I came here when I was about 6 years old and still have memories of where I lived in Costa Rica.  I have gone back a half dozen times to visit my family down there and am still, at least partly, a "Tico."   I harbor no shame in this fact.  My foreign perspective allows me to appreciate, on many levels, the wonders of this country that elude many who were born here.

I am an immigrant. I mention this fact to properly frame the following comments:

As an immigrants, my mother, brother, sister and I all felt the sting of anti-immigrant sentiments.  As a kid I was constantly beat up...and I mean constantly...because of where I was born, my skin color and/or my accent. There were groups of guys in my lower middle class south Irving neighborhood that made it a point to seek me (and at times my brother, but I was the oldest which meant I was the one most in demand to be used as a punching bag) out and "inform" me of their superiority. Heck, I once had a girlfriend in early high school who's father, an adult mind you, did everything he could to get her to break up with me because of my "dirty skin." Even to this day, my mother, because she retains a pretty heavy accent, runs into racists comments.  My sister, because of her lighter skin, escaped much, but not all, of these growing pains.  She did, however, wonder aloud why she never received the cultural shocks that my brother and I got.

There are most certainly worse stories out there, however my point is that I do know of the lumps and bruises required when starting over in a new country. To be sure, the shadows that help hide racist and xenophobic tendancies have cast their darkness over me and my family's live on several occasions.

We did come here, however, legally. We are all legal citizens. My mother, especially, waited for years, jumped through all of the necessary bureaucratic hoops, and took the tests necessary to become an American.  Not a Costa Rican-American, but an American.

You will hardly find another person as irritated with the pro-illegal immigrantion protests (and let's call them what they are "pro-illegal" - ie. in support of breaking the established laws) than my mother, unless, of course, you talk to me. We are both irritated with the "white guilt" that seems to pervade this society. As hard as it is to believe, many people feel bad that America is number one. Many of you feel bad that you were, to paraphrase Al Gore concerning the prospects of being born to a rich family (America in this case), "lottery winners."

Don't feel this way, please.  We, none of us, should feel any more guilty about being born to a certain family or nation than we should feel guilty being born to a certain time.  Do the best you can with what you have...good or bad.  That is not, of course, a clarion call to abuse, neglect, or otherwise hurt immigrants.  It is only a call for clear thinking in this matter.  Those immigrant that come here through the proper channels should be celebrated for we all were once in their shoes.  It is the American way.  Do not, however, ignore law after law because of a need to make ammends for winning your "lottery."

As Socrates showed in "The Crito", to ignore one law is tantamount to ignoring them all.  He believed this even though it helped to bring about his death.  To bring it closer to home, Lincoln mentions in his Lyceum Address that he disagrees not with the abolishionist ideals, but with their call to break laws.  Again, the falling (read "breaking") of one law can only be taken as a pretext to the falling of them all.

Watch your televisions and you cannot help but see people who are not citizens of this country protesting a government that is not theirs being supported and, indeed, incited by these guilt-ridden American citizens. All this engergy expended in the name of "fixing" things.

How about this...why don't these illegal immigrants stay in their  own country and protest their own government? Let's do a cost-benefit analysis of where best to expend this energy: stay in your country and help yourselves and those weaker among you OR move to this country and only help yourselves. Back at home, the older, sick and younger suffer. There are entire towns in these central american countries (mostly Mexico, that I know of) that are devoid of working age males because they are all in the US.

By allowing these illegals into this country and offering them amnesty we have essentially guaranteed that no pressure will be placed on their home countries/government that they flee from. In fact, Mexico's  number 1 source of income is the money that illegals send back home (20 billion dollars a year) and ..2 is the oil industry. THE OIL INDUSTRY IS number 2!!!!

There are the various talking points, of course: illegals artificially depress wages, 29 percent of all men in prison are illegal immigrants, illegals don't have insurance for their cars (as I have known because of two separate wrecks), etc...

This is not racism or xenophobia that I speak of here. It is national sovereignty.

