A federal judge in Virginia has declared a section of the recently passed healthcare law unconstitutional.  That section, which would not have taken effect until 2014, is the one that requires individuals to purchase health insurance or to pay various tax penalties.  While there’s little doubt that the question will go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, I would not be surprised to see this ruling upheld, because there’s a vast difference in law, and in practice, between requiring individuals NOT to do something “bad,” and in requiring them to take an affirmative action at their own expense – or pay a penalty for not spending money as required by the federal government.

This distinction can be a very fine line, but it still exists.  For example, car manufacturers are required to incorporate costly safety features in their new cars, but no consumer is required to buy a new car.  Manufacturing companies are required to meet standards for safety and emissions, but no corporation is mandated to build a new plant to produce widgets, etc.

The problem with a democratic system is that our freedoms often exact costs, and often those costs fall on others in one way or another.  One example of this in health care hits fairly close to home – my home.  My wife is a professor of voice, and she teaches college students.  Over the last 18 years, never has she had a year when she has not been confronted with sick and contagious students, as well as some with severe throat, sinus, or lung problems, who have no health insurance because neither they nor their parents have such insurance.  Not only do these students often infect others, but at times, their lack of insurance threatens their own permanent well-being.  More times than I want to count, my wife has paid for visits to doctors, and she has negotiated special rates with specialists for certain tests and procedures for her students. In the vast majority of cases, these students or their parents, and it is usually their parents’ doing, have made the choice of not paying for health insurance.  But there is a cost, either in time lost from work or studies [and lower grades, possibly even resulting in the loss of a scholarship], in overall health, and in the costs imposed or assumed by others.  One of the largest costs in the health care area is that of emergency room costs.

The health care area is just one example. Another is our presumption of innocence.  Under our system of justice, someone arrested or charged with a crime is presumed innocent.  That presumption results in literally billions of dollars being spent to prove guilt and convict presumed criminals, many of whom escape punishment not because they are innocent, but because they had better lawyers.

Another area is child welfare.  Because we choose not to send poor families to poorhouses and debtors’ prisons, but to allow them freedom, we end up paying significant sums to welfare mothers and others, and subsidizing food – largely in the hope that at least some of it will get to children – rather than taking the children and letting their parents fend for themselves.

Yet another is the freedom of movement.  We allow people great freedom to own vehicles, to operate them at high rates of speed, and even presume that they will do so sensibly.  We also combine that freedom with that of drinking.  This “combination” of freedoms costs more than 40,000 lives annually, and billions in damages and destruction.

The last freedom we provide in the United States is simple.  In allowing people the freedom to innovate and to be successful, we also allow most people the freedom to make enough bad choices to hurt, if not destroy, themselves.

Am I suggesting a more totalitarian approach and an adoption of the Napoleonic Legal Code?  Heavens, no!  But what I am suggesting is that there are real and measurable costs to “freedom,” restricted as some think it now is, and that it is anything but “free,” and part of those costs are included in our taxes, in our insurance bills, and in the costs of the goods we buy… as well in human suffering and tragedy.

More than a few commentators on the left and elsewhere – as well as a host of Democratic legislators – are deploring the idea that families who earn more than $250,000 will be allowed to share in the continued lower tax rates of the so-called Bush tax cuts, and more than a few letters have graced the pages of various publications declaring that the rich and super-rich shouldn’t get such benefits.

Were the people who made $25,000 in the mid-1950s “rich?”  Certainly, no one I knew thought they were rich.  Well-off perhaps, even affluent, but certainly not anywhere close to rich.  Yet an income of $250,000 today is worth about what $25,000 was 60 years ago, perhaps even less, adjusted for inflation.  In real terms, even gasoline prices aren’t that much higher than then, and they’re certainly far lower, in terms of the purchasing power of the dollar, than they were during the “gas crisis” of the early 1970s.

To be fair about this, I’m just as appalled by those on the right who declare that increasing the taxes on those making more than $250,000 will bankrupt small businesses.  If a business making, say, $500,000 annually can’t afford an additional $10,000-$30,000 in taxes, then that business is in trouble already.  If the business is making enough to worry about increased taxes in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, it’s not a small business, besides which, at that level it should be incorporated and passing on those taxes to its customers, the way all the other U.S. corporations do – which is part of the reason why the whole idea of taxing corporate profits doesn’t make economic sense in a world economy… not that most politically motivated tax policies make economic sense.

I’d be among the first to admit that the United States government faces a fiscal crisis, but the reason why isn’t because the rich are greedy, or too many of the “poor” are undeserving, or that immigrants are “milking” the system, all of which are overblown stereotypes based on true anecdotes that are statistically a small proportion of what has caused our unbalanced budgets and deficits. The reason is that the American people, as a group, really have no understanding of numbers or what those numbers mean, and, unfortunately resist anyone or any institution that wants to enlighten them.  Nor is there any serious questioning of the basis of the whole idea of taxation as now practiced.  Admittedly, if we want government services, they have to be paid for.  But why do we continue with a system that isn’t raising the revenue necessary to cover the services we demand and yet reject either reducing demand or changing the basis of taxation?

If I walk into a McDonald’s and order a Big Mac, the cashier doesn’t ask me how much I make and price the sandwich accordingly.  The same is true at every retailer in the U.S. and for the majority of commercial services.  In fact, larger commercial customers usually get discounts for their larger orders. Yet all the services that the U.S. government supplies are essentially based on income and “cost” more the more someone makes.  Someone in the upper fifth of income in the U.S. pays a great deal more for his or her share of national defense, national parks, etc., than does someone in the lowest fifth, who often pays nothing at all.

Now… the rationale for higher individual costs of government [i.e., taxes] rests on the assumption that wealthier people benefit more from government and upon the idea that poorer people cannot afford to pay taxes.  Moreover, there is a feeling that it is somehow “unfair” to tax a well-off person and a poor person the same percentage of their income.  Yet, if one taxes someone who makes $100,000 at a ten percent rate, and someone who makes $20,000 at that same ten percent rate, the person who is better-off is paying $8,000 more than the poorer person for the same government services. That’s 400% more. If one then adds in the “progressive” tax structure, the person who is well-off may be paying tax rates of more than 20%, which works out to 900% more. Does that person who is well-off get nine times more government services?  No.

In fact, it’s likely that the poorer individuals get more government benefits than wealthier individuals.  I emphasize the word individuals because once one factors in corporations, that picture changes.  Various organizations, from foundations to industries, do in fact get large benefits, and because, in effect, as I’ve discussed many times before, corporations essentially pay no taxes because they pass those costs on to the customers and consumers,  they have often have no real costs, or reduced costs, for the government services they receive.

Larger homes on larger lots pay more property taxes just about everywhere.  But do the owners of such homes actually require more municipal services?  The odds are that they don’t.  In fact, they may require fewer.

