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What is a man but the sum of his thoughts?

Personal Statement #8:

 

THE GRANDFATHER:

 

 

Editor's Note:

The Face of Evil on a Good Man

 

 

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"Deeds of violence in our society are performed largely by those trying to establish their self-esteem, to defend their self-image, and to demonstrate that they, too, are significant... Violence arises not out of superfluity of power, but out of powerlessness."

 

                               Rollo May, Power and Innocence

For many years I had wondered how the most cultured civilization on earth, Germany of 100 or more years ago (from which my peoples migrated 200 years ago to pioneer farmland in Russia), having ascended heights of intellectual achievement, could have welcomed to power, by democratic process, the darkest forces of totalitarian power!

This was the land of Beethoven, Brahms, and Bach; of Einstein, Mach, and Braun; of Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and Kant! How could this most accomplished nation also become the place of concentration camps and gas chambers? (See my coming article on the nature of Evil.)

I think I know the answer now, and I will speak of this in the future - but, in microcosm, I see the same forces, in embryo, at work in my small farming community of a generation ago; a time of noteable achievement by those Lions, those personifications of will; but also a time of darkness, which often expressed itself in cruelty to any element or entity perceived and counted to be "weak."

Some of these memories are painful; not only to myself, but to many of us who were children then; and I am thinking of my cousins now, as we have spoken of those times.

I shall not mention any names of those who engaged in acts of cruelty long ago. I think, if we were to speak to them today, they would understand that they, too, were victims of a larger process of malevolence; and, today, would be interested only in seeking forgiveness from any who suffered under their hand, and from the Universe itself.

But in those days, cruelty, within certain contexts, was accepted as the norm. If there were to be discovered a litter of unwanted puppies, rather than dealing with this in a humane way, these tiny scraps of life would be quickly and summarily thrown up and smashed against the nearest wall. While such act is distasteful by any standard, the most damaging aspect of this would be to engage in such cavalier destruction without regard to little children who might witness all of this.

I remember a man who had a herd of pigs. One of the sows persisted in rooting up the fence, and slipping under the steel-mesh boundary. After a few times of this infraction, the man simply smashed the head in of this creature.

And I remember another man "training" a horse; granted, some horses, unlike the Hollywood version of things, can be very mean, and they will bite you and use their considerable intelligence to resist you in ways that Hollywood has never known. But this man took a two-by-four and beat this horse's head until it was near-senseless, nearly to death; and I saw this horse standing, alone, now, with its head down, way down, in abject servile humility, its spirit well beyond broken, and it would not move, but was frozen, even upon the approaching of anyone; and it was shivering, on a hot July day, so traumatized was it, and it would never be the same again. One does not easily forget such sights.

AfterLife entities inform us that our trip to this earth will have been successful if we are able to help and encourage even one person! But, they also say - which surprised me greatly - that such successful trip will be accomplished if we help and nurture even one unthinking animal! And the damage that we do to our own spirits, our own souls, by any form of cruelty is beyond what those living in darkness can presently perceive!

My Uncle Paul and I laugh at a certain incident of 40 years ago. But when we laugh it is a very uneasy laugh, a laugh mixed with grief, as we still cannot quite accept what happened. We were herding cattle, Paul and I on horses. There was another man in a pickup truck, following us; the cattle were moving along in a ditch, adjacent to a blacktop highway. There was one young steer that insisted on running up onto the highway - and one of us would go after it on horseback, and return it to the main herd.

After a few times of this open rebellion, with the steer now on the highway again, the man in the pickup had had enough, and he revved up that engine, like a jet at take-off, and headed straight for that bovine insolence and threat to his authority; and he crashed into it, probably damaging his truck, and no doubt the body of this hapless creature; and he made damn sure that there would be no further attempts to undermine the rule of this Lion!

Paul and I knew this man well, one who was normally a decent man, but now gripped with an insanity which made him a stranger! and we stayed the hell out of his way for a good while, let me tell you.

(1961) Leonard and Paul Becker, my handsome uncles; but, really, my brothers in life. Leonard has a great sense of humor, and makes me laugh. He loves horses, always has, so much so that, as a kid, he would frequently pretend being such noble creature; Paul, a savvy businessman and good person, my friend, has always encouraged me and been there for me.

A person who is cruel to animals, under the right circumstances, will be cruel to people as well; and I saw plenty of that while growing up, but I will not speak of those things here.

