I'm a Detroit Jew

 Jews ,have dominated the news.  This disquisition addresses what it is to be Jewish ,starting with a quote from Proverbs 22:6  "Train up a child in the way he should go, and even when he is old, he will not depart from it."  This proverb sets the stage, the ground floor, for being Jewish. I learned that over 6000 years ago, in Genesis, a covenant was established between  Jews and God. I  also learned about Adam and Eve, Abraham, Moses,  the Exodus ,the 10 Commandments, 12 tribes , Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Bris, Bar Mitzvah, Bat Mitzvah . Succos, Passover  yarmulke  and titses . These  few illustrations  are part of my story.

Jews  have flourished and inhabited different territories  of the earth.  Jewish traditions, beliefs, achievements and ambitions have been well documented along with other stories about persecutions, pograms, conversions and the holocaust .  Hebrew, Yiddish, Ashkenazic, and Sephardic translations are exhibits and describe differences in interpretations regarding  our customs, traditions and rituals.

Another difference related to being Jewih relates to prayer and observance  within Judaism.  For example, there are the Hasidic Jews.  They are the "most" religious in terms of their involvement with the Talmud, prayer,  and the imminence of God in the universe; with joy and happiness within prayer.  The Rebbe is the administrative head of the community and is the supreme figure of authority. There is  much more but that is beyond the scope of this essay.

A second religious movement, within Judaism, are the Conservative Jews ..  This movement employs historical critical research rather than traditional methods regarding matters of practice. This movement considers its approaches authentic and  the most appropriate continuation interpreted with flexibility  and allows greater pluralism in practice. This is the third-largest religionist grouping  worldwide and once again, depth is beyond  the scope .

A third religious movement Is Reform Judaism also known as liberal or progressive Judaism.  This denomination emphasizes the evolving nature of Judaism with the superiority of its ethical aspects ,with  ceremonial ones and  a belief in a continuous search for truth and knowledge. It is closely intertwined with human reason and not limited to the origins of Mount Sinai.  It is characterized by  personal observance regarding Jewish law and with  autonomous , openness to external influences and progressive values and again an in depth analysis is  beyond the scope of this essay..

Another category of Jews, can be described as being apart from these three movements and not believing in things that have a supernatural basis, religious rule, and / or some of the biblical tales as facts . This group may or may not engage in religious behaviors ,not being  active members of a religious community although there are significant degrees and variations within. In essence, however, Jews can be identified by their attitude towards family, their community, a respect for life, a caring for social action, public service , a commitment to the law, medicine,  a passion for science, the arts with utmost, respect for objectivity, truth and learning. Being Jewish has not interfered with becoming part ,in making contributions, sacrifices to the culture  and/ or society in which we reside. .One does not have to attend a synagogue to be Jewish.

A few Jews from the past and current  include: 1.Jesus 2 .Moses 3 .Karl Marx 4.  Leon Trotsky 5. Baruch, Spinoza,  6 Albert Einstein 7.  Anna Frank 8.  Marc Chagall  9.  Sigmund Freud 10.  J. Robert Oppenheimer 11. Henry Kissinger 12.Madeleine Albright 13.  Samuel Gompers 14.  Emma Lazarus 15 Norm Chomsky 16.  Levi Strauss  17, Jerry Seinfeld, 18 Steven Spielberg 19 Stanley Kubrick 20 Calvin Klein 21 Paul Newman 22 Elizabeth Taylor 23 Woody Allen 26, Mark Spitz, 27 Isaac Stern 28 Itzhak Perlman 29 Leonard Bernstein 30 Irving Berlin 31 George Gershwin  32 Kurt Lewin 33 Ralph Lauren 34 Bob Dylan 35, Barbra Streisand 36 Charlie Chaplin 37, Groucho Marx 38 Billy Joel 39 Alan Greenspan 40 Michael Bloomberg 41.Warren Hellman  42   Hyam Solomon  43. Dianne Feinstein 44 Philip Roth 45 Arthur Miller 46 Neil Simon 47 Carole King 48 Simon and Garfinkel 49 Dustin Hoffman 50 Harrison Ford ..61. Golda Meir 52 David Ben Gurion 53 Theodor Herzl 54 Chaim Weizmann 55. Alfred Adler  56 Albert Maslow ‘57 Erich Fromm 58 Louis  D. Brandeis 59 Ruth Bader Ginsburg 60. Kirk and Michael Douglas 61. Carl and Rob Reiner 62 Al Jolson 63. Jack Benny 64. George Burns 65. Dinah Shore 66. Milton Berle 67.Lenny Bruce 68. Sarah Silverman 69.Chelsea Handler 70. Jackson  Pollock 71 Mark Zuckerberg 72 Bert Bacharach 73 Tony and Jamie Lee Curtis 74 Eddie and Carrie Fisher  75 Jon Stewart 76 Billy Crystal.

