Chapter 7/11

Freedom and Determinism

Freedom and determinism? We need to understand this dialectic if we are to think clearly.

We are free to make choices. The range of our choices, however, is limited. Heredity and socio-cultural heritage limit our options. Every free choice we make determines a wide range of future options. Many decisions we make are irreversible; others can be reversed. So the development and character of life is determined by heritage, circumstances beyond our control, and personal decisions made within the limits imposed by heredity and environment–heritage, environment, and free choice.

We are and are becoming the embodiment of the dialectical interaction of these three factors. These are the elements that comprise the bipolar tension between determinism and freedom.

We are free to choose neither our genetic makeup nor our social heritage. My immediate heritage involves the Great Depression and World War II, rural southern Oklahoma, and small Baptist churches. My more distant heritage includes poverty-stricken, uneducated, Scotch-Irish farmers who fled Ireland’s Great Potato Famine and became Appalachian hillbillies. I had no more choice in any of this than I did of the genes that gave me a tall, slender frame, blue eyes, and an introverted personality.

If you were born in Vietnam in the 1960s, the daughter of a United States Marine and a Vietnamese mother who, before the war, had lived in a well-to-do home, your heritage would be quite different from mine. Perhaps now you live in Caldwell, Kansas where your husband has become a successful realtor, and you are an active member of the PTA. In your mind and heart you are still Buddhist.
Your thinking and mine will come from widely differing starting points. Although it is unlikely, it is possible that we might find common ground and come to similar conclusions for similar reasons. This could happen only after many dialectical considerations.

None of us choose our heritage, yet it is an inescapable element of our body, soul, and mindset. It provides the fundamental framework within which we find our personal options for making decisions.

Chapter 7/10

Reason and Emotion

Another fundamental–essential–element of good thinking is the dialectical bipolar tension between reason and emotion. As in all true bipolar relations, neither of these, taken by itself, is valid. Good thinking exists only in the tension between the two. And there is no magic balance. Sometimes it is primarily emotion that powers good thinking; on other occasions reason rides in the driver’s seat. In either case, the other is consulted and taken seriously. Considerate thinking finds its place all along the spectrum between the two poles.

The movie, Guess Who’s Coming for Dinner? , draws its power from the tension of racism in conflict with love. Matt Drayton (Spencer Tracy) and Mr. Prentice (Roy Glenn) are convinced that their beloved children, “Joey” Drayton (Katharine Houghton) and Dr. John Prentice (Sidney Poitier) have lost their minds. The fathers are totally convinced that this interracial marriage would be a horrible mistake. They can think only of all the potential problems that would accrue were the marriage to take place. The situation comes to an impasse, until, finally, Mrs. Prentice (Beah Richards) confronts the two “old” men.

She speaks to their feelings, which she says have dried up long ago. She rebukes them for having forgotten what it is like to be young and deeply committed, as this young couple is. Her pain-laden challenge wakens Drayton’s heart and mind. Now he understands the situation as a whole, and in an impassioned speech, pours out the love and commitment to his wife that has not diminished across long years of marriage. The issue is resolved. The marriage receives the blessing of both parents.

Only as love’s emotion arises in antithesis to racism’s reason can any of them think clearly and thus see beyond their preconceived ways of thinking.

Chapter 7/9

Aging

The morning I turned forty-five, before I even got out of bed, I decided that I was now “old enough.” All my life I had heard, “You’re not old enough . . .” to remember . . . , to do that, to wear that, to understand . . . , to enjoy. . .. On that day, February 15, 1979, I decreed that I was old enough for whatever.
But that notion begat another: I may be old enough, but I was not yet “old.” So, at forty-five I began to prepare for old age. I began studying gerontology. In succeeding years, I began carefully observing elderly people. I soon concluded that most people, if they live long enough, flunk old age. At least most that I have observed did not have a happy ending to their story.

People who had accumulated wealth and all that comes with it, or who had risen to prestigious positions of leadership, or who had the sophistication that accompanies world travel and education from elite universities–people such as these I have watched, and in large measure seen them end their years in the misery of emptiness. As a result, I began in earnest to study individuals who had earned good grades in aging. I knew my time would come, and I wanted to know the joy of a life fulfilled.

Now I am an old man in my seventies. What have I learned across the past thirty years? I’ve learned that the secret of successful aging lies in the bipolar dialectic of continuity and change, the every-changing, but necessary tension between thinking–and thus, living–like a conservative and like a progressive. Tradition and novelty.

Somewhere along the way I read and bought into the idea that the secret of successful aging was the ability to adapt. Those who can’t, or don’t, or won’t adapt are shunted off the road of life, into the ditch of bitterness. Yes, adaptability is essential. It is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for a good old age. The ability to adapt is one of those poles that is invalid when taken by itself. It makes its contribution to life, to old age, only as it lives in tension with the other pole: the commitment to hold onto those things that we have staked our lives on, believe in, and have integrated into our character.

On the other hand, necessary as it is to hold onto the best of the past, conservativism is insufficient to lead us to Browning’s “best [that] is yet to be, the last of life for which the first was made.” To adopt a purely conservative stance toward life is to become stagnant, then sour, then morose; it is a guarantor of misery.

It takes both. Some of us will need to maintain more continuity with the past, and keep more traditions, while others will need to venture more into the new cultures that continually emerge. But all of us must conserve that which we most value and believe in. All of us must adapt to some of the unavoidable novelty that seems so foreign to the world in which we spent most of our lives.
Myself, I hold to the matchless personal and social value of traditional marriage with its associated lifetime vows. In a world that increasingly distances itself from the natural, favoring rather the man-made modifications and replacements of nature, I am a determined conservative of the natural, the wild, and that which is essentially untouched, left in its apparently chaotic biodiversity. The blue bib overalls and western-style hats that are part of my rural Oklahoma heritage and that I still wear much of the time help give continuity to who I am.

On the other hand, I am on good terms with Gmail, blogging, Twitter, cell phones, and solar panels. I relate easily and comfortably with the generation of body piercings, tattoos, iPods, and MTV. They speak a different language, dress differently, and represent a culture completely foreign to what feels natural to me. But I made the choice back when I was forty-five that I would gradually become a naturalized citizen of this new nation, the nation of the younger, because, as is commonly said, I know that we are more alike than we are different.

It has not been easy to live feeling the strong pull from both poles. I have often lost my balance, often allowed myself to be pulled down, often failed to live the tension. Often I think I could relax and feel more comfortable if I allowed myself to completely polarize, but that would be to choose to lose so much that is vital.

Chapter 7/8

Activity and Rest

A fundamental dialectic is the bipolar movement between activity and rest: day and night, six work days and a sabbath, break time during the work day, the growing seasons and winter, two hours of driving on the road followed by a rest stop, (federal law allows truckers thirteen hours on the road and mandates at least ten hours off duty before driving again, although many studies show this to be an inadequate rest period). If we stay only at one pole, we eventually burn out; if we stay too long at the other pole, we accomplish little or nothing. We need both rest and activity.

So it is with thinking. Think too long and your mind gives out. On the other hand, don’t quit too soon. I remember when our university bestowed an honorary doctorate on a wealthy south Texas farmer/business man. In his acceptance speech he said he often was asked the secret of his success. He told us it was just three words: “A little more.”

Thinking is work. In the early stages of becoming a considerate thinker, it can be hard work. The mind balks and says, “Leave me alone.” When this occurs, see if you can give it just “a little more.” Try to think of just one more “other hand” possibility, one more aspect of the antithesis, or another facet of either thesis or antithesis. Just one more try, then give it a rest.

The oak tree and the grape vine need winter’s dormant period so they can digest, stabilize, and incorporate the gains of the growing season. They need winter also for rest, restoration, and recovery. The birds of the air, the beasts of the field, the reader and writer–people like you and me–all need daily sleep. Some of us get by on a little less, others of us seem to require a bit more, but we slight our sleep only at great risk.

When the mind tires of cerebration, it calls us to move, for a while, toward the other pole: mindlessness. Myself, I check CNN online for a news update, get a snack from the kitchen, play a card game with my wife, go outside and enjoy the wide diversity of my native plant yarden, or watch my little flock of bantam chickens. It might be a good time to go shopping, visiting, or to bed and sleep. Do just about anything, but give thinking a rest.

I spoke of thinking as hard work, particularly as we begin deliberately to think according to the dictates of the dialectic. The “a little more” stretches the mind, even as a little more stretches our physical muscles. Just as we grow stronger lifting weights, gradually increasing the weight, so our minds grow stronger as we gradually demand more of them.

Think, think a little more, retreat, rest, allow time and space for re-creation. Cognitive ability will grow. Some of us will require more, some less mental rest and restoration. Give yourself whatever time is required to enable you to come back with readiness and enthusiasm. The time will come when thinking is no more tiring than walking or talking. The dialectic calls for some kind of rhythmic movement between activity and rest. Think about it.

Chapter 7/7

We polarize for two or three reasons. When we take a polar position on anything, it gives us a sense of security. Polar positions are absolute. They leave us with no questions. A correlative of this is that we polarize because at the polar position we do not have to think. And, as always, it is easier to follow our comfortable crowd. Security, with no need to do the work of thinking, and plenty of company.

But the power of a magnet lies in neither its positive nor its negative pole. Rather the power resides in the tension between them. Were we to decide against negatives and make it all positive, or vice versa, we would be left with a piece of mere metal.

