She was quite a little girl
Her name was Ratzinger, an unusual name no doubt, particularly for a cat, but she was an unusual cat, to say the least. She came from the Guardian Angel Rescue folks who always sets up shop in front of the Petsmart on weekends, seeking to adopt out dogs and cats who have been abandoned, dumped, some of them abused in the process, all of them neglected and forgotten.
We needed a cat to catch the rats who were taking over our yard. Seems when you maintain a small semitropical jungle for a yard, rats come with the territory. We had tried the humane mouse traps, glue traps, everything short of poison. We already had two cats, both of them kept indoors, so the agreement I negotiated with my partner was that Ratzinger would be an indoor-outdoor cat who slept outside at night to catch rats.
She was a beautiful animal, orange tabby, gold eyes, and six toes on her feet. I told people she was a Hemingway cat since there seemed to be a lot of those six-toed cats in the flock to which he left his mansion in Key West. But regardless of her origins, she quickly lived into her name, Ratzinger. It was intended as a double entendre, the zinger of rats on the one hand, redemption of the name of the Roman cardinal with the morbid obsession over matters sexual on the other. During the five years she graced our lives, Ratzinger brought the remains of 34 rats to the door, often left on the mat. (I cannot tell you how disgusting it is to step out in bare feet, enroute to pick up the weekend New York Times, and to come down on the remains of a rat.)
What I hadn't anticipated was how bright she was. Ratzinger was a highly extroverted animal. We had put a tag on her with her name. About a month after she arrived, she disappeared for three days. I went into major mourning, my kitten taken from me. As it turned out, she had gotten caught under the house in a glue trap for the rats, extracting herself only at the cost of one of her extra digits on her left foot. I knew then a couple of things. One, that she was an extraordinary animal. Everyone in the neighborhood knew she was missing, knew her by name and helped look for her. Ratzinger had simply made her acquaintance with all the neighbors. But I also knew that Ratzinger's presence in our lives was not a guaranteed thing and that one day I might lose her.
Ratzinger spent her days in the yard, often sleeping in the sun or on top of the fence by the door where she could keep an eye on our coming and going. The minute our car doors had slammed her little voice could be heard, prancing across the driveway like she owned it. Ratzinger was self-possessed if anything. She frequently joined the dinner table on the nights the Francis-Clare Community met in our home and more than once I held her across my shoulder during parts of our eucharist. Somehow, she just seemed to fit in, one of G-d's most wonderful creations that we celebrated in our eucharist (which literally means "thanksgiving").
This past Easter season, I began to notice that Ratzy was not doing so well. She seemed listless, lacking in energy. I put off taking her to the vet thinking she just had a little bug, she'd get better. But she didn't. One night I noticed she was having a difficult time remaining atop the aquarium where she often slept. She insisted I let her out, something she often did by ringing the bells strung from the back of the front door. I obliged her, but when I called her later that evening, no Ratzinger. Ten o'clock, midnight, 2 a.m. came and went, no Ratzinger. I cried myself to sleep that night, afraid she'd gone off somewhere to die.
It was that night that I knew she would not be with us much longer. I was back up at 6 a.m. the next morning as the sun was coming up, out into the yard, choking back tears, calling her name. A flood of relief came as I heard her little bell. She came from the neighbor's house across the street, one of her favorite hiding places. And off we went to the vet. I left her with the good doctor, hoping for good news. The doctor's ashen face when I arrived that afternoon told me there would be no good news that day.
Somehow, one of her kidneys had failed. The other seemed to be sufficing for the time being. That was the good news. We began talking about a kidney removal. But her iron count was very low. Her HIV test had come back equivocal. More tests needed prior to the surgery revealed her heart was enlarged and her lungs were filling with fluid. She was so miserable that afternoon when I came to get her. She seemed to know her daddy was absolutely heart broken. We sat on the cold floor of the vet's office and I sobbed. And I knew, this was the second time she'd left and returned. The third time would be goodbye.
About $1200 later, we emerged from the vet's office with special food, iron supplement, a diuretic which she had to take twice a day and a syringe to force feed her. She was down to 8 pounds and would die of starvation if I didn't force feed her. For awhile, she was good about letting me do all of that. She tolerated the force feeding and meds well. She began to rally, gaining back weight, showing spark, even fussing at the other cats. Then one day, about
a month after the doctor's visit, she began to decline again. She wouldn't eat despite my locking her in her carrier with food, water and a box.
On the Fourth of July afternoon, my parents had come to town. I was headed to my brother's to see them and have dinner. Like I had done many times before, I had Ratzinger on the floor, syringe only partly full of food and water mixed up. Suddenly she choked. She leapt from my arms, up on the counter, gasping, eyes wide in terror. She leapt from the counter to the floor, convulsed a couple of times and died. I have lived through many hard times in my life. But this one 30 second interval of watching her sheer terror is probably the hardest thing I've ever faced in my life. I screamed at her to breathe, tried mouth to mouth, Heimlich maneuver, tried to help her now erupted heart to begin beating again. Nothing. She died in my arms as I rocked her, crying, aching. I have rarely felt the urge to die quite as strongly as I did that moment.
I tried to go to my brother's for dinner but I was too distraught. I excused myself early, tears brimming in my eyes, headed home to bury my little girl. I wrapped her in a turquoise towel, dug a hole in the corner of the yard where one day soon Charlie Beagle, now 15 years old, will soon rest as well. I lit a candle beneath the Celtic Cross in my yard, placed incense around
the grave and the bench where I sat cradling my little girl. I poured a glass of wine to celebrate a far too short but joy-filled five years. I spoke to her of how loved she was, of how much she had brought to the lives of all she knew, of how the rats were breathing easier these days, and of how much I would miss her. I sang the song I always sang to her: "You are my sunshine...my only sunshine...." Then I buried her, placing a round paving stone over the grave and surrounding it with border grass and lilies.
I was supposed to go to a Fourth party that night at the home of my friend, Judy, out on Lake Conway. All the Francis-Clare Community would be there. I called, uncertain what to say, blurting out through my tears that Ratzinger had died. They insisted I not stay home alone. So, I went to the party.
I will never forget the sky that evening. It was a shade of orange I've rarely seen before, the result of thunderstorms earlier that afternoon and the setting sun. Across the eastern horizon, a double rainbow stretched, periodically punctuated by long forks of lightning and erratic bursts of Fourth of July fireworks from around the lake. A cool breeze blew in off the lake. It was a masterpiece of nature. Despite the grief I felt, it was one of the most beautiful nights I had ever seen.
