The Twilight of Our Idols

[this article was originally posted to my Facebook page in June 2015]

I can remember hearing, on my car radio in 1997, of the death of actor Jimmy Stewart.  Two things immediately came to my 29 year-old mind:

* "I kind of thought he would live forever"
* "I feel sad for my parents' generation"

Today, nearly 20 years later, we learn of the death of actor Christopher Lee. It has been a long time since I could forget that even famous people pass away.  And the sorrow I feel this time is for my own generation's loss.

We see them now a little more often than we saw them before, don't we?  The online posts about heaven gaining another angel.   It could be a pet.  It could be a classmate.  It is, with increasing regularity, a cherished relative of the previous generation or a parent.

And, here we are: the 40-something masters of the universe, agog and bewildered that the people we all looked up to for so long are turning over the keys to the kingdom, increasingly, to us.  I marvel at how many of us announced their children's graduations from high school this year.  We have now produced a new generation of adults that look up to us the way we looked up to our parents (whether that's been clear over the previous several years or not).  Many of them will have felt, on learning of the death of Christopher Lee, the way I felt when learning of the death of Jimmy Stewart.

So, besides evoking a sense of poignancy with these observations, what is my point?  Simply this: Life waits for no one.  We, the remnants of the Baby Boomers and the vanguard of Generation X, find ourselves, finally, in the driver's seats of our worlds.  No more hand holding; no more training wheels.  We are now "they", "them" -- "those people" who, increasingly over the next two decades or so, get to say how our families, our neighborhoods, our governments, and our society will go.  There is no longer the shadow of someone greater than us hiding us from our moment in the spotlight.

Seize the scepter - lay hold on the empty throne.  Our idols have grown frail and are abandoning us.  We 'get to say' now; it is our turn to be looked up to.

On Obamacare and the Free Market

Many of my contemporaries are posting and blogging about the PPACA, also known as "Obamacare", which rolled out its public health insurance marketplace in October. The most consistent complaint I read about the program is that it sets a new precedent of governmental intrusion on private citizens by requiring us all to purchase a product, namely: a health insurance policy. The law is set up this way so that the economics of heath insurance underwriting will work -- healthy individuals' premiums today cover sick individuals' costs today and provided a reserve for the costs of tomorrow.

It is worth considering how we as a county find ourselves crossing this precedent of intrusion. You would think (wouldn't you?) that industries operating in a free market would police themselves from a standpoint of enlightened self-interest so as to not require regulatory intervention. But in case after case, industries have failed to do so.

Take the revelations about the US meat-packing industry in 1905 that led to the founding of the (precursor to) the FDA. Or the 1910 phosphorus match industry study that produced high taxes, forcing the industry to innovate a safer technology for their workers. When the harm done by an industry flying the free market banner outweighs the benefits of waiting for the unseen hand to remedy the situation, governments have acted and always will act.

You may not be of the opinion that there was a crisis in healthcare access (via premium inflation or underwriting restrictions). However, a sober survey of business articles from 2003 until the housing crisis shows that US health care costs were consistently cited as one of the top problems threatening the US economy.

When you consider the trend of US demographics going forward toward the next 30+ years, it becomes less surprising that the PPACA is the new FDA or SEC of our time.

On American Exceptionalism

Once again, this time during a civil war in Syria, atrocities perpetrated by some group or other have roused sentiments that "America had ought to do something" about the situation. It has taken the surprise wisdom of an an internationally acknowledged tyrant and thug, published in a US newspaper, to give us all pause from our rush to near-unilateral military intervention. A major point of the published thesis is that America's exceptionalist self-image poses a threat to lasting world peace.

Oh for the days when we were not a so-called "Superpower". The decades -- well over a century if they were gathered up and packed together -- when we meddled with and aggressed only the unlucky other governments that happened to inhabit the land now known as the Continental United States. Even when our aggressiveness began spilling beyond those borders, our invasions involved only our nearest neighbors and our false flag operations were conducted within 90 miles of the Florida Keys. The Presidents in office during the years at the start of both world wars won their elections by promising to keep America out of them. We used to go to war for old-fashioned, unexceptional reasons: the gaining of territory and the weakening of other expansionist nations operating near our borders.

