The proposition—presented in my earlier post—is that people with a liberal mindset base much of what they think and do mostly on only two of five moral imperatives as defined by researchers at the University of Virginia. 

For a liberal, matters of fairness and the well-being of others have high moral value, much higher that matters of group loyalty, respect for authority, and sanctity (e.g., cleanliness is next to godliness).

For a conservative, these three things (loyalty, respect, and sanctity), together with the other two (fairness and protection from harm), also have high moral value and form a solid foundation of morality.

A careful look at the five moral foundations reveals that the first two are directed toward others—even to those outside the group. Loyalty to the group, authority, and purity are directed inwardly, toward the group itself. They keep the group strong. Although in many respects values derived from these areas are positive and good (who would argue that loyalty, respect, and cleanliness are inherently bad?) they may effectively build a wall around the group, separating the group from others. Under this condition, the in-group is pure and righteous, and the out-group can easily be viewed as evil and the enemy. There is no reason to care for the harm an enemy may endure, nor can there be any but one kind of justice for the enemy. To care for and insist on fairness for an enemy would be unpatriotic. Morality, instead of being a universal good, becomes relative only to the group. We are moral. They are not. Therefore…

To a liberal person, the three “conservative” values are often taken to extremes that harm the greater society: walling off and oppressing outsiders, autocratically dictating the way things should be, enforcing racial and sexual purity.

Because liberals may instinctively reach out to the oppressed, conservatives may see liberals as disloyal and unpatriotic, disrespectful of authority, and supportive of “abominations” like homosexuality and desegregation. 

Liberals fume when people who talk about how moral they are (e.g., “moral majority,” “party of family values”) will support a war started under false pretenses, overlook the lies told to get us there, condone the torture of prisoners and the exposure of a CIA operative, shrug off the outright stealing of an election, and overlook a long list of sexual and marital transgressions by conservative politicians and clergy alike. 

For a conservative, events like these are easy to condone or overlook because they take place within the group. (The same can be said about a liberal’s acceptance of Bill Clinton’s transgressions.) But to a liberal, the harm created by such unfairness is nearly unbearable. 

Remember, though, that fairness and justice are also part of the conservative make-up. And this gets closer to the core of the problem, because each group has its own idea of what “fair” means and as a result will act accordingly.

Once again, I turn to researcher Jonathan Haidt, who in “What the Tea Partiers Really Want,” published in the Wall Street Journal in October 2010, points to the Roosevelt era and the establishment of “social programs” to help the disadvantaged as the root of the current political divide. On the one hand are the conservatives who believe that hard work yields reward, and hard work is all that’s necessary for society to thrive. Fairness means, “I get what I work hard for, and if you don’t get ahead it’s only because you’re lazy. Each of us gets what we deserve.”

On the other hand are liberals who see fairness as equality. Liberals use phrases like “level playing field” and “safety net” to express concepts that are supportive of the disadvantaged. Safety nets and level fields come in the form of social programs that cost money, “my money!” 

It is unconscionable, to a conservative, that someone else would 1) get rewarded for doing nothing, and 2) that he, the conservative, would have to pay for it.

My father is a conservative, and we sometimes get into discussions around these topics. They go nowhere, of course, because each of us is a product of our own moral intuitions. But one day, while over at his house, I got a jolt of understanding about just how strong the current political impasse is. Sitting on a table was a copy of Michael Savage’s Liberalism is a Mental Disorder. Instead of asking what it was about, when I got home I did a Google search for “liberalism is a disease.” Try it yourself to see how pervasive this idea is (if you’re a conservative, you already know).

But it explains a lot: If liberalism is a disease which must be eradicated then there is no way forward if it involves compromise. Imagine, after being diagnosed with cancer, your doctor suggests compromise instead of surgery.

It also explains why, during the Republican debates, there is little substance other than who’s the best candidate to get Obama out of the White House. Because not only is Barack Obama the consummate liberal who represents all that is bad with this country, he’s the consummate outsider. Only when he’s gone will we “get our America back.”