77 Adam Sandler 78 Jackie Mason 79 Larry David 80  Sachse Baron: Cohen 81 Lenny Bruce 82 Mel Brooks 83 Peter Sellers:84 Jamie Raskin 85 Lily Tomlin 86 Steve Martin 87 Robin Williams 88 Lawrence Bacow  89 Christina Paxon 90 Martha Pollock 91 Amy Gutmann 92 Christopher Eisgruber 93 Peter Salovey 94 Linoy Ashram 95. Meyer Lansky 96. Barney Ross. 97. Mickey Cohen 98. Max Baer  99. Bugsy Siegel 100. Sue Bird .101 Dara Torres  102 Max Fisher 103 George Soros 104 Larry Ellison 105 Sergiey Brin 106 Larry Page 107, Steven Ballmer 108 Michael Dell 109, John Paulson, 109.  Bernie Sanders 110 Yitzhak Rabin 111 Shimon Peres 112 Menachem Begin 113 Ariel Sharon 114 Moishe Dayan 115 Benjamin  Netanyahu 116 Natalie Portman 115 Bar Refaeli 117 Gal Gadot.

Turning to sports, leads me to the Oakland-Las Vegas Raiders and Al Davis.  Davis hired the first black head coach and his son Mark has a black female president,   a black head coach and  a black general manager .  When asked why, he said, I hire the  best.  Al Davis was primarily responsible for the merger between the AFC and the NFC.  They're now called the NFL.  Sid Luckman, Benny Friedman, Ron Mix ,Crazylegs Hirsch,  Sid Gilman ,Marv Levy ,Jerry Levine, Steven M. Ross,  Steve Tisch ,Arthur Blank ,Julian Edelman ,Jay Frieder, Robert Kraft  are  a few football greats .

The co-owner of the Golden State Warriors. is Joe Lacob.  Prior to the NBA, there was the Basketball Association of America, the  forerunners.  The first game in 1946 was between the New York Knicks and the Toronto Huskies.  The first points scored in that game was by Oscar Benjamin Schetcman.  Later, Abe Saperstein, founder of the Harlem Globetrotters, introduced the three-pointer into the game of hoops.  A few notables from the basketball world include Red Auerbach, Nancy Lieberman ,Larry Brown, Nate Holman , Red Holzman and Amar’e Stoudemire.  Currently, Dan Gilbert ,Mark Cuban are owners and the current commissioner is Adam Silver.  Adam replaced my Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity brother David Stern.

As far as baseball is concerned, Sandy Koufax ,Hank Greenberg, Ken Holtzman, Gabe Kappler, Alex  Bregman and Bob Melvin are relevant.  Incidentally, Bob and Jim Harbaugh are buddies and Jim visited the A’s  during one spring training to learn more about conditioning .