Days later, I found in my email a story about rescue animals waiting for their rescuers to cross the Rainbow Bridge into heaven. I smiled. Ms. Ratzinger was not waiting for me to cross that bridge. She had crossed a glorious sky on a double rainbow into heaven that night. As always she had gone in style. There were other animals and people to meet and charm.
It's been over two weeks now since I lost my little girl. There has not been a day yet that I have not cried over my poor Ratzinger. Having recently read The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, I have started looking for lessons that painful events have to teach me. Ratzinger's death taught me several things. One, there are human limitations. Even the best vets and the most profound desires to keep a living being alive are sometimes not enough. My sense of helplessness - powerlessness - as I watched her die was a lesson - sometimes you can't prevent death, you can't make things better. They simply have to play out as they are destined to occur. I've also learned once again that I need to be mindful of the moment, grateful for the loving time together I have with all those many wonderful living beings G-d has graced my life with. I suddenly realized last week that I had been ignoring my other cats almost completely during the time Ratzinger had been so sick. I've been making up for lost time the past few days.
Finally, I realized I'm probably not as OK with death as I thought I was. I don't worry about what happens after death. Concern about heaven or hell don't make much sense to me. I trust G-d with whatever happens. What I've figured out is that I simply have a hard time letting go of those I love, of contemplating being without them. It's not so much attachment as it is aversion to the pain of loss and loneliness. At any rate, it's something I need to work on at midlife with many potential losses staring me in the face.
The statute of the smiling kitten, rolling on its back, arrived last week. I ordered it off the internet from the Better Homes and Gardens site, no less. Andy and Luci both said, "Oh yeah, that's her!" when I showed it to them. Today I put it on the spot where Ratzinger is buried. And once more I cried. Andy says I should be more patient with myself, give myself some time. I know I have survived the loss of animals, friends and family members before. I will survive this as well. Funny thing was that the statue, though concrete, was coated with some kind of stain and a burlap string tied around its neck. I hesitated to put it on her grave, afraid that in the torrid summer weather, even this reminder of her would deteriorate and fade away. Even in death, my grasp of Ratzinger is fragile, fleeting, momentary.
I know this is a bit maudlin. Unlike some of my other posts, this one was for me. I needed to write this even as I've put it off for a couple of days since the statue arrived. For those of us who will never have children, the loss of our animal companions is particularly profound. It's always a devil's bargain to be a pet owner because the chances always are that they will die before you do. The question I find myself asking these days is whether my heart can survive the loss of the animal I am always happy to adopt and bring into our lives. In years past, it was not a hard question. As I get older, I'm not so sure.
I really miss my little girl. One day I will think of her and smile. She was quite a cat. In five years, she managed to completely capture her daddy's heart. There have been times she's seemed like she was just around the corner. I find myself looking for her, waiting for her little bell to signal her procession in. The neighbors have an orange tabby named Crush who looks an awful lot like Ratzinger. In some ways, it's like she's still around, watching, waiting.
For tonight, all I can say is that I'm thankful for knowing her, for being owned by her (humans never own cats!) and for the things she taught me. There will be a day when I no longer cry for her. But there will never be a day when I will not be a better human being for having the far too brief five years I was given with a little extroverted six-toed orange tabby with a big heart and an unusual name, Ratzinger. Thank you, little girl, for all you were and all I became because of you.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
https://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com
If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Monday, July 19, 2004
Saturday, July 17, 2004
Because I wasn't there…..
It's odd how you can go much of your life and not understand why things happened the way they did. And, then, when you least expect it, a moment of clarity occurs when an answer to a question you have never been able to even articulate suddenly presents itself. Revelation. And suddenly so much makes sense.
I had one of those Larsen cow (where the cow suddenly realizes "Grass! This is grass we've been eating!") experiences last week. I had taken my friend Juicy Luci to see her grandmother and aunt and uncle up in The Villages (why do I always think of the 1960s British series The Prisoner when I hear that name?). Afterward we had driven down to see my parents and have dinner with them. As I was sitting in the home where I had spent the last six years prior to graduating high school (getting the hell out of Dodge the day after graduation, literally), the home which sat on the land my father, brother and I had cleared together, I suddenly became aware of the photos on the walls. Photos of my brother and sister and their children - the grandchildren. And so I got a wild hair - why not show Luci my photos from my growing up days?
I began to casually search the house for my photographs. There was the portrait of the three of us taken when I was a senior in high school. And there was one down the hall taken when I was four years old, an innocent toe-headed face peering back at me across the nearly 50 years. (Lord, has it been that long?) The rest was filled with photos of weddings, my parents' and my brother's and sister's. And siblings with children. And grandchildren alone. Long dead forebears peered from my father's room which has become genealogy central for him. All of a sudden it began to dawn on me: but for the two pictures from my childhood, I simply wasn't there.
Suddenly I remembered the funny photo of Andy and I my sister had taken last summer over at the beach. I had framed it and given it to my mother for Mother's Day a couple of months ago. I looked around, trying to remember where I had last seen it. It was nowhere in sight. Finally I detected the edge of the frame peering from behind a photo of my brother and his family. There it was, my partner and I, buried under the socially respectable heterosexual family photo, removed from sight of visitors and occupants alike. I doubt my parents consciously covered up the evidence of their oldest child's adult life. But regardless, for all practical purposes, I wasn't there.
I'm not sure why this surprised me. Surely I could have seen that coming. But a wave of sadness spread over me. I felt the tears brimming in my eyes. And I resolved immediately that I would not let anyone see me cry over this. The last thing I wanted to do was to have to explain why I was upset. "I need to go outside for a minute," I said. "I'm not feeling too good."
The revelation was not yet complete. Blinking back tears and rubbing my burning eyes, I surveyed the wooded 12 acres in which I had spent the bulk of my teenage years. Familiar sights swam into view. The palm tree Daddy gave me for my Christmas present in 1970, now well over my head. Banks of azaleas I had planted, so brilliant in the springtime, rendering the state highway beyond invisible. There was the large oak, its trunk split into two arching giants, where we used to shimmy up between the two and then step out onto the moss and lichen covered branch large enough for a teenager to walk on. Behind the house, past the small citrus grove we had spent many frosty nights building fires to keep alive, was the half acre rock garden I had built over the years. Its concrete fish pond now filled with leaves and weeds, its bricked paths and the wishing well built from a discarded washing machine agitator now grown over with out-of-control ivy and ferns. Yet even in its overgrown appearance, it still soothed me with a warm feeling that came unbidden.