The illegal immigrant protest our government to influence the our laws. They cannot influence our government from within (in theory) because they do not have the right to vote nor should they.  This is not their government. They are simply guests that we have allowed to stay in our country. Now that we want to slow the flood coming across the border, they and their political supporters (read: demagogues) make claims to "rights" (there will be another post on this word "rights" in the ever so near future).

There are claims made that illegals have helped our economy; and they have. Their lower wages helps keep prices low in some sectors of the economy. But we are not simply taking from them without giving anything, this is not a parasitic relationship with the big bad US sucking the lifeblood out of the illegal immigrants. As mentioned before, money from the US is the #1 source of income for Mexico.  Let's also not forget that we do not force them to come to this country. The risks they take are ultimately of their own free will.

There are, however, two big forces at work here: (1) the pushing action of a poor Mexicn economy and (2) the pulling force of higher wages in the US.

To repeat, if they were to stay in their own country and protest their own governments something could be done about the economic and social issues in their own countries.  It would not be easy and surely tears and blood would be involved. A price would have to be paid, just as Americans and citizens of any other established country have cried and bled to better their respective homes.

As long as businesses keep offering (illegally) low wages and as long as we do not enforce the laws that are already on the books nothing will improve. A flood of illegals will wash over the border the second it is announced that amnesty will be given to any illegal immigrant in this country. In future years, those here illegally will see that we've offered amnesty once and if protests and demagogury commences, it will surely happen again.

Just as I began this particular blog, sob stories abound of the bravery of those that cross the border in the name of higher wages, those that send money back to their families, and those that simply seek the free atmosphere of America. Those stories are powerful indeed.

If you'll recall a previous post on the tripartate soul that Plato formulated, the aforementioned stories speak to our spirited or 2nd layer of our soul. The stories are meant to over take our "heart" so that our heart will then ovetake our mind or "reason". Once the mind has been infiltrated by the heart, reason and rationality leave the captain's chair. The irrationality of the heart then commands the apetites as well as the mind. I should hardly mention that this is a dangerous situation.

In the same way, stories of struggle and heroism command the imagination. The heart shows a "What if it were me?" scenario that the mind buys into. People then start to believe the world is one way without fully investigating whether it really is or not. Most of these illegal immigrants are brave, to be sure, but they are also illegal. Let us not forget the facts.

We need to enforce the laws without being pulled into a dreamland commanded by the heart. If it is in the best interest of this country to do away with our present laws then it must be the citizens and their representatives who should make that decision. The decision should as rational as possible. It should be a well thought out decision made, first and foremost, to ensure the health of American citizens and other people second.  If we can't take care of ourselves, how in the world will we take care of any immigrants what so ever?

*I'm waiting now for my first obligatory "you're a traitor to your own kind" remark..Also, I know that these comments will hardly clear anything up.  It is more a framework for a better conversation than a be all end all solution to the issue at hand.

(Note: I will be using mind/soul synonymously and heart/spirit synonymously.)

What was Carol Decker (yes I had to look that up) of T'Pau asking from us in the early 1990's when she sang the words "give a little bit of heart and soul"? After all, Carol didn't ask for onlyf "a little bit of heart." For some reason, she also needed some soul. Soul is necessary. Mentioning both heart and soul implies that they are not the same thing. They are different and have their own characteristics. Later in the song she does, after all, ask that her lover give a sign because she has a "need to know" about their situation. Heart/spirit and soul/mind are both necessary.

Let's go ahead and address these things that we speak of: heart and soul.

The Greeks had three main words for love: agape, eros, and philias. Agape is a pure sort of love or a love of the soul. Eros is, of course, closely related to our word "lust". Philias is a practical love or a love that is concerned with benefit and usually associated with "friends".

In today's terms we use "heart" to signify, depending on meaning, some sort of attachment that approaches a sort of combination between agape and phillias. A love that is a combination of love of the similar, love of the beneficial, and love of the soul. Rarely do we associate "heart" with an erotic attraction. Even the saying "Have a heart" requests the subject to give in to his feeling a bit and not to be aroused.