We are called on, regularly, to pick a pole: conservative or liberal, pro-life or pro-choice, freedom or determinism, capitalism or communism, socialism or individualism. “Which are you,” we are asked? Every time we adopt a polar position, something is destroyed, something vital. Reality, life, and truth exist in those polar tensions.

If we insist on the supremacy of individual rights and reject the claims of society, our thinking is invalid. If we claim that individual rights must be subordinated to the needs of society, our thinking is invalid. Neither pole, taken alone, is ever right. Only with the support of a healthy society can an individual attain her full potential; only when composed of a diverse body of well-developed individuals can a society maintain its health. The bipolarities of life are true, they are right but only in relation to each other, only as the tension is acknowledged.

Nor should we look for truth in a middle-of-the-road balance. Reality, life, and truth exist along an unceasingly shifting, fine line somewhere between the poles. Think of the tightrope walker with her balancing pole. It is rarely held perfectly horizontal. Sometimes it is tipped a little to the left or right, and sometimes it is tipped rather deeply one direction or the other, whatever is needed for the walker to maintain her balance. At times we see the pole tilted rapidly back and forth, from one side to the other.

Chapter 7/6

Living the Tension

At times truth may lie so close to one pole that it seems to be polarized. The difference is that, no matter how close to one pole, it still feels the pull of the other. Once polarized, however, we feel no tension at all–and thus, are out of touch with the real world, the world of tensions. Today, talking with you, I may sound like a flaming liberal, just like the dogmatic liberal. The difference between me and the liberal is that I am still aware of the conservative pole and the values and challenges it holds. Thus, next week, talking with her, I may sound just like a hidebound conservative. Again, however, I have not allowed myself to choose a pole, I am still in the tension, the living, moving tension. Truth, reality, and life exist along a fine line that continually moves between the poles.

Too many of us are uncomfortable with tension, change, and the relativity of living this spectrum. In our desire for stability, we want to be solidly anchored like a great oak tree. We are called, rather, to the stability of the eagle soaring high in the air, apparently with no support. The eagle, however, riding the wind currents and thermal air columns, is as secure as the oak. But it is a living security, not a fixed and static one. Life has to be engaged moment by moment. We can never lock into safety.

So learn, when confronted by an either/or situation, to stop and consider the possibility that a bipolarity is involved, in which case we should not accept the either/or that we are presented with. If the occasion is bipolar, we recognize that it is both/and, and must make a judgment about where across the spectrum we should take our stand. Make it habit always, in the face of either/or, to consider and be prepared to deal with the bipolar.

chapter 7/5

Other of the most general bipolarities of life are:
Community Character
Tension Release
Solitude Company
Work Sabbath
Worship Service
Being Doing
Doubt Belief
Decision Habit
Environment Genetics
Is Ought
Situation Rules
Act Wait
Yin Yang
Universal Singular
Serious Lighthearted
Individual Community
Personal Social

Again, truth exists in the tension between the poles. Note that it does not rest in the center between them, in fact it does not rest at all. Truth–and life and reality–move all along the spectrum between. Today, in this situation, relative to this moment, it may lie in the center, but later in the day, when the situation has changed, it may be closer to one pole and further from the other, still feeling the tension from both directions.

Think like an Octopus

Reminder that the book this blog, Think like an Octopus: the Key to Becoming a Good Thinker, is now available from Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Chapter 7/4

Notice that the Bible doesn’t merely state that God is sovereign. It also emphasizes human freedom. But it doesn’t just emphasize human choice and responsibility, it also claims God’s control. We want to affirm that both are true, independently of the other--objectively true. But we live in a world where everything exists in relation to other things. Nothing exists independently of anything else. Thus, truth always exists in some relational context. Bipolar kinds of truths are true only in relation to each other. I reiterate, neither is true by itself.

Our common response to bipolarities is to either accept the copout notion that they are a paradox, or else we polarize. We agree they are contradictory, that the truth of one implies the falsity of the other and vice versa, so we feel compelled to defend one and attack the other. This is the root of many of our problems: we cannot accept the tensions inherent in bipolarity. If we affirm the truth of one and reject the other, the tension is eliminated. But we fail to consider the necessity of tension in the real world.

Everything exists and is held together in tensions of all sorts. If all tension--muscular, cellular, and other--were eliminated from our bodies, they would collapse into a protoplasmic heap. Tension is a necessary part of reality. Only inappropriate tension is a problem.

Retired HPU Professor Visits Campus for Book Signing

Retired HPU Professor Visits Campus for Book Signing

Chapter 7/3

Both or Neither?

So much for an attempt at definition. What am I talking about? The simplest approach to understanding bipolarity is to picture the horseshoe-shaped magnet. We know that each pole of the magnet is charged, one positive, the other negative. Neither of the poles is the more important, neither the more necessary. If both poles were to be made positive, the magnetism would be lost. So if both were negative. The opposite poles set up a magnetic tension between. The magnetism is dependant on the tension rooted in this opposition of the poles.

Many of the most basic features of our world exist in bipolar tension with each other. Take, for instance, the classic tension between of the sovereignty of God and human freedom. These seem to be complete opposites, incompatible with each other. In its strongest statement, if God is the sovereign ruler of the universe, then everything that happens is as he directly ordains. Everything is done precisely as God desires, with no option for variation. Humans are left with no freedom of choice. On the other hand, if humans are genuinely free, they may contradict God’s desires and may do so on a regular basis, in which case, God is not sovereign in the strongest sense. Similar bipolarities characterize many of the basic realities of life and our understandings of it.

Quite commonly, these contradictions are accepted as paradoxical. The reference to paradox is intended to make contradictories acceptable while leaving them inexplicable. We need to note that the idea of contradiction, in the strict logical sense, means that one element--pole--must be true and the other must be false. When two things contradict, they cannot both be true. In a paradox we have that which seems to be contradictory, yet in which both elements seem to be true.

An understanding of bipolarity enables us to make sense of this and present a reasoned resolution to these difficulties. In contrast to many understandings of bipolarity, the concept I present affirms, not that, while they are contradictory, both poles seem to be true. Rather, I affirm that in a bipolarity, neither pole is true--not by itself. Just as a magnet’s positive or negative pole is magnetically useless if it exists by itself, so in bipolarity either pole is untrue, if taken alone. Both poles are true, but only in tension with the other pole.

Chapter 7/2

Definition

I use DIALECTIC in a broader, and more inclusive sense than many others, but I use bipolarity in a narrower, more particular sense. In this chapter I give it specific definition: It is a relationship between two seemingly incompatible opposites, a relationship in which neither pole is true by itself. It is not, as many say, a relationship of opposites in which both poles are paradoxically true. The poles are true only in the DIALECTICal tension between them. Truth always lies somewhere between the poles, never at the pole. Sometimes it is almost indistinguishable from a polar position, but still unpolarized, still in tension with the other pole.

chapter 7/1

Magnetic Thinking

We seek stability. All our lives we seek the security, comfort, and peace of stability. We don’t like uncertainty. We want things to be settled, to be definite, to stay in place. The DIALECTIC, however, is dynamic and is the only appropriate response to a dynamic world of uncertainty. There is a special class of relationships in particular where we tend to claim certainty: things that we see as opposites, things where we either stand on one side or on the other, where there is a distinct right and wrong, true and false, black and white with no space between, no gray areas. We must choose one pole or the other. I call this a bipolar tension, a special form of the DIALECTIC: the DIALECT of bipolarity.

Chapter 6/5

The DIALECTIC of Good Health

When it comes to our health, the DIALECTIC dictates that we consider more than going on a diet. Nutrition is a necessary, but not sufficient element of good health. Other considerations are essential, among them are: exercise, sleep and rest, sanitation, work, regular checkups, and attitude. We also must avoid certain abusive habits: drugs, including alcohol and tobacco; overeating and eating junk foods; becoming a couch potato; promiscuous sex; unsafe driving practices–we all know most of the rest of the unhealthy habits to be avoided. The maintenance and restoration of good health is many-handed; each item listed above has other hands of its own, and some of those hands have still other hands. Think Like an octopus.

The Book Is Available

The book that I've been serializing on this post is now available at Amazon and at Barnes & Noble. Any reviews would be appreciated. I hope you find the book useful.

I will continue serializing until the end of the book is reached.

Chapter 6/4

Side Effects

The DIALECTIC of medications tells us that we must always consider side-effects, or as it might be called, “the law of unintended or unforeseen consequences.” This law states that often there are unexpected but logical consequences to our decisions and actions. We can almost say that we should always expect the unexpected, never be surprised by surprises.

All medications have side-effects. Some of these are positive, some are negative (usually when we speak of side-effects we are thinking of the negative). Some depend on other factors whether they work good or ill. Aspirin, for instance, is taken for relief of minor aches and pains. It also thins the blood, in some people, dangerously so. However, it is commonly prescribed, not for aches and pains, but specifically to thin the blood as a precaution against stroke.

Cancer is a particularly tricky illness to deal with. Radiation and chemotherapy (treatment with “poison”) have saved or prolonged many lives, but there is no guarantee. Side effects are almost guaranteed (although I have had two friends who took chemo with no apparent side-effects at all). With cancer treatment, the side-effects can be so serious that some prefer to take their risks or accept death rather than endure the misery of the side-effects of radiation or chemo. This is so with many medications. On one hand they are, or may be, salutary, but on the other hand they may have unintended consequences that cause some of us to forego the medicine, preferring to live with our problems, however severe they may be.