Other significant figures but not limited include  Roman Polanski , Wolfgang Langhoff, Helen Berman, Irene Lieblich ,Bruno Bettelheim, Edith Balas, Hannah Arendt ,Otto Frank, Primo Levi, Daniel Kahneman, Leo Ettinger, Simon Wiesenthal, Bill Graham, Hedy Epstein, Anna Heilman, Margot Friedlander, Jack Mandelbaum, Paul Spiegel, Gershom Liebman, Max Friediger, Dov Freiberg , Viktor Frankl and  others that suffered from the Holocaust

 A reference to Jewish filmmaking giants include William Fox, Harry and Jack Warner, Carl Laemmle, Louis B.  Mayer, Adolph Zucker, Harry Cohn , Max Steiner, Billy Wilder, Hedy Lamarr  . Jews that have been awarded in all six of the Nobel Foundation's awards include: 1.  Chemistry has 36 or 19% of the total  2. Economics has 38 or 41% of total  3.  Literature  has 16 or 13% of total 4  Peace has 9 or 8% of total  5 Physics has 56 or 25% of the total 6 Physiology or medicine has 59, or 26% of total.  A few include  : Imre  Keresz, Rita Levi Montalcini, Arthur Kornberg, Arthur Ashkin  Niels Bohr , Roger Penrose ,Saul Bellow ,Louise Gluck, Paul Samuelson, Milton Friedman, Joseph Stiglitz, Daniel Kahneman, Paul Klugman, Ben Bernanke,  Claudia Goldin, Shimon Peres ,Joseph Rotblat. Boris  Pasternak initially accepted the award, but under intense pressure from the Soviet authorities declined it. Pulitzer Prize for fiction include but not limited to Edna Ferber.  Herman Wouk ,Bernard Malmud , Norman Mailer , Allison Lurie , Geraldine Brooks  and Joshua Cohen

Words that  immediately come to mind about being Jewish include smart, creative, artistic, achieving and resilient.   I am Jewish and spent the first 33 and three-quarter years of my life in Detroit. I was reared  on the eastside of Detroit and my parents made it clear about our family  being Jewish. I attended Wayne elementary school, Jackson junior high and Denby high school.  The Lieberman siblings didn't attend public school on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.  Even though  Denby had scheduled its first football  game of the season  on Yom Kippur in 1957,  I did not go to school but I played in the game.  Mitch , one of our captains, in the pregame at the center of the field, told my teammates, “Let's win this game for Frank and his Jewish holiday. “ Denby 41 and Southeastern   7. I had a bar mitzvah and attended individual  Hebrew lessons with Rabbi Fisher even though I had to take three buses one way for my instruction .  I graduated from Temple Beth El 's  religious Sunday school and taught Jewish history  and culture at Temple Israel and tutored as well.  I attended the University of Detroit and have degrees from Wayne State University and the University of Michigan.  I taught in the Detroit and Oak Park public school system and was a counselor in Bloomfield Hills.  I also taught at Oakland community college as an assistant professor and was a graduate instructor at Wayne State University..

I attended  both the Detroit Tigers , Detroit Lions games and was a fan  of the Detroit Red Wings and the Detroit Pistons .  Incidentally, I met Dave Dsbusschere, a Piston coach when we both attended and played for the University  of Detroit.  I married a Jewish girl, divorced and then headed out to California for the next 50 years . I am a Detroit Jew, which is my identity.  My Detroit experiences as an educator,  psychologist and athlete  also  comprise  my identity and established a grounding and  a basis for my experiences in California and true to the above quoted Proverb.

Despite  residing in California.  I maintained my relationship with my Detroit family, even  though mom eventually moved to Maryland to be close to brother Ron and his family.  I visited mom  and she reciprocated wherever she lived until she passed just prior to reaching the age of 93.  Linda and I went to numerous events with my first cousins, their children and children's children that included birthdays and multiple family reunions coordinated by cousin Shelly and sister Bev . Linda, cousins , Bev  and I also attended University of Michigan football games and tailgating  prior to Covid . Book signings with former teammate Ed Budde and  his friend Conrad Dobler  occurred along with numerous book signings with  Darden,  Keller, Brandstetter, Moeller, Seyferth, Betts from the second book . I attended Denby high school's 30th,.40th and 50th class reunions and have maintained friendship with high school buddy Wayne Fisk.  Further, Dave Halpin and I attended a classic University of Michigan and Ohio State game on one cold Saturday in November. 