Soul is a bit easier. We tend to put mind and soul together. Mind seems to be the accumulation of data and experiences that has been attached to the conscious. The Greek term for soul, psyche, seems to confirm that mind and soul are similar. Certainly, the Greek psyche was a bit deeper. (However, science, that basterd child of philosophy, has destroyed any conception of soul, but has kept mind.)

Plato, at least, said that there are three parts to the soul. We'll call the lowest level the appetite, the middle layer the spirit (or what might translate as heart or inspiration), and the highest part we'll call the mind.

How might a person act if the lowest part of this three piece soul ran things? If the appetite were in charge it would enslave the two other parts, the heart and the mind, to do its bidding. The appetite would be 'inspired' to think of ways, maybe creative ways, to satiate its various hungers. Appetite in this case does not only mean food hunger. The appetites basically represent all of our animalistic urges: sex, hunger, feeling good, and so on. There is a role for this layer of the soul, to be sure, but that role is not to rule the whole of the body. Someone with this part of their soul ruling their lives would be in an eternal masturbation. That is to say, everything would be about the experience and not necessarily about the repercussions of that experience. This person might love to eat food and then regret it or love to have sex, but regret the act afterwards. They want the experience of giving the body pleasure. Once the body had been pleased it fades away into the darkness only to allow the mind to take over. Once the mind sees what it had been forced to do, guilt or anger or regret sets in. Of course, later, when the appetites grow once more the weak willed mind falls again to the appetite and the whole thing happens over and over and over.

If the spirit or heart is in charge you have an equally unstable situation. The spirit is sort of like an engine. Engines make things move. Engines, if it were up to them, would run 100 percent at all times. With the appetite or mind in charge the engine/spirit gladly gives movement to their wishes. When it is in charge, however, it just goes without thinking about where it is going. Those that have the spirit/heart in charge tend to overreact to situations or "give it their all" in all situations and never pick and choose where their energy is best spent. These people are great followers. I mean no offense by this, but I tend to think of football players or army grunts as having this layer of the soul in charge.

If the mind is in charge you have a rational human being. A person who will eat if it is appropriate or get emotionally attached to the appropriate person. These people will think before they act. When reason is the ruler of the soul all is as it should be and as nature intended. We do not act like animals nor do we act like mindless over caffeinated football players just before a game. Of course, none of us possesses only one part of this tripartate soul. We are different mixtures of each layer.

To return to the issue, some people today believe that there are things of the "heart" and then there are things of the "mind." What these people miss is that the things of the "heart" do not reside in the organ "heart", they reside in the "heart" of the mind; both heart and soul reside in the mind.

I like to think T'Pau understood that if only heart were given then rationality would fly out the window. The spirit would over take the mind and all hell would break loose. Plato might say this is the reason people sob for days or months after the break up of an important relationship. The spirit has taken over the rationality of the mind. The song "Heart and Soul" seems to be about a last ditch effort of the mind to allow the heart to beg for the return of a loved one. The well balanced mind understands that love is necessary. It allows the heart to do what it does, but it can only abdicate so much of its power before the emotional state of the heart colors the mind's thoughts.

Some, largely joking, comment that there should be a democracy of the soul where all parts have equal say. That is as ridiculous as trying to reason with a two year old. T'Pau says that there is a "politics of life...yeah". Politics is not the same as democracy. Politics is allowing the actions necessary for the good to float to the top and the worthless to fall to the bottom. Politics is the arranging of values. Arranging the values of the soul can be done through the appetite, heart, or mind. So there are three different "internal" political arrangements to match the three different parts of the soul.

Just to make the point clear, the heart can't really think on its own. It isn't necessarily subservient to the mind. The heart can inform the mind when it has gone too far or when it needs to stop being so analytical, but the heart cannot think clearly. This is not its job.