Chapter 6/3

How Doctors Think

Doctors think just like the rest of us. Some of us are better thinkers than others. Most of us, as adults, think within the parameters of our training. Once we are well trained, we tend to fall into habitual patterns of thought. The farmer sows his wheat in September, the teacher continues to think that grades above ninety are to be graded, “A,” the merchant begins in September, if not earlier, thinking about Christmas sales. And the physician tends to use tests and follow procedures that have worked well in the past.

After I began writing this chapter, Dr. Jerome Groopman published a book, How Doctors Think. I revised this section and it is now greatly indebted to Groopman’s book. He addresses two fundamental issues: poor thinking on the part of many doctors, and the pathway to good medical thinking. Although he does not mention the word, the book’s thesis echoes the DIALECTIC. Doctors, he says, need to recognize the fact that it is always possible they could be wrong in their initial diagnosis, to realize there is always more to be considered and to thus ask what else it could be, even, what the worst might be.

Groopman introduces his book with the story of a woman who over a fifteen-year period had seen almost thirty doctors, had been examined and tested from seemingly all angles, and had grown steadily worse. A consensus had formed that her problems comprised an eating disorder, irritable bowel syndrome, and some sort of mental illness. As she went from one doctor to another, her records followed her, thus the previous diagnoses followed her. Each new diagnosis was some variation of what the doctors read on the records they received. This is a typical pattern in human thinking. If everyone else thinks a certain idea is true, we are apt to think the same way. It is easier than thinking for ourselves.

Grudgingly, Groopman says, the lady went to one more specialist, a doctor who recognized the symptoms for the earlier diagnoses, recognized that the correct measures had been taken to treat these problems, but felt something more was involved. Do you remember that at the foundation of the DIALECTIC is the idea that “no human statement (medical or otherwise) is ever complete by itself; there is always something more?” So, one more unpleasant test was run and it was discovered that she had a condition which, at the time, was relatively unknown: gluten allergy. It explained everything, and with proper treatment, she improved rapidly.


One of the most satisfying comments ever made to me by a student was when Oma came in after class one day and commented: “I notice something different about you from other teachers. No matter what question anyone asks you, you always begin thinking about it from scratch. Unlike other teachers, you don’t seem to reach into your mental cabinet and pull out the well-prepared answer.” Often doctors make the mistake of giving a standard diagnosis when faced with what seems to be a set of standard symptoms. If flu is “going around,” and you come in with the same symptoms, you are apt to be treated for flu with no thought given to it. Like all the rest of us, Groopman says, doctors tend to go with the quick and easy answers. They have other patients waiting.

There are several reasons for this tendency among physicians. They are human. In medical school–just as in our schooling--they are not trained in thinking skills. Rather, they are trained in scientific method. They locate the medical field in the domain of science and understand themselves as scientists. They are also trained to recognize certain patterns of symptoms, tests, and treatment. But the problem is that we don’t all fit these same patterns.

Another problem that mitigates against good thinking is the patient load that limits the doctor’s time to think things through. Good thinking takes time, and doctors simply don’t have time; they seem never to have enough time for all aspects of their work. This problem explodes, Groopman notes, in the emergency room with its crises, patient overload, bed shortage, and impatient patients in the waiting room.

If the situation is to improve, we must take the initiative and ask questions such as: “Doctor, what is the worst this might be,” “what else might it be,” and “why did you say that?”. We must tell our story and the doctor must listen. It is our responsibility to help our doctors think. The DIALECTIC must work if we are to get good medical attention. If your doctor won’t enter in dialogue, change doctors. Your health is at stake.

Chapter 6/2

Forty-some years ago I had a troubling medical problem myself, so I went to one of the most respected doctors in Fort Worth. After examination, he said, “As soon as you can take off work for two weeks, you need surgery.” The problem was that, at the time, I was dealing with the scholarly demands of doctoral studies, working a forty-hour job, and was married, with three teenagers. There was no way I would ever be able to take off two weeks without serious consequences at home, work, and school.

A friend suggested I see the school physician. He was an old elderly gentleman who devoted one day a week, pro bono, to the school. The rest of the time he was a member of the faculty at Baylor Medical in Dallas. After he examined me, he scoffed at the other doctor’s opinion and told me there was no need of surgery at all. He had a few suggestions for self-help and dismissed me. The first doctor’s call for surgery could be seen as the thesis–the starting point–and the school doctor’s opinion as the antithesis. My problem was real. It was aggravating. I wanted help, but I could see no way to take two weeks off. I felt the tension between the two opinions.

I could not trust expert medical opinion to make the decision. The experts disagreed. Which was right? Or was there, perhaps a third option? Two doctors and I were involved in this dilemma. Ultimately I was in the driver’s seat; I was the controlling agent in this DIALECTIC. The road signs pointed in opposite directions. I decided to trust the old physician and at least postpone the idea of the operating table. I learned to live with the problem and now, more than forty years later, although I still sometimes wonder about surgery, I am glad I went for a second opinion.

Chapter 6/1

The Medical Dialectic

In the summer of 2009, our daughter had four major surgeries to correct almost unbearable physical problems. It was a medically dialectical summer. The medical dialectic comprise three things: doctor/patient relationship; the doctor’s thought pattern, particularly in diagnosis and choice of treatment; and the nature of medications.

Doctors Are Not Gods

The Dialectic dictates that we live by dialogue with each other. In a medical situation, this means that: we should be prepared to tell the doctor clearly and concisely what we understand our problem to be; the doctor should be a good listener; and she should be prepared to engage her patient in question and answer dialogue. Too often we give our physician an incomplete and somewhat vague account of our symptoms and their history. If our problem is at all serious, we might be wise to take written notes with us lest we forget something important.

In Neil Ravin’s novel, M.D., he tells of a woman who after months of being treated for asthma, told her doctor that she only wheezed when she was in his waiting room, a room furnished with wool-upholstered chairs. And she was allergic to wool. When asked why she had never before mentioned this, she responded that he had never asked. Needless to say, her physician cancelled all her medicines and suggested she stay away from his waiting room. Who was at fault in this situation? Was it the doctor, or the patient? He had not asked, she had not told. No Dialectic at work.

We need to give our doctors the clearest and fullest information we can, and we need doctors who will listen and be willing to deal with our questions. Otherwise, the Dialectic will not work. If we find ourselves with a doctor who has a god complex, one who dictates without listening, a doctor who makes us uncomfortable, nervous, or angry, we should find another physician. If, for some reason, we question the doctor’s decisions, the Dialectic strongly suggests we get a second opinion before proceeding. The doctor-patient relationship is one of the most important elements in our ongoing health.

Earlier, I said that our daughter Cynthia had a medically dialectical summer. She dismissed her family physician and a prominent specialist because of, among other things, unsatisfactory doctor-patient relationships. Moreover, Googling led her to seriously question the procedure the specialist had scheduled. She searched for another specialist from whom she could get second opinion. When she did find the one specialist in the state who was qualified to deal with her specific condition, she found that, even there, she had to separate herself from one of his arrogant nurses.
Cynthia took the initiative for her life and health and did extensive research on her problem. On the World Wide Web, she found that the procedure recommended by the first specialist was dangerous and had many enduring side effects. But, she he was able to track down, via the Internet, the Houston specialist who, by way of three surgeries, ended her problems and restored her to a normal life.

Chapter 5/8 Correction

In Chapter 5/8 I noted that my wife and I had been married 58 years. I don't know where I got that figure. We have been married 55 years this past January.

Chapter 5/8

Compromise

Compromise, for all its dangers, risks, and the warnings against it, makes human society possible. Marriage, the home, economics, and politics—whether local, state, national, or international— all live by compromise. It is the glue that holds social structures in place. It is not optional. It is a necessity, a daily necessity. Few things are as risky as compromise, but few are as essential.

One day, my wife and I were filling in and signing some legal forms. One question asked how long we had been married. The answer was fifty-eight years. The notary public who was assisting said, “Wow. That’s impressive. You don’t hear that much anymore. What is your secret?”
“Compromise,” I answered. “Daily compromise. A marriage cannot last, in fact, I don’t think it can exist, without compromise.” Those who study the causes of divorce commonly list—and link—a lack of communication, compromise, and commitment. Marriage is a daily OTOH, BOTOH. It is a complex of countless theses and antitheses, with a constant commitment to finding some degree of synthesis or compromise.

Yes, there are situations where we cannot compromise. When dealing with a state of affairs where the other entity is committed to upholding a single principle, we cannot compromise unless we are willing to subjugate everything else to their one principle. Abraham Lincoln said he was afraid of a “man of principle.” He found them very dangerous. He noted that although we could work with men of principles, with the man of a single principle, we waste our time offering any concessions. They would be taken as signs of weakness, and would change the other side not in the least.

Compromise is the law of life together. It is so necessary and so potentially dangerous, we need to be always prepared to make some concessions, except in those cases where compromise would be disastrous. There is one basic criterion for making a decision in these cases: our values. We need to know what we value, that is, what would we be willing to give up in order to hold on to the things we value. For Patrick Henry, liberty was the highest value. He would not compromise with anything that might cost him his freedom: “Give me liberty or give me death.” We should always be ready to consider making concessions unless we find ourselves in the place where we are unwilling to give at all, where we are prepared to say, “You can kill me, but on this point I will not change. I am prepared to die on this hill.”

Book Almost Complete

Today I received the galley proofs for this book on considerate thinking, Think like an Octopus: the Key to Becoming a Good Thinker. I should finish this last chance at editing in another day or two. Then it will go to press and be released for sale soon. I will let you know on this blog when the release date is announced.

Tell your friends.

