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The holiday season traditionally summons up the dual images of nostalgia and food. As a “Time Out,” from our recent spate of metaphysical, ethical, and analytic themes, we would choose, once again, to venture into the World of the 1940s-50’s Brooklyn, popularly requested by readers. In this context, we would recall, with a measure of nostalgia, a phenomenon, now extinct or reconfigured, of the exotic and delectable variety of peripatetic sidewalk food vendors. Their modern replication by food trucks, selling entire meals to the public, like chicken or lamb over rice and the like, may be of greater utility but at the same time are lacking in comparable nuance, color, and nostalgia.

In our childhood days, routinely following a softball or basketball game played in a New York City Public Park, we would, in a way, loosely analogous to the more elegant, “après ski” ritual, traditionally congregate, in front of the local candy store for our routine ceremony of two salty stick pretzels and a bottle of cold “Mission Orange” soda. We would especially note that the scene on so many neighborhood concrete sidewalks was significantly and markedly at variance with the present.

It was common to see peripatetic vendors, standing at their umbrella-advertised, pushcarts, selling eatables to the passerby public. Publically familiar varieties of traditional food products were predictable and selectively varied. In our recollection, the most delectable and noteworthy were the hot-baked potato knishes. The particular iteration of this classic food, sold by the street vendor, differed from those sold by neighborhood delicatessens. The latter was square-shaped and prepared with a light yellow coating enclosing an ample, mashed potato-tasting filler. The tasty and memorable version of the knish, sold by the sidewalk vendor, by contrast, was a truly delicious, oval-shaped, light brown, baked version with less potato filling, but a more savory taste. Inevitably, and usefully, a mug-shaped metal perforated container, situated on the lidded cover of the heated container, contained the accommodating salt.  We later discovered, to our dismay, that, both the potato-knish street vendor and, sorrowfully, such iteration of the baked potato knish have become, irretrievably extinct.

Another iteration of the extinct sidewalk food vendor was the seller of baked sweet potatoes. Like the knish vendor, the baked sweet potato vendor operated from a closed, heated, push cart, selling his product, handed over to each purchaser in a piece of thick, temperature-protecting piece of paper. We had often eaten baked sweet potatoes at home but for some (possibly, romantic), reason, the hot baked sweet potato consumed outdoors, on the street, seemed especially and deliciously exciting.

Among our favorite, street-vendor-sold foods were “arbis” (Yiddish for chickpeas), sold warm, in a paper bag with a similar available metal salt shaker.  To consume such soft, salted, chickpeas slowly and enjoyably out of the bag was a memorable experience; one, as recalled, perhaps exceeding the pleasure of today’s gourmet prepared “hummus.”

Another selection from our 1940s-50’s sidewalk menu was (in wintertime) roasted chestnuts. On cold winter days, these heated eatables were, in addition to their doughy-nutty tastiness, not part of the customary European-Ashkenazi menu, and, accordingly, an exotic item on the street (winter) menu. The chestnuts were sliced and roasted by the vendor, and, similarly delivered in small paper bags.

Today, we, fortunately, possess the ability to roast and enjoy seasonal chestnuts in our country home fireplace. However, the long-ago, limited experience of our unsophisticated, youth, yielded a special excitement.

Four items, on the traditional street sidewalk menu, it appears, have escaped extinction and are easily and contemporaneously available. These consist of twisted salt pretzels, frozen ices, the jelly apple (the latter two, in season), and ice cream, sold from a refrigerated, and, on occasion, music-playing truck. However, gone extinct, is an item of ice cream, existing in the earlier era cited, called the “Melloroll.”

Finally, in the interest of remaining compliant with our eternal and resolute determination to be unfailingly candid, the reader might entertain the cogent possibility that recollection of our youthful street menu was, indeed, as exotic and savory as recounted, but, nevertheless, possibly in need of some minor adjustment based upon our early, unsophisticated, state of inexperience and, as well, a present proclivity apparently, to romantic subjectivity concerning personal, long- past recollection.

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Initially, to avoid possible misconception of our thematic meaning, we would assert two caveats:[First]: This writing is not relevant to the pending Hamas-Israel War or Gaza.

[Second]: While we unquestionably support the State of Israel, we do not approve of any act of violation of legitimate Palestine territory. We do believe in a peaceful, two-state solution. The latter subject is similarly, irrelevant to our present theme and contextual intent.

Student-led rallies and mass protest events, historically seem to be, a concomitant feature of University life. In our Nation, at present, University Student mass demonstrations appear to be in full season from coast to coast. There are psychiatrists and other behavioral professionals who would relate the underlying dynamics of this notably youthful phenomenon to the specific stage of the individual’s developmental turmoil, of adolescence and youth, professionally termed, “Storm and Stress,”  (“Sturm und Drang”) empirically, evinced by parental conflict, mood disruptions, and risky behaviors.  