Some may protest that I look to eradicate the apetite and the spirit. I certainly don't make that claim here. The mind has its limited and spefici job as well. Needing to know is just as important as feeling. The unguided heart leads to many a problem. We've all, I'm sure, been victim to our own desired. The heart collaborates with the appetite and overwhelms the mind. The appetite then propels the heart to greater heights or greater and greater depths. Appetite in this case is a yearning for attention or a need to be loved by someone who is out of reach or at least should be.

The objects of the mind (books, for example) can help lead the heart away from calamity. The objects of the heart (friendship, for example) can make life softer and more enjoyable. The true miracle is when you get a balance within and without. To find that friend or lover that has a place in both the heart and mind is rare and to be cherished.

The mind, spirit, and appetites are all necessary for life within "the city". Having said that, each has its proper role. Unfortunately, too many of us exercise our hearts and appetites until we get into trouble. We then beg our minds to think of some way to make the situation better or we punish it for not doing its job correctly by leaning our heads down and pounding on the forehead with the palm of the hand and yelling something like "Think, damn it!"

Thanks T'Pau, I love you!!!!

From what I know, psychology, as a discipline, claims to be able, in the broadest sense, to understand the human mind.

Psychology, as much as any other organization of knowledge, makes claims to know what the proper limitations of the good/safe/normal mind or person are. Conversely, it names the problems of the mind with authority: schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder, manic-depression, etc.

As a human discipline, though, it is tether to that which it claims to study. It is what it studies.

A thought project for clarification: a psychologist must be trained in the ways of psychology. A degree is needed. So the psychologist uses the human mind to study the human mind in order to gain knowledge on the human mind. It looks to the extremes, at times, to determine what the norm should look like and vice versa. Yet, the person doing this studying has not been studied. The proto-psychologist has not been deemed worthy by any one other than themselves. This person need only pay some money and pass the tests. So the proto-psychologist is just a normal person that takes classes to become an expert in those things of the human mind. I say normal person, but I cannot yet determine what normal is. I have to look to an expert who was also once normal and also once paid money to get the degree after tests have been passed. The problem is that no one is born a psychologist. Those that claim they were seem to suffer from what they will later term a delusion. So psychology is learned. It is learned from others. It is not natural, but nurtured, as it were, by the student. Because it is learned it is subject to the forces of bias, societal opinions, and politics. This is important and I'll mention why a little later.

Psychology as a science looks to turn the human mind into another force of nature. As a force of nature it can then be predicted and conquered. People of a type can then be understood and digested into nice little chapters or paragraphs in future textbooks.

Having said that, do all people who wish to become psychologists suffer from a disorder that makes them think that they can come to know the human mind? Will the science of psychology understand the people who wish to be psychologists?

Psychology also claims to be able, again in some degree, to point to a subjective norm. Not an absolute norm, of course, because that would mean that there are absolutes, or Truths, and psychology can't bear that cross just yet. I speak here of truths that hold well within a given context for a given group of people.

So psychology looks to some form of a norm to be able to judge the relative health of those that are being examined in one way or another. Since truth is relative then the norms are also relative. Usually the norms are relative to the society in which the norms are being observed. So psychology must defer to a host society. In other words, psychology must look to another (higher?) standard outside of itself.

Society then sets the norms that psychology looks to. Can there be leaders of social opinions that then determine the norms? Yes, I believe they are called politicians, musicians, artists, teachers and so on. So psychologists seem to be enslaved by society even though they appear to be in charge of or at least higher than (able to "fix") the members of the society they are enslaved to.

Conclusion (for now): Psychology suffers from at least two weaknesses. The first is the fact that there are not born any natural psychologists. They must be made through education. This leaves the door open for biases and poor communication of facts to the newer generation of psychologists. If anyone can become psychologist then they are the variable in the equation and the constant is the system of psychology. This system cannot make claims to judgement because it is a science. In the IS/OUGH dilemma, science concentrates on the IS and tends to ignore the OUGHT. This means that the system must be cleared of social bias which means the psychologist must also be cleaned of social bias as they are educated. This is problematic to say the least.