Next, I will explore a different perspective on morality, one that has to do with action instead of political persuasion. It will focus on a much different concept of “hard work.”

Meanwhile, why not explore your own morals and even contribute to the research?

In my last post I presented five innate foundations, or “intuitions,” on which people build their own sense of morality. They are:

• Harm/care
• Fairness/reciprocity
• Ingroup/loyalty
• Authority/respect
• Purity/sanctity

The list was assembled and defined by Jonathan Haidt and Jesse Graham of the University of Virginia. In their paper “When Morality Opposes Justice: Conservatives Have Moral Intuitions that Liberals may not Recognize” (Social Justice Research, 2007), Haidt and Graham explain how and why social and political conservatives differ from liberals.

Through their research, the pair discovered that these five factors are at work in all cultures and throughout history. But that does not mean that individually people have these traits in equal doses and form moral values in the same way.  

The two foundations of harm/care and fairness/reciprocity (concern for the wellbeing of and justice for others) are prevalent factors in almost everyone’s moral development. In other words, in most people these traits are strong.

But as it turns out, however, social and political liberals develop a morality based almost exclusively on these two.

To liberal-minded people, justice and care for others are all they need to make moral judgements and take virtuous action. Whereas the other three may be important aspects of living within a community, to a liberal they have little or nothing to do with morality. For liberals, fairness/justice forms one half of their moral values and concern for those in the face of harm the other half.

Conservatives, however, develop all five in more-or-less equal doses. What’s striking, however, is that the three intuitions of ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity have everything to do with morality, even at the expense of care and fairness. Things like patriotism, obedience to authority, and disgust for the disease-ridden often will trump concerns for justice and care for “others” outside of the group.

 Next: Getting to the Source of Conflict between Liberals and Conservatives

Our ability to use language and tools to our advantage distinguishes us from other animals, but it’s morality and our capacity for virtuous behavior that make us human. Only people are capable of making moral decisions. Not that every one of us uses that capacity. 

But have you ever thought about why you are a moral person? Have you ever wondered how those virtuous traits of yours developed over time? 

Two researches at the University of Virginia, Jonathan Haidt and Jesse Graham, have been collecting data and writing about these very questions for years.

According to their research, human beings have five natural tendencies, or intuitions, through which they instinctively develop moral values. These intuitions are the same cross-culturally and through time. 

Before describing these five foundational pillars of morality (as I call them here because it works with my drawing!), I think it useful to define some terms. Morality concerns itself with distinguishing among human behaviors that are right and wrong and good and bad. Virtue, as a collective noun, is excellent moral conduct or behavior that exhibits high moral standards. As a singular noun, a virtue is a trait or personal quality deemed of high moral value. One who is virtuous uses high moral standards to help discern between right and wrong, good and bad. An action has value, in the same way an object has value. An action can have high value, considered good, and low value, considered bad. As I’ll describe in a later post, there is not always agreement about what actions have high and low value.

Haight and Graham’s five pillars of morality are:

Harm/care: When there is potential for harm, people care. It begins with a mother’s instinct to care for her offspring and extends throughout the whole of society. Behaviors within this foundation are virtuous acts of kindness and compassion toward those who are, or may be, harmed. Conversely, acts of cruelty and aggression may be directed toward those who cause harm.

Fairness/reciprocity: This pillar is justice. Throughout history people have had the need to form alliances and work together to meet common goals. With alliances come not only the positive emotion of gratitude for when things go well, but the negative emotions of anger and guilt when they don’t. Justice is the concept of moral rightness and is the mechanism that attempts to maintain a reciprocal balance between the positive and negative.

Ingroup/loyalty: Human beings have the tendency to form groups and be loyal to them. People easily recognize, trust, and cooperate with others within the group. Betrayers of the group are despised as are those who don’t come to the group’s aid. Those outside the group are viewed with caution and even suspicion.

Authority/respect: Human communities are hierarchically structured, and values have evolved where people respect and admire those who have roles of authority and leadership. 