All of this brings up a larger question: Why do we tax people and their property on their income and the value of their property for government services?  Why don’t we just tax them on the basis of services?

The simple answer is that it’s politically unwise.  A recent example occurred in a Utah county that imposed a fee for police services for those areas of the county not belonging to the municipalities that paid for police services.  More than a few people simply refused to pay – and that could lead to the situation that occurred in another state, where firefighters refused to fight a fire where the homeowner had not paid a $75 firefighting fee, and the homeowner watched his home burn to the ground.

The second answer is that a significant fraction of the population cannot pay such fees, and failing to provide such government and municipal services would endanger those who can pay even more than those who cannot.  Allowing crime to go unchecked in neighborhoods that cannot pay for police services would only result in crime spreading, and in the end, those who can pay would pay even more to protect themselves.  A similar practicality applies to a number of services, from roads to sanitation, to regulation of food and highway safety, and so on.

Any community requires a baseline of services to survive.  So do nations, although that baseline varies by culture and the times.  The problem the United States faces today is that, as a nation, we’re asking for more in government programs and services than the majority of people wish to pay.  It’s no secret that 10 % of the population pays more than seventy percent of the taxes… and that, essentially, they pay for the privilege of being successful.  The plain fact is that those who are well-off pay more in taxes comparatively, percentage-wise, and in absolute terms because they’re a minority and because society as a whole insists on it, not because it’s fair.

Today, the majority of Americans don’t and won’t pay for the bulk of services that they think government should provide. That same majority thinks that it’s wrong for the richer minority to object to paying the bulk of those costs.  Why exactly is it wrong for the “rich” to object to paying a disproportionate share, and why is it right for the majority to demand services it won’t support through taxes, especially when 30% of the population pays no federal income tax at all?  McDonald’s doesn’t give free food to thirty percent of its customers, and no one thinks that’s unfair, but government certainly gives free or reduced price services to more than thirty percent of its citizens.

Apparently, the latest “fad” to enter the education reform arena is an intense focus on “subject mastery,” unfortunately to the exclusion of other skills necessary for student success. There’s nothing wrong with the idea that students need to master the subject matter that they’re supposed to be studying.  Such mastery is absolutely necessary, but again, the reformers, at least all those mentioned in The New York Times article on it on November 28^th, are throwing the baby out with the bath water.

They have observed, wonder of wonders, that many students with terrible grades actually know the material, and that many other students with good grades don’t.  They have rightly identified a real problem in many American schools – that appearance and behavior and apparent attitude often result in inflated grades for students who really don’t learn what they should.  Unfortunately, from there, a number have gone to the assumption, and even implemented revamped curricula and standards, that very little besides subject mastery matters.  Homework is downgraded to counting not at all, as are attendance and behavior.

This idiocy – and it is idiocy – ignores so many factors I almost don’t know where to begin.  However… first, homework.  If homework is designed properly, it should both require learning and skills mastery. It should also teach students research skills and get the point across that you just can’t find answers in one place.  Admittedly, all too much homework is indeed busywork, but that’s not a problem with the idea of homework;  it’s a problem with how teachers use homework.  Second, if homework isn’t graded, in our society, unfortunately, it doesn’t get done, because we’ve taught children, by example, that the only things that are important are those that “count,” either in dollars or grades.  If homework doesn’t get done, then skills mastery suffers for most students.  In addition, both higher education and jobs requiring that higher education also require “homework,” doing projects and presentations, research, etc., and removing that facet of education or downplaying it into insignificance does students a great disservice.

Second, attendance.  Like it or not, most jobs require attendance.  It doesn’t matter how smart you are, because, if you’re not at work, sooner or later you’re going to get fired.  Discounting attendance because there are a few students bright enough to learn matters without being there – and those students are indeed a minority – sends a societal message that encourages a self-centered and eventually self-destructive attitude.  The same is true about behavior.  Employees who continually misbehave get fired.  College graduates who do the same seldom ever make it in either professional or executive positions.

Students not only have to master skills, but they have to learn how to learn, how to apply that learning in society, and put all three together.  Yes, skills mastery is vital… but without the other factors, it’s also useless.

When will we as a society ever get away from the “one-big-simple-fix” attitude?

The kind folks at Goodreads featured two of my books, one fantasy and one science fiction, as their November choices for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Club members to read and comment on, if they wished.  The books were The Magic of Recluce and Haze.  As I suspected, I took a certain amount of flak on one aspect of The Magic of Recluce, and that was my “creative” use of textual sound effects.  This was something I’ve known for years, especially since Dave Langford’s “poem” created solely from the sound effects in the first few Recluce books.  Needless to say, the later Recluce books have far, far, fewer sound effects.  And some Goodreads readers also noted that I was a bit too elliptical in areas, a tendency I think I’ve largely corrected in later fantasy books [after all, The Magic of Recluce was my very first fantasy book, written over twenty years ago, and I have learned a few things more about writing in the years since].

The negative comments about Haze, however, bothered me more, not because a number of readers didn’t like the book, because that’s to be expected.  Any book by any author will find some readers who don’t like it.  What bothered me was why these readers didn’t like the book.  Almost all of those who posted negative comments made the observation that they couldn’t connect with Keir Roget, the main character, because he showed no emotion.  In point of fact, that is not true.  He shows no overt emotion beyond politeness and tactfulness, or a quiet reserve, even when his life is threatened. It’s not that he has no emotions; it’s that they’re kept under tight rein, because in both his culture and his profession [security agent] revealing emotions can be dangerous, if not fatal, particularly when you’re already under suspicion, as Roget is.  The safest way not to reveal emotions is to repress them so that you don’t feel them strongly yourself, and this is exactly what Roget does.  There are numerous clues in Roget’s small actions as to what he feels in his actions, but these are subtle.

From a reader’s point of view, this clearly presented a challenge, and that difficulty was magnified because the “culture” is future Earth, and future southwestern Utah in one series of events.  That’s a future where at least some U.S. readers “expect” a certain emotional pattern from the character, and Roget didn’t deliver.  Of course, if he had, he wouldn’t have survived even to the point where the book actually begins. I suspect that, had I made the entire culture more Sinese and the main character had been identified as of Chinese heritage and genetics, readers would have had less difficulty, but perhaps not.

But what all the comments underline is that at least a certain percentage of readers are so isolated in their own culture that they have great difficulty in getting “outside” their own cultural and personal expectations, in particular when the setting “looks” familiar.  Yet that was actually one of the basic points of the book, shown in many ways – that what looks familiar may not be at all and that our own future may be far more alien to us than many could possibly imagine.  The problem of course, was that, for some readers, I succeeded in making that seemingly familiar future so alien that they could neither accept nor identify with it… and that doesn’t help sales a great deal.

