Some people have found this story interesting when I tell them, others write it off. I think that the truth will outweigh the number of people who think I'm crazy. This all came about when I had a dream a few weeks ago. I was floating up to heaven, all around me there were clouds charged with electricity; kind of like going into "warp speed" only if you went there from the earth. I saw a giant light at the end of the tunnel, it didn't take a theologian to guess that I was going up to heaven. I was almost close enough to see God, but instead I saw a word that was coming towards me even faster than I was going towards it. The word was "Relax!" with the exclamation point. It hit me with such force I fell all the way back down to earth twice as fast as I had floated up. I woke up gasping for air, my whole body ached like I had fallen from a great height. In a way it was kind of funny, but the message was more... ferocious...
I had felt this way one other time in my life, I used to live with my brother, my cousin and a friend; I called it a "faux-frat house" it was a total college house just not officially a frat. There were two girls that would come over very often, for the purpose of this story I'll call one Devan and the other Rebecca. I'd like to say I hadn't met them many times, but the truth of the matter was that I had met them over a dozen times. I was playing cards with some of our CU friends, nothing big just playing some cards. One of them came over and wanted to talk but didn't need to be dealt in. We talked for a few hours, nothing ground breaking just talking. I looked down to shuffle the cards and said, "So Devan..." Before I knew what happened I was on the floor and the cards were everywhere and everyone was laughing at me. Apparently that was Rebecca and after calling her Devan nearly 20 times that night alone she slapped me across the face. Granted I was a little drunk and not expecting it, I do have to give credit where it's due; do you realize how hard a 110 pound girl has to slap a 230 pound man to knock him out of a chair? I also want to point out that my chair was up against a wall so she didn't even have leverage on her side. Needless to say that's the kind of correction I needed to make sure I called her Rebecca from now on. Politely correcting me wasn't going to get the point across.
Now think of that lesson, and then think about one over one hundred times as clear. It wasn't like, "hey here is a suggestion, just try to relax." It wasn't like, "things are going to turn out right, all you got to do is relax a little bit." For all I know things could end up getting a lot worse and I still have to relax. It was more like, "this is your last chance." I don't know what the last chance is for, my life has been in the toilet for over 15 years. I had all but given up on life; it just seems like there isn't anything out there for me any more. I also am a very luke-warm Catholic so I didn't really believe in heaven much less think that I could jeopardize it by not relaxing. You don't have to believe in God, but you can believe this every time I have given in to stress or missed the opportunity to relax and "let things go," it's yielded only catastrophe. Even if you think that maybe I just am looking at the bad, the last two times I got worked up about anything the tips of my fingers started to go numb. I don't really have the money to go to the doctor, but even if I did it's not like I haven't been to the doctor about stress problems over 20 times already.
As far back as second grade I was so stressed about the work-load I had in my class room that I was 100% literally pulling my hair out in chunks. I didn't know what was wrong with me, it wasn't until the janitor noticed hair all around my desk that anyone even noticed it. I look at a second grader today and there is no way I could understand one of them having any sort of stress problems. The result has been the same for nearly 20 years: I see a therapist, pediatrician, or some general physician and they give me pills to solve the problem manifesting or give me some stress relief techniques and I abide by them for a while and then they soon fall by the wayside. Family and friends have all suggested this to me over a hundred times; it's not like I don't want to, I just feel like I can't. I mean even now I am almost stressed thinking about why I'm not supposed to be stressed. Do you know how bad a problem needs to be for God to intervene from a biblical standpoint? After 400 years of slavery he came to Moses, after over 3,000 years of sin he sends his son to set the record strait. So if you think about it, God really really really wants me to calm down. I know what you're thinking, how hard can it be? I don't have a job, no kids, and very little responsibility; why can't I?
You are just going to have to believe me when I say this, it's hard, it's the very first knee-jerk reaction I have to everything. Think about if someone told you that if you didn't answer "yes" to every single question no matter what your initial gut response was going to be, "or else" with no information that would be pretty hard. And it is hard, my brother had to go to the hospital this week, and I had to consciously not stress about it. Even thought my brother is fine; try not to panic when you hear the best friend of your entire life was in the hospital after a snowboarding accident and there are no details except he has a broken thumb and his face is all messed up. But in a way I'm sort of grateful that I had something so profound happen like that. Family and friends have told me this as long as I can remember; but it is so hard-wired into my being that it was almost impossible for me to change the way I thought. For example, the very day after this dream happened I went to drive to church (obviously I thought I should go since it was Sunday). I have been there dozens of times but in order to not be stressed since I was late I made 3 wrong turns in a 2 mile drive. Seriously I only have to make 4 turns and making 3 wrong turns is pretty unacceptable. I literally had to turn off my brain in order to not stress about this. I'm getting better but I have a LONG way to go. I was kind of worried about sharing this with too many people, because I tried to give up negativity for lent once and everyone just tried to test my mettle every chance they got (that and getting slapped so hard by a girl I fall off my chair isn't exactly the proudest moments for Jesse fans). But if you feel the need to test me, by all means, I need to learn this lesson the hard way.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Monday, March 15, 2010
Western Culture's Obsession with Evil
This is my Religious Philosophy final, again I'm pretty proud, despite sort of straying from the topic. I might change the name and I also need to site a source from an academic journal at the library, but I doubt it will change much. Enjoy!
Suppose there were a sign on a drinking fountain that said, “out of order,” we would be less compelled to use it. Why then when God says, “thou shalt not take the Lord’s name in vain,” does it almost compel people to use it every time they stub their toe? Is it about the punishment? Likely the water fountain is turned off, but I suppose there is an outside chance that it sprays everywhere when you turn it on and you get drenched. The punishment for taking the Lord’s name in vain: “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain” Deuteronomy 5:11 (The Lockman Foundation, 1977). I’m not sure what that punishment is, but I’m pretty sure the maintenance person or plumber who put that sign there would seek any sort of retribution despite it possibly making their jobs a little more difficult. So from a utilitarian standpoint, it would seem like if you wanted to rebel you would turn on the drinking fountain and risk making a mess, instead of invoking the Lord’s name and vain and getting an undefined divine punishment. But these are things nearly everyone does nearly every day. People are mesmerized by people who go against the grain. James Dean was an icon after his movie Rebel Without a Cause, while Leave it to Beaver released around the same time is sort of mocked as a bland white-bread comedy. Would you rather have a noisy biker gang living next door; or would you rather have the Cleavers? I would think many people would gravitate towards having the Cleavers next door. Who would you rather be, a sexy youngster with a troubled past or an unassuming middle class suburban youngster who never seems to get into a situation that takes more than a day to resolve? I think most people in some dark fantasy many people would definitely rather be a sexy rebel with a devil-may-care attitude. To me it is hypocrisy; I’d rather be a rebel that does whatever I want all the time, yet everyone else needs to be the Cleavers. The most common reaction to having been caught doing something immoral, nearly everyone responds in one or two ways; they either try to justify it, or try to find someone who is worse than them. So suppose a woman is caught cheating on her husband you would likely hear one of two responses, “I am only doing this because my needs aren’t being met, you are never home” or “I’ve only cheated on you a few times, I bet you’ve cheated on me more times.” Rarely will someone say, “I cheated on you because it felt good and I’m selfish enough to betray your trust for a fleeting moment of passion.” So we do bad things because we want to, but we are very self conscious about it. So why would anyone do something they know they would feel bad about later?