Purity/sanctity: People have an innate disgust for what is unclean, that is, disease-ridden. It’s easy to see how corpses, vomit, feces, rats and other animals that carry disease would elicit disgust. Historically, disgust with (and the resulting avoidance of) these things bettered society’s chances of survival. Conversely, that which is clean and pure has high value and may even be sanctified.

Do you see any of these traits in yourself? Where do you think they came from? Are they equally strong, or are some more prominent than others?

As I show next, not everyone has equal doses of these intuitions. In fact, according to Haidt and Graham, there is a strong correlation between the distribution of these intuitions within an individual and whether that person is liberal or conservative.

Kinesiology is the study human movement, so for me and my students, that means bones, joints, and muscles. Lots of muscles. 

I teach two classes, one covering muscles of the upper extremities (arms) and trunk, the other covering muscles of the lower extremities (hips and legs). Oregon School of Massage has two campuses, one in Portland and one in Salem. I teach at both—Tuesdays in Salem and Wednesdays in Portland. 

Massage therapy is usually thought of as a luxury, something people do to relax. In advertisements, people—women, mostly—are shown receiving a massage in some spa-like setting. But it’s much more than that. Many soft-tissue injuries—for the most part meaning muscles and connective tissue—are best treated by massage. Outside of massage, achy and strained muscles are treated with pain relievers and muscle relaxants, which are not always the best choice. Especially when there are so many other benefits of massage therapy.

So it stands to reason that massage therapists need to know about the muscles they work on. Most states regulate massage therapy and have strict requirements about what’s included in a student’s education. In Oregon, broad knowledge of kinesiology is one of those requirements. That’s where I come in.

I’ve taught kinesiology for more than eight years now. It’s one of the more difficult classes for massage students. A lot of memorization is necessary—where a given muscle connects on which bones and what the muscle does. A few muscles have only two attachments and do only one thing, but most of them have many attachments and are active in several different movements. Students need a grasp of many concepts as well. So for some students, it’s difficult to put it all together.

It’s similar to acting in a play, I tell my students. An actor who merely memorizes lines and recites them rote will not give a good performance. Good performances come from actors who can make their lines come alive. Memorizing a long list of muscles and their attachments and actions will get a student only so far. Massage is a skill to be developed, just as acting is.

A requirement for licensure is passing the dreaded Practical Exam conducted by the Oregon Board of Massage Therapists. The practical covers several areas, including massage technique, communication, pathology, and kinesiology. It’s the kinesiology part that freaks people out the most. 

You can read more about my involvement with OSM and a lot of other stuff about me and  some of my other jobs here, in an article written by owner and president Ray Siderius.

Two current events are examples. Today, the Republican Party begins the process to select a candidate to run for President of the United States. Listening to the news this morning about the Iowa Caucus (not to mention news from the past few years), it’s easy to detect the Republican theme that we have to get rid of Barack Obama to “turn this country around.” The implication is that Obama is the cause of the poor state of the economy and everything else they find wrong with this country. 

Does no one in the Republican Party remember (or care to admit) that the stock market crashed—losing 50% of its value—in October 2008? George W. Bush was President then. Barack Obama was only a candidate. Does no one remember (or care to admit) that economic policies of the Bush administration made Enron possible? 

The other event is far removed from the political arena. But perhaps it shouldn’t be. On January 1, a man shot and killed a park ranger on Mt. Rainier in Washington State after wounding several others at a party. These kinds of tragedies happen a lot all over the world. Some people are unbalanced, angry, frustrated, vengeful, hateful, and will do any number of terrible things to others. Who knows what causes lurk behind such acts?

Yet, one thing about this story that sticks out, begging the question of Why? The shooter was Iraq War veteran who was apparently suicidal and suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. We don’t know what this person was like before he went to war. But we do know that when he came home he had trouble adjusting to civilian life. His wife had a restraining order against him because she feared for her own safety as well as that of their child. 

