* History: The Grotesque Vampire?

Pro-life group struggles to find place on liberal campus
By Baobao Zhang
Staff Reporter
The Yale Daily News
Published Monday, January 25, 2010


WASHINGTON, D.C. — Outside the U.S. Supreme Court, speakers blared with the frantic strums of guitars and the voices of four young men singing gospel songs — rock and roll style. Donning shaggy beards and seated on a makeshift stage, the four were among thousands of pro-life activists protesting the 37th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion.
Out on the streets, a small band of Yale students led a different chant.
“Glory, glory, hallelujah! In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea,” the Yalies’ voices sang in harmony,...





By http://sexandabortion.blogspot.com January 29, 2010

Nobody KNOWS.
That's the fact of the matter: Not the Supreme Court; not the Pope; not the Pro-life folks; not the Pro-choice folks.

As a culture, the uncertainty of NOT KNOWING that abortion is NOT ENDING A HUMAN LIFE has resulted in tens of millions of acts committed since Roe v. Wade became law which we do not KNOW are NOT MURDER.

The question is, can any culture bear such a weight of uncertainty without paying a debt of terrible guilt in the collective unconscious?

Isn't that the question of The Waste Land and the twentieth century itself: the bloodiest century in human history?

Or is history a groteque vampire?

Paul Keane
M.Div'80
http://theantiyale.blogspot.com/



#61 By @ #59 5:16p.m. on January 30, 2010


I agree that the situation isn't exactly the same, but my central point is that you're making a judgement call as to the value of a life. This isn't surprising, it's something each and every one of us does every day.

For example, in sub-Saharan Africa, millions of children die from a lack of simple, cheap immunizations. According to some data (if you want, I'll post it), you could immunize a child for as little as $5 - $20, thereby saving a life. In other words, in about two weeks' time, instead of spending $60 on some flowers which will fade quickly for Valentine's Day for a loved on, you could -save several lives-. But who amongst us does that? Sure, we may do something, but who amongst us spends every penny earned savings lives in this manner? Not many of us, I'm sure. And why? Perhaps because it's easy on paper to say all lives are equal in worth, but the sad reality is that our own choices don't reflect that.

I don't think these are simple issues, but I know that it would be hypocritical of me to judge abortion, something I don't like at all, when I'm typing this on a laptop I bought with money that could've fed a child, protected him from some dread disease, etc. If you view the unborn as a life, then the only difference is that the path above will indirectly result in a death via inaction, rather than a direct act of death via action. But if you believe a life is lost, does that really matter? And if you aren't sure that the fetus is a life, isn't the loss of millions of lives to malnutrition a more pressing concern?

I make my choices and prefer to let others make theirs, with as little judgement as possible. I certainly don't have all the answers.



#64 By * Is there a Collective Societal Unconscious? 8:29a.m. on January 31, 2010

#61 says:And if you aren't sure that the fetus is a life, isn't the loss of millions of lives to malnutrition a more pressing concern?

My point is that there is an Societal Collective Unconscious which is wounded by 20 million acts of UNCERTAINTY about whether or not they constitute murder.

Even today's New York Times Magazine has an article whose title acknowledges the possibility of such an unconscious reaction, albeit to the environment:

"Is There an Ecological Unconscious?
By DANIEL B. SMITH
A branch of psychology says that there is — and that ignoring it puts not just the planet but also our minds at risk."

And what about the risk to our minds from the number of possible "deaths" which triples or quadruples the number of victims of the WWII death camps?

Paul Keane
M.Div'80
http://theantiyale.blogspot.com/


#65 By @ #64 7:55p.m. on January 31, 2010

Paul, perhaps the best response to that article comes from its own text, on page 2:
"But ecopsychology embraces a more revolutionary paradigm: just as Freud believed that neuroses were the consequences of dismissing our deep-rooted sexual and aggressive instincts, ecopsychologists believe that grief, despair and anxiety are the consequences of dismissing equally deep-rooted ecological instincts."
Now, go find a bunch of reputable psychologists and ask them how many feel that Freudian notions are on the right track.
Some Buddhists believe that killing even insects is wrong. Some Jains even wear masks over their faces in an attempt to not even kill germs. To these people, a loss of ANY life is bad, and leads to bad karma. Have you killed any insects lately? Maybe rolled over some ants while driving? Flattened a spider in your home? If so, do you feel the negative karma you've created, according to that world-view?
I imagine you don't, and I feel similarly with regards to your notion of a collective unconscious that feeds negatively off the possible deaths from abortion.



#67 By Further unknitting the ravell'd sleeve of care 1:56a.m. on February 1, 2010
To @ # 64:

I appreciate your thoughtful ideas.

"There are no accidents in the life of the mind". This is the Freudian axiom which more adequately explains human "being" than any other axiom: theological, biological, psychological.

Whether or not current fads in professional psychology and psychiatry
endorse Freud or reject Freud, is irrelevant to me.

My own many decades now of life intersecting with thousands of people confirm that axiom as the operative dynamic in human behavior.

As Lincoln said "For every drop of blood from the lash, a drop of blood from the sword" to explain "Providence" permitting the bloodshed of the Civil War, so too our epoch may conclude: for every possible life from the scalpal, a possible day of guilt and anxiety (O full of scorpions is my mind).

That's 20 million days and counting.

Macbeth hath murdered sleep.

Paul Keane
M.Div'80
http://theantiyale.blogspot.com

#68 By "PK" is anti-abortion? 8:58a.m. on February 1, 2010

"for every possible life from the scalpal [sic], a possible day of guilt and anxiety."