PS

This Saturday is the big game.  Coaches have been fired when they have been on the losing end between the Wolverines and the Buckeyes.  The winner of this game goes on to play in the Big Ten championship the following week against Iowa and then play in the national college championship playoffs.  Go Blue !

Terrorists

 Reading the Old Testament, enemies between Hebrew  and Arabs began with the Exodus when the Hebrew slaves fled from the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses. Then, much later,  battles between Christian  infidels and Arabs occurred during the Holy  Crusades. After that, the Ottoman Empire ended when the Arabs' enemy , the infidels, the United States and  others defeated them . About 100 years ago , the Balfour Declaration divided up the Middle East territories between the  Shiites and Sunni , the main religious groups of the Arabs. Then, in 1948, Israel became a nation by defeating their enemy the Arabs.Currently, Arab terror groups , in their pursuit for power , with  necrophilia  declared Israel the  infidel enemy and called for them to be pushed into the sea. Subsequently, the United States and its interests also became the enemy. Therefore , the Jews, Christians and the United States are the infidels. Recently, violent acts of terror  groups ,  irrespective of religion  and politics are called PLO, Isis ,Hezbollah, Hamas etc. The names change, but their  goals of hate,murder,revenge ,values and objectives are  similar .

For a rebellion, the following is required.  A minority ,based on the dynamic of their ego needs , seeks power , prestige and status in order to control its followers.  The pursuit of power becomes associated  and requires the ability to exhibit force, murder and destruction by any means, irrespective of consequences.  This passion is emotionally based, and exhibits itself in  a nihilistic philosophy.  The humanistic  and moral teachings by religious prophets;  the rule of law; the democratic form of government becomes irrelevant and negated.  There is an absence of objectivity, reason and rational judgment.  Instead, there’s a preponderance of necrophilia  hatred , absence of reality with a distortion of cognitive  rationality. It’s not about reason but acting out a neurotic pathology.The power structure is not guilty of any crime because they  have established the rules and rationalized the “morality” of their crimes. In fact it’s permissible and better to engage in criminal acts . Furthermore, this handful of men degrade values and attempt to impose their values on all others.  They are not about liberation or  justice but exhibit contempt  with action without  healthy faith.   In order for them to be successful, it requires an enemy(revenge) and  non-human infidels to hate and kill. Their  “religion “ is essentially power, control and death. 

The loyal followers  often experience emotions.of despair, doom and gloom within their reality .  Feelings of despair , result with a preponderance of  humiliation and hatred of self and others.  They are on a path of self-destruction along with destruction of others , their enemies.  They do not trust  and  find scapegoats to blame  for their non fair , non productive life .  In order to compensate for the misery  or narcissistic injury and low self esteem,,they identify with others who also have a negative view of life ,  low levels of optimism  growth and  loving concern for others.Their identification figures are based on hate, criminality with a forced compliance ..

The "leader" gives  an explicit or implicit command or recommendation,and all the Lieut’s  obey . They propose directly or indirectly  the command  from the leader to the others, the soldiers , in  slave-like fashion .  These others obey the explicit or implicit command and they are unable to delegate  to anyone else.  In other words, the idea of  obedience or the fact that I followed orders is loyalty and obedience and becomes the code of honor.  Honor lies in obedience and becomes confused with rationality , the crimes that they are committing.  There is no international law present for these terrorists .  Slaves obey, and that  behavior exhibits his loyalty, which is more important than anything else.  It doesn't matter who becomes killed, murdered, beheaded  or abducted .They are the enemy,and I am following my orders like a dutiful soldier .

It's relatively simple for the “leader” to perpetuate hate, murder and revenge by words and/ or actions. Th”leader’, does not lead an attack but makes a plan to attack the infidel enemy even though the infidel enemy has a superior military.  Suicide Rambo type missions are planned against the infidels. In essence, as a result, the infidels experience death , humiliation and destruction. The infidels retaliate to avenge the wrong committed against them.  With their military superiority, they attack and severely damage the attacking group and population  inflicting much hardship, loss, death and destruction regardless of who's in the way.  The Arabs conveniently become  the victims , the martyr’s , the heroes and play their parts with  war crime propaganda perfectly.  These hateful necrophilia  leaders predict this process and expect a more severe retaliation which meets their goal of revenge , which is significant and justifies or rationalizes the plan to continue to further sacrifice their own . They are cognizant that the excessive killing of their own will only reinforce the hatred of the infidels and gain sympathy for their cause. In essence, they use non militants as  human shields in order to safeguard and to protect their crazies. This tactic has  been played throughout man’s history. .Victimization , scapegoating , avenge and blame are  familiar tools for generating hate. 