That's when the revelation came into focus. Of course my photos weren't in the house. I wasn't there. And I hadn't been for a long time. It was the woods that had been my refuge in the last years of high school when my father had made life so difficult for me, struggling to deal with a son he feared was probably gay in a town where he had been raised and now taught school. It was the woods where I escaped, pouring out my grief, exchanging uncried tears for rock-lined flower beds brimming with azaleas and ferns, a monument to sublimation and transformation. And it is these same woods from which I have transplanted so many of those plants to my current lot-sized confinement in the heart of a city which does not understand the need for greenery to shield a fragile soul from a world which does not understand it.
Suddenly a number of pieces began to fall into place. For one, my affinity for the woods. I have always loved the woods as long as I could remember even as I despised the small towns - farms and ranches at their edges- with their little minds and even littler hearts. The woods were a place of recharge and refuge, my true alma mater where my broken heart found rest. The psalmist described it well: "It restoreth my soul." I have sought to recreate those woods in every place I have ever lived. Suddenly, I understood why. The woods were my solace, the place I sought out when rejection began to pile on rejection in the little farmer and jock dominated school to which I was sentenced for 11 and a half long years. In the woods, I could be myself hidden from the hostile, judgmental eyes of the townspeople and my increasingly perplexed and anxious father. The woods were the place I belonged.
I also suddenly understood why when my mother asks me what I want of her estate, I have a hard time thinking of anything. The furniture, the wall decorations, the dishes all speak to a house - indeed, a world - to which I never truly belonged. What I really want is outside, where I had existed.
Upon reflection, it has occurred to me that there is a reason my photos stop appearing in the house at the point in my life where they do. At four, I was still the little boy my parents always wanted, the toe-headed, bright child who read at three and whose curiosity about the world was unbounded, the little boy who liked people and invited complete strangers right off the street to his fourth birthday party. At 17, I was still the son with much promise, high scores on standardized tests, good grades, a state merit scholar, a good son who grated at the reins but still was respectable in the little town which raised him. Thereafter came the struggles in earnest, the long, painful coming out process, the failed heterosexual relationships, the alcohol whose abuse escalated toward disaster which would come some 20 years later on a highway in California. There would be no wedding photos or grandchildren to add to the collection of the socially respectable. And the many graduation portraits (five from colleges alone) and the many photos of me with dear friends or my partner of 30 years I gave my parents would never make it to the walls. It's essentially as if Harry, the toe-headed boy and the serious-faced promising high school graduate, the tragic oldest son, simply vanished into the night at graduation from high school that sultry May evening in 1971.
I need to hasten to say that I have never doubted that my parents loved me. Even in my darkest hours of coming to grips with my sexuality and struggling to survive the persecution I experienced as a teacher in Inverness during the late 1970s, I always believed that, at bottom line, my parents still loved me. Their pain at my absence from their immediate lives those four years I spent in California was palpable, one of the major reasons I returned to Florida. But I also have become very clear in my middle age that they have never really understood me though I suspect they have tried. Perhaps no one is ever completely understood. But I think my father, whose world of reference was that little town which had produced him, and my mother, a saint for sure but lacking any kind of experience upon which to relate to a gay son, simply didn't know what to do with the son that emerged after escaping the little town which had held him captive those years. The photos missing from their home bear witness to their response: I simply wasn't there.
I find myself oddly detached from these words as I record them. I don't feel any particular sorrow or anger. I simply find a sense of relief in finally understanding. It's odd to realize such things at midlife. I love my parents no less. And I think I probably understand them a little better than I did. I will be sad the day that I can no longer walk the grounds of the home where I spent the last years of my teenaged life. But I have long since said goodbye to the house where I was at best nominally present those six years. I now have my own home which I love, a home surrounded by a wall of green, some of it from the woods in which I lived those many years. It is a home brimming with photos and mementoes of a very full life, wonderful friends and a loving partnership of some 30 plus years. This is my place, my home. It is a place where my presence is inescapable and its rightful place unquestioned. And it is from that place that I today give thanks for the woods that were my true home and my refuge those many years and for the lesson they have afforded me these many years later. Deo gratias.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
https://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com
If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
It's odd how you can go much of your life and not understand why things happened the way they did. And, then, when you least expect it, a moment of clarity occurs when an answer to a question you have never been able to even articulate suddenly presents itself. Revelation. And suddenly so much makes sense.
I had one of those Larsen cow (where the cow suddenly realizes "Grass! This is grass we've been eating!") experiences last week. I had taken my friend Juicy Luci to see her grandmother and aunt and uncle up in The Villages (why do I always think of the 1960s British series The Prisoner when I hear that name?). Afterward we had driven down to see my parents and have dinner with them. As I was sitting in the home where I had spent the last six years prior to graduating high school (getting the hell out of Dodge the day after graduation, literally), the home which sat on the land my father, brother and I had cleared together, I suddenly became aware of the photos on the walls. Photos of my brother and sister and their children - the grandchildren. And so I got a wild hair - why not show Luci my photos from my growing up days?
I began to casually search the house for my photographs. There was the portrait of the three of us taken when I was a senior in high school. And there was one down the hall taken when I was four years old, an innocent toe-headed face peering back at me across the nearly 50 years. (Lord, has it been that long?) The rest was filled with photos of weddings, my parents' and my brother's and sister's. And siblings with children. And grandchildren alone. Long dead forebears peered from my father's room which has become genealogy central for him. All of a sudden it began to dawn on me: but for the two pictures from my childhood, I simply wasn't there.
Suddenly I remembered the funny photo of Andy and I my sister had taken last summer over at the beach. I had framed it and given it to my mother for Mother's Day a couple of months ago. I looked around, trying to remember where I had last seen it. It was nowhere in sight. Finally I detected the edge of the frame peering from behind a photo of my brother and his family. There it was, my partner and I, buried under the socially respectable heterosexual family photo, removed from sight of visitors and occupants alike. I doubt my parents consciously covered up the evidence of their oldest child's adult life. But regardless, for all practical purposes, I wasn't there.
I'm not sure why this surprised me. Surely I could have seen that coming. But a wave of sadness spread over me. I felt the tears brimming in my eyes. And I resolved immediately that I would not let anyone see me cry over this. The last thing I wanted to do was to have to explain why I was upset. "I need to go outside for a minute," I said. "I'm not feeling too good."
