Artwork © Richard Spisak

 

Chapter 3

Killing machine that a man seems to be with microcosm matching macrocosm (white blood cells having defensive and offensive roles, with some acting the parts of sentinels which when alarmed blockade microbes from affecting host cells through the production of antibodies, and others like killer T cells that hunt and devour their prey), this is nature attesting what we are; but then what we are is not what we have the capability of being.

The human race, despite setbacks of wars and barbarism, does inch forward. It does so with moral veracity and integrity, even when not easily able to take off the training wheels of the brainwashing artificial construct of religion, which thousands of years hence will be considered mythological. And certainly a given man of intellect and principle can transcend exponentially further than his society in his lifetime, albeit within limits, as ramming against the parameters of acceptability in the strictures of society can cause him to ricochet back, and the understanding of that possibility can stop him from overreaching what is permissible in the society he lives in.

We might be, at least in the scheme of things, rarefied randomness that by the fecundity of life is as mis-begotten and dispensable as the morning trash, but myopically we are vast and precious if we give up stultifying conformity and tap into the cosmos within. Thus, it is important for each of us to venture forward randomly in the thickets of the human soul as Democritus would envisage it, delving into various topics, seemingly like sea adventurers allowing the vessel to move erratically in fickle winds and waves. But even in fickle winds and waves of the subconscious there is a certain predicable orderliness.

Animals

Assuming it is not wrong morally to domesticate animals, feed them, fatten them up, and slaughter them as meat for consumption, even then it would be craven. If animals have no inherent worth and exist not as an end unto themselves but as a means to feed man with appetites as well as to quench those appetites for his satiety, then he should at least confront a wild version of that animal, and do so without weapons, fighting him face to face with the best animal, human or otherwise, as the victor. Taking advantage of a tame trusting entity deceitfully and ending it’s life prematurely and maliciously just seems emasculate and cowardly. It is also extremely solipsistic to devalue a living animal, transforming it into a steak or a hamburger for our purposes.

We say that performances like opera are acquired tastes but in reality all appetitive substances, sexual or consumptive, are also acquired, as the self resists its repugnance in bringing itself into contact with the foreign and the sordid and only does so initially, bypassing it’s repugnance, by biochemical urgings like hunger pains and ancillary urgings of one’s society until habitual exposure has formed the appetite. Hamburgers to the American psyche are as important as air itself. To feed on tame animals is no different than feeding on children as in both cases it is exploitation of innocence which is one of many reasons that makes it so vile. If there is any objective of humanity it is trajectory towards kindness, but little progress can be made when exploiting the innocent either by engaging in slaughter or by buying barbarism that is refined, processed, placed in plastic packaging, and is there to be procured in grocery stores.

Of course, it can be argued that as vegetation is life, picking it is killing it, and if killing is permissible in one part of the kingdom of life it is justified in the other sectors. But then those making that claim surely are not advocates of cannibalism. It also can be argued that having neither cognizance nor intellectual sentience, vegetation is even more inherently innocent and as it is exploited, animals which usually prey on smaller and weaker animals should be subjects for consumption too; and as man has hegemony over the world, why should he not prey on them as well? Conversely, as some plants can emit chemicals that attract predators of those insects that prey on them, they have adapted strategies or stratagems of their own that make them more akin to animals than we normally think, so it can be argued that too is reason enough to think that both are food. Certainly, man cannot be expected to starve himself into oblivion for absolute virtue in a world so imperfect and so unconducive to such extremes of virtue and asperity, and his extinction would be a worse injustice. Thus, consumption of the least sentient of creatures is the prime directive of a man of conscience. As for products involving animal testing and exploitation, these products must be avoided when at all possible but with the caveat that in such a world, a world with such a pragmatic system and a world so flawed, there are exceptions. Medical progress must move forward even if for the time it is not so buoyant and cannot rise entirely beyond such uses.

Love and sensuality

Man as “lover” is a solitary sportsman seeking his own self- gratification. Contrary to romanticized misunderstandings from music and film in particular about being in love and linking to this other person, he is not making love to the subject of his arousal since the subject (rarely beloved with the likelihood of casual sex the greater portion of all such encounters), is merely attractive features in his perceptions which he can then utilize by embellishing them into an imaginary concoction for the purpose of increasing his sexual tension and release and to procure the flood of endorphins that flood through his tissues. In this peeling back of the intricacies of this subject called love it becomes clearer that he himself in some loose connection to those desired features of the other person is his real arousal and so he is not making love to another so much as he is making love to himself. For him it is like bungee jumping, and the faster the fall and the greater asperity of sexual tension, the more the chord will relax orgasmically, oscillating upward with the tingle of reverse motion.