Supposing America were found to be exceptional, would that be a good thing? This is an important question, worth pondering and debating. Perhaps the Roman Empire did not fall because of greed or invasion by barbarians or due to the neurological effects of drinking from heavy metal goblets. Perhaps the Roman Empire fell the way every great society does in which an exceptional class of its citizens comes to control its policies. (always in the name of the "good" of the unexceptional) Under every such regime, only a generation or two passes before the old guard, consumed with defending its power and privileges grows increasingly blind and irrelevant to the concerns and aspirations of the very people it imagines it is serving. As an example, the architects of America's Cold War policies in the 1970s and 80s had about as relevant a contribution to make to the question of Iraq's danger to the world in 2002 as a horse might offer to an octopus regarding the question of sea-floor territory.

The same holds true for movements and institutions. Were Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement exceptional? Without a doubt, they were. Simply witness the situations in American society before and after the movement to judge the question correctly. Yet, only Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton remain muted voices in American politics today. And, this is as just as it should be. Today's societal struggles are not -- cannot -- be led by the heroes of yesterday's movements. Without a doubt, past heroes can inspire and advise new movements and help society understand the broader context in which the struggle continues. Yet, the fire that refines us in every generation is kindled with the tinder of today's hearts, not borrowed from the cooling embers of yesterday's. I assert this to be true also of heroic nations within epochs of international crisis.

So what is the conclusion? Are we Americans "exceptional"? To silently suspect one's own exceptionalism can be a source of great inner strength that motivates one to attempt acts of virtue or valor corresponding with a blossoming greatness sensed within. This is a mature, inner fountain of self-motivation, healthy to cultivate in children and in the unassertive. But to claim rights or privileges due to exceptionalism or -- worse still -- to defend one's claims to exceptionalism seems to me to be a sign of immaturity and weakness rather than of strength. It conjures up the image of a former ballerina Prima Donna, having lost her youthful beauty, grace, and flexibility, clumsily crashing the stage of a new production in a tattered, ill-fitting costume to demand fresh applause.

Did the world, once upon a time, give America a "pass" for using atomic weapons in war or for participating in the choosing of other nations' borders or their forms of government? What of it? We must have, at the time, so earned those privileges and so conducted ourselves in the immediate redemption of them as to invite the awe and respect of the greater mass of humanity rather than their outrage and vows of vengeance. Exceptionalism, then, like any other accolade or privilege, is best observed in ourselves silently or conferred upon us by peers worthy of our respect. As with any other virtue, it has a shelf life and begins to spoil and stink when hoarded too long. Only the insecure claim it as a right or use it as a justification.

My '10 Commandments' To A New Humanity

A friend on Facebook, Jerry Schirmer, suggested the following parlor game.  Below the quote are my 10 Commandments to a new humanity.

There is going to be an atomic war. All of humanity is going to be wiped out. The only survivors will be a group of 1,000 babies that will be raised by robots and given only knowledge of the English language, basic survival skills, and a firm belief in a vague monotheism.

On their 13th birthday, they will be brought above ground, and their first sight will be a giant stone tablet on which will be inscribed ten statements of some reasonable number of words apiece (something like ten, lets say). These statements will be said to be the absolute word of God. You are entrusted with writing these statements.

What do you put on them in an effort to create/preserve/restore the best society possible?

    I. These laws never expire.
   II. Debts and all other laws expire within 7 years.
  III. Patents, copyrights, and leadership roles all expire within 7 years.
  IV. War may be waged only with weapons powered by hand.
   V. Adults may ingest, copulate, and cohabitate as they see fit.
  VI. The best paid teachers and scientists must have equal pay.
 VII. No salary may exceed that of the best paid teachers.
VIII. You may each worship God, or not, as you see fit.
  IX.Anyone attempting to overrule these laws must die painfully.
   X. The maximum penalty for other offenses: 7 years humane imprisonment.

Coming Out

In 2007, I happened to flip through a Nietzsche book at a bookstore. I couldn't put it down. He was bat-shit crazy about a number of things (for one, he was a huge bigot), but he was incredibly clear about many other things. One idea that struck me like lightning was his assertion that Christianity (and - any religion that promises an after-life) teaches people to disregard this life (which we know we do have) for the hope of another, future life (which we cannot know will occur). He did not mince words - stating that Christianity was "life-denying" etc.