Perpetuating hate ,keeps the leaders empowered and makes them relevant.  The violent acts of terror  groups have to have an enemy or it ceases from being .All enemies must be eliminated . As long as there are  enemies , terror will be employed and there will be enemies as long as this dynamic exists.  All this occurs  under the  pretext ,with irrationality,  of doing this for the people and/ or the myth for the two state solution

The two state solution does not eliminate nor diminish the power of  hate and  death to Israel  for the terrorist group and the other crazies . With an uneducated population; low level skills; absence of natural resources; excessive poverty; victim mentality; non-technical  expertise; manual labor  oriented  with excessive hate and victimization,  what kind of, political, economic and  humanitarian opportunities realistically  exist ?  

Hitler's Nazis exterminated over 6 million Jews ; over 6 million Europeans that were deported or killed; 10 million war victims with discrimination, imprisonment and /or death for homosexuals, Russians, political enemies etc.  In the process, Hitler sacrificed his military according to Speer 's deposition , at the Nuremberg trials that  Hitler could have  earlier  ended the war.  Within this dynamic, Hitler sacrificed  his military and is credited with the notion that because Germany lost the war, its people deserved to die. What a hateful and irrational belief..  This insane, irrational being had no difficulty in destroying Germany.  His avenging  the World War I defeat was a rationalization and masked his underlying hate and  his severe mental sickness.   He sacrificed Germany and committed suicide to avoid humiliation and to be held accountable..He’s still a hero. for those that identify with hate , death and destruction. An irrational line from Shakespeare, "love all, trust a few, do wrong to none."

In summation, Homo sapiens have exhibited hate, murder, retribution,terrorism, irrationality ,absence of ethics , objectivity,  morality and inhumane treatment to their own kind.  And we, Homo sapiens, have higher brain functioning than  anything else on the planet . However we have  infantile or primitive emotional development , deteriorated super ego functioning,  ego  needs, and a behavioral irrationality  that becomes ,too often, compulsively repeated.

References

Camus, Albert.  The Rebel.

The New York Times .  October 29, 2023.  Hamas Sites Concealed by Hospital , Israel Says.

PS

An example of propaganda used by the crazies is that  Al Shifa "the hospital" is in harm's way and children are dying because of the Israeli military.  Everyone knows that the hospital is not run nor controlled by the doctors . This building houses the crazies ; it’s a command and control center and stores their weapons of murder  in the basement and in  310 miles of tunnels concealed underneath and adjacent to the building.  The definition of a hospital.  "An institution providing medical and surgical treatment and nursing care for sick or injured people."  Note, the definition does not include the operational functioning of a military establishment.  Therefore, calling that building a hospital is a misnomer, wrong and not appropriate.  Call a spade a spade. It's a militant operation that allows medical services.

Marin

 Last week after my morning elliptical workout, Linda and I headed for Marin .  Linda, on the way, called Tony and Deb . They were vacationing  in Yosemite  at the Wawona , Tony  ran fast and caught the flu. A couple of hours later, we had  lunch, fish tacos, at Salsa Mexican Grill.  On our walk back to the car, we stopped at a French Bakery and shared a freshly baked croissant.  Then, we headed for our mountain retreat.  We unpacked and later that Halloween evening ,traveled to Gravity  Tavern for dinner .  We shared a delightful and delicious codfish dinner.  The waiter wore a Lone Ranger type mask and we joked about trick-or-treating. 