What I’ve experienced with Haze may also reflect why comparatively few SF books, especially those with high sales levels, depict heroes or heroines with emotional complexions more than slightly different from those in current western society.  Emotional differences are far more alien than physical differences, it would seem, at least in current SF, and that’s why so many aliens are really just humans in disguise.

The   November 20^th edition of The Economist features an observation on the growth of data surrounding purchases of bonds, stocks, derivatives, etc. The article notes that since the founding of the Centre for Research in Security Prices at the University of Chicago in 1960, initially funded by Merrill Lynch, the number of academic economic journals dealing with, analyzing, or providing such data has grown from 80 then to over 800 today.

Yet some economists, such as Robert Shiller of Yale University, according to The Economist, dispute the value of such information, noting that even with all the proliferation of data, no one can explain the market melt-down of two years ago.  Others dispute Shiller, pointing out that the market demand for such information proves its value.

In my view, they’re both right, because each is talking about a different aspect of the information.  Shiller is talking about understanding how the securities markets actually work, especially in times when markets perform “abnormally,” while all those who want more and more data are talking about how valuable they find it in making money through trading.

Combine all that data with sophisticated trend analysis and you get knowledge that can make a great deal of money, generally always in short-run situations, but what all that data won’t tell you is when something basic is going to change, and change abruptly.  And those who mine the data are more than happy to be able to use that data 99% of the time to make piles of money. As for the one percent of the time that they’re wrong… well… everything they’ve made the rest of the time covers that – for them.  What their profits don’t do is remedy the vast economic damage that ripples through the economy when one of those unforeseen market meltdowns occurs.

The problem with the computerized use of all this securities market data is that, because it works so well so much of the time for those with the resources to exploit it, there’s little incentive to fund or look into basic research in the field.  In addition, the economists who do all the short-term analysis are, according to Professor Shiller, “idiot savants, who get a sense of authority from work that contains lots of data.”   Again, the problem is that the focus on daily market economics stresses immediate returns to the detriment of long-term understanding… or wisdom, if you will.

And what else is new?

Today is “black Friday,” the day after Thanksgiving when supposedly the Christmas shopping madness seizes the American people and drives them into a frenzy of buying for themselves and others.  While the term “Black Friday” was used at least as far back as 1869, it originally referred to financial crises, but at some point in the mid-1970s, newspapers and media began referring to the day after Thanksgiving as an indicator of what merchants were likely to be “in the black,” or profitable, because of the Christmas buying season. After a time, and particularly in the last decade, this meaning of “black Friday” has usurped all others.

Unfortunately, there are a number of problems with this usage, and especially with the implications behind it.  Because everyone seems to want to concentrate on the economic side, I’ll begin there.  First, the idea of “black Friday” emphasizes consumer buying and consumption as the primary measure of U.S. economic power and success, at a time when the majority of the goods consumed come from other countries.  Second, it ties expectations to a given day of the year. In addition, it creates a mindset that suggests, if a retail business’s holiday revenues are not substantial, then there’s something wrong.  While that may be true for seasonal goods, not all consumer products are seasonal.

Beyond those reasons are the ethical ones.  Do we really want to continue to push the idea of consumer spending as the only – or even the principal – way to keep the economy going, particularly at a time when our entire societal infrastructure, from roads to bridges, to financial structures, to the electrical grid, among others, need rebuilding or total re-structuring?  At a time when Americans, with something like five percent of the world’s population, already consume 25% of its annual output?  Do we want to create a mindset that emphasizes consumption at a time when so many people are struggling to make ends meet?

Then there’s the purely practical question of whether it’s a good idea to emphasize consumption – most of it temporary in nature – when those goods are largely produced overseas, while neglecting building and using capital goods that will generate jobs in the United States.

Black Friday – an economic success or a societal disaster?

As some readers may know, my wife is a professional singer who is also a professor of voice and opera.  Among her many duties is that of teaching aspiring classical singers diction and literature.  One notable type of song literature required of these students is that of “art song,” and a significant percentage of art song consists of poetry set to music by composers.  Various forms of art song, if called by different names, have been composed in many languages, although classical singers usually begin by learning art songs in English, French, German, and Italian.

Earlier this semester, my wife was beginning the section on American and English art song, and out of a class of fifteen students, she found that what they had read in high school appeared to be limited to a bit of Chaucer and Shakespeare, along with Emily Dickinson, and perhaps T.S. Eliot.

None of the students had learned any poetry by such greats as John Milton, William Blake, Shelley, Byron, Keats, Yeats, Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Christina Rosetti., Robert Louis Stevenson, Thomas Hardy, W.H. Auden, A.E. Housman, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Amy Lowell. In fact, none of them even appeared to have read Robert Frost. Moreover, none of them could actually read verse, except in a halting monotone.  This lack of background in poetry puts them at a severe disadvantage, because these are the poets whose words have been put to music in art song and even in choral works.

These were not disadvantaged students. They came out of high school with good grades and good standardized test scores.  Yet they know essentially very little about the historical written arts of their own native language.  In turn, this lack shows up in their narrowness of word usage, metaphor, and general weakness in both oral and written expression. Whether it’s related or not, it does appear that there’s also a correlation between the loss of  solid English instruction and the growth of such phrases as “you know”; “I mean”; “like…dude”; and scores of other meaningless phrases used to cover lack of even semi-precise expressiveness.

Bring back the great old poets… all of them.

Although I was surrounded by books growing up, I can’t recall ever going to a bookstore to obtain a book until I was in college.  I was a frequent visitor to the local library, and there were the paperback SF novels my mother picked up at the local drugstore, but bookstores weren’t really a part of my orbit, and their absence didn’t seem to affect my voracious reading habit.  As an author, however, I’ve become very aware of bookstores, and over the past twenty years, I’ve entered over a thousand different bookstores, in forty-two of the fifty states, over 120 in the space of three weeks on one tour.  And because I was once an economist I kept track of the numbers and various other economics-related aspects of those bookstores.

The conclusion?  Well… there are many, but the one that concerns me the most are the changes in bookselling and where books can be obtained and what those changes mean for the future functional literacy of the United States.

When I first became a published novelist thirty years ago, for example, the vast majority of malls had small bookstores, usually a Waldenbooks or a B. Dalton, often two of them, one at each end of the mall, or perhaps a Brentano’s or another chain. And I was very much aware of them, because I spent more times in malls than I really wanted to, which is something that occurs when one has pre-teen and teenaged daughters.  According to the statistics, at that time, there were over 1500 Waldenbooks in malls nationwide, and hundreds of B. Daltons, not to mention all the other smaller bookstores. Today, the number of Waldenbooks stores totals less than 200 hundred, and the majority of those were closed because Borders Books, the present parent company of Waldenbooks, did not wish to continue them once it acquired the chain, preferring to replace many small stores with larger Borders stores.  Even so, Borders has something less than five hundred superstores.  The same pattern holds true for Barnes and Noble, the parent of the now-or-almost-defunct B. Dalton stores.  The actual number of bookstores operated by these two giant chains is roughly half what they operated twenty-five years ago.  At the same time, the growth of the chain superstores has squeezed out hundreds of smaller independent bookstores.