I had already been cured (in my 20s) from my decade-long foray into Fundamentalism. But I carried (and to a lesser extent, still do carry) a sense of nostalgia, in a warm place in my heart for that "old-time religion". However, this Nietzsche philosophy hinted at a side of life one did not know and could never know if he or she held onto a hope of "heaven". He listed as virtues the things religion count as vices: ambition, the will to power, a healthy embrace of conflict, and an acceptance that when the world changes (example: Industrial Revolution), it is okay to throw away all of the former customs and ethics in order to embrace new, more suitable ones.

I just couldn't believe what I was reading. As in, I wondered how the censors of the world had somehow let this stuff slip through, unscathed. But it was clear, powerful, and had the ring of truth to it - "face the facts" kind of truth. There have been many other influences in my life for what I am about to say, it's just that he crystallized the important points most clearly.

Today, for the first time in my life, I say publicly and proudly, that I am an Atheist. I affirm that this life I have is the only life (that I know of) that I will ever have. When my heart stops beating and my brain stops firing the synapses that create the social persona of myself, there will be no more me. The foundation for my morals and ethics is the positive benefit I see to the world when I behave in certain ways and the positive feelings I experience when I follow that guide. I will probably still also claim the moniker of "Taoist" among people who have a hard time with my Atheism since the Tao Te Ching is non-theistic and its observations resonate with how I see the world. But even that is an inside joke with myself - since the very first verse of that book states: "The Tao that can be spoken of, is not the true Tao."

New Year's Eve - Or Is It?

We Interrupt This Holiday To Bring You A Special Announcement:

The calendar is a useful fiction, meant to serve us - not to be our master. In fact, the earth is not exactly where it was 365.25 days ago, because the Sun is also falling through space as is the Sun's star cluster and the Milky Way itself. It is not December or January or 2012 or 2013. It is "Now": the only time you will ever have.

Two immediate practical consequences of this observation are: You don't ever have to put your life on hold, waiting for a date on a calendar to come around in order to have a new start. And, you're always only as old as you feel you are.

You may now return to your celebrations with the people you love who imagine there are weeks and months and years to pay attention to.

Why I Believe In Open Relationships

Twenty years ago, while facing the end of my marriage, I happened upon the late M.Scott Peck's book, The Road Less Traveled. In a footnote to a section about "The Myth of Romantic Love", he mentioned a book by a couple named O'Neil entitled Open Marriage, commenting,

My work with couples has led me to the stark conclusion that open marriage is the only kind of mature marriage that is healthy and not destructive to the spiritual health and growth of the individual partners.

I was certain he was wrong at the time, but not certain enough to dismiss the idea completely. I put it on a back burner of my mind.

For seven years after my marriage ended, I entered into a series of relationships with the best of hopes and intentions, collapsing my identity into each new "us" and then suffering great heartache whenever a relationship ended. I was convinced that if I were simply wonderful enough, the other person could not fail to reciprocate the contributions of devotion and attention I lavished upon her. Except that she actually could. This was a shocking revelation.

During this time, I picked up Peck's book again and much more of what he had to say about mature adult behavior began to sink in. In addition to other ineffective behaviors, collapsing my identity into each relationships created a mutually suffocating situation that was never sustainable. In becoming so interested in her, I was failing to be interesting. What she needed was a man who she could respect and admire more than a sensitive, doting devotee. As I reflected upon these facts, I knew that I deeply desired to love someone who I could respect and admire as well. My romantic relationships improved dramatically.

Around 2005, I was exposed to a worldview which taught that true happiness could never come from another person or, indeed, from any source outside of the self. For, if it came from outside, it could be diminished or taken away by something outside the self and was therefore not true happiness. I swear I heard a band of angels singing the "Hallelujah Chorus" when the full impact of that insight penetrated my mind. All of my life to that point, I had been waiting to find "the one" who would complete me and make me happy. And the joke was on me: I, myself, was that one. Not only could no one else do it for me, it was unfair and unrealistic to hope or demand that she could. The women in my former relationships hadn't left me at all. Instead, I had inadvertently pushed them away.

As I started to pull all of these insights together into a coherent framework for living, a number of unexpected implications arose. Since love is infinite and unlimited, it never makes any sense to say "I love you if ..." or "I love you as long as ..." Also, there is no because to love. If I love you, I love you because I love you. Having a rationale for your love would be like like calculating a mathematical formula for why you like your favorite color. It follows therefore that true, authentic love can never depend upon the behavior of the one who is beloved.