Henry Drummond, in his remarkable little book, The Greatest Thing In The World, written over 100 years ago, speaks of this strange phenomenon, that of good people who, temporarily, at times, become possessed by the demons of rage and malice:

"The peculiarity of ill temper is that it is the vice of the virtuous. It is often the one blot on an otherwise noble character. You know men who are all but perfect, and women who would be entirely perfect, but for an easily ruffled, quick-tempered, or 'touchy' disposition. This compatibility of ill temper with high moral character is one of the strangest and saddest problems of ethics."

I have stated elsewhere that there is no such thing as an ever-burning hell; and I will speak more of this in later writings. But such comforting news does not mean that certain ones who have allowed themselves to engage in various acts of depravity will not suffer, in their own private hell, both now, and in the future, for these misdeeds.

I want to encourage you to know that all such painful encounter is temporary. Few of us have yet reached the heights of soul development, and we all have things in our past which reflect insensitivity and a lack of love; but, we can know, as we learn what we need to learn, that we shall all march out of hell, a step at a time, and eventually.

(1953) Paul is holding me. I think I really wanted to pull that cat's question-mark tail, but my senior partner thinks otherwise; and, anyway, I settle for Paul's fur collar. I spoke to Paul yesterday, and he reminded me of a hell-bent-incident that deserves honorable mention right now. In 1961, Paul, a young man, on vacation from his job, dropped by our farm to visit his older brother, my Dad. As it happened, Dad had just suffered some mechanical break-down with the hay-mower... "and, yes, it's so wonderful to see you again, but could you take this broken part into town right now to have it welded?" Paul agrees to what should have been a harmless errand, and proceeds to the blacksmith's shop in Dad's pickup truck. After depositing the mechanical contrivance with the smithy, Paul departs. Now, this was Paul's first dark mistake. You see, any Lion worth his claws knows damn well that only a fool simply drops things off - you have to stay and "hover" - you have to make sure that they actually work, and work on your welding job first, and you do this, of course, by hovering, by making a nuisance of yourself, so that they will get your job the hell done, to get you the hell out of there. It's the ancient ninja hell-bent way. And Dad thought it superfluous to explain such patently obvious point, as any true Lion would know this; however, while this was a serious infraction, with the proper penance, it might someday be forgiven - but what Paul did next was truly unpardonable. Uncle Bud from Coeur d'Alene was also visiting at the time and these two saw no reason why they could not enjoy the afternoon with a round of golf. Now, see, this is how good people go wrong in life, you know! What a perverse idea! and the punishment they would later receive, you can well see, was quite justified. And these two were resourceful, too; they weren't resourceful at getting that part welded, but they were resourceful at this! They had no clubs at the ready, so they stop at Father Viet's, and bum his clubs, and then speed off to the golf course; really, sort of a cow pasture, at the south end of town, along the main highway. But wait! there's more to this nefarious deed! All of this was accomplished in Dad's very own pickup! And where was this famous pickup, this pickup known to all citizens as Dad's pickup, during such time that all true Lions would be in the hayfield? Well, it was parked at the entrance to the course; but, worse, alongside the highway, on painful display, on public display, to all comers, as ostensible evidence that Dad, that great and famous Lion, as evidenced by the parked pickup, had somehow committed the sacrilege of not working on this fine sunny hay-making day! Well, later, Paul the prodigal, along with Uncle Bud for protection, has the nerve to return to Dad... and where is that repaired mower piece? and now Dad hears the lame excuses that Paul had not hovered... how depraved can you get? but when Paul gets to the part about going to the golf course - yes, we know any golf course is bad, because recreation is evil, but that course, the one along the main highway! Oh, no! don't tell me! you parked my famous pickup there for all passing wagging tongues to enjoy? Our Uncle Bud has always liked a certain phrase, one which has never made a lot of sense to me, that he "wouldn't give a tinker's damn" for this or that. Well, I'm not sure as to the exact value of such rare commodity, but I get the sense that it's not worth too much; and this same state of diminished significance accrued to Paul's account at his meeting with Dad; and, let's just say that it was good luck for Paul that Uncle Bud, a battle-hardened vet and survivor of Korea's "fire and ice," stood in solidarity beside his young golfing buddy that evening...

My family, more and more, is learning to live in the light. We are proud of the many good things in our past; and we are learning to look at those other dark things, as well, now, more and more, with an open heart, with a view toward healing.

May we, along with your family, all march out of hell together!

"The lust for power is not rooted in strength but in weakness... When the weak want to give an impression of strength they hint menacingly at their capacity for evil. It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak." 

 

                     Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind

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