Prior to 1990, there were somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 book wholesalers in the United States, and there were paperback book racks in all manner of small retail establishments.  Today there are only a handful of wholesalers, and the neighborhood book rack is a thing truly of the past.

Add to this pattern the location of the book superstores.  Virtually all of these stores are located in the most affluent sections of the areas they serve.  In virtually every city I’ve visited in the last fifteen years, there are huge sections of the city, sometimes as much as 60 percent of the area, if not more, where there is no bookstore within miles, and often no convenient public transport. There are fewer and fewer small local bookstores, and most large bookstores are located in or near upscale super malls.  Very few, if any, malls serving the un-affluent have bookstores.  From a short-term economic standpoint, this makes sense for the mega-store chains.  From a cultural standpoint, and from a long-term customer development standpoint, it’s a disaster because it limits easy access to one of the principal sources of books largely to the most affluent segments of society.

What about the book sections in Wal-Marts?  The racks and carrels in the average super Wal-Mart number roughly a third of those in the size of the smallest of the Waldenbooks stores I used to visit, and the range of books is severely limited, effectively to the best-sellers of each genre.

Then, because of recent economic pressures, the local libraries are seeing their budgets cut and cut, as are school libraries – if the school even has a library.

Research done for publishing firms has shown that so-called impulse book purchasing – the kind once made possible be neighborhood book racks and ubiquitous small mall bookstores, accounted for a significant percentage of new readers… and the comic book racks that were next to the book racks provided a transition from the graphic format to the books.

Some have claimed that books will be replaced by the screen and the I-phone and other screen “aps,” and that well may be… for those who can already read… but the statistics show that while fewer Americans are totally illiterate, an ever-increasing percentage is effectively functionally illiterate.

Is that functional illiteracy any wonder… when it really does take a book to start learning to read and when books are becoming harder and harder to come by for those who need them the most?

Decades ago, the late science fiction writer Mack Reynolds wrote a novel depicting a future United States in which citizens received one “basic” vote, and then could “earn” additional votes for various accomplishments, such as earning advanced degrees, completing a period of military and/or public service, etc.  At the time of the book, Reynolds received a great deal of flak for that concept, and I suspect, were anyone to advance such an idea today, the outcry would likely be even greater.

But why?  In point of fact, those with great sums of money already exert a disproportionate amount of influence over the electoral process, especially in the United States now that the U.S. Supreme Court has granted corporations and wealthy individuals access to the media that is only limited by the amount of their resources, in effect granting such entities the impact of millions of votes. The rationale for the court decision, which has in effect been legally sustained, is that restriction on the use of money for advertising one’s political views and goals is in effect a restriction on first amendment freedom of speech rights.  The practical problem with this decision is that, in a culture dominated by pervasive mass media, the result is to multiply the effect of exercising freedom-of-speech rights manifold for those who have large amounts of wealth.  Since, given the costs of effectively using mass media, only the top one or two tenths of one percent of the population can exercise such media-enhanced rights, the result of the decision is to give disproportionate influence to a tiny fraction of the population.  Moreover, as a result of the decision, in most cases, donors to groups and corporations availing themselves of this “right” do not even have to disclose their donations/spending.

The Court’s decision essentially grants greater weight in determining who governs us strictly on the basis of income and wealth.  Are not other qualities and accomplishments also of equal or greater value to civilization?  And if so, why should they not be granted greater weight as well? That was really the question Reynolds was addressing in postulating such a change in American society, and it’s a good question.

Before you dismiss the idea out of hand, consider the fact that the way in which our current system operates grants greater governmental influence to a small group of people whose principal talent is making money.  It does not grant such influence to those who teach, who create, or who perform unheralded and often dangerous military and public service, and as the revelations about Iraq have showed, at times such money-making operations have in fact been based on taking advantage of American soldiers deployed abroad, so that those with great sums of money not only gained electoral influence, but did so at the expense of those who served their country… and many of whom died doing so.

Then… tell me again why we don’t need an electoral or regulatory counterbalance to unbridled use of wealth in trying to influence elections.

The other day, someone commented on the blog that, unfortunately, Imager’s Intrigue and Haze were boring and major disappointments.  I replied directly, something I usually avoid doing, at least immediately, because the comment punched several of my buttons.  As many of my readers well know, my first fantasy, The Magic of Recluce, features Lerris, a young man who, at the beginning of the novel, finds virtually everything in his life boring, and everything that he railed against at the beginning far less so at the end… yet the world in which he lives has changed very little.

I have no problem with readers saying that they personally found a book of mine – or anyone else’s – boring… or whatever.  I have great problems when they claim the book is boring, without qualifications.  A book, in itself, is neither exciting nor boring.  It simply is.  When a reader picks up a book and reads it, there is an interaction between what the reader reads and what the writer wrote.  What a reader finds interesting depends at least as much on the reader as the writer.  There are some books that have been widely and greatly acclaimed that I do not find interesting or enjoyable, and that is true of all readers.  In general, however, books that are well-written, well-thought-out, and well plotted tend to last and to draw in a greater percentage of readers than those that are not.  The fact that books with overwhelmingly positive reader and critical reviews that also sell large numbers receive comments like “dull,” “boring,” and “slow” suggests that no book can please everyone.  That’s not a problem.

The problem, as I see it, is that there are more and more of such unthinking comments, and those comments reflect an underlying attitude that the writer must write to please that particular reader or the author has somehow failed if he or she has not done so.  This even goes beyond the content of the books.  A number of my books – and those of many other authors – are now receiving “one-star” or negative reviews, not because of faults in the book, but because the book was not available immediately in cheaper e-book versions at the time when the hardcover is published.  Exactly how many people in any job would think it fair that they received an unsatisfactory performance review because they didn’t offer their services at a lower rate?  Yet that’s exactly what the “one-star-reviewers” are essentially saying – that they have the right to demand when and at what price what version of a book should be released.

It took poor Lerris exile and years to understand that Wandernaught was not boring, but that he was bored because he didn’t want to understand.  But that sort of insight seems lacking in those whose motto appears to be: Extremism in the pursuit of entertainment (preferably cheap) is no vice, and moderation in the criticism of those who provide it is no virtue.