Where do our laws and moral structure come from? Though some try to sever the connection, it’s very clear our moral fabric has much of its grounds in the Ten Commandments. Some say that these are “no-brainer laws,” however, I completely disagree. Predating the Ten Commandments there weren’t very many laws were for everyone to abide by. One of the most famous early laws dates back to the cradle of civilization called “Hammurabi’s Code,” it sort of stated that slaves couldn’t do anything but the aristocracy could do whatever they wanted… except for things like buying stolen merchandise from slaves. The punishments were very strict and some were very convoluted, “If any one bring an accusation against a man, and the accused go to the river and leap into the river, if he sink in the river his accuser shall take possession of his house. But if the river prove that the accused is not guilty, and he escape unhurt, then he who had brought the accusation shall be put to death, while he who leaped into the river shall take possession of the house that had belonged to his accuser” (Hooker, 1999). As you can see he made very specific punishments and it looks as if there was a divine element to judging the just, if you didn’t in fact steal property then the river will not let you drown (unless I’m misunderstanding it and it’s actually just some sort of swimming competition for houses). I don’t think I need to say that this would be barbaric to subject shoplifters to today, but it helps to prove my point that for its time the Ten Commandments were quite revolutionary. Firstly Moses does not offer a specific punishment for any of these, it just tells you what not to do, and the ultimate punishment will come from God or the person whom you have wronged. For instance if you take a few pens from work and take them home it is up to your boss weather he just tells you to “knock it off” or if he thinks it is grounds for termination. In many ways this is better, however, this opens the person up for justifying his actions or trying to shift the blame to a coworker. “I didn’t think a Fortune 500 company would miss a few pens, besides I’ve been working so much overtime I didn’t have time to get my own,” or “James steals out of the petty cash drawer, stealing pens is nowhere near as bad.” But the Hammurabi interpretation leaves much less room for imagination, “I better not steal this pen because I don’t want to be thrown in a river today.” The problem of course with this is that maybe this punishment wouldn’t fit the crime even from the mindset from the victim, “I just want you to bring the pens back, but I guess I have to formally accuse you and throw you in the river to get them back.” Another thing that not having a specific punishment does for the crime is allows us to judge the severity of the crime. So we could say stealing pens from the office isn’t grounds for termination, much less being thrown in a river, but that behavior is certainly discouraged and will reflect poorly on your character. Moses also makes no distinctions between classes of people, thou shalt not steal; but Hammurabi makes has different laws for different classes, “If any one take a male or female slave of the court, or a male or female slave of a freed man, outside the city gates, he shall be put to death” (Hooker, 1999). In my management of human resources class I learned that effective punishments are like touching a hot stove, among other things, one of the rules is, “It burns each person equally.” So stealing from an aristocrat is just as bad as stealing from a peer. This allows people to invoke an internal conscience about the action. This is reaffirmed in Christianity by Jesus when he says, “In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets” Matthew 7:12 (The Lockman Foundation, 1977). Jesus wasn’t the first to say this, however, nearly every culture has something (including Moses in Leviticus 19:18) like this which is universally called “the golden rule.” This was a great catch all rule so as to give people sort of a situation by situation rubric to determine what is right and wrong.
Though the Ten Commandments doesn’t address complex modern problems like intellectual property or drug use, most of them are straightforward enough that even preadolescents can understand them. It’s pretty rare that someone would make the case that they are from a totemistic society and that all things belong to Gaia, therefore I didn’t steal because I have no concept of possessions. And by the same token when I go to Regis I use a chair, though I would say, “That’s my chair” and if someone else were to sit in it, I am fully within my right to correct them and claim that it is “my chair.” But after class I realize it no longer belongs to me; regardless nobody else in the course of history ever uses that chair, or how good I think it would look in my living room, I don’t have a claim to the chair unless it’s class time. These are some of the unspoken morals we have ingrained in our being that we simply take for granted. There are some commandments that seem very straight forward and yet it makes them even more complex. Until recently and even then limited to primarily protestant bibles, a specific commandment read “Thou shalt not kill.” This generates some controversy, as to whether it should be kill or murder. And even then there are many grey areas. I think it’s pretty safe to say that most people would consider killing someone for no reason is wrong. This is the truest most universal application of the commandment. Is it alright to kill someone for a reason you believe is just? In the movie A Time to Kill the protagonist, Jake Tyler Brigance, defends Carl Lee Hailey who guns down two bigots for raping and brutalizing his daughter. When asked by the prosecutor at his trial if the men deserved to die he says, “Yes, they deserved to die and I hope they burn in hell!” (IMDB, 2010). The movie isn’t about ethics, whether it is okay to kill a person under the grizzly circumstances, the movie almost assumes he is justified in his crime. His daughter survives, though with permanent damage to her reproductive organs, he still seems justified in killing two aggressors who are unsuccessful in killing a child. From a strictly eye-for-an-eye ethic it would seem that this is not justified, however, the social consensus is that due to the nature of the crime it is, in fact, a just punishment. Is it alright to kill if it is in self defense, or are we supposed to do everything within our power to avoid a lethal outcome? Is it alright to kill as an act of war? Even if we were able to discern that the commandment should read murder, it still has some moral and ethical depth to the point it’s hard to tell. If it is in fact kill, there are much more interpretations. Is it okay to kill an animal for food? Is it okay to kill an animal for sport if you really don’t need to? Is it okay to squish a spider just because it’s scary? If you want to be really literal in your interpretation you could argue that our immune system kills microorganisms every second of every day. I have seen no evidence to refute that in the Hebrew text for the commandment says “lo tirtzack” and lo means “thou shalt not.” As for what tirtzack means, well it depends who you ask on Wikipedia the author of the section does not cite any sources but says, “In the fullness of the Old Testament Exodus 20:13 is abundantly evidenced as prohibiting unjust killing, rather than a universal injunction against all killing, as retzach is never used in reference to the slaying of animals, nor the taking of life in war, while its most frequent use is in reference to involuntary manslaughter and secondarily for murderers” (Wikipedia, 2009). It was interesting, though I highly doubt God was telling us not to accidently kill people, it directly contradicts other things I’ve seen. “The exact Hebrew wording of this biblical phrase is lo tirtzack. One of the greatest scholars of Hebrew/English linguistics (in the Twentieth Century) -Dr. Reuben Alcalay - has written in his mammoth book the Complete Hebrew /English Dictionary that 'tirtzach' refers to 'any kind of killing whatsoever'” (The Nazarene Way).
So I guess in summation if you are consulting Hebrew texts to figure out if it’s right to kill or steal; you might want to just rethink it. We are left mostly to our own resources, but if we think something is wrong then it probably is. These laws even have something of a secular value, most of them are crimes you commit against other people and then a few that are crimes against God. But if you were to take a secular approach to this, one could say the crimes against God are simply crimes that you can commit against yourself. Not having false Gods or idols can be summed up as don’t let things guide your hand, like money, power, and lust. Don’t use God’s name in vain, or don’t swear, it ultimately cheapens your character; it’s very hard to take people seriously or respect them when they swear every other word. Keeping holy the Sabbath Day, could be interpreted take time out for yourself, be sure to devote time to the things you love be it God, family, or even a meaningful hobby. So with a bit of artistic license we can see that all of the Ten Commandments serve a purpose; if you don’t steal you won’t upset the harmony you have with your neighbors. If you don’t commit adultery, you won’t bring unnecessary complications into your love relationships. We can see that most of these rules aren’t meant to be cumbersome; they were made to try to inhibit unhealthy desires that would keep us from God, as far as my opinion goes. That being said why when we see a sign that says, “wet paint” do we avoid it so as not to paint on our hands, but yet we covet our neighbor’s possessions or wife and bring unnecessary desire and turmoil into our lives. So even if we do these things because we aren’t worried specifically about retribution from God, but only to simplify our lives, it baffles me why people would do bad things. My rule of thumb goes something like the golden rule but a little different, “If you would feel embarrassed if someone found out you were doing this, then you probably shouldn’t do it.” Now this isn’t to say you don’t do intimate acts in the bedroom with your lover because you wouldn’t want them to be described to someone else; but for normal everyday occurrences, like stealing money from the petty cash, think of the shame it would bring on you if you were caught. This would eliminate punishment, justification, and blame-shifting; if you don’t mind being known as an office kleptomaniac then by all means proceed. The problem with the golden rule is that there is a certain level of ambiguity, “Would I mind if someone was stealing out of my petty cash box? No, I don’t even have one.” And also this sort of nullifies crimes of selfishness, “Would I mind if my husband cheated on me? This isn’t about my husband, it’s about my needs.” But, if you wouldn’t care if everyone in the neighborhood knew you were doing that, then it’s obviously something you can pursue. This idea came to me when I was watching an episode of The Simpsons where Bart steals a videogame and is banned from the store by the security guard; later the family goes to the same store to get a family photo, the store security guard recognizes him and reminds him he’s banned, when his mom says he’s mistaken he prepares to show a video of him stealing the game. Bart confesses to his mom and says that he doesn’t want his mother to see the tape. Sometimes breaking the hearts of the ones we love and care about is the most powerful moral tool we can use. So consider if your own mother witnessed you committing the immoral act (again this does not apply to romantic intimacy). Using sort of a Taoist principal, simply not doing something because you are afraid of the punishment, is flawed reasoning. You don’t think that you are going to fail when you do anything, think about it, would you do something to get 6 months in jail? Not a chance, you’ve gotten away with the crime before it’s even been committed, otherwise you wouldn’t even do it. This is why reflecting on the punishment likely won’t deter the crime, even when you could be drowned like in Hammurabi’s day, judging by the almost 30 laws pertaining to stealing, that wasn’t even a deterrent.
