Having Children

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by Richard Crews
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How do we dare to bring children into the world knowing--as all of us must surely know by the time we reach young adulthood--that every human life has times of terrible pain and despair, of helplessness, hopelessness, and loneliness? By what sadistic or unconscious impulse do we grant ourselves the right to start another soul down that path of pain?

Several hundred years ago John Bunyan, about to be thrown back in prison for the heresy of refusing to renounce his commitment to certain Christian virtues, said, "The separation from my wife and my dear children has been to me as the tearing of my flesh from my bones--especially my poor blind child who, I must confess, lay dearer to me than all else I had besides. Thou must be hungry and cold, be beaten and suffer all manner of calamities in life though I cannot now endure that the wind should blow upon thee."

Abraham Verghese writes in Cutting for Stone: A Novel: "We come unbidden into this life, and if we are lucky we find a purpose beyond starvation, misery, and early death which, lest we forget, is the common lot."

The Buddha realized in his moment of enlightenment that every human life is inevitably a dialog with pain--the pain of being separated from things and people one loves; the pain of being attached to things and people one detests; the pain of illness and of decrepitude in old age.

I pose this question. It racks my soul. I have no answer.

Some would say there is a golden balance to be struck--that life can, should, and does have more love and joy than it has pain; that one puts all the good stuff on one pan of the balance and all the pain on the other and--voila!--the good wins out. This strikes me as a feeble and specious rationalization: the idea that there is or should be joy somewhere cannot be an excuse for causing pain.

Some would say we have no choice--that we are driven by instinct, fate, or culture. But it strikes me as despicable to plead helplessness.

Do you have thoughts (and feelings) about this question?
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Math--The Ultimate Language

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by Richard Crews
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"We made a deal with the bank," reads the sign in a diner: "They don't sell chili and we don't cash checks." Likewise the human brain evolved to do a marvelous job finding ripe berries, getting us up a tree when wolves were near, and negotiating the stormy shoals of relationships necessary to pass the family jewels on to the next generation. But it was never called upon to fathom the paradoxes of quantum physics--to envision that the same particle can be at two places at the same time; that two particles, if born together, can communicate instantly although millions of miles apart; or that a sub-atomic entity does not decide whether it is a wave or a particle until it is observed--but its decision is then retroactive; or other quantum weirdnesses like those. Similarly, the human brain enables us run, jump, and hide marvelously well in three dimensions, but is incapable of imagining four or more dimensions--though the physical world, when closely studied, seems to need up to ten or eleven dimensions to come out right.

In addition to developing an operating system that will accommodate such useful apps as berry-hunting, wolf-avoiding, or mate-seducing when a culture sees fit to install them, the human brain has developed considerable flexibility with regard to communications programs. There are (still) over 7,000 distinctly different languages in the world with significantly different grammars, vocabularies, and world views, and any child can learn any one of them--or even several--flawlessly. To be sure, the human brain operating system loses some of its flexibility as it matures: the OS age 5.0.0 cannot install some of the apps it could at version 2.0.0. But it retains considerable plasticity. Even an adult (OS 20.0.0 and beyond) can substantially rewire parts of the brain to accommodate damage.

Moreover the brain, for all its foibles and limitations, has gradually--over the course of centuries--evolved one language that transcends cultural and wiring limitations: the language of mathematics. Mathematics very carefully says, "If A, then B," for example, "if there are bees on the Moon, then they fly in circles." It cautiously and studiously avoids any cultural bias and brain-hardware limitations. And it meticulously steers clear of enforcing--or even implying--any constraints on reality or our freedom to perceive it as we choose. Math does not say, "There are bees on the Moon"--everyone knows there are no bees on the Moon--but it does, through rigorous, logical processes, conclude that "If there were bees on the Moon," then "they would be incapable of flying in straight lines."

The languages of music, visual arts, dance, and poetry can be deeply emotionally moving, but they are fraught with cultural bias and brain-wiring limitations. The language of mathematics is not. The extent to which it is "beautiful" (and it is), the extent to which it inspires "awe" and "reverence" (and it does), is because it proceeds the way porcupines make love--very, very carefully.
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U.S.-China Convergence

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by Richard Crews
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The U.S. economy has recently taken a bad bruising. For a century and a half we believed more and more--sometimes secretly, sometimes ostentatiously--that democratic capitalism was the way the human race was meant to turn out. Clanism, feudalism, and monarchy fell by the wayside. Communism and fascism took their turns at the plate and struck out. Socialism evolved drastically to take a seat in the boardroom. But democratic capitalism built on its gains, learned from its setbacks, and inexorably spread to take over the world--economically, politically, and even culturally.

Democratic capitalism seemed like the ultimate marriage between the strengths and foibles of human nature. Its spiritual tradition was Judeo-Christian, a blend of puritanical hard work with soul-saving do-goodism. Its biological belief structure combined jungle-instinct, survival-of-the-fittest competitiveness with an inborn sense of altruism and community. As Western history was written and rewritten, monarchs yielded to presidents and to chairmen (and chairwomen) of the board, and military might yielded to economic heft. Democratic capitalism, it seemed, was being honed and polished in its role as the ultimate way of organizing human behavior.

Meanwhile China slept. It was mired in the weight of its vast human masses and the inertia of its traditions. Its spiritual roots were in the Tao (just let things be, go with the flow) and the wisdom of Confucius (the highest good, the Great Man, was a thoughtful and ethical leader). Its biological belief structure was empirical but deeply traditional. And the writing and rewriting of its history consisted of a succession of tyrants culminating during the twentieth century with the hegemony of communism, the ultimate tyrant.

But the U.S. and the appended world economy has recently taken a bad bruising. Laissez-faire deregulation, it seems, does not correctly--ultimately--counterbalance the short-sighted greed of entrepreneurs and economic empire builders. We wanted ever so much to believe it would. We tried hard to be like the three monkeys, covering our eyes and ears and mouth (and nose). Surely, surely the inventive financial excesses would right themselves--the false credit, the speculative "investment" slights of hand, the insider double-dealing would create their own demise; the inherent specific gravities and buoyancies of democratic capitalism were such that the ship would right itself.

But it didn't. Even the venerable Alan Greenspan, for 20 years America's top banker--the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, after a lifetime of laissez faire economic punditry said, essentially,"I was wrong."

Meanwhile China woke. It had struggled with its encumbrances and studied the West's successes. And in the wake of the West's economic disaster, China emerged from the mist coming on strong.

Now we have two world views. Democratic capitalism from the West trying to reign in its mad, runaway horses: trying to regulate renegade financiers, curb industrial pollution, and channel consumerism into sustainable (green) paths all the while sustaining (or in some cases rehabilitating) its humanitarian values--safety nets for the infirmities of illness and old age, universal health care and education, and respect for the dignity and individuality of each human being. And from the East, trying to dictate its way to mature capitalism: recognizing the need for a strong, consumer ("middle") class and perhaps, therefore, the inevitability of human rights and civil liberties.

As the West becomes more and more regulated and the East, more and more liberal, China and the U.S. are on convergent paths--and the world holds its breath.
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