Can you imagine, all those years ago when George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and many others were planning their attack on Iraq that they could have seen the consequences of their actions? Suppose someone in the war room said, “If we go ahead with this, on January 1, 2012, a park ranger with two children will be murdered by one of our soldiers.” Would it have mattered?

The law of cause and effect is always at work. And it’s human nature to ignore it just as it’s human nature to ignore an inconvenient stop sign.

Something else—two related things, really—happened in 1984 that brings me closer to the point of this story. In 1984 I didn’t have a television (still don’t) and wasn’t interested in football (still not), so I missed the now-famous Superbowl ad announcing the Macintosh computer. The other event was the introduction of the Macintosh computer, which was truly revolutionary and a precursor to where we are now with information technology and communication. At the time I was clacking away on my Kaypro II, and it wouldn’t be for a few more years that I would get my first in a series of Mac computers. 

The Macintosh ad concludes with the statement: “And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like ‘1984.’” It features a woman flinging a sledgehammer through a giant telescreen on which Big Brother is haranguing brainwashed members of the Party.

George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four had never been on the assigned reading lists of any of the schools I’d gone to, and, even though I’m inclined to such stories, I’d never read the novel. But phrases like “Big Brother,” and “Thought Police,” and, “Newspeak,” and “Orwellian” were in common-enough usage to make their concepts understandable. So as 1984 approached I wondered if it would be the year that ushered in a new world order. But it came and went, much like any other year. 

I finally did read the book—finished it last week. It impressed me how many of the concepts are in force today. No, we don’t yet live in a totalitarian society, which is exactly what the book warned against. But we do live in a world controlled by unseen external forces—if not physically controlled, certainly mentally. Our government has been in the mind-control business for a long time. 

And all of us are subject to an ever-increasing barrage of political and commercial propaganda, so much so that it’s ever more difficult to discern truth from lies and whom we can trust. 

The purpose of propaganda is to influence an audience for the benefit of another group. Governments, churches, political parties, advertisers all make use of propaganda. In the novel, the Party uses heavy and constant propaganda to control people’s thoughts. All of the propaganda in 1984 is lies, but to have the thought “Big Brother is lying to me,” means almost instant arrest by the Thought Police. So it is imperative, and natural, to believe everything one is told.

We haven’t come that far yet. But we should know by now, with absolute certainty, we are  lied to. The Pentagon Papers offered ample proof that our own government lied to us about the nature of the Vietnam War. The lies getting us into war with Iraq are well documented.

More recently, this ad produced by supporters of Mitt Romney directly quotes President Obama saying, “If we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.” Obama did say that. But he was quoting John McCain, when the two campaigned against each other in 2008. This is deception at its finest. As if there is anything fine about deception.

This is the Romney camp’s response to objections to the ad, made anonymously:

“First of all, ads are propaganda by definition. We are in the persuasion business, the propaganda business…. Ads are agitprop…. Ads are about hyperbole, they are about editing. It’s ludicrous for them to say that an ad is taking something out of context…. All ads do that. They are manipulative pieces of persuasive art.”

Manipulative pieces of persuasive art. Indeed. An aspect of propaganda is that it’s repeated so many times that it becomes—rather seems to become—truth. Obama is a Muslim, right? He wasn’t born in the United States, right? Obama’s a socialist, right? 

“Balanced and Fair” is one of the slogans of Fox News Channel. But is it? I don’t have to rely on articles like this one to convince me it’s neither. I’ve seen bits of it here and there (e.g., it was on continually during a visit to a relative several years ago) to know it is neither balanced nor fair. You may argue that this article is just more propaganda from the “liberal media.” But consider what Republican writer David Frum says in a recent article published in New York Magazine Fox News and talk radio: 

Now we are all entitled to our own facts, and conservative media use this right to immerse their audience in a total environment of pseudo-facts and pretend information [emphasis mine].

Pseudo-facts and pretend information. Indeed. But it doesn’t have to be true to be effective. It just needs to be effective Millions and millions of people rely on Fox for all of their information. Unlike in 1984, no one forces them to do so. They do so, I presume, because it reinforces their beliefs. Beliefs which, it seems, are influenced by Fox News. A loopy feed-back loop of deception. But it sure gets the voters riled up.