The revelation was not yet complete. Blinking back tears and rubbing my burning eyes, I surveyed the wooded 12 acres in which I had spent the bulk of my teenage years. Familiar sights swam into view. The palm tree Daddy gave me for my Christmas present in 1970, now well over my head. Banks of azaleas I had planted, so brilliant in the springtime, rendering the state highway beyond invisible. There was the large oak, its trunk split into two arching giants, where we used to shimmy up between the two and then step out onto the moss and lichen covered branch large enough for a teenager to walk on. Behind the house, past the small citrus grove we had spent many frosty nights building fires to keep alive, was the half acre rock garden I had built over the years. Its concrete fish pond now filled with leaves and weeds, its bricked paths and the wishing well built from a discarded washing machine agitator now grown over with out-of-control ivy and ferns. Yet even in its overgrown appearance, it still soothed me with a warm feeling that came unbidden.
That's when the revelation came into focus. Of course my photos weren't in the house. I wasn't there. And I hadn't been for a long time. It was the woods that had been my refuge in the last years of high school when my father had made life so difficult for me, struggling to deal with a son he feared was probably gay in a town where he had been raised and now taught school. It was the woods where I escaped, pouring out my grief, exchanging uncried tears for rock-lined flower beds brimming with azaleas and ferns, a monument to sublimation and transformation. And it is these same woods from which I have transplanted so many of those plants to my current lot-sized confinement in the heart of a city which does not understand the need for greenery to shield a fragile soul from a world which does not understand it.
Suddenly a number of pieces began to fall into place. For one, my affinity for the woods. I have always loved the woods as long as I could remember even as I despised the small towns - farms and ranches at their edges- with their little minds and even littler hearts. The woods were a place of recharge and refuge, my true alma mater where my broken heart found rest. The psalmist described it well: "It restoreth my soul." I have sought to recreate those woods in every place I have ever lived. Suddenly, I understood why. The woods were my solace, the place I sought out when rejection began to pile on rejection in the little farmer and jock dominated school to which I was sentenced for 11 and a half long years. In the woods, I could be myself hidden from the hostile, judgmental eyes of the townspeople and my increasingly perplexed and anxious father. The woods were the place I belonged.
I also suddenly understood why when my mother asks me what I want of her estate, I have a hard time thinking of anything. The furniture, the wall decorations, the dishes all speak to a house - indeed, a world - to which I never truly belonged. What I really want is outside, where I had existed.
Upon reflection, it has occurred to me that there is a reason my photos stop appearing in the house at the point in my life where they do. At four, I was still the little boy my parents always wanted, the toe-headed, bright child who read at three and whose curiosity about the world was unbounded, the little boy who liked people and invited complete strangers right off the street to his fourth birthday party. At 17, I was still the son with much promise, high scores on standardized tests, good grades, a state merit scholar, a good son who grated at the reins but still was respectable in the little town which raised him. Thereafter came the struggles in earnest, the long, painful coming out process, the failed heterosexual relationships, the alcohol whose abuse escalated toward disaster which would come some 20 years later on a highway in California. There would be no wedding photos or grandchildren to add to the collection of the socially respectable. And the many graduation portraits (five from colleges alone) and the many photos of me with dear friends or my partner of 30 years I gave my parents would never make it to the walls. It's essentially as if Harry, the toe-headed boy and the serious-faced promising high school graduate, the tragic oldest son, simply vanished into the night at graduation from high school that sultry May evening in 1971.
I need to hasten to say that I have never doubted that my parents loved me. Even in my darkest hours of coming to grips with my sexuality and struggling to survive the persecution I experienced as a teacher in Inverness during the late 1970s, I always believed that, at bottom line, my parents still loved me. Their pain at my absence from their immediate lives those four years I spent in California was palpable, one of the major reasons I returned to Florida. But I also have become very clear in my middle age that they have never really understood me though I suspect they have tried. Perhaps no one is ever completely understood. But I think my father, whose world of reference was that little town which had produced him, and my mother, a saint for sure but lacking any kind of experience upon which to relate to a gay son, simply didn't know what to do with the son that emerged after escaping the little town which had held him captive those years. The photos missing from their home bear witness to their response: I simply wasn't there.
I find myself oddly detached from these words as I record them. I don't feel any particular sorrow or anger. I simply find a sense of relief in finally understanding. It's odd to realize such things at midlife. I love my parents no less. And I think I probably understand them a little better than I did. I will be sad the day that I can no longer walk the grounds of the home where I spent the last years of my teenaged life. But I have long since said goodbye to the house where I was at best nominally present those six years. I now have my own home which I love, a home surrounded by a wall of green, some of it from the woods in which I lived those many years. It is a home brimming with photos and mementoes of a very full life, wonderful friends and a loving partnership of some 30 plus years. This is my place, my home. It is a place where my presence is inescapable and its rightful place unquestioned. And it is from that place that I today give thanks for the woods that were my true home and my refuge those many years and for the lesson they have afforded me these many years later. Deo gratias.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
https://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com
If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
the loneliest animal in the forest
Back in the late 1980s, we lived near a large park downtown on the site of a former lake in which a sinkhole had opened and drained its waters years before. It was largely a swampy area and the parks department had created a series of trails and boardwalks through the area to allow people to appreciate nature in the midst of a city of over a million people. The park was adjacent to a housing project in which allegedly a good bit of drug dealing was occurring. It was also the site of some homosexual cruising which local police claimed resulted in sexual acts being committed in park restrooms and in the bushes. I say allegedly because for all the hype that came out of OPD, the statistics rarely bore out the alarming incidence of crime the public was being warned of.
I was practicing law those days and we saw increasing numbers of misdemeanor city ordinance violations as the OPD sought to harrass ghetto kids they presumed were dealing drugs and gay men whom the presumed were planning sexual contacts in the parks. They prosecuted these targetted people through the use of obscure ordinances like "leaving a designated path" or "being in a park after sundown," broad charges which fit any kind of suspicious act. Never underestimate the power of the combination of a Calvinist religion, a Hobbesian anthropology and the power and authority of local law.