So we go so far to establish laws and order and keep people in line; and yet we glorify those who oppose these laws. Think about it, you go out to a nightclub with your friends; all of your single girl friends are going to end up hooking up with the biggest jerks in the whole place. When guys go out, their most obnoxious loudmouth friend is almost inevitably going to get the prettiest girl. And I’m sure you all know a woman in each of your lives who started a relationship with these big jerks only to find out that they are even bigger jerks then they first appeared. So the men she knows try to be jerks because they see how well women respond to it, and the women in their lives aren’t content to have a life that is free of the kind of sexy drama that dating a total jerk yields, so soon everyone fuses with these roles. And I think this is how it begins, the glamorization of evil starts from a bad boy complex. It almost can’t be refuted, you don’t see girls swooning for men who love their families like Hank Hill (King of the Hill) or Danny Tanner (Full House) nor do you see men idolizing them. I think if you were to ask people I think that they would like a family that loves each other and pulls together to overcome their challenges like in Full House. But what people say they want isn’t exactly what they really want. The same woman who dates the jerk probably says, “I just wish I could find a nice guy” but her actions clearly dictate she likes being treated like garbage and pushed around. This is what I call an “addiction to drama” people who seem to make bad decisions presumably just so they can complain about it. Think about it, we don’t see movies where the characters pay their bills, rent movies, and go to the grocery store; we don’t listen to songs about people going to the post office; we don’t watch TV shows about the merits of being a good friend. That would be boring, but as much as people try not to admit it, sometimes we are unable to tell the difference between fiction and reality. For instance, you can watch Jersey Shore once and think to yourself, “Oh my God, I can’t believe there are people like that out there.” But just as with obnoxious people you meet, after a while you come to understand and get to know them better. Now think of how many people you see in real life on a daily basis. If you are in a normal office or classroom I would say you deal with about 30 or so, if you want to get really chatty maybe 4 or 5 of them you talk to about 15 minutes. Now think of the principal cast of your favorite show, now think about the idea you’ve just had 20 minutes of face time with Jerry Seinfeld, where you have only had 15 minutes with your best friend at work; I would think that an hour of TV is kind of a lowball estimate for most households so you might have spent more time with Johnny Knoxville from Jackass than you did with your spouse or kids! What is that you say? You don’t watch immature shows like that? Of course you don’t, your kids do. PBS had a documentary called Merchants of Cool in which they try to figure out how to market to pre-teens and teens. Teens don’t really know what they want, and even if they did they don’t really vocalize it. They show focus group interviews with teens and they are lucky to get one or two words out of the teen when they talk about products. They need something that grips the kids, someone that’s cool that tells them what’s cool, and can keep their attention when they need to pitch to them; they need a “Mook.” “The Mook is what critics call the crude, loud, obnoxious, in-your-face character that can be found almost any hour of day or night somewhere on MTV. He's a teen frozen in permanent adolescence” (WGBH Educational Foundation, 2008). It’s gone on since I was a kid Beavis and Butthead, Tom Green Show, Jackass, Viva La Bam, The Real World, Jersey Shore; these characters are role models to people of my generation. And the message they all peddle is the message that says being reckless, irresponsible, inconsiderate, conceited, self-centered; these are the spices of life. And then the thirst for the dramatic is quenched.
Now I’m not one to accuse people of not being able to make up their minds about what’s real and what’s not on TV; but I just think after a while the line becomes blurred and whether or not we are aware, we emulate things we have a prolonged exposure to. It’s even worse now, with the internet, I’ve played online video games and there are 9 and 10 year old kids that are saying things I would say locked in a room in the middle of Siberia. In a Lord of the Flies way they have a mask of anonymity, I highly doubt any of these people would use the N-word in school but they are perfectly okay to say it online anonymously. It’s a difficult concept for even adults to grasp much less pre-teens; but every time you do something wrong you chip away at that boundary. This is why people consider marijuana to be a gateway drug; it’s not as bad as many other drugs but it still “gets you high,” makes you look cool, and it’s illegal. But there are many other drugs that carry the exact same stigma so it’s easy for people to make the jump to other drugs like cocaine, after having initially broken the barrier from marijuana. Although there are some people who use marijuana and never go the step further, and ultimately some people that use heavier drugs without using marijuana first; it just is easier for people to work their way into something like that because they can say, “Well I already smoke weed and that’s illegal, might as well try mushrooms they come from the earth too.” The same thing can be said for using swear words that you use online, there is a point that they just sort of creep into your vernacular, and using them sparingly you were able control it, but overuse has broken the barrier and they will come out at inappropriate times. Maybe swearing accidently is inappropriate but not evil, but the line there once was is gone. A while ago there was a music video uploaded to YouTube under the name Tom O.C.; it used the “Auto-tune” feature which will move your singing to the desired key, but this one was almost intentionally awful. Then there were many pictures of him doing outrageous things like posing in front of sports cars and brandishing an air soft gun (a gun that shoots tiny pieces of plastic) going on while the song was playing. I thought this was so funny I sent it to all my friends for laughs. But then I came across a radio interview the man in the pictures, named Tom O’Connor, claimed that the video that spawned 200,000 hits was something he had nothing to do with. In the interview he says this, “I got a couple of mails about it and also the person who created it (who I have no idea… who did) and sent it to some of my customers (I have my own business). And so the customers brought it to my attention, ya’ know, and now I did report it with YouTube, 6 or 7 times, but apparently it’s pretty difficult to get videos removed” (Clubbingie, 2009). Though the video is in a colloquial Irish accent it’s pretty clear that he didn’t actually make the song, and says that the person who did wasn’t responsible nor did they use Auto-tune. The pictures on there were the “worst of the worst were taken off of my personal Bebo, and Facebook as well and thrown into the video” (Clubbingie, 2009). Though I don’t know exactly how it unfolded it seems pretty clear that someone just played a joke on him, maybe a business competitor, and claimed they were him. At one point there was even a website where he claims to be getting ready to “drop and album.” If it is true that he didn’t actually make the video or website; think of the person who went to such lengths, it’s not only sick but it’s ferocious the way they went after him. Tom O’Connor’s life and business could have been ruined from this. It is one kind of evil to do something like this, but the evil I was guilty of was not researching it before I sent it to all of my friends, if this was a news story that broke without all of the facts we could hold the station that broadcasts it responsible. Whoever made this will probably never need to apologize or ever be held accountable; people like me, who sent it to all their friends probably don’t feel any remorse for the trouble it caused Tom O’Connor. But then what is really sad to me is when he talks about the comments on his video, “Some of them deal with death threats, go and kill yourself, commit suicide, sort of stuff I wasn’t even thinking about… I was contemplating could I actually write those comments myself against another video, and I couldn’t. I couldn’t tell anyone to kill themselves” (Clubbingie, 2009). And I thought to myself, I’m the same way, no cloak of anonymity could ever get me to tell another person to kill themselves even jokingly. What has happened to us?