The next morning we headed for that breathtaking ride to Stinson Beach.  We arrived and parked our Detroit classic car.  Leaving the car, we held hands and strolled toward the Pacific and watched the riders of the surf .  On the way back, we encountered a group sitting at a picnic table.  One gentleman remarked that we looked like a perfect picture, walking and holding hands after leaving our prestigious ride.  He said I looked like Phil Lesh.  We laughed and I told him I didn't need a new liver.  Phil just received one from an individual in Florida.  We bantered about music , livers , and Phil.  We enjoyed our chat and then headed for Sausalito.

We were meeting Beverlee Bentley  in Sausalito at the Spinnaker for lunch.  Beverlee can be found in Chapter  XV111 titled the Ultimate Caretaker in It Has Nothing To Do With Age.  The setting of the Spinnaker was in the Bay with a 360° view of San Francisco , Angel Island, Alcatraz, Bay Bridge, Tiburon, etc. etc. .  It took a long time for us to order, as we chatted about past and current happenings.  Dennis ,our waiter , gave us plenty of time and eventually we ordered.  Linda and I shared a mixed grill . We talked for hours . Beverlee, age 85, no longer collects medals  in  water races , but still competes with the rowing machine on land.  She’s originally from Toronto, Ontario and has been in the Bay Area since her early 20s.

Number years ago, Tony and I entered a run at Stinson Beach and stayed at Beverlee's home in Marin.  At that time, Beverlee and Bill were vacationing in Maui but didn't mind that we stayed with her son.  As it turned out, our Stinson Beach run was canceled.  Tony and I then headed out and did our own mountain run. 

 

After an extended and delightful visit with Beverlee, Linda and I headed toward McInnis Park Golf Club.  There, we hit golf balls and enjoyed watching the young kids hit off the tee and work their magic on the putting green.  After our practice, we headed back to our mountain retreat.  Later that evening we headed out for dinner at the Vin Antico Restaurant and Bar in San Rafael.  We shared a tasty beef and pasta dish in that quaint setting.  

After dinner we headed back and watched The Warriors and Kings basketball game.  It was a close game throughout with many lead changes.  The Warriors were down by one point with 7.1 seconds to go in the game.  Coach Kerr called a timeout.  The Warriors had the ball and Draymond passed the ball to Klay.  Klay went up for a shot and scored with .2 seconds remaining in the game.  Exciting  to say the least.

The next morning we headed back to Cool.  On the way, we shared a vegan burrito and a mocha.   Linda called my sister Bev and we talked about her recent visit with our brother Ron and family.  Apparently, he's slowing down but is working from home.  He is a physician and still involved in drug trials.  We also talked about visiting our cousin Shelly in LA next month  for another great and enjoyable getaway.  Already thinking about next month's trip.  According to Dylan, "There's a wall between you and what you want  and you got to leap it."

Irrationality

 One  Friday evening, Linda and I joined Dave, Paul and Tony for a late  dinner.  Joyce and Debbie were ill so they did not attend.  That evening, Tony brought up an article that he had previously sent me on Free Will.  I responded to that email by saying that I agreed with the scientist that Free Will did not exist and added man is irrational  both in thought and action .    Rational is defined as based on or in accordance with reason or logic. Dave asked me if I knew about Elliott Aronson ?  I told him I did and Dave asked me if I had read  his read "Mistakes were made ( but not by me ).  Why do we justify foolish beliefs,  Bad decisions and hurtful acts ?” I told him I hadn't . Tony inserted that while working for Xerox, he was stumped while attempting  to fix one of the machines.  He had replaced the circuit board a few times and got the same result .  He asked a friend for assistance. The friend plugged the cord into the wall. Problem fixed. This disquisition pertains to man's irrationality.