Whatever the commonality may be, we have noted many student protests whose articulated causes contain cognizable moral or philosophical merit and others about which we would have some question. Public expressions of mass concern regarding, academic freedom, book banning, “Black Lives Matter,” voter interference, excessive tuition charges, and affirmative action, are examples of causes with a meritorious aspiration. Additionally, the youthful participants would seem to have an understandably, zealous motivation, having been relatively recently in life,  exposed to the more sophisticated context of justice and its opposite; albeit, somewhat lacking in empirical experience, which latter consideration, at times, may offer to a more mature perception some degree of objective mitigation.

As stated in the outset of this essay, we do not support any acts of Israeli settlers that violate Palestinian territory, as prescribed by International Law. Student protests against the same, however, often appear to lack propriety in view of America’s past history. With regard to its 19th-century history program of expansion under the quasi-religious rationalization, proclaimed, “Manifest Destiny,” regarding which, protesting American students seem myopic and completely disinterested. In our view, this entirely, ignored consideration makes the uninformed, perhaps, misled, student protester lack equitable standing or credibility, regarding the contested issue of Israeli-Palestine borders.  

But first, a snapshot of some relevant Middle East history: In 1947 the UN drafted a” Partition Plan” which officially divided the British Mandate of Palestine into Arab and Jewish States. On May 14, 1948, the State of Israel was legally created. The foregoing act sparked a pan-Arab war against Israel, which, unfortunately, continues to this day. The issue of boundaries, it seems, has since been in contention.

Our criticism relative to the mass protests on the contentious subject of Israeli-Palestine borders is two-fold: the protestors’ understandable zeal for principled justice, often far outweighs their information, and second, their expressed aspirations for territorial justice in the Middle East, inappropriately, perhaps, even sophomorically, ignores our own, American History, concerning the immoral displacement of the aboriginal American Nations and the plunder and territorial aggrandizement of the entire continent. To repeat, we do not approve of acts of illegal trespass or incorporation of legitimately established Palestinian land by zealous Israelis, nor the reverse. It, however, seems reductionist and sophomoric to loudly protest claims of specific trespass by wrongdoing, over-patriotic Middle East wrongdoers, by “idealistic,” possibly, inadequately informed protestors, vocally seeking territorial justice while, at the same time, ignoring and tacitly, accepting our Nation’s felonious theft of an entire continent, and continuing to remain, “Manifestly, myopic.”

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In the classic verses of Ovid’s, “METAMORPHOSES,” the protagonist, (Narcissus) suffers eternal punishment meted out by the Gods for excess vanity. He is sentenced to spend the rest of his days, endlessly admiring the reflection of his beautiful face in a pool of water.  It notably may be observed that many modern humans appear to suffer from a similar egoistic predilection, but rather, on a voluntary basis, without divine mandate. At the odious risk of premeditated commission of the offense of copyright infringement, we would, empirically, declare that the penal sentence divinely meted out to Narcissus has eternally and universally been served by humankind on a volitional basis. One has merely to substitute an ordinary mirror in exchange for the lengthy poem’s symbolic pool of water, to credibly, witness the charge that Ovid’s Narcissus has been intentionally and premeditatedly replicated and photo-shopped, on a constant and universal basis.

The reader may be assured that in this critique, we emphatically, do not include one’s routine act of occasionally monitoring the current state of his appearance.

Humankind’s bizarre predilection to eternally examine and re-examine his facial identity might conceivably, be attributable to various phenomena: a penchant for insecurity, a lack of confidence in a stable personal self-image, or, in an appropriate situation, the reflection of doubt, a shallow sense of temporal discomfort and/or the presence of weak resolve. An audit of Planet Earth’s developed Nations, we would imagine, would conceivably reveal only slightly fewer mirrors than the total of its human population. What might possibly be the nature and motivation underlying such frequently enacted self-voyeurism? Do we dare commit a possible act of excess by further supplementing this enigmatic observation with a subtle reference to snapshots and the modern affinity for “selfies”?

The instructional lesson portrayed by the fate of Ovid’s protagonist was, inarguably, one regarding excessive vanity, for which the offender was eternally condemned to ceaseless and uninterrupted self-admiration. It is our personal observation that, while universal vanity may be a cognizable motivation, in our view, there are several other, more cogent, profound, and metaphysically revealing possibilities.