So we don’t gain anything by picking on Tom O’Connor, when we say something cruel and tell him to commit suicide he probably won’t listen, it’s nothing clever there were probably a dozen people saying the exact same thing; so why say such an awful thing? I think I know why this is; when we feel insecure we look for a way to establish our dominance; to regain our confidence. We can regain our confidence by doing something meaningful for a loved one, a productive hobby, build something, do volunteer work; but there is a much easier way, to simply find someone else we think we are better than. I am not a dork because I found someone who is dorkier than me; I lie, cheat, and steal but not as much as Tommy does, so by comparison I’m good. Now we can get that beloved bad boy or bad girl appeal without feeling guilt. There is a quote from Scarface that should sum it up better (pardon the language), “You don't have the guts to be what you wanna be. You need people like me. You need people like me so you can point your f**kin' fingers and say, ‘That's the bad guy.’ So... what that make you? Good? You're not good. You just know how to hide, how to lie. Me, I don't have that problem. Me, I always tell the truth. Even when I lie.” –Tony Montana, Scarface (IMDB, 2010). In a way I have to agree with him, everyone does do bad things, but we need a ‘bad guy’ to be the rubric for how bad is too bad. It’s the same mentality that says that if a bear attacks, you don’t need to be the fastest guy you just can’t be the slowest. The problem is that it’s easier to find people that are worse than you, be it people with looser morals, or just then next Tom O.C. Bad influences are in no short supply, at least to find a Tom O.C. you have to actually look for them, the bad influences sometimes come looking for you. There used to be a time when you could tell that the guy underneath the lamp post in 5-Points selling you a slick story was simply trying to con you. Sometimes you would run into someone in the parking lot or at the mall with some kind of story; for instance my Dad saw a guy at the gas station who said he was a Versace rep from Italy and said we could have some coats if we give him enough money to buy a Stetson hat as a souvenir. He assured him that now that they charge for luggage, it was cheaper to just give them away; but he was very firm about how much his Stetson hat was going to cost and his catalogue was very out of date so my Dad backed out of the deal. Now who knows he could have been legit, but we assumed he was a con man selling fake Versace. Now if this was the case, notice he took the time to find a mark, he took the time to lie to my Dad’s face, and ultimately you only get conned for being greedy. But now you don’t even need to leave your home, how many people can say they got an email from some freedom fighter in Zimbabwe who needs to get his $10 million fortune out of his country and its corrupt government, but only needs you to send him a million of it. The way this con works is that they send you a check and tell you where he wants his million, for international checks the money might show up in your account and make you assume that the check has cleared and the transaction is legit. You hold up your end of the bargain and send the $1 million and then the bank gives you a very nasty phone call up to 30 days later when the check didn’t clear and you ended up bouncing a $1 million check. Now, you certainly didn’t go looking for this opportunity, it presented itself, he doesn’t meet you face-to-face he just sends a million emails out and one sucker is enough for the whole year; sympathy for the devil, this con is still based on greed, sure you were honest enough to write the check, but you were perfectly willing to let a refugee give you his vast fortune to write one little check. Then the other week I got a virus from a Facebook link, I couldn’t open any programs every time I did I went to an anti-virus website that asked for money to remove it. Some people might not even do it because they got tricked but because it’s almost impossible to fix a virus that doesn’t even let you open the virus scanner you did pay for. So not only is it not being done to your face, but greed has nothing to do with it, you just clicked on the wrong link.
Do you know how easy that is to do? You’re tired and you get an email from a friend you haven’t seen in a while with a link to a video, then all of a sudden the only thing you can do on your computer is virus software to stop the virus they put on your computer. It’s sad to say but our criminals have even become more evil, not to mention much more in-your-face. Even in your home minding your own business you have to avoid the criminal element, not just on some unlucky day; a criminal has access to you every time you turn on your computer. It’s almost as if it’s a sad thing that nobody puts a gun to your head asks for your cash. Now they don’t want your money, they want your identity, they want to be you. They want to use your credit cards, file their taxes in your name; this is a much more horrifying criminal. And it’s almost as if they are insulting you, “Thanks for your personal information, sucker,” at least someone puts a gun to your head and you give them your money, you can rest assured your priorities are in order. You could look at it as a very smart decision that you thought your very life was worth more than the $60 that you had on you. It would almost even be nice for a face to face interaction so that you knew that you were going to lose your money instead of fainting when you get a credit card bill, and you could see the desperation of their situation; hell, you could see that he was at least worth it for them to leave their house to rob you. So the criminal element is now just a bad link away on the computer, evil isn’t a few blocks down, it’s just one misstep away. Now that we face these things so often our lines are blurred, we don’t have to look for a bad guy to say we are better than, they just came looking for you. And when the world is sick enough, what can’t you justify?
Bibliography
Clubbingie. (2009, September 24). tom o c - THE REAL INTERVIEW. Retrieved March 15, 2010, from YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piMff_YwbSY
Hooker, R. (1999, June 6). The Code of Hammurabi. Retrieved March 13, 2010, from Washington State University: http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/MESO/CODE.HTM
The Lockman Foundation. (1977). New American Standard Bible. The Lockman Foundation.
The Nazarene Way. (n.d.). ~Thou Shalt Not Kill~. Retrieved March 13, 2010, from The Nazarene Way: http://www.thenazareneway.com/thou_shalt_not_kill.htm
WGBH Educational Foundation. (2008). Frontline: Merchants of Cool. Retrieved March 14, 2010, from PBS: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/tour/tour2.html
Works Cited (from user maintained content sites)
IMDB. (2010). Carl Lee Hailey (Character) - Quotes. Retrieved March 13, 2010, from Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0010664/quotes
IMDB. (2010). Scarface (1983) - Memorable quotes. Retrieved March 15, 2010, from Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086250/quotes
Wikipedia. (2009, March). Ten Commandments. Retrieved March 13, 2010, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Commandments
Suppose there were a sign on a drinking fountain that said, “out of order,” we would be less compelled to use it. Why then when God says, “thou shalt not take the Lord’s name in vain,” does it almost compel people to use it every time they stub their toe? Is it about the punishment? Likely the water fountain is turned off, but I suppose there is an outside chance that it sprays everywhere when you turn it on and you get drenched. The punishment for taking the Lord’s name in vain: “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain” Deuteronomy 5:11 (The Lockman Foundation, 1977). I’m not sure what that punishment is, but I’m pretty sure the maintenance person or plumber who put that sign there would seek any sort of retribution despite it possibly making their jobs a little more difficult. So from a utilitarian standpoint, it would seem like if you wanted to rebel you would turn on the drinking fountain and risk making a mess, instead of invoking the Lord’s name and vain and getting an undefined divine punishment. But these are things nearly everyone does nearly every day. People are mesmerized by people who go against the grain. James Dean was an icon after his movie Rebel Without a Cause, while Leave it to Beaver released around the same time is sort of mocked as a bland white-bread comedy. Would you rather have a noisy biker gang living next door; or would you rather have the Cleavers? I would think many people would gravitate towards having the Cleavers next door. Who would you rather be, a sexy youngster with a troubled past or an unassuming middle class suburban youngster who never seems to get into a situation that takes more than a day to resolve? I think most people in some dark fantasy many people would definitely rather be a sexy rebel with a devil-may-care attitude. To me it is hypocrisy; I’d rather be a rebel that does whatever I want all the time, yet everyone else needs to be the Cleavers. The most common reaction to having been caught doing something immoral, nearly everyone responds in one or two ways; they either try to justify it, or try to find someone who is worse than them. So suppose a woman is caught cheating on her husband you would likely hear one of two responses, “I am only doing this because my needs aren’t being met, you are never home” or “I’ve only cheated on you a few times, I bet you’ve cheated on me more times.” Rarely will someone say, “I cheated on you because it felt good and I’m selfish enough to betray your trust for a fleeting moment of passion.” So we do bad things because we want to, but we are very self conscious about it. So why would anyone do something they know they would feel bad about later?
