posted November 07, 2003 06:51 PM           

---

I actually think that I've posted this before, but I'm at work and kinda bored so will do so again ('cause the search function doesn't work).
Every time I read it, it impresses me.
----
Intro:
Thomas Merton was a Trappist monk, a writer and a poet, and a powerful voice of Christian conscience. He stands in a tradition of dedicated Catholic clergy, including Dorothy Day, Philip and Daniel Berrigan, Raymond Hunthausen, and Jim Douglass. His critique of "sanity" - as defined by nuclear strategic planning, written in 1966 - is valid for atheists, too, although it may seem especially relevant from faith-based perspectives. Adolph Eichmann, whose capture and trial prove the setting for the essay reprinted below, was an official directly responsible for the Nazi Holocaust.

One of the most disturbing facts that came out in the Eichmann trial was that a psychiatrist examined him and pronounced him perfectly sane. I do not doubt it at all, and that is precisely why I find it disturbing.
If all the Nazis had been psychotics, as some of their leaders probably were, their appalling cruelty would have been in some sense easier to understand. It is much worse to consider this calm, "well-balanced", unperturbed official conscientiously going about his desk work, his administrative job which happened to be the supervision of mass murder. He was thoughtful, orderly, unimaginative. He had a profound respect for system, for law and order. He was obedient, loyal, a faithful officer of a great state. He served his government very well.
He was not bothered much by guilt. I have not heard that he developed any psychosomatic illnesses. Apparently he slept well. He had a good appetite, or so it seems. True, when he visited Auschwitz the Camp Comandant Hoss, in a spirit of sly devilry, tried to tease the big boss and scare him with some of the sights. Eichmann was disturbed, yes. He was disturbed. Himmler had been disturbed, and had gone weak in the knees. Perhaps, in some way, the general manger of a big steel mill might be disturbed if an accident took place while he happened to be somewhere in the plant. But of course what happened at Auschwitz was not an accident: just the routine unpleasantness of the daily task. One must shoulder the burden of daily monotonous work for the Fatherland. Yes, one must suffer discomfort and even nausea from unpleasant sights and sounds. It all comes under the heading of duty, self-sacrifice, and obedience. Eichmann was devoted to duty, and proud of his job.
The sanity of Eichmann is disturbing. We equate sanity with a sense of justice, with humaneness, with prudence, with the capacity to love and understand other people. We rely on the sane people of the world to preserve it from babarism, madness, destruction. And now it begins to dawn on us that it is precisely the sane ones who are the most dangerous.
It is the sane ones, the well-adapted ones, who can without qualms and without nausea aim the missiles and press the buttons that will initiate the great festival of destruction that they, the sane ones have prepared. What makes us so sure, after all, that the danger comes from a psychotic getting into a position to fire the first shot in a nuclear war? Psychotics will be suspect. The sane ones will keep them far from the button. No one suspects the sane, the sane ones will have perfectly good reasons, logical, well-adjusted reasons, for firing the shot. They will be obeying sane orders that have come sanely down the chain of command. And because of their sanity they will have no qualms at all. When the missles take off, then, it will be no mistake.
We can no longer assume that because a man is "sane" he is therefore in his "right mind". The whole concept of sanity in a society where spiritual values have lost their meaning is itself meaningless. A man can be "sane" in the limited sense that he is not impeded by his disordered emotions from acting in a cool, orderly manner, according to the needs and dictates of the social situation in which he finds himself. He can be perfectly "adjusted". God knows, perhaps such people can be perfectly adjusted even in hell itself.
And so I will ask myself: what is the meaning of a concept of sanity that excludes love, considers it irrelevant, and destroys our capacity to love other human beings, to respond to their needs and their sufferings, to recognize them also as persons, to apprehend their pain as one's own? Evidently this is not necessary for "sanity" at all. It is a religious notion, a spiritual notion, a Christian notion. What business have we to equate "sanity" with "Christianity"? None at all, obviously. The worst error is to imagine that a Christian must try to be "sane" like everybody else, that we belong in our kind of society. That we must be "realistic" about it. We must develop a sane Christianity: and there have been plenty of sane Christians in the past. Torture is nothing new, is it? We ought to be able to rationalize a little brainwashing and genocide, and find a place for nuclear war, or at least for napalm bombs, in our moral theology. Certainly some of us are doing our best along those lines aleady. There are hopes! Even Christians can shake off their sentimental prejudices about charity and become sane like Eichmann. They can even cling to a certain set of Christian formulas, and fit them into a Totalist Ideology. Let them talk about charity, love, and the rest. These words have not stopped some sane men from acting very sanely and cleverly in the past. (...)
No, Eichmann was sane. The generals and fighters on both sides in World War II, the ones who carried out the total destruction of entire cities, these were the sane ones. Those who have invented and developed atomic bombs, thermonuclear bombs, missles; who have planned the strategy of the next war; who have evaluated the various possibilities of using bacterial and chemical agents: these are not the crazy people, they are the sane people. The ones who coolly estimate how many millions of victims can be considered expendable in a nuclear war, I presume they do alright with the Rorschach ink blots, too. On the other hand, you will probably find that the pacifists and the ban-the-bomb people are, quite seriously, just as we read in Time, a little crazy.
I am beginning to realize that "sanity" is no longer a value or an end in itself. The "sanity" is no longer a value or an end in itself. The "sanity" of modern man is about as useful to him as the huge bulk and muscles of the dinosaur. If we were a little less sane, a little more doubtful, a little more aware of his absurdities and contradictions, perhaps there might be a possibility of his survival. But if he is sane, too sane...perhaps we must say that in a society like ours the worst insanity is to be totally without anxiety, totally "sane".