On my way to and back from the World Fantasy Convention, I managed to squeeze in reading several books – and a bit of writing.  One of the books I read, some three hundred plus pages long, takes place in one evening.  While I may be a bit off in my page count, after reading the book, I thought that of the more than three hundred pages, the prologue and interspersed recollections and flashbacks amounting to perhaps fifty pages provided the background for the incredibly detailed action, consisting of sorcery, battles, fights and more fights, resulting in… what?  An ending that promised yet another book. To me, at least, it was more like a novelized computer game [and no, it’s not, at least not yet].  If I hadn’t been on an airplane, and if the book hadn’t come highly recommended, I doubt I would have finished it.

The more I’ve thought about this, the more it bothered me, until I realized that what the book presented, in essence, was violence in the same format as pornography, with detailed descriptions of mayhem in realms of both the physical and the ghostly, with just enough background to “justify” the violence.  While I haven’t done as much reading of the genre recently as I once did – I read 30-40 books in the field annually, as opposed to the 300 plus I once read – to offer a valid statistical analysis, it seems to me that this is a trend that is increasing… possibly because publishers and writers are trying to draw in more of the violence-oriented gaming crowd.  Then again, perhaps I’ve just picked the wrong books, based on the recommendations of reviewers who like that sort of thing.

And certainly, this trend isn’t limited to books. In movies, we’re being treated – or assaulted, depending on one’s viewpoint – with more and more detailed depictions of everything, but especially of mayhem, murder, and sexually explicit scenes. The same is true across a great percentage of what is classified as entertainment, and I’m definitely not the first commentator to notice that.

Yet… all this explicitness, at least to me, comes off as false.  Older books, movies, and the like that hint at sex, violence, terror, and leave the reader and viewer in the shadows, so to speak, imagining the details, have a “reality” far more realistic than entertainment that leaves nothing to the imagination.

This lack of reader/viewer imagination and mental exploration also results in another problem, lack of reader understanding. I’m getting two classes of reader reviews on books such as Haze, in particular, those from readers who appear truly baffled and those who find the book masterful. The “baffled” comments appear to come largely from readers who cannot imagine, let alone understand, the implications and pressures of a society different from their own experience and preconceptions… and they blame their failure to understand on the writer.  The fact that many readers do understand suggests that the failure is not the writer’s.

All this brings up another set of questions.  Between the detailed computer graphics of games, the growth of anime, manga, and graphic novels, the CGI effects in cinema, what ever happened to books, movies, and games that rely on the imagination? A generation ago, children and young adults used their imagination in entertainment and reading to a far greater extent. The immediate question is to what degree the proliferation of graphic everything minimizes the development of imagination. And what are the ramifications for the future of both society and culture?

Recently, I read some reader book reviews of a science fiction novel and came across a thread that surfaced in several of the reviews, usually in a critical context.  I realized, if belatedly, that what I had read was an underlying assumption behind much science fiction and something that many SF readers really want.  The only problem, I also realized, is that what they want is something that, in historical and practical contexts, is as often missing as present.

What am I talking about?  The impact of technology, of course.

Because we in the United States live in a largely technology-driven, or at least highly technologically supported, society, there is an underlying assumption that technology will have a tremendous impact on society, and that every new gadget somehow offers an improvement to society.  I have grave doubts about the second, but that’s not the assumption I’m going to address, but rather the first, the idea that in any society, technology will triumph.  I’d be the first to agree that one can define, to some degree, a culture or society by the way in which it develops and uses technology, but I’d have to disagree on the point that developing technology is always a societal priority.

Imperial China used technology, but there certainly wasn’t a priority on developing it past a certain point, and in fact, one Chinese emperor burned the most technologically advanced fleet in the world at that time.  The Chinese developed gunpowder and rockets, but never developed them to anywhere close to their potential.  As I’ve noted in a far earlier blog, the Greeks developed geared astronomical computers thousands of years in advance of anyone else… and never applied the technology to anything else.  Even the British Empire wasn’t interested in Babbage’s mechanical computer.  And, for the present, at least, western civilization has turned its back on supersonic passenger air transport, even though it’s proved to be technically feasible.

Yet, perhaps because many SF readers are enamored of technology, there seems to be an assumption among a significant fraction of readers that when an author does not explore or exploit the technology of a society and give it a significant role, at least as societal background, he or she has somehow failed in maximizing the potential of the world depicted in the novel in question.

Technology is only part of any society, and, at times, and in some places, it’s a very tiny part.  Even when it underpins a society, as in the case of western European-derived societies in our world, it often doesn’t change the societal structure, but amplifies the impact of already existing trends.  Transportation technology improves and expands the existing trade networks, but doesn’t create a new function in society.  When technology does change things, it usually does so by changing the importance of an existing structure, as in the case of instant communications.  And at times, as I noted above, a society may turn its back on better technology, for various reasons… and this is a facet of human societies seldom explored in F&SF and especially in science fiction, perhaps because of the myth — or the wish — that technology always triumphs, despite the historical suggestions that it doesn’t.

Just because a writer doesn’t carry technology as far as it might go theoretically doesn’t mean the writer failed.  It could be that the writer has seen that, in that society, technology won’t triumph to that degree.

The vast majority of political observers and “experts” – if pressed, and sometimes even when not – will generally admit that the American political climate is becoming ever more polarized, with the far right and the far left refusing to compromise on much of anything.  For months now, the Republican party in the U.S. Senate has said “No!” to anything of substance proposed by the Democratic leadership, and in the health care legislation, for example, the Democrats effectively avoided dealing with any of the issues of interest to the Republicans, some of which, such as medical malpractice claims reform, have considerable merit.

Yet, if one looks at public opinion polls, most Americans aren’t nearly so radical as the parties that supposedly represent them, although recently that has begun to change, not surprisingly, given the continual public pressure created by the tendency of media news outlets to simplify all issues to black and white… and then to generate conflict, presumably to increase ratings.

Add to this the extreme media pressure placed on any politician who seeks a compromise or another approach outside of either party positions or his or her own past pronouncements, and we have a predictable outcome – polarization and stalemate.

There are times when stalemate may be preferable to ill-considered political action, but at present, there are a number of areas affecting the United States where some sort of action is and has been necessary.  A relative of mine just got her latest health insurance bill – over $1,000 a month for single-party coverage – and this wasn’t a gold-plated health plan by any means.  For two people, the premium would have been over $1,600 monthly, or over $19,000 a year.  Now… the median family income in the United States runs around $50,000 at present, and a $1,600 a month health insurance bill is over 35% of that – and doesn’t include deductibles and co-payments.  Single parent households have a median family income of  roughly $35,000, and $1,000 a month is more than a third of before-tax income.  These figures do tend to suggest that some sort of action on health care insurance was necessary, but the vast majority of one party effectively declared that they weren’t interested in anything proposed by the majority party, and the majority party effectively refused to consider any major issues brought to the table by the minority.  By parliamentary maneuvers, the majority slid through legislation thoroughly opposed by the overwhelming majority of the minority – and further increased the political polarization in Washington.