Where do our laws and moral structure come from? Though some try to sever the connection, it’s very clear our moral fabric has much of its grounds in the Ten Commandments. Some say that these are “no-brainer laws,” however, I completely disagree. Predating the Ten Commandments there weren’t very many laws were for everyone to abide by. One of the most famous early laws dates back to the cradle of civilization called “Hammurabi’s Code,” it sort of stated that slaves couldn’t do anything but the aristocracy could do whatever they wanted… except for things like buying stolen merchandise from slaves. The punishments were very strict and some were very convoluted, “If any one bring an accusation against a man, and the accused go to the river and leap into the river, if he sink in the river his accuser shall take possession of his house. But if the river prove that the accused is not guilty, and he escape unhurt, then he who had brought the accusation shall be put to death, while he who leaped into the river shall take possession of the house that had belonged to his accuser” (Hooker, 1999). As you can see he made very specific punishments and it looks as if there was a divine element to judging the just, if you didn’t in fact steal property then the river will not let you drown (unless I’m misunderstanding it and it’s actually just some sort of swimming competition for houses). I don’t think I need to say that this would be barbaric to subject shoplifters to today, but it helps to prove my point that for its time the Ten Commandments were quite revolutionary. Firstly Moses does not offer a specific punishment for any of these, it just tells you what not to do, and the ultimate punishment will come from God or the person whom you have wronged. For instance if you take a few pens from work and take them home it is up to your boss weather he just tells you to “knock it off” or if he thinks it is grounds for termination. In many ways this is better, however, this opens the person up for justifying his actions or trying to shift the blame to a coworker. “I didn’t think a Fortune 500 company would miss a few pens, besides I’ve been working so much overtime I didn’t have time to get my own,” or “James steals out of the petty cash drawer, stealing pens is nowhere near as bad.” But the Hammurabi interpretation leaves much less room for imagination, “I better not steal this pen because I don’t want to be thrown in a river today.” The problem of course with this is that maybe this punishment wouldn’t fit the crime even from the mindset from the victim, “I just want you to bring the pens back, but I guess I have to formally accuse you and throw you in the river to get them back.” Another thing that not having a specific punishment does for the crime is allows us to judge the severity of the crime. So we could say stealing pens from the office isn’t grounds for termination, much less being thrown in a river, but that behavior is certainly discouraged and will reflect poorly on your character. Moses also makes no distinctions between classes of people, thou shalt not steal; but Hammurabi makes has different laws for different classes, “If any one take a male or female slave of the court, or a male or female slave of a freed man, outside the city gates, he shall be put to death” (Hooker, 1999). In my management of human resources class I learned that effective punishments are like touching a hot stove, among other things, one of the rules is, “It burns each person equally.” So stealing from an aristocrat is just as bad as stealing from a peer. This allows people to invoke an internal conscience about the action. This is reaffirmed in Christianity by Jesus when he says, “In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets” Matthew 7:12 (The Lockman Foundation, 1977). Jesus wasn’t the first to say this, however, nearly every culture has something (including Moses in Leviticus 19:18) like this which is universally called “the golden rule.” This was a great catch all rule so as to give people sort of a situation by situation rubric to determine what is right and wrong.
Though the Ten Commandments doesn’t address complex modern problems like intellectual property or drug use, most of them are straightforward enough that even preadolescents can understand them. It’s pretty rare that someone would make the case that they are from a totemistic society and that all things belong to Gaia, therefore I didn’t steal because I have no concept of possessions. And by the same token when I go to Regis I use a chair, though I would say, “That’s my chair” and if someone else were to sit in it, I am fully within my right to correct them and claim that it is “my chair.” But after class I realize it no longer belongs to me; regardless nobody else in the course of history ever uses that chair, or how good I think it would look in my living room, I don’t have a claim to the chair unless it’s class time. These are some of the unspoken morals we have ingrained in our being that we simply take for granted. There are some commandments that seem very straight forward and yet it makes them even more complex. Until recently and even then limited to primarily protestant bibles, a specific commandment read “Thou shalt not kill.” This generates some controversy, as to whether it should be kill or murder. And even then there are many grey areas. I think it’s pretty safe to say that most people would consider killing someone for no reason is wrong. This is the truest most universal application of the commandment. Is it alright to kill someone for a reason you believe is just? In the movie A Time to Kill the protagonist, Jake Tyler Brigance, defends Carl Lee Hailey who guns down two bigots for raping and brutalizing his daughter. When asked by the prosecutor at his trial if the men deserved to die he says, “Yes, they deserved to die and I hope they burn in hell!” (IMDB, 2010). The movie isn’t about ethics, whether it is okay to kill a person under the grizzly circumstances, the movie almost assumes he is justified in his crime. His daughter survives, though with permanent damage to her reproductive organs, he still seems justified in killing two aggressors who are unsuccessful in killing a child. From a strictly eye-for-an-eye ethic it would seem that this is not justified, however, the social consensus is that due to the nature of the crime it is, in fact, a just punishment. Is it alright to kill if it is in self defense, or are we supposed to do everything within our power to avoid a lethal outcome? Is it alright to kill as an act of war? Even if we were able to discern that the commandment should read murder, it still has some moral and ethical depth to the point it’s hard to tell. If it is in fact kill, there are much more interpretations. Is it okay to kill an animal for food? Is it okay to kill an animal for sport if you really don’t need to? Is it okay to squish a spider just because it’s scary? If you want to be really literal in your interpretation you could argue that our immune system kills microorganisms every second of every day. I have seen no evidence to refute that in the Hebrew text for the commandment says “lo tirtzack” and lo means “thou shalt not.” As for what tirtzack means, well it depends who you ask on Wikipedia the author of the section does not cite any sources but says, “In the fullness of the Old Testament Exodus 20:13 is abundantly evidenced as prohibiting unjust killing, rather than a universal injunction against all killing, as retzach is never used in reference to the slaying of animals, nor the taking of life in war, while its most frequent use is in reference to involuntary manslaughter and secondarily for murderers” (Wikipedia, 2009). It was interesting, though I highly doubt God was telling us not to accidently kill people, it directly contradicts other things I’ve seen. “The exact Hebrew wording of this biblical phrase is lo tirtzack. One of the greatest scholars of Hebrew/English linguistics (in the Twentieth Century) -Dr. Reuben Alcalay - has written in his mammoth book the Complete Hebrew /English Dictionary that 'tirtzach' refers to 'any kind of killing whatsoever'” (The Nazarene Way).