IP: Logged

Posts: 6062
From: Canada
Registered: Apr 2003

posted November 07, 2003 10:38 PM         

---

This is basically equating "sane" with "sociopath", Prox. Sociopathic personalities are capeable of talking and walking and looking just like a regular folk, but they don't really "feel". They can act, and they and cry and laugh and say "oh, how aweful for you" but they don't actually "feel". They never do anything except to serve theirself somehow because they lack the capacity for compassion. All they know is self interest and self preservation. Generally, any behavior that resembles compassion from them is really just a ploy to win the support and favoritism from those in a position to bestow gratuities upon them. They don't perform selfless acts of compassion, they bank Brownie Points.
IMHO, any "sane" person would jump into a fast flowing river to attempt to save a drowning child. A sociopath, however, will not. Not unless their own safety is assured, and there's something to be gained by doing so.
A not so sane person, mind you, might jump into the river because they have imagined that a child needs to be saved. THAT'S the difference between sane and not sane. The abilty to process information received from ones environment, and distiguish the difference between real and imaginary.

This essay is really argueing the difference between social conscience, or lack thereof.

so there ah, you know I love ya!...

IP: Logged

posted November 07, 2003 11:02 PM           

---

I dunno - I've known plenty of sane people who can very rationally plan the complete and utter destruction of others w/o any emotional quiver...many of us (myself included) do so every day when we disregard the realities of our economic system.
Plenty of wonderful people, plenty of people we have named heros throughout history and to the present, have slaughtered countless millions in the name of expediency and yet would not raise a hand to anyone within our community.
I mean, we thought it necessary - and it may very well have been - to fire bomb Dresden and nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Japanese probably thought it completely rational to attack Pearl Harbor, and the Germans sank Allied convoys (at the start of the war) working with the completely valid line of deduction that they were attempting to supply Britain. Generations and families were destroyed. And, you know, those were perfectly rational leaps - they're perfectly sane, and completely "right" in the moral universe of those individuals differentiating between "right and wrong". I think that's what he's saying is that mere rationality isn't what's needed, nor is compassion for a select few close associates or clansmen, but that compassion and caring for all of humanity is the definition for true sanity. Perhaps many of the suppositions that we make about our world - about what is necessary and what is not - are irrational at their core. In this, it seems to me that he's calling for a fundamental questioning of our characterization of sanity.