Doublethink is another concept present in 1984. It’s the ability to hold two conflicting thoughts in mind at the same time and have no trouble with the contradiction. Doublethink serves two purposes: It renders propaganda as unquestionable truth, which in turn helps a person from committing Thoughtcrime.

The Party’s three slogans are examples of Doublespeak: WAR IS PEACE, SLAVERY IS FREEDOM, and IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH. 

Contemporary examples of Doublethink that come to mind are “pro-life,” and “liberty and justice for all.” Both of these phrases carry powerful meaning, but neither means what it says. But they are uttered with great conviction. 

There are three Party agencies in the novel. The Ministry of Plenty keeps the population at subsistence level. The Ministry of Love is where the Thought Police keep track of every Party member and punish those who commit Thoughtcrime. The Ministry of Truth is where the protagonist, Winston Smith works. His job is to rewrite past articles that appear in the London Times to make sure that current predictions and activities of Big Brother and the Party are always true, regardless of what was said and done yesterday. Part of Winston’s job is to remove “unpersons” from previous stories. Not only are those arrested by the Thought Police executed or banished to hard labor, their histories are erased. They never existed. 

We haven’t come to that, either, in this country. But we do execute lots of people, many of whom are innocent. Still more innocent people serve dozens of years in prison before they are released, if they are so lucky as to have a tireless advocates on the outside. 

And we are able to easily change the past and create false history. Anyone with a copy of Photoshop can take people out of a picture or put them in. Anyone with access to the Internet can spread whatever kind of misinformation and falsities they like. It’s always good to check the facts with Snopes.com and PolitiFact.

None of these contemporary examples, though, have a more chilling effect than that of Big Brother. The prominent fixture in the novel are the ubiquitous telescreens, through which Big Brother can watch everyone’s every move, including the most subtle body language and facial expressions. Big Brother can issue orders through the telescreen, which is also used to make announcements, play music, and provide up-to-the-minute news about the war—a war, by the way, which is not in fact happening. One cannot turn off the telescreen. 

Orwell wrote Nineteen Eight-Four  in 1948, when television technology was relatively new. But he was right on about the potential of a lack of privacy and the institutionalized ability to monitor people’s actions and whereabouts with ease. And it will get nothing but easier. Whatever you think of Wikileaks, they are responsible for exposing just how pervasive the spying technology is and how it is used. If you have a computer connected to the Internet, if you have a  smart phone, if you have a Facebook account, you are vulnerable. 

* I marvel at associations, that is, how things in life are associated and balanced, and these two events are part of that balance. About two months ago I bought an iPhone. One of the reasons, among several, was to explore the world of ebooks. The first book I read on my Apple iPhone was 1984.

__________

*For those of you interested in history, especially the history of Apple, or matters of copyright and infringement, you’ll enjoy this article about Apple’s use of Big Brother in its ad.

A 7-minute animation of 1984.

The Big Brother image is courtesy Wikimedia Commons. I used Photoshop to superimpose it on an image of my iPhone.

How to Sell What You Make, First Edition, 1990

I signed a contract a couple of weeks ago with Stackpole Books to write a third edition of How to Sell What You Make, The Business of Marketing Crafts. The offer to write it came unexpectedly, only after my editor recently stumbled upon my website and found an operable email address number for me. The phone number and email address he had on file were long obsolete, which he discovered about a year ago, when he tried to reconnect with me.

The first edition of How to Sell was published in the spring of 1990, and the contract for that one also came unexpectedly. During the 80s I was writing articles for a few woodworking magazines. Something I’d written caught the attention of one the editors at Stackpole, who called to ask if I’d be interested in writing a book for her. What she had in mind was a book on the marketing and business aspects of crafts. I signed my first contract in 1988.