Most of the agents sent to sweep up these heinous criminals were undercover. Many wore revealing skimpy outfits designed to attract gay men or the beard and baseball cap uniform of the stereotypical drug dealer. These agents often hid in the bushes, wired for sound, waiting to spring their traps on those they saw as menaces to society. In addition to the irritation I felt as a public defender whose time was being wasted on bullshit city ordinance misdemeanor harrassment, the obsession with the city over sex and drugs (those things our puritan culture cannot deal with because they represent an unthinkable loss of control) played out in a more personal manner for me. My new jeep had been broken into in my carport and some things stolen from it. I called the police, they said they'd be over but none ever showed. I knew for a fact the undercovers were down in the bushes that afternoon because I saw them there. And after a couple of days when LEO never showed, I simply wrote the mayor a letter laying out what had occurred. I said that while the department was busy trying to bust misdemeanor departures from the path a mere block away, the felony occurring in my home was ignored. So what's wrong with this picture?
Years later, a friend would tell me of the night his father had died. He had driven to a parking lot overlooking Lake Underhill a block from where I now live. A young man in revealing clothes had come up to his car, pounded on the window and struck up a conversation punctuated repeatedly with offers to engage in sexual activity. After about a half hour of this, my friend agreed to go somewhere with the man. Out came the wiretap and the handcuffs. There is no small amount of predatory motivation in this practice. Knowing this man was grieving the loss of his father and was in a state of vulnerability, the officer continued until he had bagged his game. Who protects us from the protectors?
The last event which gave rise to this post occurred about six months ago. The park where I often go to meditate overlooking Lake Underhill has become a notorious cruising and drug dealing spot, according to the OPD. Local television channels have secretly planted television cameras to record supposed illicit activities in the park. One day as I was meditating, a middle aged man from south Florida came up and struck up a conversation. At one point he suggested we might go into the park restroom. The purpose was fairly clear. Politely declining the offer, I told him that this was a very dangerous place to be doing what he was doing, noting the undercover surveillance. He walked away. A couple of months later, the latest confusion of police operations and entertainment appeared on the local "news" in the form of a story about the park. In the story, the reporter noted that the Orange County Sheriff's Department had created a website on which the photos of those caught in undercover operations like those at the park were posted. I could hardly believe tax moneys were being used in this fashion. So I looked up the site. And there amid the photos was the man I'd warned that day in the park.
I'm not sure what drives these men to engage in risky behaviors in public venues. I know that many are married. I know that others fear the public acknowledgement of their true sexual orientation. The closet has long been a refuge for those who want to have their cake and eat it, too. I'm guessing some like the thrill of doing something risky. I'm also guessing that some have such terrible views of themselves that the venue of a public restroom smelling of stale urine and feces acknowledges their low self-value.
But what I do observe about the many men I have seen in these parks is the absolute and profound sense of loneliness, often mixed with despair, that they evince. For whatever reason they are there, they are there seeking a shred of human contact, a momentary forgetting of their lives of lies. The poem that will be posted in a separate post has been ruminating for about 17 years since the days of living near that downtown park, the boardwalks long since removed by city fathers seeking "zero tolerance" (which usually translates to zero intelligence) of such heinous crimes as departing designated park paths. It speaks to the desperation of the liver of lies, the stupidity of their predators and the ultimate destructiveness of homophobia in a society that long ago should have figured that out.
Continued....
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
https://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com
If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Back in the late 1980s, we lived near a large park downtown on the site of a former lake in which a sinkhole had opened and drained its waters years before. It was largely a swampy area and the parks department had created a series of trails and boardwalks through the area to allow people to appreciate nature in the midst of a city of over a million people. The park was adjacent to a housing project in which allegedly a good bit of drug dealing was occurring. It was also the site of some homosexual cruising which local police claimed resulted in sexual acts being committed in park restrooms and in the bushes. I say allegedly because for all the hype that came out of OPD, the statistics rarely bore out the alarming incidence of crime the public was being warned of.
I was practicing law those days and we saw increasing numbers of misdemeanor city ordinance violations as the OPD sought to harrass ghetto kids they presumed were dealing drugs and gay men whom the presumed were planning sexual contacts in the parks. They prosecuted these targetted people through the use of obscure ordinances like "leaving a designated path" or "being in a park after sundown," broad charges which fit any kind of suspicious act. Never underestimate the power of the combination of a Calvinist religion, a Hobbesian anthropology and the power and authority of local law.
Most of the agents sent to sweep up these heinous criminals were undercover. Many wore revealing skimpy outfits designed to attract gay men or the beard and baseball cap uniform of the stereotypical drug dealer. These agents often hid in the bushes, wired for sound, waiting to spring their traps on those they saw as menaces to society. In addition to the irritation I felt as a public defender whose time was being wasted on bullshit city ordinance misdemeanor harrassment, the obsession with the city over sex and drugs (those things our puritan culture cannot deal with because they represent an unthinkable loss of control) played out in a more personal manner for me. My new jeep had been broken into in my carport and some things stolen from it. I called the police, they said they'd be over but none ever showed. I knew for a fact the undercovers were down in the bushes that afternoon because I saw them there. And after a couple of days when LEO never showed, I simply wrote the mayor a letter laying out what had occurred. I said that while the department was busy trying to bust misdemeanor departures from the path a mere block away, the felony occurring in my home was ignored. So what's wrong with this picture?
Years later, a friend would tell me of the night his father had died. He had driven to a parking lot overlooking Lake Underhill a block from where I now live. A young man in revealing clothes had come up to his car, pounded on the window and struck up a conversation punctuated repeatedly with offers to engage in sexual activity. After about a half hour of this, my friend agreed to go somewhere with the man. Out came the wiretap and the handcuffs. There is no small amount of predatory motivation in this practice. Knowing this man was grieving the loss of his father and was in a state of vulnerability, the officer continued until he had bagged his game. Who protects us from the protectors?
The last event which gave rise to this post occurred about six months ago. The park where I often go to meditate overlooking Lake Underhill has become a notorious cruising and drug dealing spot, according to the OPD. Local television channels have secretly planted television cameras to record supposed illicit activities in the park. One day as I was meditating, a middle aged man from south Florida came up and struck up a conversation. At one point he suggested we might go into the park restroom. The purpose was fairly clear. Politely declining the offer, I told him that this was a very dangerous place to be doing what he was doing, noting the undercover surveillance. He walked away. A couple of months later, the latest confusion of police operations and entertainment appeared on the local "news" in the form of a story about the park. In the story, the reporter noted that the Orange County Sheriff's Department had created a website on which the photos of those caught in undercover operations like those at the park were posted. I could hardly believe tax moneys were being used in this fashion. So I looked up the site. And there amid the photos was the man I'd warned that day in the park.