Not saying if I agree or not, it's just food fer thought.

- Corri, still at work

IP: Logged

posted November 08, 2003 12:02 AM           

---

A Note:

You may notice that I use WWII in many of our discussions. That is not because it can serve as an easy emotional trigger; precisely the opposite. We are now in large part removed enough from it to look at it with a slightly less wavering eye.
I do not use, say, the example of an Israeli colonel or general who orders the strategic bombing of a targeted terrorist's house (in the process killing whole neighboring families) or a Palestinian youth who destroys the lives of dozens others his or her age because he sees no other recourse available to him. And I certainly don't bring up the Iraqi men who shoot down a helicopter full of American GIs, killing them all, because the former sees the latter as a mortal threat to their way of life and to all that they hold sacred - both sets of people with the firm belief that they're in the process of doing their duty for their country, their nation, and their kin.
No, I certainly don't bring up those examples nor any remotely like them. Those would be too divisive.
All of the above are right in their actions, according to their respective world views - according to the way in which they perceive the realities facing them; and all are unalterably wrong according to the way in which scores upon scores of others view the world. What do we have then? A planet full of terribly right and terribly wrong people acting upon their assumptions and their beliefs - upon their facts - rushing ahead with their truths.
And not a sane one among us.

Hmph. I probably shouldn't have written this - some may think that I'm spoiling for a fight. I'm not, not in the least. I just look at the world and...I just look at it and am so saddened; and I know that I should not be. This is not, after all, the way things are, simply the way that they seem. I do not, perhaps cannot at this time, begin to know the whole story, but I nevertheless feel an inexpressible pain with it. Well, not with the story per se, but at the way in which we act it out - at all of the pain and hatred, at the hiding of the Love which is Life.

IP: Logged

Posts: 6062
From: Canada
Registered: Apr 2003

posted November 08, 2003 01:32 AM         

---

Oh, Prox...I hear ya loud and clear. The root of the problem seems to be the perception of the the vast majority that "you" are not "me" and "I" am not "him", and "she" is not "us", and so on, rather than seeing the "we" are "WE". We are one. When you bleed, it hurts him, and when she starves, it starves "US". It's the illusion of the separation among mankind that leads to all the discord and the percieved "threat" to our own livelyhood. I need to make darn sure that me and mine get OUR share. YOU are a threat to that.
In reality, there is enough of the earth's bounty to supply us all, but some of us horde, while others starve. It's the inablity to see that we're all one entity, the human race, that blocks us from feeling our brother's pain. And it's hard to see past it when you are NOT getting all you need, but surrounded by those who have more than they need.
What's the solution? A world of Pisces people would be a good start, with Aquarians to head it up, and Virgos to organize it all.

IP: Logged

Posts: 6062
From: Canada
Registered: Apr 2003

posted November 08, 2003 01:41 AM         

---

And Leos to promote the idea, and Capricorns to initiate the long term goals, and Scorpios to work on the more stubborn folks, and Aries to motivate the lazy, and Gemini's to keep the useful details available, and Taurus's to carry out the long term goals, and Libra's to make sure it's all fair, and Saggies to point out the underlieing problems, and Cancer's to tend to the hurt, and Leos to provide the go-to guys.

And basically, every human being being the best version of themself as they are capeable of being. And that's really not too much to ask, I think.

IP: Logged

Posts: 1033
From: on the trail of the Old Ones
Registered: Aug 2003

posted November 08, 2003 07:06 PM         

---

As long as there are people who are saddened by violence instead of angered by it, we have hope.