Based upon our subjective perception, the fundamental and cogent motivations for the incessant practice of auditing one’s visage are those of insecurity, personal, and situational. The amelioration of either category of such causes has an existentially vital factor in common. It has been our observation that the fundamental ingredient is the failure to sufficiently acquire a mature confident, and referable internal self-image. It clearly demonstrates that one has failed to satisfactorily implement the classically sage admonition of Socrates, “know thyself.” The incessant desire to steal a peek at one’s face, or, identity, in times of equivocation or felt confusion are, in our view, symptoms of such failure.

The normally socialized individual, as we have often noted, in time, develops a vital sense of himself, or “self-image,” by consideration and contemplation of his responses to life’s varied stimuli. From the accrual of, and learning from, his consistent responses to singular empirical experiences, the contemplative individual, at some point in his maturing experience, derives an image of himself (i.e., “knows himself”); he is enabled to respond to stimuli, when called upon, based upon the assistance, garnered from his referential his self-image. He has no need to call upon his mirrored reflection in vain attempts to properly construe a response. His reflective capabilities are internal and referential, not external and mindlessly, reflexive. He seldom flounders, looks for group approval, or fears potential oppositional opinions. The image in the mirror, when he does consult one, is not motivated by indecisive delay, or deflection but one of assured confidence.

Two additional causes, we might choose to postulate for the constant (“narcissistic”) reference to mirrors are, the neurotic subjects of, an immature and ungrateful fear of aging (about which we have copiously written) and that of the ruminative phobia of hypochondria. The latter two additional causes, respectively, evincing, an insufficient ingratitude for the invaluable franchise of life, and the second, an independent and chronic pathology for which counseling may be clinically useful.

As a matter of appropriate social interaction, the next time you do glance at a mirror, you might properly choose to say, “Hello,”

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In Shakespeare’s play, “As You Like It,” a player recites the seminal version of the contemporaneous, much-used phrase, “All the world’s a stage and all the men and women players.” In an early essay, “Labels” we briefly touched upon the common, erroneous predilection to identify and summarily assume knowledge of the persona of others by reductive association, based on their occupation or appearance. Such populist practice has, in addition to its consistency of error, many implications proximately causative of serious harm. It may, accordingly be useful to reprise the subject in a more consequential context.

The origin of many family names had their origin in the era of early subsistence societies and often identified one’s working role or craft. Thus, the origin of names like Carpenter, Sawyer, Wagoner, Cook, Taylor, Priest, Bookbinder, Turner, and the like. While in modern times, society does not attribute family names to craft or function, many do reductively conflate one’s function, and even physical appearance, with a perceived stereotypical personality.

In ancient Greek theatrical identification of the players’ respective roles in comedy or tragedy as, the righteous King or dark villain, and in the ancient Japanese Noh play, the player wore an identified mask in keeping with his theatrically themed role or the predestined fate. No member of the audience needed to exercise his imagination or insight to be cognizant of the classically known role, intended message, and specific part portrayed in such traditional narrative by such easily identifiable characters. This classical style of art, often called for such a fashioning of the protagonist’s mask so as to be stereotypically instructive of his flawed personality (ex., “hubris”) and/or his classically, inevitable fate at the hands of the justice-dealing Gods.

In modern life, many people seem inclined to make reductive, uninformed, and facile assumptions or judgments of other people, based on their taught, or self-perceived stereotypes. Thus “Lenny, the lawyer,” or “Calvin, the accountant,” might erroneously and reductively be identified by stereotype, and based on the observer’s held fiction, his traditional persona, such as the outspoken lawyer or the more reticent accountant.

Initially, and contextually, in the above illustrations, the phrase, “Lenny the lawyer,” and “Calvin, “the accountant” implies a tendency to unsophisticatedly comprehend and describe people in a functional pattern, as opposed to the more challenging and appropriate, acquisition of specific personal insight or understanding. In the early days, appellations such as “Cooper,” which merely designated his trade, as a maker of barrels, and no more; similarly, Sawyer, Taylor, Driver, Preacher, and Farmer.  

Regarding the above designation “Lenny the lawyer,” any rational individual would perceive the description as indicating that Lenny is an individual who works as a lawyer, and no further. The reductionist might take the designation of “lawyer,” to reductively and confidently deduce the implicit presence of specific nuanced attributes, such as aggressiveness, wordiness, and even shrewdness. The name and designated profession of Calvin, as an accountant, says nothing about his persona; yet a reductionist may ignorantly choose to associate with him, assumed qualities of shyness and a neurotic striving for precision. The reductive “thinker,” is a major roadblock and impediment to empirical truth and accuracy; not to mention, fairness and reason.

It is inaccurate, dysfunctional, and often perilous to reductively ascribe perceived characteristics in the evaluation of other human beings by populist, facile, and often grossly inaccurate, reductive assumptions. The populist inclination to so err often appears to be demonstrated by those who are inadequately schooled, and those of insular persona, in their arduous quest for some measure of some understanding of their life’s environment.

