Tao of the Ninja Mennonite: VI-- continued.

So, yeah, authenticity. . .

It never ceases to amaze me, looking back, at how much impact my sailing books have had. Hey, they're really shitty books. I didn't really expect anyone to read them. They're self-published, of course, as no nautical publisher would consider having them-- as there's absolutely no commercial appeal-- I wrote them largely for my own benefit as a means of gathering my own thoughts-- and in general they were waaaaay ahead of their time. I promise you, writing about the virtues of engine-less sailing in a world of .80 gasoline in the middle of the dot.com boom was lunatic fringe material. "Sailing with Purpose" was written by a 27 year old kid trying to figure out how to live a life of authenticity, full aware that the choice to take on such a project would cost dearly-- and of course it did. I've no regrets, and no apologies for the fact that, well, that's a book written by a kid, in a kinda flip style--albeit a very earnest one-- desperately trying to figure that game out. The others followed in their footsteps in a pretty dang unvarnished, minimally edited representation of my thoughts over that decade and some of sailing. This blog is pretty similar, in fact, as I've come to believe it's vastly more valuable to be real, even if that exposes one's defects-- than slick. It's vastly more persuasive as it's authentic-- or as follows alienating. Which is fine. There are people out there who chose values(or more accurately rejected them) that make them my enemies and they just didn't know it until they read my stuff. May as well make that all clear. In fact now, rather than "sailing"  I feel exactly the same way about my experiments in "sustainability" -- or more precisely our failure as a culture to achieve such in a necessarily timely manner-- I unapologetically intend to bear witness to our utter failure and absolute personal culpability for the destruction of planet earth. . .This also is waaaay ahead of its time-- people are still pretending it hasn't happened-- or are busy capitalizing on selling bogus solutions:  I intend to provide the generations of future with a very precious gift-- perspective. They, those kids of ours, are going to be forced by scarcity to make the most horrible of decisions and I fully intend to declare that they've every right to lay the blame where they need to, squarely on us-- squarely on me. I understand that this "bearing witness" will provide them very little comfort-- only justification for what actions they'll be forced to take. It's the best I can do. It's not enough for our crimes, of course. But it's something, I guess.

Ok, so objectivity-- or the complete lack of it-- and why it was so easy for us to murder our own children.

Just after graduating from college in the early 90's I had the lovely experience of working for the Juvenile Justice system in Boise-- and boy was that informative. I grew up in a reasonably sane, reasonably caring home and I really had no experience of the hell that so many kids start their lives in. I had no idea as to the pervasiveness of child abuse, sexual, physical, or mental-- or the full meal deal often-- but I learned a lot about it pretty quick. There's a lot that can be said about it, but for the purposes of this discussion I'll narrow it down to one hard, shocking, keen observation...

Child abusers "love" their kids.

No shit. They really do. At least from their "subjective" experience they do. They "feel" they do. They "feel" good about it. They very often feel that their abuse is even morally justified, and their abusive behavior in the best interest of the child. The obvious real objective evidence of a busted up kid bears not at all on their "perspective." Why should it? As a culture we value our subjective states of being ahead of our objective experience-- pedophilia and child abuse are just another manifestation of that indulgence. If you feel that that you're behaving in a moral fashion, well that's good enough, right? No reason to investigate the actual real practical ramifications of one's actions-- certainly no reason to hypothesize about the unknowable unintended consequences either. And what you see is what you get-- not just a culture full of child abuse but spousal abuse, abuse in our workplaces, environmental abuse-- exploitation, domination, tyranny in every kind of human relationships, violence everywhere-- notably excepting the kind where you get punched back-- well, of course getting punched back subjectively sucks...

And ultimately you get a dead planet...

You get a miserable one long before that...

Why should we be surprised? Demanding others accept the validity of our subjective experience above the knowable, observable practical reality is violence-- and why there is not, cannot be, and never will be such a thing as a peaceful religion...

Clearly, if we can demand ourselves to be "objective" for a moment, the act of choosing for our own momentary "subjective experience" ahead of the objective, real, measurable greater good always tends to a future of conflict. In a world with more space, and more abundance, the immediate nature of that conflict can seem subjectively remote-- but the trend is relentlessly reinforced. As time progresses, it becomes more difficult, costly, and even fatal for those who value humanity to choose against the societal "suicide pact" as time progresses, many who try fail, and the trend is yet again reinforced. Eventually it's only the most heroic that can stand against such values-- and they are beset even by those who would publicly claim to share their core values-- subjectively, of course, rather than objectively--

This is why it is so critical today to declare-- an action is good if and only if it is in fact good... and this good is always a measurable quantity. 

to be contined as well, as I've wrenches to spin. . .