Second, psychology, because it is so enamored with relativity, is enslaved to the society in which it was either created or the society it is presently studying. Psychologists cannot appear to make judgements about entire societies if it is to seem like a real science, that is, if it is to seem like a detached discipline that does not interfere with its subjects, its white mice.

Lastly, a science that claims to know, but comes closer to issuing dogma that evolves as the years pass looks more like a religion to me than a science.

Please let me know where I am wrong as I am sure I may have assumed too much in certain areas...

Choruses from the Rock

The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.
All our knowledge brings us nearer to death,
But nearness to death no nearer to God.
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?


T.S. Eliot is the only post-modern that I can think of at the moment that I respect (not that he'd care). His kind seem to be men and women who are determined to be lost, but nobly so. They seem to want to be lost and are graceful about it. They are almost pious about it. When I say this I think of the first layer of Hell in Dante's divine comedy.

I love cliches. They are so charged with philosophic meaning and yet thrown about as if they were as valuable as monopoly money. I speak specifically of the phrase "Everything happens for a reason."

"Everything happens for a reason." Ugh, what a trite and tired way to say that you have no control over your own life. Rather, that you choose not to weigh the actions of your life. Hegel would be proud.

Take an action, any action, and whether you succeed or fail you can always say "It happened for a reason." It feels good to say it. Ask a girl out and get shot down. Well, it happened for a reason. If she says yes instead, yet again, it happened for a reason.

People that overuse this phrase probably feel pious and self assured that all actions are out of our hands. Someone or something else is in charge and we trust that authority. They are responsible for our successes and failure, not us.

When we try to succeed, but fail we've actually succeeded and mapped out a little bit more of "the plan." Confusing isn't it? It matters not whether we give credit to God, Nature or Shiva. The plan exists! The plan controls us. Like a train speeding down its inescapable tracks our lives are fatal or fated towards an end.

The little nugget that most who subscribe to this "philosophy" never dig deep enough to discover is that both good and evil are done away with when "it happened for a reason" is called into service.

One might muse, for example, "Sure, Hitler was a horrible person, but without him and WWII the US may not be the economic and military power it is today. Millions upon millions suffered, but suffering is just a fact of life. It all happened for a reason."

Even the evil actions of men are done for the betterment of all mankind. The good that is often done decays with the bones of men, but the evil propels society further than it could have without the vile action. Conflicts force progress. All the while: it all happens for a reason.

Let's not forget the lesser evils that somehow produce a greater good. Temptation, that seductive flirt, draws people into her cloak of secrecy. Families break apart, friendships abruptly end, sins of fathers haunt their sons, decisive actions are aborted and all that these subscribers of an impotent position can mutter is "it must have happened for a reason." WHAT A GREAT SITUATION TO BE IN!!!!

That convincing temptress whispers to the lower portion of our souls, "It feels so good, it's gotta be right." Coupled with our lovable cliche, temptation induces a blissful and seemingly benign drunkenness. Cheat on your girlfriend? You wouldn't feel a need if you really loved her, right? If she finds out and stays with you then "it" happened for a reason. If she leaves you then things weren't meant to be anyway and, again, "it" happened for a reason. Whether you succeed or fail you've produced a good! The results happened for a reason and you were an integral part of that dynamic.

Do you understand??? We've had it all wrong for so long. If you do good, a good results. If you do bad, a good is still produced. So what does this have to do with philosophy?

G.W.F. Hegel was a German/Prussian philosopher. Hegel proposed that he had found the answer to the philosophic problem. The problem: the tension between (pick one) Being and becoming, faith and reason, or nature and humanity. The solution: God works through History via conflicts.

Some background, first: Being is the permanent Truth. Being is an absolute or the perfection of a thing. Justice, for example, shows up in different ways at different times in different cultures, but all these lesser forms of "justice" points to or participates in (the Being of) "Justice." Becoming, lower case "b", is the various material representations of things. We humans are "becoming" because we are constantly evolving and striving to find our final selves. Being is permanent and becoming evolves and never ceases to change.