Reality  has been hazardous for centurie . In the Old Testament, we learned about Genesis, Exodus, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Methuselah, Noah , Jonah, Sodom and Gomorrah,  Moses, Samson and Delilah etc. These are terrific stories  written and translated prior to knowledge  and understanding about astronomy, planets,  solar system,  Milky Way Galaxy, Stephen Hawking's blackhole theory, Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, Robert Oppenheimer, astrophysics, matter, etc.. Archaic beliefs began  prior to employing the scientific method with  a hypothesis, null hypothesis, advanced mathematical measurements  etc.  To  believe about the creation of  some significant ,powerful, omnipotent  supernatural  occurrence as fact  is irrational. It’s not based on knowledge nor logic but on other psychological factors.  However, eliminating animal and human sacrifice and reducing the number of God's to one might represent progress ? On the other hand, the attacks  on science only perpetuates and is consonant with a  belief in irrationality and is a concrete example of  the use of cognitive dissonance, denial and projection..

1789 was the “beginning”of the French Revolution.  At that time, Louis XVI had  assumed the monarchy in 1774 at the youthful age of 19 .  Family  history and “divine” approval facilitated his power, prestige and status.  However, he was inept and resentment for this despotic monarchy followed . There was rebellion and revolution .  In other words, the rise of man and the  removal or death of God occurred.. 

In 1762 , Rousseau wrote about Social Contract theory based , in part, on the brilliance of Greek Stoic philosophy and  Roman  Canon  law.  The moral and political philosophy of a Social Contract  was the battle cry and suggested that man was supreme,virtuous , righteous , good ,  and humanistic toward fellow man with liberty, justice and freedom .  Man did not have to submit,or surrender freedoms to an authority.  Man made good decisions and when the majority rules , it serves man  best. Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and others also addressed this Enlightenment idea.  However,  the beheadings of Louis XVI, Robespierre and others do not equate rationality but irrationality as well  the Devils Island imprisonment  of Capt. Alfred Dryfus . Do not forget about Frederickh Nitschke’s  famous  quote "God is dead. "

The French revolution,beheadings and  the Social Contract has resulted with  the following: 1.  A just morality and a replacing God with man has produced  immoral lies , hate, power and corruption .  Using the guillotine did not represent a high degree of man's morality toward fellow man.  In fact,  the  current Russian - Ukraine war; the Israeli -Gaza war; the criminal indictment of  Trump,a previous president, income inequality, etc.  are a few examples that do not suggest the  importance  of  man’s morality but his tendency for hate, power, irrationality and lies.  2.  We have a  Republic and not a democracy.  We saw the power of one senator holding up military nominations for promotions.  We saw a minority in the US House of Representatives interfering with electing a speaker.  We saw the use of the filibuster and the inability to pass legislation without a simple majority in the Senate .  Democracy does not exist but  instead the pursuit of power by a minority. With  the pathological pursuit of power , we find an absence of morality and an increase in irrationality .  3.  We see the power of the unknown; our enormous defense budget; the building of obsolete World War II type aircraft carriers that occurs and  are not based on democracy but on the power of a few.  One could say that pursuit of power exists for a few and the rest of us have very little  input ; are simply slaves and subservient to that process.  Do our representatives represent us, or do they represent powerful interest groups  ?  Minority  power, tax cuts for the wealthy are irrational for the majority.

Sigmund Freud 's Psychoanalytic model identified  defense mechanisms which signifies  the how  and why individuals create illusions, mythology,  in  distorting reality.  Subsequently, Freud's daughter Anna brilliantly in her book "The Ego  And the Mechanisms Of Defense “ described , in depth , the importance of the ego , super ego , anxiety and the mechanisms  of defense..  

Briefly, all defense mechanisms have two characteristics in common.  1.  They deny, falsify or distort reality and  2, They operate  unconsciously so that the person is not aware of what is taking place.  A  few defense mechanisms include the following.  1. Repression: is when  a son who has repressed his hostile feelings towards his father may express these hostile feelings against other symbols of authority.  In other words, the adult carries around a lot of childish fears, he  never gets the chance to discover that they have no basis in reality. 2. Projection occurs  if anxiety can be attributed to the external world rather than to the individual's own primitive impulses or to threats of his conscience, and is likely to achieve greater relief from his anxious condition . Projection is when one simply says “he hates me” instead of “I hate him,” or “he is persecuting me” instead of “my conscience is bothering me. “ Projection can reduce anxiety by substituting a lesser danger for greater one , enabling the projecting person to express his impulses under the guise of defending himself against his enemies. 3. Denial  is used to resolve emotional conflicts and allay  anxiety by disavowing thoughts, feelings, wishes, needs or external reality factors that are consciously intolerable.