And in the mode of this act of making love in which he is actually making love to the self he is sometimes cognizant that the subject loosely fueling this amorous encounter with himself needs to be pleased in order for the relationship to continue beyond one time, or even if it is a onetime fling, to get a better response from the partner reciprocity must ensue.

As to the fictional version of Aristophanes in the Symposium by Plato suggesting that love is attraction for one’s other half to feel whole, Plato was merely trying to show how profession and it’s repeated action shape character, personality, and opinion similar to Aristotle’s premise (the two men in more harmony than most realize). Likewise, the assertion by Plato’s fictionalized Socrates that love is a feeling of emptiness that, to avoid it, compels us to seek happiness in becoming as immortal as possible by having children, creativity, and through scholarship is the grand hypothesis of an intellectual which rings hollow. Attraction entails emotions shaped by a myriad of childhood memories and pleasurable and unpleasurable associations.

There is a certain truth uttered by a character early into the novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover that these sexual alliances are as brief and inconsequential as the mating of birds. But as Aristotle says, pleasure must not be an end unto itself. Instead, it must be positive reinforcement of a good activity. Sex as an end unto itself can be addictive as liquor and opioids. And who can forget the character Mary in Long Day’s Journey into Night stating that one day she recognized that her soul was no longer her own.

Sacredness of life and the naturalness of murder

As to the issue of abortion, whereas most individuals fall firmly into one of two antithetical camps, with both sides intransigent in their respective ideological stances, others fall into the morass of moral ambiguity which arises not because of a failure of reason, but because of the difficulty of implementing ideals and virtues practically in this world of ours, the veracity of two opposing positions, and an inability to see how they are logically conflated without concocting some illogical compromise that seems less a truth than a mere fabrication.

Life of course does not begin with conception. It begins, presumably, with single celled eggs and sperm cells, which are alive. True, they are the tools for replication and are not self-replicating unto themselves. They even fall short of the capabilities of viruses which hijack cells, appropriating them into factories for self-continuum. But sperm cells move, another condition predicated for life, and so certainly they cannot be considered nonliving substance. However, for the sake of argument, let’s assume that real life includes single and multi-celled bacteria and protozoa that come about by asexual reproduction, not that they all do, and seeded unions for plants, insects, and animal life. Let us also assume that life, being sacred, or at least human life being sacred or considered sacred (the cosmos of course not cognizant and having a tendency for destroying and creating galaxies out of the destruction, and thus totally indifferent to all living and nonliving matter) no woman is permitted to abort an embryo, then it would seem that nature should not be flawed enough as to engender ectopic pregnancies and other anomalies that cause emerging life to miscarry in the first place. Abortion, as displeasing as it might be, is, after all, a very natural process. And yet the naturalness of it is contrary to the sacredness of life. As these moral quandaries arise, arbitrary pronouncements also arise as corollaries stipulating when women are not allowed to receive abortions. These determinations occur sometimes by estimating weeks when internal organs are formed and when there is a viable heartbeat but often less sensibly in acts of religious zealotry. But whatever the laws might be, ultimately the state cannot govern what a woman does with her own body. Some women who might be ambivalent whether or not to abort, might be deterred by draconian laws, but they would be few; and for the determined, they can only be penalized for decisions that violate the laws. This forces them into desperate self-harm that might look accidental in the hope of causing a miscarriage. Such acts might be untraceable and work according to their wishes if it does not miscarry such women out of existence instead.

All life, as fecund and plentiful as it is, is still sui generis, and as temporary as a life is and as dispensable as it is with no impact on life itself any more than a pebble dropped from a cliff landing into the ocean, it must be thought to be sacred, for to think otherwise–to think of it as having no inherent value than perhaps facilitating commerce, starts the process of dehumanization. Dehumanization and demonizing those without a transactional purpose would include a growing list of “misfits” to which artists and intellectuals would be at the top of the list. And even if one were a wealthy conveyor of vast amounts of commerce, I cannot imagine such an individual caring to live long in an impersonal society to which the government does not sanction the value of life.