Such reductive, rationally objectionable, and unjust inclination to render facile judgment and falsely confident evaluation of others, founded on arbitrary and distorted stereotypical reductionism, plays a perversely, prominent and tragic role in the injurious and metastasizing pathology of bias and irrationally based prejudice, relative to race, religion, sexual orientation, and ethnos.

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We will unashamedly confess that Albert Einstein’s revolutionary theory [E=MC squared], as advised, uniquely and famously, revealing a fundamental link between space and time, is far beyond our own comprehension. We would, however, take the liberty of introducing the reader, to our far more comprehensible, empirical theory which may, similar to Einstein’s’ “Theory of Relativity,” be succinctly and universally expressed in an equation, viz., [PD=+/- EE]. Our latter formula, by contrast, is easily comprehended and understood as representing the empirical phenomenon that the perception of physical differences is a direct product of one’s extent of personal experience. Said concept may be understood in wise street language as: “To the other guy, you are the other guy.” Said easy-to-explain conception, nevertheless, is often unknown or ignored, with consequences ranging from ordinary (ignorant) misunderstanding to the fear and loathing implicit in racial, religious, or ethnic bigotry.

It is an unfortunate but, nevertheless, accurate, observation, complicating the empirical fact of the extant natural and ethnic diversity of Homo sapiens, that there has eternally existed a universal and innate tendency of the individual persona, to see himself as the exclusive model or insular criterion in unfair and critical comparison with diverse others. Such failure may indeed have a prehistoric cautionary impetus, but, perceived contemporaneously, is an irrefutable indication of ignorant insularity and lack of empirical experience with those of disparate appearance and belief. Educational advancement and, most especially, the enlightening revelations garnered from travel are among the specific antidotes for this atavistically, anti-social precautionary perception.

It is inarguable, that our Nation, with the possible categorical exception of its aboriginal Indian peoples) has essentially been populated by immigrants and their descendants, and is, empirically, a “melting pot” or a National conglomerate of ethnicities, races, and citizens of diverse nationalities. Our unfortunate history, nevertheless, has been one of strife, hatred, fear, and denial of natural and legal rights for “minorities,” i.e., groups of color or ethnos in variance with the controlling majority population, dominant by virtue of its arithmetic ascendency.

There have been many examples in history, of those who aspire to autocratic leadership and promote racial, religious, and cultural bias and prejudice, in furtherance of their desire to attain autocratic control, who tactically promote and encourage divisiveness and dissension in a multi-ethnic and varied racial Nation. We unhappily include in this Machiavellian fraternity, our own past President, Donald J. Trump. It was the famous novelist and circumspect thinker, Aldous Huxley, who, notably, stated, “The purpose of propaganda is to make one set of people forget that other sets of people are [also] human.”

In past essays, we have strongly encouraged parents of young children, in addition to properly educating them in the traditions and beliefs of their (happenstance) birth into their particular family, that they are advised of the existence of others of different beliefs, and possibly, diverse appearance who are equally acceptable. Such early lessons and later education and later objective experience, in our view, constitute means, preferable to aspirational and possibly, unobserved, statutory promulgations. It is positive enlightenment, not the vague threat of possible retribution, that has the most promise and likelihood of moral and legal success.

The concept of the frequently heard comment as to a speaker’s possession of a “foreign accent,” is empirically and contextually instructive. Uniformly, every conversational party has a perceptible accent to any other speaker or listener who is reared in another language or diverse Nationality from his. The heard perception of an accent is universally attributable to the “other guy.”

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Our Nation, inarguably, merits the Olympic gold prize for quantum success in the area of media televised sales promotion. The commercial practice, in some countries, is strictly limited or entirely unlawful.  In our Nation, there are scarce few subjects of such proscription which include tobacco, fireworks, and narcotic drug products and their related paraphernalia. The television viewer eternally witnesses the theatrically presented marketing of automobiles and cosmetics; the latter, aimed at retarding the natural process of aging; bizarrely inclusive of the sale of Botox (one of the World’s most lethal substances for the advertised and egotistical removal of life’s natural scalp wrinkles). Most relevantly, it has been our view that in the interest of public safety and health, the media’s irresponsible and hazardous practice of the marketing of medicine should be included in the list of forbidden subjects.

Televised advertisements for the indiscriminate, mass marketing of medicine include those for diabetes, heart health, depression (including, bi-polar, categories 1 and 2) eczema, arthritis, senile dementia, asthma, high blood pressure, toenail fungus, colds, viruses, migraine headaches, pneumonia, muscle cramps, anxiety, insomnia, colitis, heartburn, diarrhea, cognitive dysfunction from aging, dandruff, glaucoma, and just about every conceivable pathology or discomfort, are regularly transmitted, at every program and film break,

Notably, the responsible, personalized, prescription of medicine or course of treatment, written by a physician, has specific application to the particular patient, whose medical history, nuanced physiological chemistry, and current use of medicine are known to the prescriber. The irresponsible marketing of medicine or related health substances, indiscriminately and irresponsibly, to the general public risks the dangers of undesirable reactions and toxic interaction with other medicines.

