Sincerity Is Not Enough

In the middle of "West Side Story", as Anita sings "He'll murder your love, he murdered mine!" a man stands up in the audience and declares the women on stage "sluts", the play "immoral" and the coming conflict "unsatisfying" because "not enough of the criminals in the play die."

As Antony, in "Antony and Cleopatra", starts the beautiful speech reworked from Plutarch describing Cleopatra's sailing down the Nile ... a woman stands up in the audience screaming the play is a slur upon the Middle East, is unjustly critical, and arrogantly pictures the East as voluptuous and decadent in an effort to inflate the West and the West's masculinity.

A woman is adjusting her new hat in the mirror of the ladies' room when a woman enters and volunteers she does not like the hat, its color or style.

The righteous carry a heavy burden: A truth that must, must be shared. It is a moral duty, a responsibility. For who does not want to hear the truth? This search for the truth is inspiring and wonderful in us. It is the essence of scholarship and art, it is at the heart of scientific curiosity. But truth, as the New Testament clearly shows, can not be dictated.

Truth fills, it does not penetrate.

Justice and Honor 2

Anyone searching for metaphors on how the courts deliver a decision, not justice, need go no further than the Casey Anthony case.

One may offer countless rationalizations: The jury wanted to go home, there was a reasonable doubt as there was no witness, there was no definitive motive, the television crime programs have raised the bar for evidence, people are uncomfortable with the death penalty. But this case was a battle between circumstantial evidence and innuendo. The family itself has been destroyed by the women's defense. Sexual abuse, conspiracy in an accidental death, perjury have been lightly raised as compliment to the heavy prosecution circumstantial suggestions.

The essence here is that this is a combat for victory, not truth, and the major weapon is uncertainty. The minor benefit is entertainment. Strangely, this culture is remarkably certain about a lot of difficult questions--global warming, WMDs, how to raise children, the effect of deficit spending--but when faced with a staggering imbalance of evidence, it defers.

Perhaps later, Casey and O.J. will meet and search for the two perpetrators together. A reality series may develop. Love may bloom.

Justice and Honor

A man is in line at a nightclub when is and his party are approached by a drunk. The drunk blathers obscenities and, when ignored, sucker punches the man from behind. The man turns on him and the drunk retreats to a nearby policeman and claims he was attacked by the man in line.

A man is walking through a large crowd with small group, one a voluptuous woman. Pushing their way through the crowd towards them is a group of young men. As the two groups merge a moment, one young man grabs the girl's breasts and then the two groups separate in the crowd.

A man is returning from the night shift and is stopped at a red light at about eleven o'clock when he is rear-ended. He get out and inspects the damage. His car is scratched but the car that hit him has serious grill damage. The other driver gets out of the car full of apologies and is clearly drunk. He says the accident was his fault and is terrified if the event is reported he will be arrested. He promises to have the car fixed if only the man will keep the event private and not call the police. The man feels sorry for the drunk and agrees. They exchange phone numbers and he goes home. The next morning he is awakened by a state trooper who says he is being arrested for backing into a man's car at a red light and fleeing the scene.

There are probably a number of problems in society that would be solved by the re- institution of dueling but not many because, as as most feudal societies recognized, most people will not play by the rules. (In most feudal societies, the very possession of weapons was illegal for the lower class.) In daily intercourse one is tempted to look for honor and justice but any such search in the examples above would be dangerous and perhaps fatal. There is no protection for the average man from someone who will not play by the rules, especially if one has much to lose and one has little. The only sane position is self-defense: Call a cop, report the event, state your position for the record and end it.

Justice and honor are pursuits, ideals, which guide peoples' lives. They are not endpoints. They are learned and taught in time, not in a moment, and only to the willing. And they can not be enforced. Even the courts know the truth when they say, "In court, you don't get justice, you get a decision."

A Bad Lesson from Sports

I heard an interview recently with a serious and successful business man who talked about the economy, unemployment and the business world in general. One thing he said stuck, especially to my medically sensitized brain. He was speaking about hiring and firing people and said he never hired a bad or incompetent guy. The employees he picked were always up to the job. He fired only in two instances; first, in a business downturn as his business was growing and was sometimes stressed to make payroll and , second, in the instance of an employee under performing. He said that when an employee underperformed it was never because he could not do the job. His failure was always due to the same problem: The employee always had a poor ability to assess himself and always, always, overestimated his performance.

Humility. Caution. Critical self assessment.

We live in a very sports obsessed world. The athlete trains himself in many ways; one focus is to win. How to win is taught. He never learns that a task is too big, too complex. He never learns he is outgunned because, if he does, he is beat before he starts. Blind optimism is a particularly athletic trait; confidence is paramount and sometimes tips the balance. And lack of confidence can kill. The great competitors take advantage of this and make the competition more than just the sport; it becomes a complex battle with history and personality and texture and, if his opponent accepts the new ground rules, he is beat. Muhammad Ali was a genius it this; Patterson the perfect victim of it.

But this does not work in the real world. The real world is indeed complex with history and personality and texture that all must be considered and managed. Confidence and brashness might beat the cornerback but it does not solve problems. Self assessment is hard and may be a success trait. The highest scoring students in self esteem testing are the lowest scoring students in grades.

It is significant that the first--and sometimes the only--Greek word the student learns is hubris.

Alternative Logic

A recent article by Peterson in Seeking Alpha raises an interesting and rarely discussed point: non-ferrous metals are crucial in alternative energy projects. And non-ferrous metals are rising in cost faster than petroleum. The average person in the world uses 4200 pounds hydrocarbons and 35 pounds of non-ferrous industrial metals.

How will the non-ferrous metals be substituted economically for the hydrocarbons?

And where will we get these newly needed metals?

Manipulating Markets with Virtue

Obama has been getting some criticism from all sides for supporting, read "initiating", the International Energy Agency's decision to release 2 million barrels of petroleum for use from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The reason, ostensibly, was to make up for the decline of oil from Libya as a result of the non-war.

Libya ships 1.6 million barrels of oil a day, mostly to Europe. The total shipments a day in the world are 87 million barrels. 31 billion barrels a year. Despite the small amount released by the SPR, the price of oil dropped 10%, 25% in Brent Crude. This high response is said to be caused by the cost of oil at the margin, when it it delivered. Speculators, thinking that oil will continue to rise, buy oil and if they are fearful that governments might dump oil on the markets unsuspected, they buy more cautiously. The price drops.

The world's total GDP is 60 trillion dollars a year. 3 trillion goes for oil. A drop in 10% of the cost of oil is 300 billion dollars now available for something else. 20% is 600 billion dollars. Does that remind you of anything? That is the amount in Bernanke's QE2 that is about to expire.

The Three Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Jason Hsu, a partner at Research Affiliates, has an article on the current Western economic conundrum called The 3-D Hurricane and the New Normal. It describes how Debt, Deficit and Demographics are working to the disadvantage of the developed nations and to the advantage of the emerging ones. The West has become top-heavy with older citizens. There are less workers to work and produce and to subsidize the older ones. Deficit spending is acceptable as a short term adjustment to a downturn but, when used long term, it becomes debt which steals from productivity and buying power. Inflation and a decrease in living standards is the eventual outcome.

This conflict seems so clear and civilized. Both sides of this coin are so plainly etched. One wonders what progress could be made if we faced these problems squarely.

On the other hand we could confront the problems squarely and have a nice St. John's Dance.