Employing a Field Theory model of tension and tension reduction in addressing irrationality , Leon iFestinger’s research with cognitive dissonance provided additional data regarding  man’s irrationality in thinking and behavior . Briefly,  a tension state is motivational . A successful reduction of dissonance or tension is rewarding  in the sense that it reduces tension .Cognitive dissonance are  unpleasant  cognitive elements, pieces of information , bits of knowledge that may be related to oneself ,to others or to the social environment.  The  cognitive dissonance goal is to reduce tension. For example ,if one likes Joe Biden, information that is at odds with Joe Biden would  be dissonant . In order to reduce the dissonance , one ignores, avoids the negative information or  seeks positive information that’s consonant  regarding  Joe Biden which coincides and maximizes  one’s personal beliefs .

Elliott Aronson,  in one  of his  cognitive dissonance experiments, demonstrated that people who undergo an embarrassing initiation, and in order to gain admission to that group, develop more favorable evaluations of the group than people who are admitted after a milder or easier initiation.  In his "Theories of Cognitive Consistency, ” Aronson stated  dissonance theory does not rest upon the assumption that man is a rational animal.  Rather, it suggests that man is a rationalizing animal. He attempts to appear rational to others and to himself.

Irrational is defined as lacking reason or understanding.  With that definition , how reasonable is it to be engaging in obese eating behaviors; not receiving a Covid- 19 vaccination; not regularly exercising; not taking medication as prescribed; making suicide attempts; affiliating with a hate group; having a multitude of weapons; intending to vote for a multiple indicted politician; believing in conspiracy ideas, relying  on social media for information ?  How reasonable is it for  a government to be a republic, and not democratic;  a tax code favoring the wealthy; discrediting climate change,  favoring income inequality,  discrediting negatives of capitalism, believing  the US is  number one in longevity ,health , education and happiness ? How reasonable is it to have fentanyl, made entirely in a laboratory , result in more overdose deaths than  automobile deaths,  greater than the number of Americans killed in wars in Vietnam , Iraq and Afghanistan combined as well as gun violence did at their peers ; have a few financial institutions controlling the economy at the expense of the people; and high school graduation rates rising along with increases in absenteeism, have a higher percentage of GPAs in high school, even though national exams or test scores are not increasing, and teachers reporting that they can no longer hold students  accountable regardless of grade level ? 

Man has difficulty dealing with the many conflicts , contradictions  and threatening circumstances within his life space which makes reality dangerous to one’s health.  The powerful ravages of nature; aging issues , challenges  and mortality and the society in which he finds himself , since the past history of Homo sapiens is fraught by the irrationality of craziness which flows into the present.  A few examples that illustrate and define man's irrationality: 1.  Novels such as Theodore Dreiser's Sister  Carrie, John Dos Passos's USA Trilogy, John Grisham  and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird.  2.  Movies such as James Bond, Mission Impossible, Spartacus, and Helen of Troy from Homer's Iliad.  3.  Songs such as Marvin Gaye's What’s Going  On , John Fogerty's Fortunate Son, and John Lennon's Imagine 4. TV with the superficiality and contradictory messaging from "experts”  and nonsensical commercials  5.  The opinions of the M.A.G A ,election denier House Speaker  politician Johnson.  For an in-depth analysis of rationality and irrationality, Dave recommends Elliot Aronson's read.

According to Eckhart Tole, the primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it. My formula is as follows. Irrationality is multifaceted,  it results when “ happiness”  is  dissonant with one’s perception of their own reality . And it becomes expressed in the pursuit of fiction, illusion, mythology, fantasy, alcohol, drugs, unions, separations, love, hate  etc. while  chasing  the fragileness of happiness . Per The Rolling Stones , I Can’t’ Get No Satisfaction.

Reference

October 8, 2023, the New York Times.