Chapter 5/7

Philosopher Alfred Whitehead called it “the fallacy of misplaced concreteness.” He was talking about the difference between our ideas and the world of concrete reality.

Concrete reality is the world as it is apart from our understanding of it, our idea of it. It is the world as it actually is—actual individuals, communities, love affairs, wars, businesses, grass, automobiles, clouds, and trombones. It is actual, specific instances of events and things, not our idea of family, of children dying of starvation, or of hurricanes. It is your family, this child named Ndondo that is dying, Hurricane “Katrina.”

The mistake—the fallacy, as Whitehead called it—is mistaking our ideas for actualities. Ideas exist only in our minds. Ideas are mental actualities. They do exist, but only in the world of our thought. The idea of marriage has no concrete reality, there are only actual marriages. The fallacy of misplaced concreteness is to believe we will find our actual marriage to be just like our idea of it. It is to misplace the concrete with the mental.


Barry and Rachel fell in love with each other, so it seemed to them, but more likely than not, they have fallen in love with their idea of each other. “Love is blind” to many concrete realities that the rest of us see. They, however, have composed an idea-lized image of their beloved, based on their dreams and their experience. In the illusory world of courtship, they see in each other only the idea-l.

Then they marry. The honeymoon ends when they find their marriage partner fails to conform to the idea. Marriage—this actual marriage of Rachel and Barry—is, at many points, not like they supposed it would be. Marital problems, at heart, arise from a refusal to accept and adjust to the concrete character of life together.

“You are not the man I married. You have changed.” These words are common in the early years of marriage. But no, neither the husband nor the wife has changed. What has happened is that they have become dis-illusioned. Quite often, our ideas of each other, and of the nature of marriage, are illusions. Yet we allow ourselves to believe the reality will match the illusion. We have made the mistake of misplacing the concrete with a dreamy idea.

Ideas are necessary guides, suggestive of life’s road, of its speed limit, its potholes, curves … but the ideas are not the road any more than a map is the territory it symbolizes.

No matter how good we become as thinkers, we must always remember the distinction between what we think and what actually is, was, or will come to be. This applies to the teacher’s idea of what she will do in the classroom today, the painter’s idea of the picture she is about to paint, our idea of what a church or minister is, or how the boss will respond to any one of our requests.

On the one hand, think, but on the other, remember there are always more “other hands” than we can wrap our minds around. Expect the unexpected.


Consider other perspectives. For some of us, that means we first must realize there are perspectives other than our own. Bill Hendricks, a theologian, was one of the finest men I have known, one of the most brilliant and learned—some believed he even thought in Latin. Some would also say he was rather arrogant. Everyone looked up to him. No one challenged him.

One fall, there came on the faculty a scroungy-looking little Dutchman, also a theologian, named Jan Kiwiet. He was, as someone who knew him said, “a Dutchman in whom there is no guile.” A modest man, he was a published scholar. At a faculty get-together before school started in the fall, Hendricks was pontificating about some doctrinal issue when, to the shock of everyone, Kiwiet, our new man, innocently, but without hesitation, said, “Bill, that’s just what you think. Other theologians, they think different.” Yes, Doctor Hendricks, there are perspectives other than your own, many of which are worthy of consideration.

I have written about considerate thinking and its part in the making of my long, rich, and satisfying marriage. Carol and I entered marriage after thinking, romantically, that we had talked through everything that could be considered. We had done this for more than four years before marriage. We thought we agreed on everything. But, we brought two widely divergent family perspectives to the actual marriage. I was not a considerate thinker at the time of our wedding.

It took years of obstinate and persistent challenges before I, rather than coming down to her level, realized that in reality I was not up to her level. She had a hard time convincing me, against my heritage, that she was a person as much as I was, with the same rights, with a mind of her own. And a sharp mind it was, sometimes coupled with a sharp tongue. I was a slow and highly resistant learner. She was not about to leave me, nor was she about to leave me with my obsolete mindset. I loved her and she persisted. She prevailed. And I became a better man.

She changed my views on sex, money, raising children, television, in-laws, and who knows what all else. I moderated her views on money, religion, housekeeping, and perhaps another thing or two. For long years now, we have thought through almost everything together and arrived at comfortable, practical consensus. Our minds complement each other. We have found that neither of us thinks clearly nor productively unless we depend on mutual input, checks and balances.

Chapter 5/6

Let’s look at a particular case. Lisa has lived all her life in Grass Valley, California, a small town in the heart of the Gold Rush country. Her father is a carpenter, her mother a clerk in Lew Howard’s Drugstore. Lisa is the youngest of eight children. Her eldest sister has children Lisa’s age. She is the only one in the family to have attended college. She is the most devoutly religious. She is twenty years old.

Tim had lived in eight towns all over Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, before going to college. He got his entire high school education from Andy Dekaney High School in Houston, where his father was a petroleum engineer and his mother was a traditional, stay-at-home mom. He has two younger brothers that he has little in common with, except they share the same parents. The family is Presbyterian. Tim lived with Sharly for two years before she left him for another guy. He dated very little for the next year, then began seeing Lisa. He is twenty-five. They met at Oklahoma State University where both were enrolled: she as a sophomore music major, he as a second-year senior marketing major. They have been engaged for a little over a year.

How many different thesis-antithesis-synthesis triads could you make of this? I hope they have spent a good bit of their time together this past year thinking about it, talking about it. For instance, take only one small tension they must deal with. She has two brothers and five sisters, all older and with less education. If she is the thesis, they have been the antitheses, and she now brings to marriage whatever synthesis has been made of that. He is the eldest of three brothers. He has never paid them much attention, while, unbeknownst to him, they have looked on him as their hero. He the thesis, they the antitheses, and he brings to marriage whatever family synthesis this has led to.

The Hegelian dialectic says that all reality exists in this triadic relationship; all history develops dialectically, and, therefore, if we are to be in touch with reality, we must think dialectically—thesis, its antitheses, and the multifarious syntheses possible. Life is complex.

The easiest way to simplify it is to embed “but on the other hand” in our minds. Then be alert and attentive to how much lead time we have before decision must be reached.

Donna was a cut above everyone else in my high school graduating class. We were always a bit in awe of her. She was the smartest and most sophisticated, wealthy and good-looking. Art was the playboy of our class, highly sophisticated, wealthy, handsome, and suave. They married within a year after graduation.
I knew the lady who was their housekeeper. She knew what their marriage was like. And she told me. Donna was often out of the public eye for months at a time, recovering from beatings, waiting for bruises to disappear, and afraid to talk with anyone. She had learned that Art was a heavy-drinking, very abusive man. She took it for three years before putting a bullet through her head.

How did this come about? She was the smartest in our class. Always prepared, always knew the answers, intensely involved, she was loved by all our teachers. Where were her smarts when she said yes to Art Hall? Always thoroughly prepared for classes, why did she not know what she was getting into in this marriage?
My best guess is that, perhaps like most of us, once she “fell in love,” her mind took a vacation. Ordinarily, we give little thought to what marriage involves and what marriage to this particular person entails. We are sure that love will work it all out. Not many take the route of killing either themselves or their spouse, but we are well aware of the numbers who find themselves in miserable and failed marriages.


Herbert and Margaret were the classic high school marriage: a big football hero and the smartest girl in the class. She was committed “until death do us part,” so she stayed with him through all his shady and crooked business dealings. She stayed while he spent a year in prison. Never a happy marriage, but she stayed with him.
When they were in their middle-sixties, they bought an elegant new home. The next year, they celebrated their golden wedding anniversary. Less than a year later, he moved out and rented an apartment across town. Margaret learned of it when she came home from work to an empty house.

Then came the divorce.
(Not long afterward, to the surprise of all of us, she went on a date to Las Vegas with an old man she had just met, and soon they were married.)


After dating Bobby Lee for her first three years of college, Charlene took a philosophy course where I taught the main ideas that I’m presenting in this book. By the middle of November, she had reconsidered a lot of things about marriage, herself, and Bobby Lee. They had been engaged for six months when she came and told me that the course had taught her how to think, and that it led her to realize marriage to Bobby Lee would be a horrible mistake. I didn’t probe, and she didn’t tell me the particulars.

She had put the academic idea of the Dialectic to work, and thought better of the status of her love life. When you learn how to think, and, rather than following others, think for yourself, your life will begin changing, sometimes dramatically.

(Seven years ago, she married a medical student. They now have a handful with three boys, and a new medical practice; the marriage looks good, and they seem happy.)

Don’t get serious about dating anyone without stopping for a dialectical checkup. Don’t even think about marrying, until you have given it a dialectical test. Sex, as prominent, important, and fun as it is, cannot be the main consideration. Trust and reliability should be the foremost considerations. Run as soon as you discover a hot temper—it won’t change, it will only get worse. Finances and in-laws are ignored at great cost. Think like an octopus. There are, always, many other hands to consider.

Chapter 5/5

Marriage

Her family had lived on the border of poverty all her nineteen years. Frequently, they crossed that border. One day, frustrated from being told again there was no money for a movie, she said, “When I get married, I’m going to marry a rich man.”

Her father’s immediate response, “You’d better marry someone you love.”

“Well, it’s as easy to love a rich man as to love a poor man.”

We marry because we believe there is something to be gained: wealth, prestige, acceptance, stability, power, or whatever else we feel is lacking in our life. We believe marriage can fill that need. Most of us, however, unthinkingly hope to marry the handsome fellow or the beautiful girl with an attractive figure.