Getting that contract really was a stroke of luck. I think if I’d come up with the idea and peddled it in the conventional way I would have given up after the first few rejection letters. And the article that started it all nearly didn’t get written. Even though I had the assignment, I was in a low point in my life and had no enthusiasm for putting it together. I have a very clear memory of the despondency and apathy that surrounded the idea of doing the necessary interviews and writing the story. Yet I did write the story. It was one of the most valuable decisions I ever made. The first edition of How to Sell sold nearly 158,000 copies. And I continued to write books for Stackpole for the next 10 years or so. A second edition of How to Sell, published in 1996, has sold more than 19,000 copies. (Please don’t assume there is great wealth behind theses numbers—there isn’t. But I still get an occasional two-figure royalty check.)

The second edition was different from the first only in that I added a bit about using a computer for bookkeeping, research, and creating marketing materials (remember desktop publishing?). At the time, the use of a computer was a big advance, considering the World Wide Web didn’t begin to approach viability until around 1992.

But so much has changed since then. Artists and craftspeople of all sorts are using the Internet for marketing and selling what they produce. The World Wide Web is a marketplace as big as the world itself. It’s a rare person who doesn’t use the Internet in some way in terms of marketing and selling.

So it’s time to bring the book into the 21st Century. After all, people are still making and selling all kinds of original things. I don’t foresee that will ever change. If you’re an artisan or craftsperson I’d like to hear from you on how you market and sell your work. Please don’t hesitate to contact me to share your stories or suggest ideas that I may include in the third edition of How to Sell What You Make.

Robin and I arrived just at noon Saturday, and, after settling in, each of us wandered through the house with notebook and pencil. Then we had a lengthy and lively discussion around the dining table about things we’d like to fix or change. We talked about small things like replacing wall decor and big things like remodeling the kitchen and much in between. In the end we agreed taking care of the kitchen had priority.

Business out of the way, Robin and I took to the beach. We had left Vancouver that morning thinking it would dreary and wet, but once we got into the coast range, the weather cleared. Our walk along the beach, just as the tide was on the ebb, was bright and clear with only a slight breeze.

The evening brought lots of conversation, much of which took place around the dining table. We ate bowls of minestrone, which Spud had prepared in advance (you may have guessed he is a chef), followed by Tillamook ice cream and a heaping bowl of popcorn cooked in lard. I’d never heard of such a thing, but Spud has been making that way since his father taught him how.

The expected rain came in overnight, and the morning was foggy and wet. Robin and I didn’t get up until 9:30, which is the latest we’ve slept in, possibly, for several years. After several cups of coffee and handfuls of left-over popcorn, we headed home.

I joined Oregon Writers Colony in 1984, just a year after it was founded. That year I attended my first-ever writers’ conference, which OWC held at Silver Falls State Park. I became friends with—among many others—co-f0unders Marlene and the late Lola Janes, who were students of Portland writer Don James at Portland State University’s Summer Haystack Program in the Arts.

Since then I’ve been an on-again, off-again member of OWC, as different projects, responsibilities, and life changes influenced how I would spend my time and resources. But every time I reacquaint myself with OWC I’m inspired by being around people who simply love the craft of writing.

In the early days, OWC’s dream was to have a place at the beach where writers could work in solitude or gather with other writers. In 1988, thanks to a bequest from the estate of Lola Janes and a generous gift from Jean Auel, the dream took shape in the form of Colonyhouse.

There may be a more ideal spot for a writer’s retreat, but you’d have to do some searching. Just two hours from Portland, Colonyhouse is situated on a hill between Lake Lytle to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Where else could you find two distinctively different waterfront views? But there is more than the location that makes Colonyhouse a spectacular writer’s retreat. It’s a log house built by  John Steiner, son of Henry Steiner, who together built dozens of exquisit log cabinsin the Mt. Hood area.

The previous owner had covered the outside with aluminum siding, which seems a desecration. But who knows what toll the coastal weather took on the place? The inside, with the exception of the kitchen and bathrooms, are in fabulous shape. The workmanship is exacting. It’s hard to imagine the patience and skill it took assemble the rough-hewn timbers and the massive stones for the fireplace.