While we do acknowledge that, generally, with regard to such advertised items the fact of approval by the FDA, or, the responsible revelation of their pending or non-approval by such public protective agency is usually disclosed, and that such advertised medicines are not “snake oil,” such assumed confidence is not contextually relevant to the thematic caution expressed in this essay.

It is undeniably and universally recognized by physicians, pharmacists, and as well, the non-professional public, that the human body is a complex amalgamation of sensitive chemical and neural components. To, empirically, refine, and particularize the previous declaration, we would note that there generally appear to be nuanced, natural features of the same as between individual humans. The precise knowledge of an individual’s existing medical chemistry, including his present intake of existing medicines, is a vitally necessary awareness in the prevention of an unforeseen happening of a negative interaction.

One’s prescribing physician is cognizant of the weighty responsibility of being completely informed of his patient’s individual, personalized medical history and present intake of medications including, his possible allergies, and particular chemical, medical, neurological, and predictable inclinations. One of a great many illustrative and precautionary examples of this vital necessity is the nuanced response in the case of peanuts. People who have an allergic reaction to the ingestion of even tiny amounts of peanut may respond with anaphylaxis, a serious, condition that has life-threatening potential.

Medicine is not a product, to be responsibly and morally advertised for sale to the mass public like bathing suits and toothpaste. Profit and commercial enterprise, albeit in a free capitalistic economy, needs to responsibly and empathically, take a back seat to the primary and existential responsibility of concern for citizen health and public safety.

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Putin’s atavistic war of imperialist aggression against the sovereign Nation of Ukraine, and Hamas’s brutal and bloody invasion of Israel remain contemporary matters of great concern to the United States and its international partners. However, we have discerned, regarding the two events a fundamentally significant difference in their respective perception by the public. Initially, a brief recounting of the scenarios of both calamities would seem to be contextually, useful.

RUSSIA v. UKRAINE:

Putin’s wrongful, imperialistic aggression, seeking the elimination of the National independence of Ukraine and its incorporation into the Russian State, directed the Russian military to invade that Nation, absent provocation, with an arrogant and erroneous assumption that his war of aggression would have victorious results in a matter of days. Putin’s irrational assumption was resoundingly disproven by the unpredictably capable patriotic resistance by Ukraine. Tens of thousands of deaths were, and continue to be being suffered on both sides of the conflict.  Russia is also guilty of the kidnapping of thousands of Ukrainian children for the inculcation of anti-Ukrainian propaganda. It is also proximately responsible for the initiation of Europe’s greatest refugee crisis since the Second World War and, in addition, is responsible for extensive shortages in the World food supply; Ukraine, historically, a significant agricultural producer of grain.

Such optimistic assumption that Russia would have a victory within days, was soundly disproven, by Ukraine’s formidable and dedicatedly patriotic, military resistance, under its young and charismatic (democratically, elected) President, Volodmr Zelensky. The stiff resistance by the attacked Nation and the high level of its military prowess resulted in many victorious gains against the aggressor and earned the universally expressed admiration of the free world. Such successes, however, tragically induced the ambitious and psychopathic Putin to initiate a program of inhumane war crimes, including bombing hospitals, churches, and highly populated residential areas.

 Notably, until very recently, the television media was entirely awash with harsh commentary amply supported by photographic demonstrations of the inhumane practice of Russia’s heartless bombing and shelling of non-military, civilian targets, such as apartment buildings, hospitals, institutions, houses of worship, and the like. The viewing public demonstrated appropriate outrage at the inhumane targeting of the Ukrainian civilian population, through appropriate media editorializing, loud and numerous public demonstrations, and privately expressed outrage. Ukraine’s young and popular President, often seen in military fatigues, became a popularly admired and courageous hero deservedly celebrated on television and in public appearances for his cool-headed defense of Democracy against the ravages of totalitarian plunder.

HAMAS v. ISRAEL:

In the morning of October 7, 2023, Hamas, a militant Palestinian group, launched a surprise attack against southern Israel, initiated by a huge barrage of explosive rockets, followed by a military assault. It performed a great many horrific massacres, including the beheading of babies and young children, rape, burning people alive while in their homes, massacring many young people at a concert, and taking 200 Israeli hostages, and internationals, including some Americans.