I'm not sure what drives these men to engage in risky behaviors in public venues. I know that many are married. I know that others fear the public acknowledgement of their true sexual orientation. The closet has long been a refuge for those who want to have their cake and eat it, too. I'm guessing some like the thrill of doing something risky. I'm also guessing that some have such terrible views of themselves that the venue of a public restroom smelling of stale urine and feces acknowledges their low self-value.
But what I do observe about the many men I have seen in these parks is the absolute and profound sense of loneliness, often mixed with despair, that they evince. For whatever reason they are there, they are there seeking a shred of human contact, a momentary forgetting of their lives of lies. The poem that will be posted in a separate post has been ruminating for about 17 years since the days of living near that downtown park, the boardwalks long since removed by city fathers seeking "zero tolerance" (which usually translates to zero intelligence) of such heinous crimes as departing designated park paths. It speaks to the desperation of the liver of lies, the stupidity of their predators and the ultimate destructiveness of homophobia in a society that long ago should have figured that out.
Continued....
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
https://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com
If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
the loneliest animal in the forest
under the green awning of live oak trees
along the creek beds
where little boys catch tadpoles in dixie cups
and old men tend to smoking barbeque grills
azaleas are blooming
camellias and gardenias, too
the park a mass of color
and wonderful smells
the birds sing joyous songs of creation
in the air a chorus of buzzing
bees hovering over the gaping mouths of lilies
and bold squirrels daring to retrieve
corn chips from the hands of project children
momentarily disengaged from their teeter-totters
swings and merry-go-rounds
but he doesn't notice
like prey instinctively listening for the trigger
he whips his head from side to side
looking over first one shoulder
then the other
scanning the horizon
waiting
wondering
hoping
praying
will he find what he is seeking
will he find the one
who will make him forget
even for one second
the miserable life of lies he leads
his face bears the signs
of desperation
of a loneliness so profound
a chasm so deep
that no fleeting moment of pleasure will ever satisfy
for he is seeking himself
a self he has long since learned
never to love
never to acknowledge
never to trust
never to affirm
a self now so atrophied and withered
the image of god it once bore so plainly
now unrecognizable
he pretends that he is the hunter
the one seeking prey
seeking to be sated
of the gnawing hunger
for intimacy
for a moment's forgetting
for an accidental lapse
into total honesty
but it is he who is prey
the men in their binoculars
and walkie-talkies
their wiretaps hidden
under the scanty "plain clothes"
they believe he will trust
just long enough
for the net to drop
the snare to swallow
the trap to snap shut
its iron teeth digging into
his vulnerable exposed paw
and then he is caught
entrapped
though he can never prove it
no one will believe him
he will be guilty as charged
from the moment of arrest
berated, dehumanized enroute to booking
public humiliation to follow
on newspaper local pages
and tax payer funded websites
his so poorly kept secret now out
his co-conspirator wife
who never believed the stories about working late
now forced to face
the web of self-deception she has spun
the "i always knew it" spoken in whispers
behind his back
at work
at home
at church
where he will once again give his soul to jesus
and pray to be delivered
of this demon which possesses him
appearing unchecked in his dreams
and emerging with the shadow's power
in moments of weakness like these
wreaking of whiskey
though he tries to forget
he knows the trap is being laid
he tells himself he'll be careful
he won't get caught this time
he knows he is lying to himself
once again
like always
and yet he has returned
to the boardwalks and paths
lined with lilies and water maples
seeking the unattainable
amidst the deceitful and treacherous
praying this time it will be different
and that the fire in his loins
and the abscess in his soul
will go away
even if just for a few fleeting moments
he is the loneliest animal in the forest
a creature beyond reason
beyond love
beyond self-respect
who surrenders his dignity
and sells his very soul
for ever-conditional affirmations
of a world who reviles his very being
and who seeks to redeem it
in danger-filled venues
of fleeting passion
and willful forgetting
- Harry Coverston, 2004
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
https://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com
If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
under the green awning of live oak trees
along the creek beds
where little boys catch tadpoles in dixie cups
and old men tend to smoking barbeque grills
azaleas are blooming
camellias and gardenias, too
the park a mass of color
and wonderful smells
the birds sing joyous songs of creation
in the air a chorus of buzzing
bees hovering over the gaping mouths of lilies
and bold squirrels daring to retrieve
corn chips from the hands of project children
momentarily disengaged from their teeter-totters
swings and merry-go-rounds
but he doesn't notice
like prey instinctively listening for the trigger
he whips his head from side to side
looking over first one shoulder
then the other
scanning the horizon
waiting
wondering
hoping
praying
will he find what he is seeking
will he find the one
who will make him forget
even for one second
the miserable life of lies he leads
his face bears the signs
of desperation
of a loneliness so profound
a chasm so deep
that no fleeting moment of pleasure will ever satisfy
for he is seeking himself
a self he has long since learned
never to love
never to acknowledge
never to trust
never to affirm
a self now so atrophied and withered
the image of god it once bore so plainly
now unrecognizable
he pretends that he is the hunter
the one seeking prey
seeking to be sated
of the gnawing hunger
for intimacy
for a moment's forgetting
for an accidental lapse
into total honesty
but it is he who is prey
the men in their binoculars
and walkie-talkies
their wiretaps hidden
under the scanty "plain clothes"
they believe he will trust
just long enough
for the net to drop
the snare to swallow
the trap to snap shut
its iron teeth digging into
his vulnerable exposed paw
and then he is caught
entrapped
though he can never prove it
no one will believe him
he will be guilty as charged
from the moment of arrest
berated, dehumanized enroute to booking
public humiliation to follow
on newspaper local pages
and tax payer funded websites
his so poorly kept secret now out
his co-conspirator wife
who never believed the stories about working late
now forced to face
the web of self-deception she has spun
the "i always knew it" spoken in whispers
behind his back
at work
at home
at church
where he will once again give his soul to jesus
and pray to be delivered
of this demon which possesses him
appearing unchecked in his dreams
and emerging with the shadow's power
in moments of weakness like these
wreaking of whiskey
though he tries to forget
he knows the trap is being laid
he tells himself he'll be careful
he won't get caught this time
he knows he is lying to himself
once again
like always
and yet he has returned
to the boardwalks and paths
lined with lilies and water maples
seeking the unattainable
amidst the deceitful and treacherous
praying this time it will be different
and that the fire in his loins
and the abscess in his soul
will go away
even if just for a few fleeting moments
he is the loneliest animal in the forest
a creature beyond reason
beyond love
beyond self-respect
who surrenders his dignity
and sells his very soul
for ever-conditional affirmations
of a world who reviles his very being
and who seeks to redeem it
in danger-filled venues
of fleeting passion
and willful forgetting
- Harry Coverston, 2004
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
https://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com
If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Friday, July 02, 2004
Lost in Space
OK, so I saw the movie last week. What movie? THE movie, Fahrenheit 9/11. As usual, Michael Moore manages to force viewers to look at a picture we often don't want to see, a truth much larger than the superficial p.r. that we get from the "news" agencies. There were few surprises: Bush is an example of the privileged Peter Principle, the war in Iraq was entered into under subterfuge and has proven destructive, and the working poor of America are footing the bill with their taxes and the lives of their children. What Moore managed to bring out well was the irony of the poverty draft, the working poor who have no other economic options but the service, and their often strong support for the very people who have denied them opportunity to begin with and thereafter used them as cannon fodder.