Yet OWC has ambitious plans for Colonyhouse. If money were not an object, instead of a few repairs, the ground/basement floor would be extended to the east, with a meeting room, more bedrooms and a large bathroom. Spacious decks would extend east and west, and an elevator would rise from the front parking area to the main floor. Already there are rolls of blueprints to pore over, but until OWC can generate the funds to start, we’ll have to settle for a kitchen upgrade.

In case you haven’t been paying attention, the world, for some believers, is in its last week of existence. Friday is Doomsday.

It’s not such a big deal as it was last spring, when Harold Camping and his followers predicted the world would come to a cataclysmic end on May 21. Many of these followers sold sold their belongings and went on crusades of conversion, encouraging repentance as a preparation for judgement day. Camping was wrong, of course, because that day came and went much like every other day. But then again, he insists he’s right. On his Family Radio website, which has gone through an extreme makeover, he explains what really happened on May 21. That the world didn’t come to a violent end was all part of the Plan.

Image from the Family Radio website, two days before the world did not en

“What really happened is that God accomplished exactly what He wanted to happen. That was to warn the whole world that on May 21 God’s salvation program would be finished on that day. For the next five months, except for the elect (the true believers), the whole world is under God’s final judgment. To accomplish this goal God withheld from the true believers the way in which two phrases were to be understood. Had He not done so, the world would never have been shaken in fear as it was.

“…Indeed, on May 21 Christ did come spiritually to put all of the unsaved throughout the world into judgment. But that universal judgment will not be physically seen until the last day of the five month judgment period, on October 21, 2011.

That’s right. Friday is the day. The last day. For good.

Only this time, according to Camping, it will be a quiet event. In a Time magazine newsfeed, Camping states:

“I really am beginning to think as I restudied these matters that there’s going to be no big display of any kind. The end is going to come very, very quietly, probably within the next month. It will happen, that is, by October 21.”

The quote, according to Time, comes from one of Camping’s radio announcements.

Camping, who is ninety, had a stroke in June. Perhaps, for him—not to mention a good deal of others around the world—the end will come quietly on Oct. 21. For the rest of us, however, we all have December 21, 2012 to look forward to—or worry about, depending on your particular beliefs.

Doomsday predictions are as old as the hills, as the saying goes. Here’s a list of 10 failed predictions. It doesn’t include Camping’s bogus 1994 prediction. I’m predicting the Mayan Calendar non-event will make the list in due time.

Soon, as the weather gets less hospitable and people find the need to get back to their ordinary lives, the Occupy Wall St. movement will come to an end. The 99% will go their way within the system, like it or not. I do hope something positive comes from it all, but in today’s hostile political, social, and economic environments, I doubt the protests will make much difference to those who control the immense flow of money throughout the country and around the world.

Meanwhile, I’ve come across a couple of quotes that illustrate just how wide the chasm is between logic and reason on the one side and delusion on the other. The first is from New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, who writes:

“The way to understand all of this [the Occupy Wall St. movement] is to realize that it’s part of a broader syndrome, in which wealthy Americans who benefit hugely from a system rigged in their favor react with hysteria to anyone who points out just how rigged the system is.”

The second is from Rush Limbaugh, who states on his website:

“Many of these protestors are bored trust fund kids, obsessed with being something, being somebody, meaningless lives, they want to matter. Others are just showing up for the fun of it to rabble-rouse.”

It doesn’t take much take much consideration to see which of these statements is reasonable and which isn’t; to see which comes from a ground of understanding and which comes from a ground of contempt.

The Limbaugh quote comes from a web page labeled “Pearls of Wisdom.” But there is something wrong here, if not incredibly ironic. Wisdom, by its nature, must be wholesome. Wisdom can never be hateful or divisive. To believe otherwise is delusion.

The chasm between wisdom and ignorance is huge and growing wider by the day as the Internet is used, not always to bring people together, but as a powerful cannon of propaganda aimed to intentionally deceive, manipulate, and divide.

Somewhere, there is an Island of peace, away from hostility and ignorance.