My wife once said she married me for my beautiful hair, my beautiful eyes, and my intelligent mind. My hair has long since been gone, and we were married less than four years before she had to see my eyes through the lenses of glasses. I hope I don’t lose my mind. We had our first date sixty years ago, and I would hate to lose her after all this time.

Ideally, we marry for that vague thing called love. Often this indefinable experience, falling in love, overrides all other intentions, hopes, and dreams.

Where does thought come into the picture? Is choosing a marital partner to be given deliberate consideration, or would that remove the romance and reduce the relationship to careful calculation? The philosopher Immanuel Kant, one of the handful of greatest thinkers in history, was once in love, but he realized there were many considerations to be reflected upon. Choosing the idea of marriage as the thesis of his deliberations, he realized the enormity of antitheses, the tensions they raised, and the possible syntheses they might lead to.

On one hand, we should use all the time we have available to think things through before making serious decisions. On the other hand, there are occasions when our time is limited. Sometimes we must decide now or never. Sometimes it is dangerous to wait. Kant did not realize that a prospective bride might grow impatient. Before he had time to consider all that is—or might be—involved in marriage, he learned that she had given up and married someone else. He never married.

Anyone contemplating marriage in the twenty-first century should give some thought to the odds against successful marriage, at least in the United States. When marriage is on your mind, divorce is the most obvious antithesis. Any clear-thinking person must realize the enormous tensions that can develop between the idea of marriage and the potential for divorce, or between the fact of marriage and the possibility of divorce. Being “in love,” while it might be an essential element of a good marriage, provides little assurance of enduring marital stability. Something to think about.
I’ve said that the Hegelian dialectic can be understood simply as the movement from thesis and antithesis to synthesis. I also said that we would need to look beyond this simple pattern into the complexities Hegel had in mind. According to Hegel, we could take our stance anywhere, thus, even an antithesis could be taken as a thesis of its own. The synthesis always becomes a new thesis. Whatever our original thesis, we will find that it is the antithesis to other theses. Each thesis has multiple antitheses and each thesis/antithesis may lead to any number of potential syntheses.

How might this work out when marriage is being considered? Marriage is going to be the synthesis of a male and a female. Ordinarily, however, little thought is given to the obvious: he will think like a man, she like a woman. And men and women are different. This tension will increase across time, being reconciled only as a succession of syntheses are reached.

Chapter 5/4

Getting married made me a better thinker. I am a man and men need to hear from women if they are to complete their thoughts, and if they are to clarify what they think. That is one reason I married. That way I always have a woman handy to serve as my antithesis, my complement—the yin to my yang.

Without dialogue I cannot become a whole person. If in the home we don’t share our inner lives, we remain family, but are familiar with each other only in a limited sense. Without the exchange of ideas, plans, hopes, and fears, we never live in community on this earth. Our pain, our emptiness, and our horrors are, in large measure, rooted in our lack of dialogue. It is a historical commonplace that the declaration of war is immediately preceded by the announcement that “talks have broken off.” They usually have broken down because the negotiation between diplomats is, too often, an exchange of reciprocal monologues. Each tries to convince the other side, but neither seeks to hear and understand the other’s heritage, position, predicament, or philosophy.

However, we are stuck with each other. Our radical individualism and egoism cannot eliminate all the others—people, nature, and God—linked with our life. The twentieth-century French thinker Jean-Paul Sartre argued that “hell is other people,” but he also tells us there is NO EXIT from this world of others. We are inescapably social, made for relationship, and directly linked with the natural order. If we fail to take others into account, we risk denying our humanity and destroying hope for a human and global future. Because everything is ultimately connected and interrelated in one great ecosystem, we must acknowledge otherness, listen and respond to it, and work toward a more satisfying harmony of all its parts, including the part that is our self. Apart from dialogue, we are doomed.
On the other hand, we have available a method of thinking and living that can clear the way to a more promising, satisfying, and humane future. That method is the Dialectic.

Chapter 5/3

Daddy died in 1997. The night before the funeral—at which I was to be the speaker—I stood beside his open casket looking into that face I had known for sixty-three years and cried in lonely anger for the years of opportunity lost to both of us. So few were the hours we ever listened to each other. Precious as those times were, they never began to fill the void that I felt in my relationship to a man who, for nearly forty years, was one of the most loved and respected humans ever known in Blackwell, Oklahoma and Gainesville, Texas. He was a truly great man and, in my confusion and anger, I still was able to speak appreciatively of him to the hundreds who came to the funeral. But I miss him, and not just now; I always did.

Was he afraid? Was he afraid of what he might hear if he listened? Was he afraid that if he revealed much of himself I would lose some degree of respect? There were a few times late at night, after I was an adult, when he hinted at a self-image that he dared not acknowledge. He told me, once, that he wore the stern face and used the no-nonsense voice to ward off any attempt to penetrate his defenses.

Isn’t that the all-too-common human story, at least in the United States? We are afraid to let conversation move much deeper than a recitation of socially accepted pattern of speech. There is a certain reciprocity, but not much, in our exchanges about how we feel, what we think of the weather, the economy, our favorite TV show, or our favorite ball team. I suspect that sports and gossip bring us closest to anything that resembles true dialogue. Beyond that we guard ourselves, and continue to inhabit a silent loneliness.

Mother was different. She was a patient listener—usually. I could talk with Mother about anything—and at length—and did so for over three-quarters of a century. In her presence I could express myself knowing that I was not likely to be squelched. I could dream dreams that had no possibility of being realized in the real world. So I felt much closer to Mother than to Daddy. On the other hand, Mother mostly listened. She never said much, told me little of what she thought about my words, and gave little advice and few instructions. Except on one or two subjects—bird-watching was one—she rarely revealed many of her own thoughts, feelings, or dreams (I’ve often wondered what they were). She listened to my monologues, knowing that listening, all by itself, is good for the human soul and some of the best therapy possible.

So I was raised in a home that knew little dialogue. It was a family with three brothers, who each went his own way, only occasionally acknowledging the existence of the others. I doubt that we were an unusual American family. And other societies would doubtless recognize this experience.

I don’t know how well this describes the homes in which Mother and Daddy themselves grew up, but I have heard enough from cousins and other family members to believe my parents’ homes were much like mine, and that the pattern could be traced back for at least a generation or two. And I fear that my own daughters might see this as a description of their father and their own experience. (My wife was a different kind of mother to our children. She and our daughters dialogued; they connected, not always in the best way, but they got involved in trying to know and be known. This remains true, and continues with our grandchildren. Because of her, we are a close-knit family. Her family was much the same, and I’m sure other such families exist.)

Somehow we don’t take time for each other; we don’t listen to those nearest to us. We are family, that is, we are familiar with each other, but don’t know each other. And, thus, we don’t know ourselves. Without the opportunity to learn what others feel and think, we don’t understand clearly our own inner life. Without sharing our thoughts and feelings with someone else, our own self-perception remains out of focus. We can know ourselves only in dialogue with others.

Chapter 5/2

Daddy listened to his church members--actually to everyone in the community--better than he did to his three sons. Many of you might say the same thing about your fathers. Fathers often engage in more genuine dialogue on the job than they do at home. One reason is that, like my father, there are many dads who spend precious little of their time at home, and when they do get home, they are already talked out and tired. Maybe that is the reason. I don’t know. I do know that Daddy rarely seemed to hear me, and that there was so much I wanted to say. But, before I really got started trying to make some sort of connection, Daddy would stop me with clear dogmatic instructions guaranteed to get my life moving on the right track--before he even knew what I was attempting to say. He was good at discouraging dialogue.

For the first thirty years of my life I felt that he never really heard much I was trying to say. Across the next thirty-three we had a few times when we heard each other and responded to what we heard. Sometimes we argued late into the night, long after others had gone to bed, closing their doors to shut out some of our fierce and loud efforts to understand and to reconcile. And there were times--rare times--of confession. Daddy actually listened as I confessed fears, weaknesses, disappointment, and anger. To my amazement, on two or three occasions, Daddy confessed the same to me. On those occasions I was thrilled that he treated me as a real person, as a confidant, as someone he loved and trusted.

Chapter 5/1

The DIALECTIC at Home

Home is where life gets itself together (or pulls itself apart). Home is our first school. Rebel against it as we may, the DIALECTIC of home life cannot be shaken. It shapes our thought, habit and action more than we are aware of. We are much more like our parents than we suppose. On the other hand, to the degree that we rebel against parental example, it is that example that is calling the shots, telling us what we do not want to become. As with most of us, I was a parent, perhaps even a grandparent, before my DIALECTICal relationship with home came into focus.


Are You Listening?

Deep into his sermon, he would lean over the pulpit and ask, "Dear hearts tonight, are you listening?" That was a long time ago but I can still hear him addressing his congregation with that old-timey phrase of endearment. Daddy used the rhetoric of a bygone era, but everyone in the church knew that they were dear to him, and, we knew he wanted us to pay attention because his sermons were punctuated repeatedly with, "Are you listening?” After all, what is the point of preaching if nobody is listening?

And what about us? What can we accomplish in our conversations if no one is listening? If we are going to live with each other, we will have to listen, hear, and acknowledge each other. If I don't listen, or at least look, I may not realize it when you are hurting and that you are about to go under unless someone comes to your rescue. If I don't listen, I may not realize how much you care, or even that you care, about me or about whatever might be the issue at hand at any given time. If we don't listen to each other, we each merely speak our own respective and reciprocal monologues. Except when presented by professional entertainers, most monologues quickly become boring. We need dialogue. We need to hear each other.