Similar polarization can be seen on other major issues, from immigration to energy policy and climate change legislation, and, of course, taxation.   One party wants to soak those who have any income of substance, and the other wants to reduce taxes so much that we’ll never dig our way out of the deficit.  Those who would suffer the greatest taxation don’t have enough to cover the deficit, and cutting or eliminating taxes, as some have proposed, would destroy us as a nation.

Tell me… exactly how does this polarization resolve anything?

In response to one comment on a recent blog, I noted that vocal music had changed over the last forty years, and another commenter made the point that languages evolve… both of which raised in my mind the question of the role art plays in societal evolution. Put bluntly, does art lead such transformations, or does it merely reflect them?  Or is it the usual mix of a little leading, and a great deal of reflection?

While I’m no art historian, it does appear to me that changes in the predominant or critically acclaimed styles of painting do not follow a pattern of gradual change, but occur irregularly, and at times, at least, preceded significant societal changes, as in the case of the rise of the impressionists, or the modern art movement of the 1950s.  Such changes also do not appear to be primarily gradualistic.

Music historians have placed classical music into periods, but how does one analyze the changes from one period to the next?  Were giants such as Bach and Mozart so dominant in their mastery that they forced the composers who followed them to innovate?  Beethoven’s great Ninth Symphony, which is unlike any other of its time and, for that matter, unlike any of quality any time soon thereafter, was composed at a time when the “old order” had been restored.  Was he reacting to the currents of past revolution, or anticipating the changes to come?  It’s easy enough to say that such questions were irrelevant to Beethoven, except that it’s unlikely that any creative soul is impervious to the environment, especially in Beethoven’s case, since the currents of politics swirled around Vienna during the period, especially after 1800, when his most daring works were composed.

Popular music, especially in the United States, underwent radical changes in the 1960s, and significant societal changes also occurred.  Did they occur in tandem, or did the music reinforce the impetus for change?  Can anyone truly say?

Science fiction aficionados often like to claim that SF leads the way into the future, but does it?  Isaac Asimov did foresee the pocket calculator, but the success record of the genre is pretty weak, either in predicting or inspiring social and technological changes.  Almost 40 years ago, in my very first story, I predicted computer analysis and economic modeling, somewhat accurately, as it turned out, and cybercrime as well, and while cybercrime has indeed become a feature of current society, I never predicted the most predominant type.  I did predict institutional cybercrime of the general type that caused the last economic meltdown, and, so far as I can tell, that story was one of the first, if not the first, to suggest that type of crime, but… somehow… I don’t think my little story inspired it.  I just saw where technology and trends might lead.

But, of course, that leaves open the question… how much do the arts influence the future?

Several pieces of archeological “trivia” clicked together for me the other day.   First was an event in the early history of the United States, during the time period when the Indians had had enough and decided to push the English out of New England – in a conflict known as King Philip’s War, named for the young chief of the Wampanoag Indian tribe. Despite differing religious beliefs, the English colonists were united, while the Indians were fragmented into more than half a dozen local tribes, two of which, the Pequot and the Mohegan, supported the English.  On top of that, at a point when the English colonists were having great difficulty, the neighboring Mohawk tribe, rather than support King Philip, attacked the Wampanoag.

The second piece of informational trivia was the recollection that one of the contributing reasons for the Spanish success against the Aztecs was that tribes conquered by the Aztecs united with the Spaniards.  The third was an article in Archeology revealing recent discoveries about the ancient Etruscans, one of which was that, despite their initial control of the central Italian peninsula and a higher level of technology than the Romans, in the end Rome triumphed, largely because the Etruscan cities could never form a truly unified nation.  Greece is another example.  The ancient Greek city-states never could form a unified nation – except briefly in short-lived alliances and then under the iron fist of Alexander and, despite their comparatively advanced technology and civilization, ended up dominated by the Romans.

The largest single difference between a nation and a collection of tribes is that a nation is held together by an overriding set of common beliefs.  The United States began as a “tribal” confederation, but succeeded in unifying what amounted to regional tribes through the idea and principles of a federal republic… for a period of little more than sixty years before the beliefs of the southern “tribes” resulted in rebellion.  One of the contributing factors to the defeat of the South was the lack of cohesion between the “tribal states” of the southern confederacy, a lack exemplified by the fact that some southern railways had different gauge track systems from others – and it does get hard to move supplies when you have fewer railways and they don’t interconnect.

While history does not repeat itself in any exact fashion, patterns and “echoes” do, and one of the patterns of history is that large and unified countries almost always triumph over nations that are or resemble tribal confederations or over smaller nations.  Another pattern is that confederations or unions seldom endure.  They either merge into a nation of shared values, as did the United States, or they fragment, as did the former USSR.

The problem facing the United States, and the world, today is that tribalism is again becoming rampant, if more in the form of values, largely religious, that are increasingly intolerant of those with other values.  This tribalism, instead of seeking common ethical and practical grounds, manifests itself in demanding that those with other beliefs be repudiated, if not exiled or exterminated, and often demonizes those with comparatively minor differences in beliefs.

More than a few political scientists have theorized that this trend could conceivably, if unchecked, result in the political fragmentation of the United States into several nations.  While I’m not that skeptical, I do see that this tribalization has resulted in a growing failure of society and government and an increasing inability to deal with critical national problems, ranging from failing infrastructure to financial overcommitment and endless wars around the globe.

And… as another symptom… is it that surprising that one of the top-rated media shows is the “tribally-based” Survivor series?  More tribalism, anyone?

Superficially, human beings differ to some degree, with variations in hair, eye, and skin color, as well as moderately differing musculature and size, but those external differentiations are as nothing compared to the differences in what we believe.  Here, too, there are degrees of variation, generally, but not always, based on culture.  That is, for example and for the most part, belief structures within Anglo-American culture fall along a certain spectrum, while those in Middle-Eastern Islamic cultures fall along another, while belief structures in East Asian cultures follow another general spectrum.  Obviously, the beliefs of any given individual may be wildly at variance with the culture spectrum or norms of where that person lives, but by definition, as a result of cultural development, in most cases either a majority or, where no majority culture exists, either the largest or the most powerful minority tends to dictate cultural norms and beliefs.

One area of belief in which there is little variation among human beings is the belief that “what I believe is the ‘right’ belief, and everyone else should believe as I do.”  There is little variation in this internal dictum because thinking organisms who do not innately have such a guide tend to die out quickly.  The difference among humans does not lie in the first part of that dictum, but in the second, in how much tolerance an individual or a culture has for the beliefs of others.