As noted in a previous essay, # 974, “HAMAS’ WAR AGAINST PALESTINE,” the militant group, fully aware that it lacks the capacity to defeat tiny Israel’s proficient military capability, which predictably would respond to their wrongful attack and medieval-level acts of cruelty, tactically retreated with its hostages to its vast network of well-supplied underground tunnels (strategically, constructed under civilian hospitals and residential centers) and as planned, causing the ravaged Nation’s justified and predictable military response to be visited upon (their own) innocent fellow Palestinians, inhabiting the surface. Its successful plan was intended to have World opinion turn sharply against the Jewish State and its universal acceptability as a democratic and moral partner.

It is contextually and thematically, vital to compare the sharply contrasting motivation underlying both attacks.  Putin’s malevolent, aspiration was to seize more land and increase the reach of his autocratic rule. Hamas’ intention has eternally been, the obliteration of the Jewish State and destruction of its inhabitants, a motive shared by many other Islamic and European peoples.

The strategic chess move, made by Hamas, was successful; Israel’s expected retaliation was by Hamas’ premeditation, necessarily diverted to the civilian  Gaza population residing on the surface, precariously above their safe place of defensive retreat in their enormous, well-provisioned labyrinth of tunnels, constructed underground, and tactically and psychopathically, located under civilian hospitals and residential venues.

As strategically devised, a predictable tsunami of universal outraged criticism instantly ensued, decrying the retaliate acts by Israel, directed against civilian Gaza, as criminal acts of inhumanity while the wily forces of Hamas, remained ensconced and cynically, shielded below the surface.

 On a virtually immediate basis, copious daily televised reports, appeared, regularly accompanied by heartrending pictures of innocent Gazan citizens of all ages, killed and grievously wounded. Large public demonstrations against the Hamas-savaged Israel took place (our present theme) remarkably, in place of the continuing tragedy of the horrific punishment of Ukraine. The Russian genocidal acts bent on the erasure of Ukrainian National identity appeared notably, and summarily, to be relegated to a back seat to the strategically engineered, Hamas plot and a renewal of the unrelated issue of “anti-colonialism.” Acts of anti-Semitism reportedly, increased by 400%, including on University campuses. Far less attention is currently devoted to Putin’s imperialistic attempts to destroy Ukrainian Nationality than the widespread castigation of Israel’s (in truth, Hamas’) visible cruelty against innocent Palestinians.

Dare we choose to attribute such a universal and virtually spontaneous shift in the object of censure to humanity’s past empirical history?

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It is responsibly necessary to clearly distinguish the rational, pragmatic, and voluntary context of “consensus,” from that of the self-abnegating and neurotic concept of “groupthink.” The contextual and dynamic essence of the contrasting concepts are irrefutably, antithetical.

The dynamics of consensus may be illustrated, among an unlimited plethora of examples, by the writings of Rousseau on the subject of what he termed the “The Social Compact” (“Contract”). It was his memorable observation that members of society, jointly and consensually, submit to the voluntary surrender of certain personal liberties (relevant to the public interest) by tacit agreement, in exchange for the many-faceted benefits of mutually living in society. Such a pragmatic and contractual concept of living in society necessarily is predicated upon the foundational existence of personal choice.  The willing members self-interestedly, elect by mutual consensus, to accept certain restrictions on individual liberty, deemed necessary and appropriate to living in a society with others.

The notable predicate in the definitional existence of “consensus” is the existence of an individuated, free, and determinative exercise of rational choice by its mutual constituents.

In bright contrast, the definition and dynamics of the phenomenon of “group think,” the latter, a derogation of the conception of free will, as well as an impediment to the dynamics of democracy, connotes the willing surrender of individual will and personal judgment for non-rational reasons; most often, observably, founded upon a (neurotically) perceived need for acceptance and group approval. The latter phenomenon appears to exemplify many irrational, even bizarre, extant human behaviors.

An individual’s election to surrender his personally held views and judgmental choices (as often declared in this blog space) reveals the likely presence of personal insecurity, and the resultant need for a comforting sense of acceptance is customarily founded upon an insufficient development of a stable and referential, self-image. Such failure is stereotypically, concomitant with an inadequate education or limited exposure to others of diverse views.

In the case of normally socialized, healthy, and contemplative individuals, as they mature, the accumulated experience of personal responses to the multitude of life’s varying stimuli, tends to afford, a sense of consistency of response; the latter precedential to the creation of a personal sense of identity (“self-image”) and the perceived capacity for self-determination. One’s developed self-image is his referential basis for moral decision-making (as rationally opposed to rewards and punishment, secular or divine) as well as his rational point of view.