So I guess in summation if you are consulting Hebrew texts to figure out if it’s right to kill or steal; you might want to just rethink it. We are left mostly to our own resources, but if we think something is wrong then it probably is. These laws even have something of a secular value, most of them are crimes you commit against other people and then a few that are crimes against God. But if you were to take a secular approach to this, one could say the crimes against God are simply crimes that you can commit against yourself. Not having false Gods or idols can be summed up as don’t let things guide your hand, like money, power, and lust. Don’t use God’s name in vain, or don’t swear, it ultimately cheapens your character; it’s very hard to take people seriously or respect them when they swear every other word. Keeping holy the Sabbath Day, could be interpreted take time out for yourself, be sure to devote time to the things you love be it God, family, or even a meaningful hobby. So with a bit of artistic license we can see that all of the Ten Commandments serve a purpose; if you don’t steal you won’t upset the harmony you have with your neighbors. If you don’t commit adultery, you won’t bring unnecessary complications into your love relationships. We can see that most of these rules aren’t meant to be cumbersome; they were made to try to inhibit unhealthy desires that would keep us from God, as far as my opinion goes. That being said why when we see a sign that says, “wet paint” do we avoid it so as not to paint on our hands, but yet we covet our neighbor’s possessions or wife and bring unnecessary desire and turmoil into our lives. So even if we do these things because we aren’t worried specifically about retribution from God, but only to simplify our lives, it baffles me why people would do bad things. My rule of thumb goes something like the golden rule but a little different, “If you would feel embarrassed if someone found out you were doing this, then you probably shouldn’t do it.” Now this isn’t to say you don’t do intimate acts in the bedroom with your lover because you wouldn’t want them to be described to someone else; but for normal everyday occurrences, like stealing money from the petty cash, think of the shame it would bring on you if you were caught. This would eliminate punishment, justification, and blame-shifting; if you don’t mind being known as an office kleptomaniac then by all means proceed. The problem with the golden rule is that there is a certain level of ambiguity, “Would I mind if someone was stealing out of my petty cash box? No, I don’t even have one.” And also this sort of nullifies crimes of selfishness, “Would I mind if my husband cheated on me? This isn’t about my husband, it’s about my needs.” But, if you wouldn’t care if everyone in the neighborhood knew you were doing that, then it’s obviously something you can pursue. This idea came to me when I was watching an episode of The Simpsons where Bart steals a videogame and is banned from the store by the security guard; later the family goes to the same store to get a family photo, the store security guard recognizes him and reminds him he’s banned, when his mom says he’s mistaken he prepares to show a video of him stealing the game. Bart confesses to his mom and says that he doesn’t want his mother to see the tape. Sometimes breaking the hearts of the ones we love and care about is the most powerful moral tool we can use. So consider if your own mother witnessed you committing the immoral act (again this does not apply to romantic intimacy). Using sort of a Taoist principal, simply not doing something because you are afraid of the punishment, is flawed reasoning. You don’t think that you are going to fail when you do anything, think about it, would you do something to get 6 months in jail? Not a chance, you’ve gotten away with the crime before it’s even been committed, otherwise you wouldn’t even do it. This is why reflecting on the punishment likely won’t deter the crime, even when you could be drowned like in Hammurabi’s day, judging by the almost 30 laws pertaining to stealing, that wasn’t even a deterrent.
So we go so far to establish laws and order and keep people in line; and yet we glorify those who oppose these laws. Think about it, you go out to a nightclub with your friends; all of your single girl friends are going to end up hooking up with the biggest jerks in the whole place. When guys go out, their most obnoxious loudmouth friend is almost inevitably going to get the prettiest girl. And I’m sure you all know a woman in each of your lives who started a relationship with these big jerks only to find out that they are even bigger jerks then they first appeared. So the men she knows try to be jerks because they see how well women respond to it, and the women in their lives aren’t content to have a life that is free of the kind of sexy drama that dating a total jerk yields, so soon everyone fuses with these roles. And I think this is how it begins, the glamorization of evil starts from a bad boy complex. It almost can’t be refuted, you don’t see girls swooning for men who love their families like Hank Hill (King of the Hill) or Danny Tanner (Full House) nor do you see men idolizing them. I think if you were to ask people I think that they would like a family that loves each other and pulls together to overcome their challenges like in Full House. But what people say they want isn’t exactly what they really want. The same woman who dates the jerk probably says, “I just wish I could find a nice guy” but her actions clearly dictate she likes being treated like garbage and pushed around. This is what I call an “addiction to drama” people who seem to make bad decisions presumably just so they can complain about it. Think about it, we don’t see movies where the characters pay their bills, rent movies, and go to the grocery store; we don’t listen to songs about people going to the post office; we don’t watch TV shows about the merits of being a good friend. That would be boring, but as much as people try not to admit it, sometimes we are unable to tell the difference between fiction and reality. For instance, you can watch Jersey Shore once and think to yourself, “Oh my God, I can’t believe there are people like that out there.” But just as with obnoxious people you meet, after a while you come to understand and get to know them better. Now think of how many people you see in real life on a daily basis. If you are in a normal office or classroom I would say you deal with about 30 or so, if you want to get really chatty maybe 4 or 5 of them you talk to about 15 minutes. Now think of the principal cast of your favorite show, now think about the idea you’ve just had 20 minutes of face time with Jerry Seinfeld, where you have only had 15 minutes with your best friend at work; I would think that an hour of TV is kind of a lowball estimate for most households so you might have spent more time with Johnny Knoxville from Jackass than you did with your spouse or kids! What is that you say? You don’t watch immature shows like that? Of course you don’t, your kids do. PBS had a documentary called Merchants of Cool in which they try to figure out how to market to pre-teens and teens. Teens don’t really know what they want, and even if they did they don’t really vocalize it. They show focus group interviews with teens and they are lucky to get one or two words out of the teen when they talk about products. They need something that grips the kids, someone that’s cool that tells them what’s cool, and can keep their attention when they need to pitch to them; they need a “Mook.” “The Mook is what critics call the crude, loud, obnoxious, in-your-face character that can be found almost any hour of day or night somewhere on MTV. He's a teen frozen in permanent adolescence” (WGBH Educational Foundation, 2008). It’s gone on since I was a kid Beavis and Butthead, Tom Green Show, Jackass, Viva La Bam, The Real World, Jersey Shore; these characters are role models to people of my generation. And the message they all peddle is the message that says being reckless, irresponsible, inconsiderate, conceited, self-centered; these are the spices of life. And then the thirst for the dramatic is quenched.
Now I’m not one to accuse people of not being able to make up their minds about what’s real and what’s not on TV; but I just think after a while the line becomes blurred and whether or not we are aware, we emulate things we have a prolonged exposure to. It’s even worse now, with the internet, I’ve played online video games and there are 9 and 10 year old kids that are saying things I would say locked in a room in the middle of Siberia. In a Lord of the Flies way they have a mask of anonymity, I highly doubt any of these people would use the N-word in school but they are perfectly okay to say it online anonymously. It’s a difficult concept for even adults to grasp much less pre-teens; but every time you do something wrong you chip away at that boundary. This is why people consider marijuana to be a gateway drug; it’s not as bad as many other drugs but it still “gets you high,” makes you look cool, and it’s illegal. But there are many other drugs that carry the exact same stigma so it’s easy for people to make the jump to other drugs like cocaine, after having initially broken the barrier from marijuana. Although there are some people who use marijuana and never go the step further, and ultimately some people that use heavier drugs without using marijuana first; it just is easier for people to work their way into something like that because they can say, “Well I already smoke weed and that’s illegal, might as well try mushrooms they come from the earth too.” The same thing can be said for using swear words that you use online, there is a point that they just sort of creep into your vernacular, and using them sparingly you were able control it, but overuse has broken the barrier and they will come out at inappropriate times. Maybe swearing accidently is inappropriate but not evil, but the line there once was is gone. A while ago there was a music video uploaded to YouTube under the name Tom O.C.; it used the “Auto-tune” feature which will move your singing to the desired key, but this one was almost intentionally awful. Then there were many pictures of him doing outrageous things like posing in front of sports cars and brandishing an air soft gun (a gun that shoots tiny pieces of plastic) going on while the song was playing. I thought this was so funny I sent it to all my friends for laughs. But then I came across a radio interview the man in the pictures, named Tom O’Connor, claimed that the video that spawned 200,000 hits was something he had nothing to do with. In the interview he says this, “I got a couple of mails about it and also the person who created it (who I have no idea… who did) and sent it to some of my customers (I have my own business). And so the customers brought it to my attention, ya’ know, and now I did report it with YouTube, 6 or 7 times, but apparently it’s pretty difficult to get videos removed” (Clubbingie, 2009). Though the video is in a colloquial Irish accent it’s pretty clear that he didn’t actually make the song, and says that the person who did wasn’t responsible nor did they use Auto-tune. The pictures on there were the “worst of the worst were taken off of my personal Bebo, and Facebook as well and thrown into the video” (Clubbingie, 2009). Though I don’t know exactly how it unfolded it seems pretty clear that someone just played a joke on him, maybe a business competitor, and claimed they were him. At one point there was even a website where he claims to be getting ready to “drop and album.” If it is true that he didn’t actually make the video or website; think of the person who went to such lengths, it’s not only sick but it’s ferocious the way they went after him. Tom O’Connor’s life and business could have been ruined from this. It is one kind of evil to do something like this, but the evil I was guilty of was not researching it before I sent it to all of my friends, if this was a news story that broke without all of the facts we could hold the station that broadcasts it responsible. Whoever made this will probably never need to apologize or ever be held accountable; people like me, who sent it to all their friends probably don’t feel any remorse for the trouble it caused Tom O’Connor. But then what is really sad to me is when he talks about the comments on his video, “Some of them deal with death threats, go and kill yourself, commit suicide, sort of stuff I wasn’t even thinking about… I was contemplating could I actually write those comments myself against another video, and I couldn’t. I couldn’t tell anyone to kill themselves” (Clubbingie, 2009). And I thought to myself, I’m the same way, no cloak of anonymity could ever get me to tell another person to kill themselves even jokingly. What has happened to us?