IP: Logged

Posts: 6830
From: Blue Star Kachina
Registered: Mar 2002

posted November 08, 2003 07:10 PM         

---

...And an Aquarius to promote brother/sisterhood amongst the group

------------------
If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans. ~James Herriot

IP: Logged

posted November 11, 2003 05:46 AM           

---

IP: Logged

Posts: 6062
From: Canada
Registered: Apr 2003

posted November 11, 2003 12:12 PM         

---

And there you have it...we here at Linda-land just solved the world's problems in an innocent little obscure thread started by a sweet little Pisces girl from the southeastern U.S.

Serendipity rides again....

IP: Logged

posted November 11, 2003 03:33 PM           

---

Now we just need to concoct a syrum to make people act that way...
Maybe the Aquarians and the Scorpios can team-up on that one.

IP: Logged

posted November 11, 2003 04:49 PM           

---

HA! I was just reading some of LG's _Love Signs_ when I ran across the 2nd to last paragraph in the Aqua/Aqua chapter intro (I was reading that b/c I've found that it fits Jase & me about as well as the Aqua/Pisces section):

At long last, there's another human being who will silently hike through the hills to hunt mushrooms with you, and not chatter every minute about matters of no consequence. Someone who knows where to look for Regulus and Spica on a starry summer night in the mountains, and can point out Arcturus, too...someone who has read Walden, by Thoreau, exactly twenty-three times, as you have...someone who is willing to punch every member of Congress in their windbags for refusing to honor and treat the American Indians with the enormous reverence and respect they deserve, let alone refusing to apologize to them for the theft of their land and country. Someone who knows what a quark is, why the number nine is the Universal solvent, and also the Red Dragon of alchemy....someone who's aware that it's time to either heal this planet or say farewell to it....someone who's dedicated to waterless toilets as the great hope for our future which could bring the double blessing of once-more rich, fertile soil and pure, unpolluted waters on the Earth....someone who wants to swim rivers, climb trees....to be free....rather than spend a lifetime in this loveless toil we fill our days with....who believes in homeopathy and radionics because they work...someone who is at war with those who carve up the Earth and call it "subdivision"....who is determined to halt the unnecessary medical and scientific slaughter of our living, terrified, animal brothers....someone who is, in a word - sane.

I wonder if she ever read any Merton

IP: Logged

Posts: 2255
From: land of the midnight sun
Registered: Dec 2002

posted November 11, 2003 05:40 PM         

---

oh thank you for sharing that snippet of love signs, prox! Goddess, I miss my copy of it.. I loaned it out and never got it back.
*heads off to the library to see if their copy is in*

IP: Logged

posted November 11, 2003 06:34 PM           

---

Wha?
Harpyr!
You no longer have _Love Signs_...
well, here's something for you and your beau
(the edges are a little blurry, but still legible...kinda):
http://www.angelfire.com/oz/proxy0/SagScorp1.JPG
http://www.angelfire.com/oz/proxy0/SagScorp2.JPG
http://www.angelfire.com/oz/proxy0/SagScorp3.JPG
http://www.angelfire.com/oz/proxy0/SagScorp4.JPG
http://www.angelfire.com/oz/proxy0/SagScorp5.JPG

IP: Logged

Posts: 2255
From: land of the midnight sun
Registered: Dec 2002

posted November 11, 2003 09:16 PM         

---

ohmygoodnessgracious! THANK YOU, Corrie!!!!!!!

You are such a sweetheart!

steph

IP: Logged

posted March 14, 2004 05:37 PM           

---

*bumping this up again b/c I really like the essay*

*misses her copy of _Love Signs_*

IP: Logged

posted January 28, 2005 11:31 PM           

---

*bumping this up because I was testing out the google search thingy, found this thread, and love Thomas Merton*

IP: Logged

Posts: 3831
From: New England
Registered: Mar 2003

posted January 29, 2005 08:59 AM         

---

A wonderful little Merton snippet. And lots of good prox points too. The prevailling idea that the Nazi regime was full of unbalanced neurotics and psychotics really needs to be readdressed. "Sane" and "rational" sometimes really are two very different things.

IP: Logged