The Founders often articulated their doctrinaire belief that the future citizens of the newly created experimental Democracy would, in a responsible and neighborly manner, debate the controversial issues of the day. The results of such debates would be of use in the governance of a Nation, “By and for the People.”  The white-wigged Founders were dedicatedly optimistic and, unfortunately, in error.

As we have written, in disappointing contrast to the Founders’ anticipated, neighborly, and dutiful conduct of debates on the controversial issues of the day, what developed was a divisive hatred between citizens of disparate opinion. Such groups have been engaged in consequent formation of insular fraternal groups or “tribes” of mutual and uniform opinion, engaged in a continuing state of hostile “Cold War” with other like groups of divergent views. This social dynamic may be seen as relevant in political, religious, and inter-active social contexts.

The motivation for membership in such a “tribal,” or insular group is, all too often, the product of the individual’s perception of personal insecurity and a neurotic yearning for the needed affirmation of group acceptance. In this context, the prevailing homogeneous tribal opinion, itself, may conceivably be of little interest to, or, realistically, at odds, with the views of the applicant to the group. The membership is sought, and upon acceptance enjoyed, to assuage such neurotic yearning for acceptance and affiliation. The individual’s willingness and perhaps, his overt demonstration of loyal support of the tribal message, or point of view,  may conceivably, amount to an actual denial of his own exercise of reason, in exchange for that needed perception of acceptance. Such willing submission to such a tribe’s prevailing stance is critically denominated as “groupthink.”

This thematic concept may be useful in the attempted comprehension of the bizarre, eternal loyalty, by Donald Trump’s huge, variegated (MAGA) conglomerate of discontents, in the face of his publically, demonstrated criminality and emotional derangement, and notably, despite his publically expressed, autocratic desire for the limitation of their personal rights.

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At present, we are in the process of contemplation of the imminent publishing of a numerically, noteworthy essay, (Blogpost # 1000) and the expiration of the period of eight years since the conception of plinyblog. It has not been our practice (with few exceptions, viz., birthdays, and wedding anniversaries) to award metaphysical significance to any otherwise, notable dates or calculated level, per se, as singularly significant (despite their pragmatic necessity). We have, instead, sought to emphasize the essential and objective significance of the meaningful landmark events, themselves. Thus, at this precipitate time, we have succumbed to an admittedly, nuanced, desire to offer our all-encompassing, landmark (# 1000^th) statement.

 As declared at the inception of plinyblog, we have determinatively, elected to express our written views in the grammatical second person (i.e. “we,”), to avoid the possible perception that our writings are the “self-righteous” product of personal editorializing or as the expression of egotistic presumption.  Our observations have, consistently, been based on our empirical experience and consequent learning. Our dedication has been to offer, for the readers’ possible interest, our nuanced thoughts, and observations, as they have been perceived by us, from empirical experience.

We have attempted, as well, to avoid the perception that we were recounting various episodes of autobiographical content for the purpose of their revelation. Specifically, the intended purpose of our essays on our early childhood experiences in the contextual exotica of the 1940s, European Ashkenazi immigrants, was principally, to effectively portray the nuanced features of their transplanted lives.

The salient, theme, running through our past 977 ubiquitous essays, amounts to a reflection of our ardent devotion to the responsibility and necessity of Man’s efforts at his intellectual and cultural advancement, thereby fulfilling his life, and derivatively, for the betterment of his society.

Thus, we have eternally promoted the wise and salubrious “long-term investment” in the lifetime undertaking of personal and beneficial elective interests, viz., reading good literature, engagement in hobbies, or the personal study of science, the arts, and the humanities. The development of independent knowledge, interests, and skills, au dehors the boundaries of one’s family life and employment, is fertile ground for advanced maturity and confident individual thought. Travel, where possible, is especially salubrious. The opportunity to exercise one’s individualized and personal reason is the key to effective personal contemplation and a clear window into the empirical understanding of life and humanity. Our view regarding the classic, philosophically examined, concept of, “happiness,” is essentially encompassed in the development of the ultimate sense of self-fulfillment; the latter, a predictable product of individual learning and its consequent increase in understanding and the attainment of mature perspective (i.e. “wisdom”).

At this point in this writing, by unavoidable necessity, and with appropriate apology, we would descend into a less important, autobiographical context, albeit, solely for illustrative purposes, in demonstration of the salubrious nature of the ultimately rewarding lifestyle, outlined in the preceding paragraph.

We have recently attained the venerable age of 87, and become the uncomfortable recipients, of a painful back and troublesome knee; such that, a “walker” is required for our restricted perambulation; the latter activity, normally, restricted to the confines of our apartment or country residence. As a practical, age-related phenomenon, our physical condition has mandated the cessation of many favored, lifetime activities, travel, walks in the park, gardening, swimming, and the like. Yet, we remain content.