None of this is particularly news. At least not to anyone who has paid even a modicum of attention to national and world events over the past 10 years. So why is it that when I open my MSNBC home page yesterday, the headline reads "Bush down but not out?"
Why is it that Kerry and Bush are virtually tied in this election? How can 43-48% of the American population continue to support Bush in the face of the disaster in Iraq, the revelations of deceit in its inception, the destructive economic impact his policies have had on the working poor, the wholesale assault on the environment, the fundamentalist religion he has imposed on the American public and the creeping fascism his security state represents? How can so many people be fooled? Worse yet, how could so many people think these policies are somehow good things?
I remember what one of my last term students said about the election. This was a nice young man, a football player and, surprisingly, a good student who ended the semester with an A. Polite, handsome, good hearted, this young man came from a family of Republicans in suburban Tampa and I believe he was involved in one of the campus "ministries" in the vein of Young Life or Campus Crusade, judging by some of his comments. When the subject of the election came up one day, he simply pronounced, "I don't like Kerry." When pressed as to why, he simply insisted he just didn't like him and wouldn't vote for him. When confronted by classmates with the deceptiveness of George Bush and the destructiveness of his policies, he demurred, saying simply "I just don't like Kerry" as if that sentiment alone was sufficient to justify his vote for Bush. He's not alone. My office mate at the community college where I taught prior to the university made a similar comment in 2000: "I just don't like that Al Gore" as if there needed be no more reason to cast one's vote for the nation's highest office than mere whim. This from a graduate educated college instructor.
It's times like these that I begin to feel a sense of despair for democracy. I sometimes wonder if Plato wasn't right in his distrust of democracy and his insistence that only philosopher-kings - educated and trained to think critically and to see the big picture - are fit to rule. I have been a populist all my life, believing in "the people." But in this age of complete distraction (cell phones) and diversion (game boys, computers, mindless programming like "survival" shows) and a news media that seems either incapable or unwilling to present critically considered news, I wonder if democracy CAN work. It's not that the people are unfit to govern themselves. They always have the capacity to do the right thing for the common good. The problem is they are demonstrating more and more consistently that they are unwilling to do so. Ronald Reagan posed the question "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" in 1980 and the American people have taken it to heart.
Two thoughts occurred to me as I did my daily (you wish!) constitutional along Lake Underhill's shores. First, the seeming intransigence of the blue and red state showdown suggests something that Leon Festinger spoke of in his work on cognitive dissonance. What makes it difficult for people to change their minds, even in the face of the fact their answers no longer can resolve the questions with which they are faced, is the role of public investment in one's position. Festinger found that in cases like the groups which became the Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventists, it wasn't so much getting the date of the end of the world/second coming wrong that was problematic. It was the fact the members had sold their goods and gathered on a mountain in plain sight of the rest of the world which went on about its daily business as if nothing had occurred when the end failed to materialize. Might it be that the 43-48% red state contingent feel they cannot back down from their former support of Bush because they have too much public face invested in it? Might it be that winning could be seen as vindication of their position, even when it means returning a failed regime to power? I thought to myself, if Bush loses, those of us here in Florida who have never stopped nursing our wounds from the victory stolen from us in 2000 by the U.S. Supreme Court could gleefully point out that Bush was the only president to have held office without winning and without succeeding another president? And yet, is it not precisely that kind of shame that red voters seek to avoid given their public position?
Cognitive dissonance led to another thought on this. Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral reasoning posits that movement upward in developmental stages often only occurs as a result of severe cognitive dissonance, sometimes related to tragedies or catastrophic changes. The United States evidences behavior that is often described as juvenile, stage 3. The honor/shame approach to foreign policy (G-d, how long must we reassure ourselves of our masculinity after Vietnam? And how many peoples must play the sacrificial lamb for that project?) and the strong fundamentalist religious tradition of many red state conservatives all evince at best a stage three, conventional pattern of moral reasoning.
I have often wondered aloud how Canada and Europe seem so able to transcend these lower levels of moral reasoning and why the US has appeared almost developmentally disabled in that process. The conclusion I have come to is that post-conventional thought in Europe did not begin to appear until after the devastating Second World War. In that light a frightening thought occurred to me. Perhaps it will take a major disaster to shake the US and its red state supporters into a higher level of moral functioning. I shudder to think what that might look like. If history is any guide, the truth of the need for a major shakeup to prompt growth and maturity would appear obvious. It took a world war and a resulting depression to shake up the US in the early 20th CE to begin any kind of holistic understanding of itself as a country with duties to all of its citizens. It took the failure of banks to institute regulatory agencies. It took the ecological and agricultural disasters of the Dust Bowl to institute USDA agencies to assist farmers and to protect the environment. It took the near starvation of so many elderly people to institute social security.
Since the Reagan regime, those programs and others like them have been steadily dismantled while America has sought to reassure itself of its imperial virility over and over in essentially defenseless places with names like Grenada, Panama and now Iraq. The focus of our people seems to have increasingly shrunk smaller and smaller arriving at the atomized consumer who asks simply "What's in it for me?" Our roads full of killer machine SUVs and oversized trucks driven by distracted drivers talking on cell phones enroute testify to that. Unaware of and unconcerned about the rest of the world or even the underclasses of America, most Americans could care less about the Saudi businessmen, lies leading to war and working poor grunts with stumps where legs - and lives full of expectations - once existed that Michael Moore so desperately wants us all to see.