And, if you think about it, you have never changed for the better because someone has demanded it. You may have altered your behavior to assuage your own guilt or to avoid unpleasant confrontations. But real change only happens under the nourishing rays of openness and acceptance. When you realize that someone truly believes in you and trusts in his or her heart that you'll turn out just fine in the end, there are literally no lengths to which you will not go in order to to prove that person right.

And now for the part you were expecting me to address much earlier in this article: monogamy. Here's all you need to know about monogamy: jealousy is rooted in fear. Perfect love casts out all fear. Therefore, insisting on monogamy as a condition of love is a contradiction in terms.

That may be all you need to know, but I'll develop the idea a little further for the benefit of the uncynically curious among my readers. Consider that if you and I share true love:

• I can no more hurt you by having a romp with someone else that I could by eating broccoli or washing my car. The source of your happiness and completeness remains within you.
  
  
• Worrying about what your family, friends, neighbors, or co-workers will think of our situation may be an interesting concern, but it has nothing to do with the love that we share.
  
  
• Imagine the powerful bond of intimacy we could build if we would laugh at one another's weaknesses and trust that nothing in this world could threaten what was real between us.
  
  
• Prohibition has never been an effective behavior modification policy. It usually only serves to create a flourishing black market where people with perfectly normal human tendencies go in order to find what they are looking for and a bloated prison system with millions of lives wasted and prevented from reaching their full potential.
  
  
• Dr. Peck was right. Only adults treating other adults as adults get to escape the myth of romantic love and discover a life where interesting, whole people can share in each others' lives without suffocating one another.
  

Why Adults Don't Get Star Wars Movies

In 1977 I was nine years old. The country was "going to hell in a handbasket" (according to my grandparents) with stagflation, the specter of nuclear holocaust, ERA, communism knocking on the door of Latin America, and gasoline approaching $1.00 per gallon. My father occasionally taught a weekend seminar at a hotel in my home city and there was a movie theater next door to the hotel. While he led the seminar I would either hang out at the hotel pool with other kids or go watch movies.

At nine, I wasn't too conscious of mass marketing. To be honest, I don't believe I had heard much about the release of the original Star Wars movie before I wandered over to the theater that Saturday. I most likely chose to see it at the time because it was the next film available on the viewing schedule. I sat down and after the previews and then the 20th Century Fox logo, I thought it odd that the movie soundtrack hadn't come on when the text appeared on the screen:

A Long Time Ago In A Galaxy Far Far Away...

I considered, briefly, whether to go out and tell someone that the sound wasn't working, when suddenly

**** BLAST ****

From the instant that John William's score assaulted my ears until the credits rolled 121 minutes later, I was rapturously transported to a world of magic, destiny, adventure, and danger. A world where an insignificant boy from the boondocks of his social order was inexplicably selected by fate to save all that was good and right and beautiful from the terrifying forces of evil. I watched that movie three times straight that day and twice again the next day. From that point on, I wanted to BE Luke Skywalker. I swore to my parents and to anyone else who would listen that I could hear the voice of Obi-Wan Kenobi assuring me that the force would be with me always. Luckily for me, this was before the days that mentioning something like that could get a kid prescribed on Prozac or Ritalin.

More than anything, experiencing Star Wars at that time in my life bought me just a few more precious weeks or months of pure, unadulterated childhood from the ever encroaching onslaught of pressure to grow up and be serious - to become yet another one of the lunatics running the asylum of civilized Western life. I would find other children younger than me and play an unnamed game with them that I guess would be called "Clash of the Superheroes" if we had bothered to name it. I'd always let them go first. "Who do you want to be?" I'd ask. "Batman!" or "Superman!" They'd answer. Then it was my turn. "Who are you going to be?" They'd ask. There was always only one answer. "Luke Skywalker." After looking at me like I was the strangest kid they'd ever met, we would begin. I would ALWAYS win. Batman has a hard time throwing a Batarang at you when his arm has been chopped off. And it's difficult for Superman to fly when he's been separated from his legs.

One of the more infuriating conversations of my life happened a few months later with some young adults. They started talking about the movies. Of course I brought up Star Wars. "What a dumb movie!" One of them exclaimed. I was outraged and demanded an explanation. "My college physics professor tore that movie apart. You wouldn't be able to see laser gun blasts as short cylindrical colored bullets of light. And if something exploded in outer space, there would be no flames since it is a vacuum without any oxygen." I tried in vain to argue, but I had nothing to counter their smug scientific facts with. I was heartbroken. It was almost as if someone had tied up Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy right in front of me and then had shot them there at point blank range. But along with this painful disappointment I had a sense that they had somehow completely missed the point. I couldn't put my finger on what it was, but I felt it very, very strongly.