Daddy's, "Dear hearts tonight," (he didn't often use this term with the Sunday morning crowd) "are you listening," was not a strictly rhetorical question; he actually wanted to see it in their eyes, their posture, and even in the expression of their faces; he wanted to know that they were engaged with him.

Yet the sermons–as most sermons--were monologues. He would not have appreciated it if someone had spoken out with an answer; his question was more a device to maintain or recover attention. On the other hand, I might be wrong, as I have been so many times about Daddy. It is too late now for me to ask him, but although he didn't expect spoken response he might have actually welcomed it; he might have welcomed the opportunity to engage in true dialogue about the Christian gospel. The more I think about it, the more I suspect that he might have welcomed it. But neither he nor the congregation of six or eight hundred people expected it because that is not part of the accepted pattern of public worship. I wonder what might happen if immediate spoken feedback became an expected part in the sermon?

On the other hand, if the preacher is to expect his congregation to listen, he had better have been listening to them during the week. If he doesn't know their problems, hopes, fears, dreams, doubts, excitements, moral dilemmas, existential crises, laughter and tears, his sermon may miss the people completely. They may continue to come, thinking it is somehow important that they be in church Sunday morning, but it will not be long before they stop listening with any sense of expectation and hope. Preaching will be boring--an accurate description of altogether too many Sunday mornings. Again, what about all the rest of us and all the talking we do? If you don't listen to me, why should I listen to you.

Chapter 4/11

Conversational DIALECTIC

Although some would distinguish conversation from the DIALECTIC, in the broad sense, conversation is an aspect of the DIALECTIC. The Socratic dialogues, although conversational in appearance, are more focused than an ordinary conversation. Whereas it is normal for a conversation to make many shifts of subject matter and operate on varying levels of intensity, the Socratic dialogue sticks to the subject, pursues an objective, and excludes discussion of trivia. In this sense, the DIALECTIC and conversation can be distinguished. Nonetheless there is value in recognizing the DIALECTICal character of free conversation.

In a conversation, varying points of view emerge, and are sometimes challenged by someone of another persuasion. Even the common free associational shifts of topic make the important contribution of bringing up topics and perspectives that have not before been considered by some of the participants. The DIALECTIC is involved wherever differing positions are recognized and dealt with.

Chapter 4/10

On one hand, the pattern is more complex that I have described, but on the other hand, it can be understood more simply: Hegel started with Being vs. Nonbeing and synthesized these with Becoming. We might look at black, white, and gray (or colors); male, female, and the reproduction of the species; truth, falsehood, and the fuzzy, ambiguous mix and mess that is the reality in which we live.

We must remember that the antithesis is not always the opposite of the thesis. For instance, if paper is the thesis, what would we understand as its opposite? Canvas, pencil, fire? Depending on the context, many things might be understood as the antithesis of paper, although not necessarily its opposite?

The synthesis may be only a slight modification of the original thesis, it may be the midpoint between thesis and antithesis, or anywhere between. It might even be much closer to the original antithesis than to the original thesis. Nonetheless, because the synthesis is a more satisfactory position than either of the earlier options, it becomes the new thesis.
The process is ongoing. Man marries woman, they have a child. The child grows up, marries, has a child, and the process moves along. One nation wars with another until some resolution is accomplished, then after a period of calm, the resolution is challenged. This, Hegel believed, is the pattern of all reality.

The root reason for this is that all is related, everything is connected, and we cannot escape all the others–personal and impersonal--in our relational world. We are not absolute; we cannot isolate ourselves. We are linked inextricably with each other, with the entire ecosystem.

Chapter 4/9

Remember Heraclitus and the unity of opposites (thesis and antithesis)? Remember he said that conflict is the source of everything? Now look at your triangle, at the bottom corners, your thesis and antithesis, and give your attention to the line between them. This line carries their differences, puts them into active conflict, puts our mind into tension. Thought is the business of recognizing both ends of the line–thesis and antithesis–and seeking the best way to resolve the tension between.

The answer may come quickly or it may take hours, months, or years. Meanwhile the thesis and antithesis (antitheses) are in dialogue with each other in a growing DIALECTICal tension. Feeling the tension, you go to a specialist for a second opinion. The new physician sees no need for surgery. Now the tension increases between two medical opinions. What should you do? You trust your family doctor, but the specialist is the best in the state. Weeks pass, weeks of indecision and anxiety. Subconscious tension builds. You lose sleep, become irritable, eat all the time, and your condition worsens.

You decide to go ahead with surgery, but meanwhile you have begun googling for help. Repeatedly you find reference to a new medicine for your problem. You ask your doctor about it. He tells you that surgery and the new medication together would work the best.

After surgery you are given a prescription for the new drug, and within a few months everything has cleared up and you feel like your old self again. You are now at the peak of the Hegelian triangle/triad. You have reached a synthesis of the thesis and antithesis.

Thesis, antithesis, and synthesis–the recurrent pattern of the DIALECTIC according to Georg Hegel. The synthesis does not come about as a gradual progression from a foundational beginning. Rather, it is through the opposition between a thesis with which you take your stand and an antithesis that stands in challenging opposition to it. It is a struggle, tension, uncertainty that rules until a synthesis finally emerges. Rather than a smooth and gradual movement up the side angles, it is more as if the synthesis pops directly up, jumps out of the tension between surgery and the options.

It is a rule of the Hegelian DIALECTIC that every thesis has an antithesis. Moreover, every synthesis comes to be seen as a more satisfying place to take our stand. Thus, it becomes our new thesis. It doesn’t take long to realize that there are new antitheses, and the process starts all over again.

In this book I will not limit the DIALECTIC to the Hegelian version of it, but his systematic logic is very useful. We will refer to it often.

Chapter 4/8

“The Dialectic Is Logical, Ontological, and Historical.”

Before we leave the philosophers and go back to the world the rest of us live in, we need to look at one more of them, Georg W. F. Hegel. (With Hegel, we must slow our reading down and study carefully, think about what he has to say.) Hegel believed that the DIALECTIC is what everything is all about. Specifically, he said, “The dialectic is logical, ontological, and historical”; it is how our minds work, what is fundamentally and ultimately real, and how all history moves. Everything is DIALECTICal (thus, the DIALECTIC is the only way to understand anything).

Not only did Hegel believe that all reality is DIALECTICal, he also systematized it, reduced it to a logical order, an order that always involved three processive elements.

I suggest you now find a blank sheet of paper and draw a triangle–one line across the base with two lines converging to a point at the top. Hegel thought in such triangular patterns, or as he called them, triads. Think of the bottom left corner as the starting point of your thinking, action, or understanding, the place you hold to, where you take your stand, what you believe or plan or hope for.

This position, Hegel called, your thesis. It might be anything from your income to your job or hobby. It could be spiritualism, surgery, snack food, the school board, or anything else that might be the starting point–the thesis–for your thought.

Now look to the bottom right corner of the triangle. Hegel called this the anti-thesis. By this he meant anything that stands apart from your basic thesis. It could be its enemy, its opposite, or merely something left out or ignored by the thesis. It is something to be considered over and against your thesis.

Suppose, for instance, your thesis is an illness for which the doctor has recommended surgery. The surgery is scheduled and seems to be the best course of action. On the other hand, you are uneasy about going under the knife, and there are medicines that sometimes take care of the problem without resort to surgery. This medicine would be an antithesis to surgery. (Ordinarily, there are many antitheses although only one or two may be significant.)

Again, acupuncture might be a promising option, another antithesis to consider. You may imagine other possible antitheses to surgery, including foregoing the operation and taking your chances without medical treatment.

Chapter 4/7

Socrates would then ask them to explain what they meant by some key word or phrase, particularly when they used the heavy words: justice, love, courage, good, excellence, integrity, or beauty. When they had explained how they were using words or sentences, he then suggested that if this is what they meant, then something else, something they could not accept, would have to be true. By continual questioning, he showed their definitions to be inadequate, incomplete, or even self-contradictory.

Let’s suppose one of us commented on the beauty of a rich red rose on a bush and the other asked what she had meant by beauty. Further suppose the answer was, “Just look at the rich red color, have you ever seen anything more beautiful?”

“Oh, so you mean that the beauty of the rose lies in its redness.”
“Yes, that’s what makes it beautiful.”
“So, if we see a pure yellow rose, we cannot say it is beautiful, because it is not red.”
“No, that’s not what I mean. A yellow rose can be beautiful, as can a pink or a white one.”
“Ah, so do you mean that beauty lies in pure, rich color?”
“Yes, that is exactly what I mean.”
“Look across the street at the young lady on the sidewalk. Don’t you think she is beautiful?”
“She is very beautiful. That is Jessica Taylor, everyone knows how beautiful she is.”
“Does her beauty reside in the color of her skin, or of her hair, her eyes, or her clothing?”
“No, there is more to beauty than color.”
“So, what is this ‘more’ you speak of?”

In such manner Socrates led others to rethink their ideas. His goal was to expose ignorance so that the search for truth could begin. All of this was done through guided, persistent, and purposive conversation. The resolution of the issue at hand always depended on the interaction between the two conversants. Socrates never told others his own ideas, but rather led them to think through their own. Teachers, lawyers, parents, and others have picked up this “Socratic method” and continue to use it to this day. This is Socrates’ use of the DIALECTIC.