Will it take a catastrophe to awake America from its slumber, to force red state conservatives to admit they are not only wrong but dead wrong? Will it really make much difference if John Kerry is elected this fall? Is it possible that even with a Kerry victory, most Americans will remain Lost in Space?
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
https://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com
If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
OK, so I saw the movie last week. What movie? THE movie, Fahrenheit 9/11. As usual, Michael Moore manages to force viewers to look at a picture we often don't want to see, a truth much larger than the superficial p.r. that we get from the "news" agencies. There were few surprises: Bush is an example of the privileged Peter Principle, the war in Iraq was entered into under subterfuge and has proven destructive, and the working poor of America are footing the bill with their taxes and the lives of their children. What Moore managed to bring out well was the irony of the poverty draft, the working poor who have no other economic options but the service, and their often strong support for the very people who have denied them opportunity to begin with and thereafter used them as cannon fodder.
None of this is particularly news. At least not to anyone who has paid even a modicum of attention to national and world events over the past 10 years. So why is it that when I open my MSNBC home page yesterday, the headline reads "Bush down but not out?"
Why is it that Kerry and Bush are virtually tied in this election? How can 43-48% of the American population continue to support Bush in the face of the disaster in Iraq, the revelations of deceit in its inception, the destructive economic impact his policies have had on the working poor, the wholesale assault on the environment, the fundamentalist religion he has imposed on the American public and the creeping fascism his security state represents? How can so many people be fooled? Worse yet, how could so many people think these policies are somehow good things?
I remember what one of my last term students said about the election. This was a nice young man, a football player and, surprisingly, a good student who ended the semester with an A. Polite, handsome, good hearted, this young man came from a family of Republicans in suburban Tampa and I believe he was involved in one of the campus "ministries" in the vein of Young Life or Campus Crusade, judging by some of his comments. When the subject of the election came up one day, he simply pronounced, "I don't like Kerry." When pressed as to why, he simply insisted he just didn't like him and wouldn't vote for him. When confronted by classmates with the deceptiveness of George Bush and the destructiveness of his policies, he demurred, saying simply "I just don't like Kerry" as if that sentiment alone was sufficient to justify his vote for Bush. He's not alone. My office mate at the community college where I taught prior to the university made a similar comment in 2000: "I just don't like that Al Gore" as if there needed be no more reason to cast one's vote for the nation's highest office than mere whim. This from a graduate educated college instructor.
It's times like these that I begin to feel a sense of despair for democracy. I sometimes wonder if Plato wasn't right in his distrust of democracy and his insistence that only philosopher-kings - educated and trained to think critically and to see the big picture - are fit to rule. I have been a populist all my life, believing in "the people." But in this age of complete distraction (cell phones) and diversion (game boys, computers, mindless programming like "survival" shows) and a news media that seems either incapable or unwilling to present critically considered news, I wonder if democracy CAN work. It's not that the people are unfit to govern themselves. They always have the capacity to do the right thing for the common good. The problem is they are demonstrating more and more consistently that they are unwilling to do so. Ronald Reagan posed the question "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" in 1980 and the American people have taken it to heart.
Two thoughts occurred to me as I did my daily (you wish!) constitutional along Lake Underhill's shores. First, the seeming intransigence of the blue and red state showdown suggests something that Leon Festinger spoke of in his work on cognitive dissonance. What makes it difficult for people to change their minds, even in the face of the fact their answers no longer can resolve the questions with which they are faced, is the role of public investment in one's position. Festinger found that in cases like the groups which became the Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventists, it wasn't so much getting the date of the end of the world/second coming wrong that was problematic. It was the fact the members had sold their goods and gathered on a mountain in plain sight of the rest of the world which went on about its daily business as if nothing had occurred when the end failed to materialize. Might it be that the 43-48% red state contingent feel they cannot back down from their former support of Bush because they have too much public face invested in it? Might it be that winning could be seen as vindication of their position, even when it means returning a failed regime to power? I thought to myself, if Bush loses, those of us here in Florida who have never stopped nursing our wounds from the victory stolen from us in 2000 by the U.S. Supreme Court could gleefully point out that Bush was the only president to have held office without winning and without succeeding another president? And yet, is it not precisely that kind of shame that red voters seek to avoid given their public position?
Cognitive dissonance led to another thought on this. Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral reasoning posits that movement upward in developmental stages often only occurs as a result of severe cognitive dissonance, sometimes related to tragedies or catastrophic changes. The United States evidences behavior that is often described as juvenile, stage 3. The honor/shame approach to foreign policy (G-d, how long must we reassure ourselves of our masculinity after Vietnam? And how many peoples must play the sacrificial lamb for that project?) and the strong fundamentalist religious tradition of many red state conservatives all evince at best a stage three, conventional pattern of moral reasoning.
I have often wondered aloud how Canada and Europe seem so able to transcend these lower levels of moral reasoning and why the US has appeared almost developmentally disabled in that process. The conclusion I have come to is that post-conventional thought in Europe did not begin to appear until after the devastating Second World War. In that light a frightening thought occurred to me. Perhaps it will take a major disaster to shake the US and its red state supporters into a higher level of moral functioning. I shudder to think what that might look like. If history is any guide, the truth of the need for a major shakeup to prompt growth and maturity would appear obvious. It took a world war and a resulting depression to shake up the US in the early 20th CE to begin any kind of holistic understanding of itself as a country with duties to all of its citizens. It took the failure of banks to institute regulatory agencies. It took the ecological and agricultural disasters of the Dust Bowl to institute USDA agencies to assist farmers and to protect the environment. It took the near starvation of so many elderly people to institute social security.
Since the Reagan regime, those programs and others like them have been steadily dismantled while America has sought to reassure itself of its imperial virility over and over in essentially defenseless places with names like Grenada, Panama and now Iraq. The focus of our people seems to have increasingly shrunk smaller and smaller arriving at the atomized consumer who asks simply "What's in it for me?" Our roads full of killer machine SUVs and oversized trucks driven by distracted drivers talking on cell phones enroute testify to that. Unaware of and unconcerned about the rest of the world or even the underclasses of America, most Americans could care less about the Saudi businessmen, lies leading to war and working poor grunts with stumps where legs - and lives full of expectations - once existed that Michael Moore so desperately wants us all to see.
Will it take a catastrophe to awake America from its slumber, to force red state conservatives to admit they are not only wrong but dead wrong? Will it really make much difference if John Kerry is elected this fall? Is it possible that even with a Kerry victory, most Americans will remain Lost in Space?
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The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
https://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com
If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes.
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