Now… obviously for any society to survive, there has to be a shared set of values… or chaos and societal dissolution, or revolt and disaster, will soon follow. But the question facing any society is what values are absolutely necessary to be shared and how will that sharing be enforced. Historically, such “belief” domination/values sharing has been established not just through cultural and religious pressure, but through force, including, but not limited to, war; genocide; economic, political, legal, and social discrimination.

In addition, those groups who see their values threatened have a tendency to protest and oppose the loss of such values, often with great violence.  Today, much of the Islamic Middle East feels enormously threatened by the secularistic, less-gender-role-driven, and materialistic western European value structure. In the United States, in particular, fundamentalist Christian faiths clearly feel threatened and angered by beliefs that run counter to their views on such issues as abortion and marriage, and one well-known writer has gone as far as to suggest he will oppose any U.S. government that creates a legal definition of marriage counter to the “traditional” one of a man and a woman.

This “need” for values domination has often been carried to extremes by individuals, groups, and even governments who have happened to believe that the world only belongs to the “chosen people” or  “the master race” or “those who can afford it” or some other exclusive definition… almost always with disastrous results and extremely high loss of life.

Enter technology.  Technology requires certain shared values.  It also creates great dissemination of knowledge, as well as being an extremely effective tool for indoctrination and communication.  These factors, as well as a number of others, threaten many “traditional” values.  At the same time, the higher the level of technology, the greater the need for certain core shared values, that is, if one wants to keep that technology operational in a world that is getting smaller and smaller.

The additional problem today is that, like it or not, small groups, and even individuals, and certainly governments all have the power to create large-scale disasters, with violent societal and physical disruptions, either to impose their values, or to rebel against the imposition of other beliefs and values.  Moreover, as recent studies have begun to indicate, as such disruptions escalate, another group of individuals enters the dynamic, what one might best call “opportunistic terrorists,” who either use similar tactics for commercial profit, such as the Latin and South American drug cartels, or for personal fame or just because they enjoy the acts of terrorism.

In my view, and it is only my opinion, human society as a whole faces three possible futures:  (1) technological collapse because the values conflicts cannot be resolved; (2) the gradual imposition of  shared values through indoctrination and commercial and political pressure, as is happening in China today, and to a lesser degree in western cultures; or (3) greater understanding and cooperation in working out a “core values” framework that will allow a range of differing beliefs around the world.

The way matters are going right now, it appears options one and two are fighting it out, because no one wants to compromise enough to give option three a chance.

The other day I was reading a well-known “literary” periodical with large circulation… and I noticed something… and then I read another periodical of the same ilk – and I noticed the same thing.  So I went back, both through the various magazines, as well as my memory, and realized that, no indeed, my memory was not playing tricks on me.

And what was it that I noticed?  I’ll get to that… in a moment.

But first… poetry.  According to A Handbook to Literature, “The first characteristic of poetry, from the standpoint of form, is rhythm…”  The rather lengthy definition also notes that poetry is “characterized by compactness, intense unity, and a climactic order,” expressed with the vital element of concreteness and noting that one of the strengths of Shakespeare’s poetry is that almost every line “presents a concrete image.”

Many years ago, both when I studied poetry and later published some in long-vanished small magazines, there were still poets who believed and worked along those lines, who regularly wrote sonnets, sestinas, villanelles, and other strict poetic forms and who understood and could work with a range of metric forms and rhythms.  And because I tend to appreciate the beauty of language and form, those are the poets whom I read and praise… and the kind that I still seek and seldom find.

That most of what is published as poetry today, even by many publications with literary credentials and pretensions, is what one critic [whose name I can’t recall, or I’d cite him or her] called “greeting card free verse,”  devoid of strict (or even loose) metrics.  And much of the popularity of current so-called poetry rests on the spoken presentation of the work, rather than upon the structure and the words themselves.  Great poetry should not require a great speaker, but should sound great and shake the mind when recited by anyone of average intelligence and speech.

This trend toward greeting card verse and emphasis on presentation rather than substance is certainly why I take out my well-worn copies of William Butler Yeats, T.S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, W.H. Auden, Dylan Thomas, and William Shakespeare, among others, when I wish to read poetry.  And yes, when I go to various bookstores, I do browse through the “current” poetry sections… and carefully replace the books I’ve perused on the shelves.  Now… I won’t claim that there’s no one out there who’s actually writing full-fledged poetry, but I will claim that, based on a fairly wide reading habit, there certainly aren’t many “poets” who are published today that merit the title in terms of the standards of the past.

As for what I noticed in those “literary” publications… it was that none of what was published as poetry in the issues I read or could find in recent months would have been called poetry until the last half century or so.  Robert Frost once made the observation that writing so-called free verse was like playing tennis with the net down.  Almost anyone could do it and call themselves a poet.

And that is why I praise the great poets who could and can encapsulate vivid images and meaning in rhythmic, rhymed forms without sounding stilted or forced and with words whose sounds, allusions, and connotations stir the mind and soul.

Those who can do all that… they are true poets.

There’s a growing, if underground, backlash against bilingualism in the United States, against the proliferation of directions and instructions in languages other than English, against ballots printed in Spanish, against ATMs with foreign language options.  Yet, from what I’ve observed, while I do believe that the legal language of the United States is and should remain English, so many of those who demand action or legislation to reinforce this are missing the linguistic boat.

The United States is indeed a nation of immigrants, and all too many youngsters today seem to have lost some of the skills of their parents.  For example, fewer and fewer of them can write adequately the language written and spoken by their parents.  This wouldn’t be such a loss… except the language I’m talking about is English, American English in particular. And I’m also not talking about those young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.  I’m referring to the vast majority of white Caucasian high school graduates from “good” urban or suburban high schools.

This linguistically disadvantaged majority – and actual tests of proficiency in English reading, writing, and comprehension show clearly this lack of ability – does not know basic grammar, basic spelling, or the construction and use of their native tongue. This spills over into everything, from essays to business correspondence, from newspaper and magazine articles even to headlines, not to mention blogs and advertisements. The number and percentage of grammatical and spelling errors in publications has increased dramatically.  I’ve gone back and checked older publications, and such lack of skill and care either didn’t exist or was caught by editors and proof-readers.

The same lack of precision in language permeates popular music – assuming one can even decipher the abysmal diction of most singers in order to suffer through grammatical inaccuracies and debasement of a once-proud language.  In point of fact, it’s amazing to realize that the music once considered almost degraded and backwoods-derived – country music, to be exact – is perhaps the only form of current popular vocal music where the majority of the lyrics can actually be understood.