Time passed and the rest of the original Star Wars movies came and went. 22 years after Episode IV was released, I flew to Austin, Texas to interview with an up-and-coming dot com company called Trilogy. I asked the HR lady about the company's name. "Oh, the founders are big Star Wars fans," she replied. "In fact, the company is going to rent out a movie theater for a special premier of the the new Star Wars prequel that's coming out soon!" Talk about the power of first impressions - I instantly knew this would be a company I'd like to work for. It didn't work out that way for various reasons, however, and Trilogy later became a casualty of the dot com meltdown. When I went to Episode I, though, I became that nine-year old boy once again. I loved everything about it, especially the way young "Ani" was able to destroy the droid control ship by using his instincts to pilot a space fighter for the first time.

Boy was I ever the odd-man out in discussions about the new movie. It seems that Jar-Jar Binks was nearly universally reviled among amateur and professional movie critics. "You can't even understand him!" "Why did he walk in that funny way?" "He didn't even use the English language correctly!" And that same old feeling rose up within me, the one I had felt when the college kids had shot down the original film with the laws of science. Only this time I was far more articulate.

"You're missing the point." I would offer.

"What do you mean? How can you say that to me?" Was the typical response. So I would explain, "Lucas created Jar-Jar's character as a culturally diverse person for a reason. He's showing that people groups with apparently very little in common need to find a way to discover common ground when their mutual interests are threatened. The Naboo and the Gungans were cultures that would not have allied together under normal circumstances." It didn't always endear me to others when I'd point out that the mainstream discomfort at Jar-Jar's dialect and mannerisms could be due to our own Western Caucasian racial hang-ups.

Wait. Stop. Now I had missed the point.

See, I wanted to have a chance to be that kid again and come back with an equally smug and scientific-sounding riposte to the ones who had put down the film I loved in 1977. But in my zeal to do well, I neglected to notice that I had become just like the ones who I felt had wronged me. I was reacting from a position of defensiveness, which (I now understand) typically creates an unintentional feedback loop. By putting out defensiveness, I received defensiveness. These conversations did not usually result in harmony and understanding.

Adults don't get Star Wars movies. They never have. If you were around when the original series came out, think back for a moment. What did your Uncles and older cousins, siblings, and family friends say about them? Nothing encouraging to a child, I'll bet. Even Freddie Mercury sang (in Bicycle Race) "Jaws was never my scene and I don't like Star Wars." It's interesting to be an adult now who was a child back then. Interesting because we don't notice that we are now "them", the ones who put down the original Star Wars movies back in the day. We are no longer nine years old, we are the smug, scientific, socially stratified muckety mucks who want to seem like clever people that can poke holes in other peoples' stories.

The animated feature, "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" was released this weekend. I went and saw it last night. So many kids in the theater. And then the text flashed on the screen. Then the blast. Then the fantasy and adventure, action and thrills. You may read a number of reviews panning the film. It was only rated 27% on rottentomatoes when a co-worker checked there the opening day. Don't you believe it. It's become fashionable to put down George Lucas and claim he has ruined the franchise. But I saw in the faces of the little ones who were filing out of the theater afterward what they must have seen in my face. Wonder, giddiness, and at least one extra day of recovered childhood.

You've Never Seen Anything Happen

Some event happens before you in a lighted environment.

Light bounces off of the entities involved in the event and some of it meets with your eyes. It travels through your cornea, then the aqueous humor, the lens, and the vitreous humor. When it strikes your retina, cells convert the light into electrical energy and route these impulses to the optic nerve. After traveling the distance of the optic nerve, the electrical signals are processed by a special region of the brain into the sensation of seeing. Finally, other parts of the brain generate a storm of electro-chemical activity to recognize and classify the elements of vision that has been generated. Since all of this happens without your awareness, the conscious part of your mind is free to busy itself with rationalizing the classifications and their significance to you.