Chapter 4/6

Everything Can Be Questioned


We don’t know much about Heraclitus himself. In the ancient world he was called “Heraclitus the Obscure.” We don’t know what drove his thinking. With Socrates, however, we can have a good idea of what he was about. He wanted people to think about and think through whatever they had to say, particularly if they were dealing with life issues. He found that most people he talked with did not understand what they were talking about. Their mental laziness amazed him.

The word got out in Athens that the Delphic Oracle had declared Socrates to be the wisest man in the entire city. Socrates knew that could not be true because there was so much he did not understand. Thus he began a search to find those who were wiser, those who were not as ignorant as Socrates knew himself to be. He went to the most respected, the most successful, the most powerful citizens and questioned them about their knowledge and understanding. Repeatedly he found that they knew and understood even less than he did. He realized that much of the time they did not know what they were talking about.

So, after seeking out all those who might be wiser, he decided that the oracle was right. He, after all, was the wisest, in the sense that he was at least aware of his ignorance; at least he did not pretend to understand things. The Socratic wisdom and the Socratic ignorance were synonymous. He came to believe that “the god” (he was a Greek monotheist) had called him to help his fellow citizens become good people by becoming good thinkers.

The Socratic DIALECTIC takes the form of intense, purposive conversation. Socrates never allows the dialogue to degenerate into a mere bull-session or a bantering of the conventional wisdom. He kept the conversation directed toward clarification of the problem at hand. His method was to ask if his fellow conversants meant what they said. Usually, just like us, they claimed that indeed, they meant what they said, they knew what they were talking about.

Chapter 4/5

The Unity of Opposites

Heraclitus stressed the unity of opposites. He believed that contradiction is the source of everything. Only as both sides struggle with and against each other is development possible. Thus, opposites effect a unity. They become parts of a new order that has resulted from their conflict. In traditional logic, contradictories cannot both be true, but in actuality the tension between them is the driving force of life, expanding and enriching even as they are constantly changing: male and female, night and day, work and play, nature and technology, emotion and reason,. . . .

Heraclitus is most famously known as the ancient who claimed we can’t step twice into the same river. The river flows constantly. The river we step into the second time is not precisely the same as it was when we took that first step. The current changes continually. The chemical makeup of the water varies slightly each time we dip into it. Everything about it is in flux. In fact, that is a core idea of Heraclitus: everything is in flux, everything flows, nothing remains the same. The only thing permanent is change.

Moreover, when we step into the river the second time, we are no longer the same person who took that first step. We now have experienced the river as we had not before our first step. We, like the river, are constantly in flux. When I was a boy setting trotlines in the Chikaskia river in northern Oklahoma, it seemed to me that it was always the same river, the Chikaskia. Much in life does seem to be constant. Much appears unchanging, but Heraclitus is the apostle of change. Everything changes constantly, even if infinitesimally.

Thus, we must always take into account that things might differ from what experience tells us. We must learn to look for what the eye of habit, the mind of habit, neither sees nor thinks. Heraclitus bids us, like the highway sign at the railroad tracks, to Stop, Look, and Listen. We must look both directions–and also up and down–before proceeding with life. We must make DIALECTICal thinking our new eye and mind of habit.

Chapter 4/4

Among the Philosophers

I first discovered the DIALECTIC deep within the pages of a book on General Philosophy, by Elton Trueblood. Trueblood gives it only a half-dozen pages, but for me, it resonated immediately. My way of thinking, understanding, analyzing–and my way of living–was transformed and has never been the same. The DIALECTIC became a major part of who I am.

But none of the ideas in this book (well, almost none) are original with me. The DIALECTIC is not something new. It has been around at least since the DIALECTICal relationship of Adam and Eva, whoever they were. It is ancient. I am merely attempting to present, in a way that is simple, clear, fairly complete, and useful, what others before me have practiced and taught.

Historically, three major philosophers--Heraclitus, Socrates, and Hegel--developed the DIALECTIC, each somewhat differently.

Chapter 4/3

More of the Story

As noted earlier, Mortimer Adler has said that the Greek words, men and de, are the greatest contribution the Greeks made to civilization. Quite a claim. A DIALECTICal claim. These words are commonly translated, “on the one hand,” “but on the other hand.” In a Greek text, the little particle, men, may show up in an unexpected place. It is not always necessary that it be translated at all, but it always indicates that a particular aspect of something is being presented. When, somewhere later in the text, de, shows up, it indicates that we are looking from a different perspective.

Whatever is being presented, the good thinker’s characteristic response is, “But on the other hand.” The DIALECTIC warns us to never forget there are other perspectives; it reminds us to remain constantly aware of the other side.

Paul Harvey’s The Rest of the Story is an instance of the DIALECTIC. “ For more than sixty years on the radio he told us stories, true stories, but saved a surprising twist to end with. When he had told this last information, he ended saying, “And now you know . . . the rest of the story.” On one hand was the story; on the other hand we learned the rest of the story.

There is always more to be said. In a sense, the scholar’s footnotes are the same sort of thing. There are many kinds of footnotes. Sometimes they tell us the source of the noted material, sometimes they refer us to other pages or other books that will tell us more about what has been noted in the text, and at other times they add explanation, definition, or asides.

The DIALECTIC is the language of relationship. It keeps us from forgetting others and our relationship to them. It strikes out against monism, individualism, isolationism, absolutism, and all self-centeredness. The DIALECTICal ear is always listening, the DIALECTICal eye is constantly searching, the DIALECTICal voice is always considerate of the listener. Whether we think of family or workplace relationships, love or any other of life’s relationships, they are bound to disappoint, disintegrate, diminish, or fail without the DIALECTIC.

DIALECTICal thought is always in process, never complete. “What have I left out, what have I not considered?” These questions become routine. “What if my presuppositions are wrong?” Part of the processive character of the DIALECTIC is that it is always developing, alternately expanding, then focusing. It grows and is enriched, it sharpens and clarifies.

Chapter 4/2

Dialectic

The DIALECTIC is rooted in the idea of dialogue. The core idea is that other perspectives, positions, and possibilities must always be taken into account. The DIALECTIC seems to be rooted in a principle that can be expressed in three differing ways.

• No human statement is ever complete by itself.

By the word statement we should understand this is not necessarily a single sentence. Sometimes a paragraph makes a single statement. A speech may do that, as may a book, a law, or a television program. Whether a statement is simple or elaborate, it remains true that no human statement is ever complete by itself, and therefore, is never the whole truth.

• There is always more that can be said.

Always there is something else no matter what we are talking about. Some aspects have been left out. The world, and our life in it, is too complex to be reduced to a single statement.

• It is always possible that we might be wrong.

In whatever we think or say, we could, on occasion, be wrong. To believe otherwise is to claim that we are infallible, that we are never mistaken. But humans are not infallible. We do make mistakes, and often.

So the DIALECTIC grows out of the realization that there is always another side, another perspective that must be taken into consideration if we are to approach the full truth. To think DIALECTICally is to always consider the possibility of our own error and then to examine our thought to see where the flaw might be. We can never take it for granted that what we think, is the truth, and certainly not that it is the whole truth. (At one point I considered using “Considerate Thinking” as the title of this book. Consideration is what it is all about.)

Several months after an automobile accident with a driver in a stolen car, the accident that totaled our Buick, the police finally found the offender and a date was set for his trial. I was called to court as a witness. Judge Ellis’s docket was full, so I sat through two afternoons of trials by the judge before they got to our case. As I listened, I began to realize that being sworn in was going to present me with a problem. As a philosopher, I realized that I could not tell the truth about the accident because it all happened so fast and so much was involved that I had the truth only as I remembered it. Moreover, I was not in position to know the whole truth. And again, I knew that it was always possible that I, as a human being, could be wrong. How could I swear “to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” (whether with God’s help or not)?

In a court of law, we may “swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” but the truth is we cannot do what we swear to do. We can never know the whole, and often, unintentionally, some of what we say may be in error. The DIALECTIC automatically searches for other ways of looking at the same thing. In its most active form, the DIALECTICal thinker seeks out those who hold different views and asks for their response to his own ideas, with the expectation that these voices from another side will lead to some modification of his own thought.

One task of a courtroom is the effort to determine, as best is possible, what the truth is. It should not be assumed that any one witness could establish the irrefutable truth. Fortunately, I never had to face the issue because the case was settled out of court. I was saved from confrontation with the traditional oath.

Chapter 4/1

The Dialectic

Exactly what is the DIALECTIC? It can be most easily understood by contrast, the contrast between dialogue and monologue. A monologue is an extended uninterrupted speech by a character in a drama, often a one-person monologue spoken to an audience. In a monologue only one person speaks. No response from others is allowed. You are probably familiar with the dramatic monologue as a form of popular entertainment featuring someone like Bill Cosby, Jerry Seinfeld, David Letterman, or Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof.

In contrast, a dialogue includes at least two speakers responding to each other. What each says is influenced by what the other has said. They may have meant to say one thing but had to change because what the other person has said requires a response other than what they had intended.

However, just because two people are in a conversation with each other doesn’t necessarily mean they are having a dialogue. Often our interchanges are merely reciprocal monologues. We each are attempting a fundamentally uninterrupted and extended speech. We have something we want to get said. When someone else interrupts us, we pay little attention to what they have to say. We are just waiting for a break in their monologue so we can resume our own monologue. Although more than one speaker is involved, there is no interactive dialogue taking place.

A Responsibility to Think

We Have a Responsibility to Think

Thinking is not what life is all about, but it is a vital part of it. Thinking shapes our decisions, and our decisions shape our actions. Thought seeks truth in order to make decisions as a basis for action, as an aspect of living and understanding the meaning of our lives. Whatever else might be involved, thought includes, at least: analysis, synthesis, comparison, contrast, implication, evaluation, imagination, arrangement, and review. Our study will enhance all these.