Yes… a small percentage of Americans continue to write well and skillfully, but that proportion is declining every year, paradoxically at a time when recent studies show that the mastery of language equates directly to the mastery of thought and ideas.  Might it just be possible… just possibly… that the decline in the ability of Americans to articulate and understand the complexities of our society lies in the decline of their linguistic abilities?  Mastery of language is not merely the knowledge of vocabulary, but the ability to construct sentences that are clear and logical, and to understand those that are logically complex.  In short, clear thinking requires a good command of language, and there’s definitely a shortage of clear thinking today.

Why are simplistic political or commercial sound-bites so successful?  Is it because the euphony of simplicity appeals so much more readily to those who are linguistically disadvantaged?  Or because those whose language skills have atrophied or were never developed have difficulty in understanding anything more complex?

Whatever the reason, the English-only partisans seem unwilling and unable to understand that they’re well on the way to losing their battle… and they’re losing it from within.

While citing history is usually doomed to failure, because so few understand its parallels, or want to, I will point out that Latin was once the language that ruled the world.  As it became debased, so did Rome… to the point where Latin is a dead language, and Italian bears but a passing resemblance to the language it replaced… and… oh… Italy couldn’t even reunite itself until more than 1,900 years after the death of Julius Caesar.

Last weekend, we went to a party, one that marked a significant set of dates in the lives of some friends and one to which we were invited with a large engraved invitation.  I did note a phrase at the bottom which read, “Cocktail Attire.”  Now it may be that I come from a very conservative background, but to me that suggested a coat and tie at the very least, and apparel of a similar nature for my wife – which indeed we did wear. The event was catered and featured an array of excellent foods, from appetizers to deserts, and a range of beverages from water to expensive liquors and champagnes.  Each couple, or individual, was given a set of wineglasses with the dates and the symbols in gold lettering.

But frankly, I was appalled at what many of the guests wore – faded jeans and polo shirts, women in beach capris.  I will admit I didn’t see any tee-shirts and short-shorts, but that was more likely due to the fact that the temperature was in the high 60s than to the taste, or lack of it, on the part of some of those attending. At one point, a famed and world-class pianist performed… and almost no one listened or moderated their conversations, even after the host asked for quiet.

What was even more surprising to me was that none of those attending would have been considered less than substantial members of the community.  The guests included doctors, lawyers, accountants, university officers and professors, prosperous ranchers, business professionals, and the like.  Exactly what did perhaps a quarter of those attending fail to understand about “cocktail attire”?  And if they did not wish to dress for the occasion, there was no need to attend.  It certainly wasn’t even an indirectly compulsory event.

This sort of behavior isn’t limited to events such as these.  Even after warnings that cell phones, cameras, texting, and the like are prohibited at local concerts, there are always those who still persist in electronic disruptions – or other disruptions – of  performances, and despite stated policies against bringing infants to performances, there are still would-be patrons who protest.

All of these instances, any many more, reflect a lack of courtesy and manners.  Dressing appropriately for an event equates not only to manners, but also to respect for those giving the event.  Being quiet in an audience is a mark of respect for the performers.

So… why are so many people – especially those who, from their levels of education and professions, should know better – so ill-mannered and often disrespectful?  Part of it may be that, frankly, their parents failed to teach them manners.  Mostly, however, I think it is the growth of the cult of self – the idea that each person is the center of his or her universe and can wear what he or she wants whenever he or she wants to, can say what they like whenever they want.  Yet these same individuals can become extremely bellicose if anyone ever suggests that their behavior infringes on someone else’s freedom to speak, etc.  The parents who insist that their children be respected by a teacher are all too often totally disrespectful of the teacher. Then there are the citizens who demand that law enforcement officers be civil and respectful under the most trying of circumstances, but who are anything but that when stopped for traffic or other infractions.  Or customers who would bridle at the slightest hint of frustration by a sales clerk, but who have no hesitation about berating those clerks over matters beyond the control of the salespeople.

This goes beyond personal interactions as well, so that we have a political arena filled with name-calling, misrepresentation, and hatred.  I’m not saying that we should all agree, because we never will on all matters, but we might well have a more livable world if we remembered that not a single one of us is the center of the world and that shouting at someone is only going to make them want to shout back.  Manners were developed in order to reduce unnecessary conflict and anger, and it’s too bad that all too many people seem to have forgotten that.

On Sunday, Boyd K. Packer, the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of the Latter Day Saints, thundered forth against the “immorality” of same sex attractions and declared that the only marriage was that of a man and a woman and that such marriage was one of “God’s laws.”  Packer went on to equate this “law” with the “law of gravity” by stating “A law against nature would be impossible to enforce. Do you think a vote to repeal the law of gravity would do any good?”  While some members of Congress might well try that if they thought it would get them re-elected, I find Packer’s statements not only chilling in their arrogance, but also typical of the ignorance manifested by so many high-profile religious figures.

Like it or not, same-sex attraction has been around so long as there have been human beings.  The same behavior pattern exists in numerous other species of mammals and birds.  What Packer fails to grasp, or willfully ignores, is that laws of nature aren’t violated.  The universe does not have large and significant locations where gravity [or Einstein’s version of it] doesn’t exist, and there certainly haven’t been any such locations discovered on Earth.  Were the heterosexual behavior that Packer extols actually a “law of nature,” there would be no homosexual behavior, no lesbian behavior.  It couldn’t happen.  It does.  Therefore, the heterosexual patterns demanded and praised by Mormon church authorities are not God’s inflexible laws; they’re codes of behavior created by men [and except for Christian Science, pretty much every major religious code has been created by men] attempting to discern a divine will in a world where there is absolutely no proof, in the scientific sense [regardless of the creationist hodgepodge], that there even is such a supreme deity. God may exist, or God may not, but actual proof is lacking.  That’s why religious systems are called “beliefs” or “faiths.”

Thus, to assert that a particular code of human behavior is “God’s law” is arrogance writ large.  For a Mormon church authority to do so, in particular, is not only arrogant, but hypocritical.  Little more than a century ago, the Mormon culture and beliefs sanctioned polygamous relationships as “God’s law.”  Well… if God’s laws are immutable, then why did the LDS Church change them?  If the LDS Church authorities recognized that they were wrong in the past, how can they claim that today’s “truth” is so assuredly God’s law?  What will that “truth” be in a century?

While Newton’s “law of gravity” has been modified since its promulgation centuries ago, it still operates as it always did, not as men would have it operate, unlike so many of the so-called laws of God promulgated by men.  Since time immemorial [human time, anyway], humans have exhibited a range of sexual attractions and practices.  Like it or not, those suggest that the laws of nature, and presumably of God, for those who believe in a supreme deity, not only allow, but require for at least some people, differing sexual attraction.  Societies may in fact need to, and should, prohibit cruel and depraved practices, such as those involving unwilling participants or children… but to declare that one set of sexual customs is the only acceptable one, under the guise that it is God’s law, remains arrogant, ignorant, and hypocritical.