All of this happens at a rate of speed that is consistent among human beings. This rate of speed roughly corresponds to the 24 - 30 frames per second that film and video technology uses to fool the mind into thinking it is seeing things move on a movie screen or television. (instead of noticing the actual still images which make up each video frame) If activity happens at a speed faster than 30 times per second, all you notice is a blur - such as the beating of a hummingbird's wings or the spinning of the spokes on car wheel rims.

Think of all the processes visual information goes through in order to produce the experience of sight.

• Manipulation: The eye lens focuses the light, flipping it upside down in the process


• Conversion: the light photons are chemically converted to electricity


• Transmission: the electric impulses are routed to the optic nerve which carries them to the brain


• Synthesis: the occipital lobe of the brain processes the impulses at a coherent rate, producing the sensation of vision


• Filtering: the temporal lobe of the brain pre-screens the data to point out elements linked with our emotions (such as a spider if we are afraid of spiders)


• Analysis: the frontal lobe of the brain associates visual elements with memories and produces reasonings about their significance

What a wonderous mechanism! And all you ever do (in your conscious state) is concentrate on the reasonings and interpretations provided by the frontal lobe. The rest of it "just works" (most of the time). Now, all of this processing takes time and there is undoubtedly information lost at all of the junctures of the system. There is no doubt that you see something.

But you've never seen anything happen.

The Questionable Value Of Loyalty

Loyalty. Even the sound of the word carries a certain gravitas. Loyalty is comfortably ensconced in a league with other golden virtues such as honor, dignity, and integrity. It is used as a final line of demarcation in character judgments. We've all heard variations on the line, "If there's one thing I will not tolerate, it is disloyalty." Loyalty seems to be the bedrock beneath society's most cherished arrangements: family, friendship, and patriotism.

I say this is all a bunch of nonsense.

Suppose you were going to try to do something really big and you needed the help of many other people to pull it off. You've got (basically) two powers of persuasion at your disposal to secure their cooperation: coercion or inspiration. For example, during the space race of the 50s and 60s, John F. Kennedy declared the goal of sending a man to the moon. America was inspired by this vision of scientific progress and made it happen with scant to none evidence of coercion. On the other hand, Kennedy's meddling in Vietnam (out of loyalty to a European ally) precipitated the military draft under President Johnson. Evidently, inspiration was not enough to secure the participation of enough of our citizens for that venture.

Loyalty is a form of moral coercion. It is a tool used by bullies to hoodwink those they perceive to be weak. Think back to your childhood days on the playground or in the neighborhood. Some older kid wants you to do something you know you don't want to do. And what does he or she say to you? "Aw, come on, you're not going to chicken out on me now are you?" So you do this thing that will get you grounded for two weeks because you're afraid of being thought of as a deficient friend. At least you were loyal and not a coward! But what do your parents say to you in these situations? "If he asked you to jump off a cliff, would you?" This is exactly the crux of the matter of loyalty being hogwash.

It is a healthy sign for an adult of the human species to be independent, ambitious, and self-reliant. Indeed, an important part of adolescence and young adulthood is experiencing peer pressure and learning to break free of its grasp. It is not that easy to consciously sever the cords of belonging that lay claim to our individuality. But sever them we must if we are to grow up. We open ourselves up to charges of being disloyal or of feeling superior to others. Yet, where do these charges originate? Why would anyone ever accuse another person of disloyalty?

The root cause is fear. Fear of scarcity. Scarcity of love, of friendship, of a sense of societal safety, of whatever it is that one wishes to have. If I feel that you, and you alone, have the thing I need, I will do whatever is in my power to persuade you to give it to me. (including coerce you) I have to - you've got what I need! If I feel that I can obtain what I want from any number of people, I'm more willing to let the law of averages play out by spreading my persuasive energy among more prospects. Upon discovering that everything I truly need - love, joy, peace, fulfillment - is available within myself, I am finally set free from the illusion that I ever have to coerce anybody for anything. Now I get to propose my intentions and discover, to my delight, that some people are inspired by what I have in mind. You've experienced both coercion and inspiration in your lifetime. To which of these do you respond better?

Do we really need coercive ties to bind us together? Is the cost of such arrangements worth the purported benefits? What would we call loyalty if it were based purely on heart-felt preference instead of duty or obligation?

This is probably enough to chew on for one blog column. It's worth considering the implications of so-called loyalty on religion, socio-economic class, politics, management/labor relations, marriage... oh dear, I've discovered yet another lack of scarcity!