Hegel looked back through history and saw that progress, through conflict, brought about better and better thoughts/nations/inventions; better everything. He came up with a dialectic system in which a thesis (a truth) and an antithesis (a barrier to or another version of the truth) came into conflict. When the conflict was resolved a synthesis formed from the two previous participants.

History seemed to be subject to this systematic and positive understanding of change. Groups within a nation (Democrats and Republicans) would have competing understandings of what was "good" for the whole. They would fight it out or have elections and the resolution would be a step in the evolutionary path to a better whole. These resolutions would inch civilization as a whole toward a better future. Eventually we would reach the end of History where further evolution was impossible. The best laws for an enlightened society would have already been developed or discovered and all that was needed was a large bureaucracy to administer the wise laws.

One of our esteemed presidents, Woodrow Wilson, completely accepted this approach to understanding history. The Civil War was necessary on several levels for Wilson. Historically, it represented the last vestiges of a bygone era. The new era, larger federal government and the industrialized North, would have to exterminate the old era through war. The winner succeeded because God had a plan for them. Societal evolution needed its sacrifices on the alter of the battle field. Once the North won, its progressive ways could spread unimpeded through out the South. The South would be converted to the ways of the North. Another way of putting this was that "it happened for a (R)eason."

What this understanding of history necessarily admits is that both good and evil produce an absolute good, assuming that progress toward the end of history is accepted as a good. Of course, when you accept God as the promulgator of all conflicts as He works his plan, one cannot but be a proud and confident Hegelian Historicist.

Everything happens for a Divine Reason. Who are we to look into the why's and how's of it all. Just accept it.

War and peace are both good. Genocide and procreation are both good. Nazis and democrats are both good. Good and evil are both good. God and Satan are both good.

So when you are met with a moral dilemma in the future just lay back and relax. History and Hegel have already figured things out for you. Whatever you choose to do, whether it's giving in to temptation or embracing your moral stance, "it's all good" because "everything happens for a reason." Don't worry about your petty morals. Don't expend too much energy writing up a cost benefit analysis of your whoring ways.

Don't bother worrying at all, because the line between good and evil has been dissolved with the help of a stupid little cliche and a dead white German philosopher.

Upon further reading it has been demonstrated that Machiavelli uses Livy to establish a fictitious golden age of Rome. Fictitious in that Machiavelli only includes as much of Roman history mentioned by Livy as will prove certain points advocated by Machiavelli. Equivocational history may be a good term for what Machiavelli does.

So Machiavelli looks to the past to establish the standard for the here and now (there and then). He looks to the Roman Republic, by way of Livy and his chronicles of Rome, to show the princes of his time what needs to be done to fend off the Papal powers as well as the French manipulations of the Italian peninsula. Machiavelli appears as a servant to spread a message that he claims to be new and different. Machiavelli also denounces unarmed prophets WHILE being an unarmed prophet himself. He denounces them as he speaks to armed prophets.

So Machiavelli borrows the arms of Livy, by way of his history of Rome, and the princes of the day, by way of attempting to persuade them to take a certain action, in an attempt to establish new ways.

It might occur at this point that Machivelli seems to follow, or at least sounds like, another unarmed prophet: Jesus.

(I speak here in Machiavellian terms)Jesus borrows the "arms" of the Old Testament in much the same way Machiavelli borrows Livy. Jesus was unarmed, but claimed to have powers and claimed to be "the way" or "the new way" as did Machiavelli in the preface to the Prince. Machiavelli sees how Jesus, the unarmed prophet, eventually crossed political and territorial boundaries because of the strength of his message. Machiavelli also lays claim to a strong message. It is said that on his deathbed Machiavelli said that he cared more for Italy than he did for his own soul. It is also claimed that he said that he'd rather burn in Hell and speak with the old philosophers than to go to heaven to be with the saints.  This, as far as I know, was never mentioned in his writings.