In a past essay, “Old Age Is Not A Disease,” we weighed the pain and uncomfortable physical limitations of old age, against the valuable, concomitant, facility of the simultaneous acquisition of the increase in understanding (“farschtant”) and mature perception. Our cumulative knowledge and lifelong development of knowledge, derived from experience, as above declared, has resulted in an objective, situational understanding of early life experiences as well as a rational reconcilement with the extant physical disabilities and discomforts of old age.

For those individuals who have entertained the thematic, lifetime development of inner personal thought, the recognition of the temporal absence of the storm and stress, common to youthful life, the cessation of life’s subsequent, multifarious anxieties, regarding personal issues, family, children, and finances, constitute an appreciated and comforting mitigation of the extant discomfort. For contemplative individuals, mature recognition of, and acquiescence to, the natural phenomena of age (assuming a reasonably acceptable state of general health) leads to a positive opportunity for a peaceful and especially pleasant, contemplative life.

Such a state of mind promotes the pleasurable and stimulating ability to selectively meditate on a library-full cornucopia of subjects, serious or recreational, to ponder, and to make virtual voyages to recollected places of past travel (without the impediments of packing, travel to the airport, flying, arrival, customs and security lines, hotel travel, unpacking and the like) and, most especially, to enjoy at will, the extensive benefits of an unfettered exercise of reason and imagination and, thereby, to pleasurably, savor the especially sweetness of the dessert that follows life’s main courses.

-p.

We have been considering the cogent possibility, that the basis of our condemnation of the former President, founded on his demonstrated misdeeds, his criminality, and immoral behavior, can be viewed from a somewhat nuanced, albeit, consistently, depraved and contemptible, perspective.

It is conceivable to perceive Donald Trump as a rare, even sui generis, personality, whose contemptible behavior is, essentially and neurotically, based upon an unquenchable desire to demonstrate professed superiority and its consequential, success (even stardom), but is, in harsh reality, plagued with a fragile and self-conscious sense of precarious personal worth; the latter neurotically, necessitating an eternally, demonstrable public display of (faux) confident superiority and asserted empirical success.

We ponder the credible possibility that Trump’s demonstrated, ignorance and absence of human empathy, are, motivated by an insatiable, neurotic aspiration for public confirmation of his aspirational image and manifested professions of celebrity and empirical superiority; as opposed to basic contextual malevolence. Notably, in either case, the shameful, detrimental effects are, observably reprehensible.

From such a nuanced view, Trump’s persona can be perceived as sui generis (one of a kind) and not merely, a hapless “bull in a china shop,” but, who, wherever he may go, neurotically, brings the entire “china shop” with him.

Consistent with our perception, Trump’s, unexpectedly, large following can be seen as an enormous conglomerate of disparate, populist citizens, unified in their, disparate, malcontent, and perceive his manufactured braggadocio and bizarre behavior, in sync with their negative outlook, as a mutually compatible, indication of irreverence and rebellion against (the elitist) society and the latter’s assumption of alleged superiority and unjustified privilege.

Trump, himself, inarguably, evinces a total lack of personal political philosophy or dogma; his preferences are exclusively and primitively based upon who supports and pleases him. In fact, within the Republican House of Representatives the litmus test, for advancement, bizarrely and sadly, is whether one supports Trump, his election denial (“the Big Lie”), and his nefarious, Washington -based insurrection. His egocentric persona is all too willing to scrap the Nation’s Constitution and Laws, to achieve his ultimate egotistic goal, his autocracy, in the style of his admired avatars, Putin (Russia), Kim Sung Un (North Korea), Li Qiang, (China) and Viktor Orban (Hungary).

Whether one chooses to critically evaluate Trump’s harm to the nation as having its etiology, founded in his inclination to immorality, or to amorality, pure hedonistic evil, or compelling neurosis, the tragic impact on the nation is equally heinous.

Over the course of our writings, we have emphatically urged that the selection of Presidential candidates should not be based, solely and precariously, on the calculation of public political sentiment. Our Democratic Republic, (like other countries), is empirically, and unfortunately, saddled with a large population of citizens who observably evince an inadequate education and are poorly informed; inarguably, far short of the expressed criteria of Thomas Jefferson [“…for a Democracy to succeed, there must exist a sufficiently educated and well-informed citizenry”]. We have ironically observed that any civilian applicant, albeit for any mundane employment, has the mandatory requirement, in the interest of the prospective employer, as a prerequisite, to be found acceptable, after vetting and interviewing.  It seems to us, to be no less than a strict fiduciary duty, in the rational and pragmatic interest of the Nation, to fully vet and examine all prospective nominees for the World’s most powerful and impactful position, whose executive index finger is responsibly, said, to be “on the nuclear button.

-p.