So we don’t gain anything by picking on Tom O’Connor, when we say something cruel and tell him to commit suicide he probably won’t listen, it’s nothing clever there were probably a dozen people saying the exact same thing; so why say such an awful thing? I think I know why this is; when we feel insecure we look for a way to establish our dominance; to regain our confidence. We can regain our confidence by doing something meaningful for a loved one, a productive hobby, build something, do volunteer work; but there is a much easier way, to simply find someone else we think we are better than. I am not a dork because I found someone who is dorkier than me; I lie, cheat, and steal but not as much as Tommy does, so by comparison I’m good. Now we can get that beloved bad boy or bad girl appeal without feeling guilt. There is a quote from Scarface that should sum it up better (pardon the language), “You don't have the guts to be what you wanna be. You need people like me. You need people like me so you can point your f**kin' fingers and say, ‘That's the bad guy.’ So... what that make you? Good? You're not good. You just know how to hide, how to lie. Me, I don't have that problem. Me, I always tell the truth. Even when I lie.” –Tony Montana, Scarface (IMDB, 2010). In a way I have to agree with him, everyone does do bad things, but we need a ‘bad guy’ to be the rubric for how bad is too bad. It’s the same mentality that says that if a bear attacks, you don’t need to be the fastest guy you just can’t be the slowest. The problem is that it’s easier to find people that are worse than you, be it people with looser morals, or just then next Tom O.C. Bad influences are in no short supply, at least to find a Tom O.C. you have to actually look for them, the bad influences sometimes come looking for you. There used to be a time when you could tell that the guy underneath the lamp post in 5-Points selling you a slick story was simply trying to con you. Sometimes you would run into someone in the parking lot or at the mall with some kind of story; for instance my Dad saw a guy at the gas station who said he was a Versace rep from Italy and said we could have some coats if we give him enough money to buy a Stetson hat as a souvenir. He assured him that now that they charge for luggage, it was cheaper to just give them away; but he was very firm about how much his Stetson hat was going to cost and his catalogue was very out of date so my Dad backed out of the deal. Now who knows he could have been legit, but we assumed he was a con man selling fake Versace. Now if this was the case, notice he took the time to find a mark, he took the time to lie to my Dad’s face, and ultimately you only get conned for being greedy. But now you don’t even need to leave your home, how many people can say they got an email from some freedom fighter in Zimbabwe who needs to get his $10 million fortune out of his country and its corrupt government, but only needs you to send him a million of it. The way this con works is that they send you a check and tell you where he wants his million, for international checks the money might show up in your account and make you assume that the check has cleared and the transaction is legit. You hold up your end of the bargain and send the $1 million and then the bank gives you a very nasty phone call up to 30 days later when the check didn’t clear and you ended up bouncing a $1 million check. Now, you certainly didn’t go looking for this opportunity, it presented itself, he doesn’t meet you face-to-face he just sends a million emails out and one sucker is enough for the whole year; sympathy for the devil, this con is still based on greed, sure you were honest enough to write the check, but you were perfectly willing to let a refugee give you his vast fortune to write one little check. Then the other week I got a virus from a Facebook link, I couldn’t open any programs every time I did I went to an anti-virus website that asked for money to remove it. Some people might not even do it because they got tricked but because it’s almost impossible to fix a virus that doesn’t even let you open the virus scanner you did pay for. So not only is it not being done to your face, but greed has nothing to do with it, you just clicked on the wrong link.
Do you know how easy that is to do? You’re tired and you get an email from a friend you haven’t seen in a while with a link to a video, then all of a sudden the only thing you can do on your computer is virus software to stop the virus they put on your computer. It’s sad to say but our criminals have even become more evil, not to mention much more in-your-face. Even in your home minding your own business you have to avoid the criminal element, not just on some unlucky day; a criminal has access to you every time you turn on your computer. It’s almost as if it’s a sad thing that nobody puts a gun to your head asks for your cash. Now they don’t want your money, they want your identity, they want to be you. They want to use your credit cards, file their taxes in your name; this is a much more horrifying criminal. And it’s almost as if they are insulting you, “Thanks for your personal information, sucker,” at least someone puts a gun to your head and you give them your money, you can rest assured your priorities are in order. You could look at it as a very smart decision that you thought your very life was worth more than the $60 that you had on you. It would almost even be nice for a face to face interaction so that you knew that you were going to lose your money instead of fainting when you get a credit card bill, and you could see the desperation of their situation; hell, you could see that he was at least worth it for them to leave their house to rob you. So the criminal element is now just a bad link away on the computer, evil isn’t a few blocks down, it’s just one misstep away. Now that we face these things so often our lines are blurred, we don’t have to look for a bad guy to say we are better than, they just came looking for you. And when the world is sick enough, what can’t you justify?
Bibliography
Clubbingie. (2009, September 24). tom o c - THE REAL INTERVIEW. Retrieved March 15, 2010, from YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piMff_YwbSY
Hooker, R. (1999, June 6). The Code of Hammurabi. Retrieved March 13, 2010, from Washington State University: http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/MESO/CODE.HTM
The Lockman Foundation. (1977). New American Standard Bible. The Lockman Foundation.
The Nazarene Way. (n.d.). ~Thou Shalt Not Kill~. Retrieved March 13, 2010, from The Nazarene Way: http://www.thenazareneway.com/thou_shalt_not_kill.htm
WGBH Educational Foundation. (2008). Frontline: Merchants of Cool. Retrieved March 14, 2010, from PBS: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/tour/tour2.html
Works Cited (from user maintained content sites)
IMDB. (2010). Carl Lee Hailey (Character) - Quotes. Retrieved March 13, 2010, from Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0010664/quotes
IMDB. (2010). Scarface (1983) - Memorable quotes. Retrieved March 15, 2010, from Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086250/quotes
Wikipedia. (2009, March). Ten Commandments. Retrieved March 13, 2010, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Commandments
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Improperly Turned Phrases...
There is just a super-nerdy pet peeve I have and that's with people misusing or improperly turning phrases. I see it all the time but hey maybe this will help people; but mostly just irritate people, and I'm okay with that. I realize that I'm damning myself to the 6th circle of nerd hell, reserved for pretentious nerds, but again this is something I must do for the good of the English language and my love of turning phrases. So away we go!
Piss and Vinegar:
What it's used to mean: You are a "firecracker" or have a strong-willed bad attitude.
How it's used: "You're full of piss and vinegar today."
The etymology even sort of changed with this one, it has sort of evolved into being like a "firecracker" or someone with a bad attitude. The actual phrase was "pith and vigor." Vigor is like strength, pith is like something has been removed (usually the brain) so what it means is strength with an absence of fear or concern. So when this used to be used pith and vigor actually meant having an attitude that nothing will stop you.
Get my Goat:
What it's used to mean: Trying to get under someone's skin.