Better thinking leads to better living. Just as certainly as every normal person can walk and talk, so everyone can think--and, you can, without question, learn to be a much better thinker.

Not only is it in our own best interest to become better thinkers, we have a moral obligation to think more clearly in order to make better moral decisions. Many of the bad things that happen in the lives of both individuals and society are because, as a blundering friend of mine says from time to time, “I just didn’t think about that.” We have a moral and social, as well as prudential obligation to think about that.

A dominant reason for the prevalence of divorce is that there are many important things people just don’t think about before marriage. I am sure that Garth Brooks’ song, “Unanswered Prayers,” resonated for a lot of people. The song tells of a fellow who, in high school wanted a particular girl so much that he prayed God would let him have her. But he didn’t get her. Years later, with his wife, he saw her at a football game, and, seeing the changes in both her and in him, wound up extremely grateful that God had not answered his prayer.

(God was good to me; I got the one I prayed for, and have been grateful for almost sixty years).
Whether we think about marriage and family or other social issues, one of the major ways to develop a better society filled with good people is to learn and determine to think more clearly, completely, and creatively. I hope you share that conviction and dream.

Chapter 3/3

Good thinking at its best, includes considerations of three different but interconnected sorts. First we must consider perspectives other than our own: we must think DIALECTICally. Further, we must consider the implications of our ideas: we must think logically. Finally, we must consider our own mind, heart, and aim in life: we must think purposively. In keeping with these three essential Good thinking at its best, includes considerations of three different but, the book comprises three parts.

Part One lays out the basics of the DIALECTIC and explores its fundamental nature, which is consideration of others and other ways of thinking and living. It expands DIALECTICal thought and shows how it is involved in all aspects of our daily lives and what it can contribute to those lives. It also introduces the concept of bipolar understanding. When we become aware of the bipolarity that pervades our world, many of our disturbing dilemmas and contradictions evaporate. Our lives adjust to a more rhythmic and harmonic resolution of common tensions.

Part Two offers a user-friendly survey of the most useful elements of logical thinking. Much of part two we already know as commonsense, but it will help to bring that commonsense into sharper focus. It describes the fundamental nature of logic: a method of assuring consistency in what we say, how we think, and ultimately, how we live. It distinguishes, in clear and simple language, the difference between deductive and inductive logic.

Part Three addresses the content and purpose of our thinking. As I said earlier, the DIALECTIC is the key to good thinking; it is the heart of the book. Logic sharpens the abilities of the DIALECTICal thinker. It makes you more than a good thinker; you become a better thinker. But neither of these tells you what to think nor even why you think, any more than a pencil or a word processor tells you what to write or for what purpose. Neither the DIALECTIC nor logic has any content. They can be used effectively by both the scoundrel and the saint--as well as the rest of us.

If we are to become the best thinker possible, we have to consider who we are and what we are about in life. Part Three helps us clarify what we believe to be the truth about life, what we are personally convinced of: our basic convictions. In part three we will become more aware of our personal values--not only what we believe to be true, but what we believe to be important and worth giving ourselves to. It challenges us to determine and decide what we want out of life, and more importantly, what we want to become. Finally, it shows that all our thinking, DIALECTICal and logical, is rooted in and aimed toward the things emphasized in Part Three. In the end, it pulls the entire book together, correlating the elements that go into making us the best thinker we can possibly become.

Chapter 3/2

It Is Not too Late

As I said, I was almost forty-years-old. You are not too old; it is not too late. You can learn to think. And again, it is easy.

I have heard that if you can walk you can dance, if you can talk you can sing, and if you can write you can draw. To my amazement I learned, in middle-age, that all this is true. I am not a good dancer, but I can dance; only a fair singer, but I sing; and I’ve learned to draw quite well. I had never thought I could. I have also learned that if you think at all, you can become a good thinker–probably not an Einstein, but a respected thinker nonetheless.

What You Will Gain from this Book

Skill in developing, correcting, and expanding your own ideas and insights.
Skill at critiquing what you hear and read from others.
Skill in functioning as an effective team or committee member.
You will become a more convincing and respected speaker and writer.
You will begin to persuade your critics to seriously consider your position.
You will become more logical in all you think and do.
You will easily spot the illogical and inconsistent in all you hear and read.
You will learn to see more clearly where others are coming from.
You will easily distinguish mere probabilities from inescapable necessities.
Your use of language will become increasingly clearer.
You will come to think before you speak.
You will come to know yourself better.
You will come to see more clearly where your thought is coming from.
You will come to see more clearly where your own thinking is headed.
You will learn much about the DIALECTIC of life itself.
You will develop a greater appreciation of other people.
You will become a wiser and more considerate person.
Your life will become richer, more productive, and more wonder-filled.

YOU WILL BECOME:

A person whose ideas must be reckoned with.
A person of greater integrity.
A person who is rarely blind-sided.
A better conversationalist
A better learner.
More honest, modest, and moderate.
More confident
More respected and more respectful.
More patient and appreciative.
More open to change
More courteous, considerate, and sympathetic.
More patient and less arrogant.
More aware, and less apt to go off half-cocked.

We think in order to clarify, comprehend, and create--ultimately in order to decide, to appreciate, and thus, to act and become. If we don’t think, we live muddled, uncomprehending lives, stuck in the habitual and overwhelmed by a complicated world. We make wrong decisions, appreciate little, do things we regret and that harm us, and never become persons of character and wisdom.

Chapter 3/1

General George Patton’s Advice

General George Patton said: “Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.”

That depends on the people and the task. I am certain that General Patton always made sure before taking his troops into battle that they had been taught “how” to aim and fire their weapons, how to disassemble and clean them, and how to operate and maintain their tanks and other vehicles. He wanted, as a minimum, that his men had been through basic training in military “hows.”
Patton did not take raw recruits straight from the streets, schools, factories, and farms, put them on the battlefield, and then order them to defeat the enemy. He did not win his great victories simply by telling his soldiers what to do and leaving it up to their ingenuity to figure out how to do it.

We often follow Patton’s advice. We tell people to “Think about it,” or “Think it over,” and we ask, “Why didn’t you think?” But we cannot assume that, left to their own ingenuity, people will know how to think. They may not. But they can learn. After you have read this book, you will know how to think.

Needed: a Method

We don’t require much instruction before we can use a computer effectively, but we do need to be taught how to perform a few simple procedures. We don’t need much instruction before we can drive an automobile, but we do need some instruction and practice before we can safely drive a car. We do not need much instruction before becoming able to think better than most people. Although some of us might be good thinkers by nature, most of us require, and all of us can benefit from some special instruction and practice.

After reading and practicing the next chapter, you will have completed basic training as a thinker. That will be enough to satisfy some of you. That may be all of this book you read. Learning how to read easy music and play the piano was enough for me. That was all that I had serious interest in learning. No advanced musical training for me, no long hours of practice. Just occasional playing, usually with one finger on the right hand, for my own ears is good enough for my own entertainment.
If, however, you want to become good as a thinker, you will find benefit in every chapter. You may find yourself living on higher ground than you would ever have imagined possible. What makes me suggest that?

I assume you are not like dim-witted Harry Robarts in Patrick White’s novel, Voss. Harry was “glad to offer his services to someone who might think for him.” On the contrary, you are already a thinker of some sort or you would not have picked up this book. If you are already a good thinker, you will rapidly improve all your thought processes. Whatever your situation, you can do it.

No, this is not a gimmick, not a “limited time only” offer, not a trick of some kind. I am not a writer looking for an idea to sell; I am a teacher. I don’t deal in gimmicks and commercial ideas. For the past thirty years I have dealt with ideas and thought; I am a philosophy teacher. My students have dug into Plato and Aristotle, Kant, Kierkegaard, Comte, and Nietzsche. They have investigated epistemology, existentialism, ontology, and axiology (language you won’t find used in this book). The clue to good thinking isn’t a passing fad. It has been tested rigorously for centuries. Now I make it available to you, without big words and without any need on your part to know and understand philosophy.

My entire reputation--limited as it is to a small area of central Texas where I have chosen to quietly enjoy life-- has been built on my ability to teach people to think. When students leave my classes, they often say I am the first teacher in all their schooling who has made them think, and who has helped them learn how to think. When I speak in public, the most common responses are, “I’d never thought about that before,” “You make us think,” and, “You gave us something to think about.” The other common response is, “You make it so easy to understand,” and “You make it so simple.” That is what I can do for you. I have written this book because, after spending my whole career in the classroom at a remote little university, my students have insisted that I need to write so I can teach the process of good thinking to a larger classroom. One that includes you.

Before you have finished reading the next chapter, you will have the tool that will change and improve the way you think. You can put that tool to work immediately. If you read no further than that, you will be well on your way to developing a reputation as a good thinker. People will begin to recognize that your ideas are a force to be dealt with. Of course I hope you read the rest of the book. Reading it will help you understand what you are working with, and it will show you how to use the DIALECTIC in all areas of life.

I know you can do it because I have been teaching DIALECTICal thinking for more than thirty years and have seen all sorts of people become good thinkers. Many of them became better people in the process. Some didn’t. Their thought processes were improved, but their character was untouched. Jesus, in a story about a sower who lost three quarters of the seed he planted, seemed to tell his followers to expect only limited success. But he said that where there was appropriate response, success would be astounding. I hope for something like that for my readers.