Any answer, any conflation, is not from early cut off dates for abortions and draconian penalties for those who abort after such deadlines, but by inculcating the value of all life and compassion in all sectors of society. Also, it is to be found in counseling sessions, as brief as they might be, of women seeking abortions. These sessions should reiterate the sacredness of life but also reaffirm women in any decisions they might pursue on this matter. As to the issue of the sacredness of life, it is an attitude and not a reality, and it emanates as naturally as sunlight, but only in a compassionate society and not those with a dark transactional emphasis that prevails in most of the world. Plato may have seen importance in brainwashing the subjects of his perfect republic with the Myth of Er–that story that those prone to be rational “philosophers,” guardians, and general workers should be compelled to believe that they have special metals in their blood that make them important denizens –but the imposition of a lie is not needed in a society of compassion. As I said, in a compassionate society respect for life is a natural consequence; and It is often when women are under stress and threat in a capitalistic society that many of them are inclined toward abortions. But the variables of situations that motivate a pregnant woman to abort are myriad. Some situations women encounter as with rape and incest are quite bleak and their desperations to end pregnancies so justifiable, but in any case, society has no right to get involved and women should not feel any guilt or shame.

Realistically, a population burgeoning on eight billion and more fighting for resources is only going to be pushed to become more transactional and more embracing of social Darwinism as stresses increase, so deliberate attempts at instilling compassion will bring some degree of counterpoise. As for executions of prisoners accused of being serial killers or even lesser crimes, this is more of an indication of a desperate floundering state that does not know how to curtail violent crime than it is a statement of the culprits. In the case of America, any society that makes gun ownership as fundamental as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and never blinks in all these school shootings is spiraling into the abyss to begin with. But I have digressed. Prisoners should not be executed if we adhere to the sacredness of life, and prisons should be much more than cheap work camps or warehouses for those who might have done unconscionable crimes. They have to be rehabilitation centers with an understanding that total rehabilitation is a fanciful concept and the best one can do is to push them to be better than what they would be otherwise. Thus, doors for the release of prisoners must rarely open. The goal should be to make those culpable reach the best of virtues that they are capable of even after committing egregious offenses. It should not be easy paroles when recidivism rates are so high.

 

Steven David Justin Sills is an American poet and novelist living in Thailand. Some of his early works can be seen on the Online Book Page at the University of Pennsylvania. His poetry book, An American Papyrus is in various libraries including a scanned copy of a library book that is in the Internet Archive. Of this early work, one reviewer said, “Sills’ vision is often a dark one. He writes of the homeless, the abused, the forgotten people. He is also intrigued with the mystical, the sensual/sexual, loss–as in losing those whom we hold dear, such as a spouse or lover–as well as the lost, such as someone who is autistic, who seems unreachable. Sills’ skillful use of the language to impart the telling moments of a life is his strength. He chooses his words carefully, employing a well-developed vocabulary. He is thoughtful about punctuation, where to break lines and when to make a new stanza. He’s obviously well versed in “great” literature. Sills’ command of language helps to soften the blows of some of the seamier passages found in his poems. Seamy may not be the best word to use. Perhaps gritty is a better word or just plain matter-of-fact…” Following the rewriting of his last novel, The Three Hour Lady, the Russo-Ukrainian War began and he felt that its significance needed to be captured in verse. As his Master’s degree is a humanities/classical studies emphasis (great books of the Western Canon) to which he cited Aristotle a lot in his papers, he has been hoping for a reason to write an ethical treatise.

 

Richard Spisak began his artistic career as a light artist in the Lumonics Studios of Mel Tanner, a legendary Light Artist. After serving under Jack Horkheimer as a planetarium operator at the Miami Space-Transit Planetarium, he left to begin traveling with Lumist Kenvin Lyman, whose show Dazzleland Studios traveled across America. Richard later worked as a Laserist with LASERIUM and Laser Productions, served as a technical producer for the festival company PACE Concerts, and later as operations Manager and Senior Producer at WWHP and WTCN-TV in Stuart Florida.

Richard writes for Theatre, TV, radio, and the web. He published two short story collections, Two Small Windows, in a Pair of Mirror Doors, and Between the Silences. Followed by his poetry collection 7370 Allen Drive and the recently released STONE POETRY. Richard also produces “POETS of the East,” a televised webcast featuring poets from across the globe.