How it's used: "I can't believe you would go to such lengths to get my goat."
You don't usually see this unless it's on like an internet forum in response to "trolling" (saying or posting something absurd in order to upset people or get into an argument). Unless it literally means to take a farm animal away from someone, this is being used improperly. The actual phrase should be, "get my goad" goad means to "egg on" or prod something. When used this way it means to provoke into action.
Rapist Wit:
What it's used to mean: A very cunning and almost sinister wit.
How it's used: "You have a rapist wit."
This was from Dumb and Dumber but I think people hear this stuff and forget where they heard it from. The actual phrase is "rapier wit" a rapier is a narrow sword usually used in fencing. So the phrase should mean like a sharp and cutting wit, like the sword.
Salmon of Capistrano:
What it's used to mean: Places where something flocks to.
How it's used: "Women flock there like the salmon of Capisrano."
Yet another Dumb and Dumber joke that creeped into our vernacular. The actual thing that this makes reference to is the swallows that migrate from San Juan Capistrano mission on October 23rd (St. John Capistrano's feast day) and returning close to his former feast day at the end of March. So you would say, "Women flock there like the swallows of San Juan de Capistrano." It's obvious that soon people will be using "mind-bottling" sometime in the next decade.
A Stitch in Time Saves Nine:
What it's used to mean (sometimes): Some people say he was talking about time travel and it some how saving nine people, or any sort of time travel and fixing the fabric of time reference.
How it's used: "Ben Franklin believed in time travel, he used to say, 'a stitch in time saves nine.'"
I have no idea who the hell people attribute this quote to, usually either Ben Franklin or Albert Einstein. It seems obvious when you think about it that it means if a stitch is coming loose patching it up early will save you from having to make 9 more stitches. But some people, I guess, had to look for a more complex interpretation.
Pavlov's Dog, Occam's Razor, etc.
What it's used to mean (sometimes): Some people tend to think it's referring to an object.
How it's used: "Who is Pavlov and why does his dog have anything to do with this?"
"Pavlov's dog" is an expression which refers to mental conditioning. Ivan Pavlov used to have a device that measured salivation in his dog. He would use a metronome to alert his dog that his food was there and eventually just the sound of the metronome cause the dog to salivate. Occam's razor is not some mythical weapon or anything it's an idea when simplified, "the simplest solution is usually the correct one." So of two theories, I lost my remote or somebody stole that and nothing else while I was at the grocery store; it's far more likely that you just lost it. So these things aren't really objects but more theories or ideas.
Roll a Character:
What it's used to mean: In class-based RPG's (yes I'm a nerd, don't bother pointing it out) starting a character.
How it's used: "I think I'm going to roll a hunter on this server."
It's strange because they nearly all usually use some sort of "roll" mechanism in order to randomize the outcome. But to "roll a character" would mean you have a chance of not being able to do it. The actual way it should be used is "I think I'm going to role a hunter on this server." To signify you are filling a role in the grand scheme of whatever.
St. Elmo's Fire:
What it's used to mean: A blue fire from the human body, used to vanquish foes and smite the wicked.
Not normally used in written or verbal communication unless it's in reference to the Emilio Estavez movie.
A lot of people think this is some supernatural blue fire thing and that it isn't real. It is in fact not fire at all, and it is very real. It's a blue electrical discharge that would materialize above the mast of a ship before, during, or after a thunderstorm. Many saw this as a positive omen that the ship would see the shore once again. Why is this on here? Because I play video games and it's always a freakin' fire elemental attack and it should be a lightning/thunder attack. Gol, IDDDDIIIOOOTSS!!! Ha, just kidding, I couldn't resist totally nerding the shit out of people! Though everything I said is actually true, I couldn't really care less if anyone besides me knew that.
Piss and Vinegar:
What it's used to mean: You are a "firecracker" or have a strong-willed bad attitude.
How it's used: "You're full of piss and vinegar today."
The etymology even sort of changed with this one, it has sort of evolved into being like a "firecracker" or someone with a bad attitude. The actual phrase was "pith and vigor." Vigor is like strength, pith is like something has been removed (usually the brain) so what it means is strength with an absence of fear or concern. So when this used to be used pith and vigor actually meant having an attitude that nothing will stop you.
Get my Goat:
What it's used to mean: Trying to get under someone's skin.
How it's used: "I can't believe you would go to such lengths to get my goat."
You don't usually see this unless it's on like an internet forum in response to "trolling" (saying or posting something absurd in order to upset people or get into an argument). Unless it literally means to take a farm animal away from someone, this is being used improperly. The actual phrase should be, "get my goad" goad means to "egg on" or prod something. When used this way it means to provoke into action.
Rapist Wit:
What it's used to mean: A very cunning and almost sinister wit.
How it's used: "You have a rapist wit."
This was from Dumb and Dumber but I think people hear this stuff and forget where they heard it from. The actual phrase is "rapier wit" a rapier is a narrow sword usually used in fencing. So the phrase should mean like a sharp and cutting wit, like the sword.
Salmon of Capistrano:
What it's used to mean: Places where something flocks to.
How it's used: "Women flock there like the salmon of Capisrano."
Yet another Dumb and Dumber joke that creeped into our vernacular. The actual thing that this makes reference to is the swallows that migrate from San Juan Capistrano mission on October 23rd (St. John Capistrano's feast day) and returning close to his former feast day at the end of March. So you would say, "Women flock there like the swallows of San Juan de Capistrano." It's obvious that soon people will be using "mind-bottling" sometime in the next decade.
A Stitch in Time Saves Nine:
What it's used to mean (sometimes): Some people say he was talking about time travel and it some how saving nine people, or any sort of time travel and fixing the fabric of time reference.
How it's used: "Ben Franklin believed in time travel, he used to say, 'a stitch in time saves nine.'"
I have no idea who the hell people attribute this quote to, usually either Ben Franklin or Albert Einstein. It seems obvious when you think about it that it means if a stitch is coming loose patching it up early will save you from having to make 9 more stitches. But some people, I guess, had to look for a more complex interpretation.
Pavlov's Dog, Occam's Razor, etc.
What it's used to mean (sometimes): Some people tend to think it's referring to an object.
How it's used: "Who is Pavlov and why does his dog have anything to do with this?"
"Pavlov's dog" is an expression which refers to mental conditioning. Ivan Pavlov used to have a device that measured salivation in his dog. He would use a metronome to alert his dog that his food was there and eventually just the sound of the metronome cause the dog to salivate. Occam's razor is not some mythical weapon or anything it's an idea when simplified, "the simplest solution is usually the correct one." So of two theories, I lost my remote or somebody stole that and nothing else while I was at the grocery store; it's far more likely that you just lost it. So these things aren't really objects but more theories or ideas.
Roll a Character:
What it's used to mean: In class-based RPG's (yes I'm a nerd, don't bother pointing it out) starting a character.
How it's used: "I think I'm going to roll a hunter on this server."
It's strange because they nearly all usually use some sort of "roll" mechanism in order to randomize the outcome. But to "roll a character" would mean you have a chance of not being able to do it. The actual way it should be used is "I think I'm going to role a hunter on this server." To signify you are filling a role in the grand scheme of whatever.
St. Elmo's Fire:
What it's used to mean: A blue fire from the human body, used to vanquish foes and smite the wicked.
Not normally used in written or verbal communication unless it's in reference to the Emilio Estavez movie.
A lot of people think this is some supernatural blue fire thing and that it isn't real. It is in fact not fire at all, and it is very real. It's a blue electrical discharge that would materialize above the mast of a ship before, during, or after a thunderstorm. Many saw this as a positive omen that the ship would see the shore once again. Why is this on here? Because I play video games and it's always a freakin' fire elemental attack and it should be a lightning/thunder attack. Gol, IDDDDIIIOOOTSS!!! Ha, just kidding, I couldn't resist totally nerding the shit out of people! Though everything I said is actually true, I couldn't really care less if anyone besides me knew that.
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