So........ given that embryonic blood is shed in an abortion, this means...?

#69 By blackwood 3:33p.m. on February 1, 2010

paul keane,
you must widen your gaze. At midday tomorrow, the theoretical world as you know it shall end.

#70 By Ugh 5:18p.m. on February 1, 2010
#69

It has already ended. I am recapitulating a lost world: in recherche du temps perdu.

The world of tomorrow is Beyonce and Oprah and Ellen and Dr. Oz and Entertainment Tonight 24/7 on your ipad.

It is text messaging $10 to 900999 Haiti while you fail to notice your Toyota accelerator pedal sticking to the floor;
it is climate change turning Old Campus into New Haven Harbor with Harkness Hall as a lighthouse.
It is the apotheosis of Science and Math and the death of the Liberal Arts.

It is the world we made for you. Ugh.

#71 By @ PK (Re: #67) 9:20p.m. on February 1, 2010

Paul, an off-the-cuff analogy would place Freud's relationship to psychology as somewhat akin to Aristotle's relationship with physics. That is, it was a profound step towards our understanding of the nature of the field, but has been (thankfully) superceded by newer ideas that are far closer to reality.

And, with respect, the notion that your life experience confirms your axiom about human nature is no more accurate than (say) the life experience of a friend of mine, who believes in earnest that every facet of human nature is driven by money, confirms his theory. In both cases, I think it's fair to assume there may be an element of truth, but it's far from the whole picture.

In fact, determinism is an interesting choice for you, since if every 'action' in the mind has a deterministic precursor, then where does free will fit in?

Finally, it might be worthwhile to consider the idea that the 'guilt and anxiety' you may feel from possible deaths due to abortion is self-inflicted. Similar in many ways to the guilt some Catholics feel about premarital sex. If you're taught to feel it, you do, but if you're not, you don't.

And not to inflict more guilt upon you, but I'm curious where your 20 million number comes from? The statistics I've seen show far higher numbers.

#72 By @ Ugh (#70) 9:37p.m. on February 1, 2010

Assuming you are PK again, I think I now see the problem - you see the glass of the world as half-empty rather than half-full. Or, maybe more accurately, some error in vision lets you see the glass as almost entirely empty whereas many others see it nearly overflowing.

I certainly won't convince you otherwise, but I for one find it tremendously impressive that (to take one example) in the face of disaster, millions of people can help send much-needed relief supplies simply by entering a few digits on their phone. What can you possibly dislike about that? Is it that it 'feels' impersonal? If so, I understand the sentiment - it seems so trivial, doesn't it? But I would think it's balanced out by the idea that the people receiving aid care more about their meals, shelter and medical aid than they do about how a person hundreds or thousands of miles away 'feels' about the manner in which such aid was donated.

In cases like this, I think it's usually better to think of the end result rather than the manner in which it was reached.



#73 By History: The grotesque vampire

71:
Catholic guilt? Hardly. Purely secular. You must be a lot younger than I am or you slept through the last five decades. We were sytematically schooled in the guilt and shame a society should feel for its complicity of silence over; the Nazi death camps; Jim Crowe discrimination; insitutional racism and institutional sexism; country-club anti-semitism, etc.

It's not just MY life experience: Take two famous cases; the deaths of Princess Diana and JFK Jr. The former a death wish if there ever was one(the laws of physics do not apply to pincesses; I need not fasten my seat belt), the latter the epitome of the oedipal battle (I must outdo my father's world-wide-attention-rivetting death).

Not determinism. One can analyze and predict the behavior of the mind and outwit it. Most of us are sleepwalking from our childhood until a death, divorce, unrequited love etc. wakes us from our slumber. What we do with that awakening is free choice. Most of us resume sleepwalking, including princess Diana and JFK Jr.



I just guessed at 20 million.

History is a grotesque vampire, n'est-ce-pas?

PK
M.Div.'80

#74 By Rhetorical coccoon

72:
Believe me, every fiber of my being sees the glass half full, NO MATTER WHAT!( A little bout with removing half a cancerous kidney last year taught me that.)

I just got a little intoxicated with my own prose and couldn't resist the image
of someone risking his/her life and others' lives by texting and driving while simultaneously engaging in a philanthropic act.

Forgive me. I do tend to go on . . .

Best,

PK
M.Div.'80

PS

This is supremely egotistical I know, but I do consider the effort I put into jousting with these posts an act of generational philanthropy. It would be easier to let you all live in the solipsism of your own generation's rhetorical coccoon (sp?)

I am sure this bit of self-indulgence on my part will engender some raised eyebrows if not more.


#75 By * Nine Jars; Free speech or desecration? 2:45p.m. on February 6, 2010

Remember those nine jars on display in Yale's open-to-the-public Peabody Museum in the 1950's (two blocks from the 24/7 Rosary being recited by kneeling Roman Catholics on the sidewalk in front of the Orange Street Planned Parenthood as Griswold was making its way through the courts)? The recipe for explosion was clear.

Nine jars. One for every month. From tiny to football sized. Each jar had on display a gestating human, from zygote to
embryo to fetus.

The display disappeared. If the Daily News had a flair for history and an eye for imagery as well as their excellent nose for News it would find an investigative reporter who could uncover photos of that display, and then trace whatever happened to it. Is it on a shelf in the Peabody Store Room still?

Has it been destroyed in shame? Or fear of litigation?

Was it an act of terrorism on women?

Paul Keane
M. Div. '80


#76 By PS to Nine Jars 3:13p.m. on February 6, 2010


PS
Talk about "skeletons" in a closet!