Machiavelli seems to "borrow" Jesus' weapons so that he can spread his "new way" just as Jesus did. Machiavelli, then, seems to go against his claim that unarmed prophets are weaker than armed ones. The right unarmed prophet can establish a new order that armed prophets will follow.

However, the problem that must be met before anything can happen is the problem of the presently armed prophets that follow the previous unarmed prophet. So it seems that the Author of the "new way" must present himself as a servant of the armed prophets in order to borrow their arms to establish the "new way" and erect themselves as the new unarmed prophet.

The pen, it seems, is mightier than the sword.

Allow me to be presumptuous for a moment:

I've read that thinkers (philosophers, theorists, or whatever it is that you call those of us that chase little white bunnies down dark winding holes) prefer "the promising 'might be' to the defective 'is'."  Socrates, after all, was constantly surrounded by the youth of Athens because of this love.

The problem is that there are at least a couple of moving pieces in the interaction between what I will refer to as the "student" and the "teacher."  To clarify, a teacher, in my opinion, is little more than an advanced student when compared to the student.  The teacher, if no longer a student, usually is in danger of petrifying his lively and evolving opinions, tastes, and views on the Truth.  The teacher must continue his education, not to keep up with the popular opinion of the day, but to forever check what he "knows" with what he sees and hears and thinks.  The compass must periodically be watched lest one forgets where true North is.

Most adults tend to become distracted with important matters such as monetary concerns, raising children, keeping marriages together, and so on.  They need their opinions to crystalize because of the little time they have from day to day to explore those things that once warmed their souls.  To be sure, the aforementioned duties are important and necessary.  They are also draining of energy and time consuming.

The youth, then, are the one's that naturally attract those people who are driven to study those things both above the clouds and below the earth.  The less advanced students seem to be canvasses that participate in their own painting along with the teacher-as-artist.  The student (as-moving-piece) can distract the teacher from his path.  In a society that worships youth as if it were an elusive and fickle god, the teacher must take care not to become attached to the open eyed wonder of a few students and mistake it for the discovery of any particular Truth.  Like an opiate, though, the careless teacher may become addicted to the sweet sound of applause and agreement instead of the less complimentary and sometimes rough struggle for meaningful exchanges.

Those minds, both teacher (as-student) and student, are able, in the best of circumstances, to ask those eternal questions that are often ignored until the death of an individual or the death of society nears: What is Love? What is Justice? What is Truth?  Can virtue be taught?  (the P-1 question) Why are we fighting? and finally What is man?

Posing these questions is less about finding final answers and more about revealing hidden aspects of the individual or society that is asking (or not asking) the questions.  Entertaining, no...seriously considering these questions will probably never show up on a report card, but they are essential for the serious student none the less.

In this day and age we are so fond of claiming that "there is no such thing as Truth" or that "Only opinions exist or matter."  Whether we belive these answers or not, the constant praise of  a lack of common ground or acceptance of a possibility of Truth (any Truth) reveals much.

To come to terms with the fact that answers to these questions are neither obvious nor easy is to come to terms with the fundamental rules of the life of the mind.  A mind that is unique among all the creatures of the earth (as far as  is known presently).

The empoverished Socrates claimed that he knew only that he did not know.  If only we could begin to converse, as a society, about what this truly means.  What this simple statement alludes to in terms of the possibility of knowledge and the transference of it or the ability to come to terms with one's own ignorance or, simply, the need to shun the material from time to time in order to explore the immaterial is beyond many of us.

The need for a common ground on the societal and international levels are extremely important and yet the need to explore what makes us common and what makes us unique is even more fundamental.

A favorite talk show host of mine likes to say "I prefer clarity over agreement."  If we could all simply understand this phrase and truly live by it...by the idea that clarity of language can smooth over differences just as much as feigned or actual agreement...would, I think, work wonders for many, if not most, people who's opinions and lives have petrified and crystalized.

Much like Socrates said in Plato's Theaetetus, people (including teachers-as-students) become attached to their "wind eggs" and need a caring midwife to separate them from their defective and still born thoughts and opinions.