corporation" is almost always an imposture on the human mind, and that it is often bent on colonizing individual and social consciousness.  And more frequently than we would like to think, it intends -- by advertising and "product placement" and "corporate sponsorship" and other forms of propaganda -- to force itself upon us as an idol we are to revere or a god we must obey.  But perhaps I overstate the danger.

     Nevertheless, how long before "drones" are given agency -- even a programmably "independent" agency, by their corporate owners and their civilian and military minions -- to lethally interfere with the lives of people?

     How long?  It has already happened, to the enthusiastic bipartisan applause of "liberals" and "conservatives" alike.  And what good is a weapon, after all, if you are not ready to use it?

     I should not be surprised if, one day soon, the Supreme Court, on orders from the Pentagon, and in acknowledgement of drones' "essential role in preserving our national security interests," makes any resistance to them a federal crime, and damaging or destroying them a military offense that justifies any and all military retaliation.  And then they, and their controllers, will have greatly extended their control over you and your children, and over me and mine.

     This reminds me of another question that Wendell Berry raises in another book:  What Are People For?

A Thoughtful Man Writes About Government Duplicity

     I have a pretty complete library of Wendell Berry's books -- his essays, his poems, and his fiction -- and I am currently re-reading The Unsettling of America, which he originally wrote in 1977, nearly forty years ago.  (I must admit that I am a relative late-comer to Mr. Berry's work.  This book -- the first of his books that I ever read -- was given to me nearly twenty years after it was written.  It was a gift from a friend, Rick Koeplin, who was quite a good back-to-the-land type of man himself:  he moved his family and his work (auto mechanics) out of the city onto a small farm in Indiana.  There he and his wife designed and built their own house from timber harvested from their own property, planted their gardens, repaired farm machinery, and raised their six children.)

     Wendell Berry's influence has spread widely -- he is probably even better known around the world than he is known in his own home state of Kentucky, where he lives and farms and writes. In this book he has a chapter called "The Use of Energy," in which he talks about the cycles of life and of energy, and the past and present and future of American culture and agriculture.  But here I want to focus specifically on what he says about government duplicity; and so I will lift these words out from their context.  They are words that can stand on their own:

     "But then it must be asked if we can remove cultural value from one part of our lives without destroying it also in the other parts.  Can we justify secrecy, lying, and burglary in our so-called intelligence organizations and yet preserve openness, honesty, and devotion to principle in the rest of our government?  Can we subsidize mayhem in the military establishment and yet have peace, order, and respect for human life in the city streets?"  

     I think that the keepers of our political culture -- not just the party politicians, or the media pundits and paid experts, but ordinary people like ourselves -- have tried mightily to answer "Yes" to his questions.  But our recent history, including our unending string of wars and rumors of wars, and our financial unraveling, give an unequivocal answer, "No."

     Much food for thought, I think.  I encourage anyone reading these words to get and read his book, and any of the many other books that he has written.  His message is consistent, and consistently full of insight.  It is sobering to me to realize that the problems that we face were well understood and discussed by this man decades ago.

The Tom Bombadil Option

     There is a good essay up at the Front Porch Republic.  It is one of the better ones, I think, on the subject of Tom Bombadil, and by virtue of that, I think it is one of the better essays on The Lord of the Rings.

     Some people, including me, can remember where they were when they heard that President Kennedy had been killed; and some people, including me, can remember where they were when they first read The Lord of the Rings.

     It was the early summer of 1968, and I was home from my first year in college.  The Vietnam war was red hot, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King were freshly dead, George Wallace was running for President, the Summer of Love was a year in the past and the summer of Woodstock was a year in the future.  For a summer job I was working in the family printing business, and I had just purchased the complete set of Tolkien's books -- paperback -- on the recommendation of a good college friend named Jay.

     This particular edition, from Ballantine Books, had psychedelic covers. (I bought the poster.)  The Hobbit was subtitled "The Enchanting Prelude to The Lord of the Rings," and that was where I began. I read the whole set at one time.  I think it took me about four days to read the four books.

     My mind was greatly, and permanently, changed.

     At that time, I knew absolutely nothing about "Tolkien lore," or C. S. Lewis and the Inklings and their place in English Literature.  And although I was living in a world that was being deeply modified by these very conscious and active men,  I also knew nothing about John Paul Sartre and his writings on existentialism, nor of Allen Dulles and his reflections on the craft of intelligence, nor of Wendell Berry and his place on earth, despite the fact that all of their writings were quite available at the time.  And although I had had real interactions in all three of those modes of thinking and living of which they wrote, I was, quite simply, unaware.  

     I liked to read well enough.  I had read some of Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo, Jack London and Jules Verne, Zane Grey and Allen Drury -- my tastes were, I guess, somewhat eclectic.  But I'll credit J.R.R. Tolkien with opening a kind of good door in my mind that has led to my discovery of some very interesting places and people.

     What was it about this story that could open a person's awareness (mine) -- not just to a "fantasy world," but also to that part of the "real" world all around him that to him (me) was still un-real?

     New as I was in those days to the world of Tolkien's understanding, I could still see that Tom Bombadil was in some ways the most interesting character.  Who was he, that he could laugh and toss the Ring with no seeming ill effect?  So I was sorry, when the otherwise very good movie trilogy was released, that Peter Jackson had left him out completely.  I had thought that Bombadil was in some sense the unmoving pivot around which the entire War of the Ring revolved.  I have never lost that sense, even if Peter Jackson seems never to have found it.

     So here is the link to Front Porch Republic, with its essay by Chris Wiley, "The Bombadil Option." I think that I have found, at least in some sense, a kindred spirit.