The Inhumanity of Creationism

I'm going to discuss (diatribe?) one of the darkest aspects of Creationism. This one has nothing do with being intellectual, nor is it an analysis of a who are we as a human race. This one is personal as well as being bad business. Please excuse the word "dark"; I'm not saying that people who think that the world is only a few thousand years old are evil. On the contrary, some of them are among the kindest people I know, so I'm asking them, if any are reading, to please continue and understand that I think the world of them, all 4.something billion years of it, if I may hyperbolize and poke the bear. I'm not saying that Creationists are evil, I'm saying that Creationism* is. It's evil because it's inhuman and unwise. The thought processes that make some of us believe in Creationism would fail spectacularly if they were used to run a business or any kind of organization. I submit that the human race likes organization in many ways, and therefore we should dispense with Creationism.

Edit: When I say "Creationism", I'm not talking about the general belief that God created the Universe, all of existence, and set everything in motion. I'm talking about the specific belief, such as the one by Ken Ham, that the Earth is only a few thousand years old, that the earth was created in 6 24-hour days, and that empirically shown data are false.

If you're a Creationist, a Young-Earther, or you think that the planet can't be more than a few dozen tens of thousands of years old ( :-) Playing with words and numbers at the same time is fun... Where else can you get that?), please stop it. There are myriad reasons to acknowledge that our planet is billions of years old, and a simple "How old is the Earth?" googling can give them to you, and many people are far more qualified than I to explain Earth's age. What I've stumbled upon in my ponderings and polite, respectful arguments with my Creationist friends is an angle that I'm not sure that I've heard before (I didn't watch the entire Bill Nye v. Ken Ham debate, so perhaps it was in there), so I'm going to share it with you.

When Dayton Moore took over as the general manager of the Kansas City Royals baseball team some 10 years or so ago, I remember the rhetoric that we fans heard... "We're going to build through the draft. We're going to do better at finding talent on the international scene. We're going to focus on player development." That was all well and good, but, in my true nature that has been nurtured even more in my barbershop director training, GMDM espoused a philosophy that is so fundamental, so considerate and kind, and so generally wise that it seems to me axiomatic: "We're going to hire good baseball people and let them do their jobs." In more generic terms, it'd be rendered, "We're going to do our best to take the advice of people who know what they're doing because... experience."

A basic misunderstanding in American culture these days is that "everyone's entitled to an opinion." While, sure, this is the U.S., and we've decided to give people the right to say what they will as long as it doesn't cause immediate physical harm, this doesn't mean that we should just go around having opinions on absolutely everything. There's a problem with me just saying, "I think that this is how reality is" if there are people who have a much better idea than I do, and wisdom is knowing that I might not have all of the answers. I'm trying to keep up with people who do know what's going on in their various fields (of the subjects that I'm especially interested in) because I don't just want to have opinions; I want to have valid opinions. And valid opinions are based on experience.

Look, supervisors don't always know what's going on in the trenches. We humans need each other, each person filling different roles, in order to get tasks accomplished. If you ask me, our paramount/chief concern should be the survival of our species for as long as possible. This involves us preparing ourselves to leave this planet when the sun expands out. There will hopefully be many thousands of generations of humans to come after the current ones, and it's probably going to take us most of their lifetimes to figure out where we can move to, how to do it, how many we can take, what other species from Earth should come with us, etc. But, none of that will come to fruition unless we learn how to get along. It's time that we started honestly buckling down and figuring out what's really going to stop the violence and asininity. We have got to stop letting students leave high school without solid foundational understanding of the universe and the history of our species. But, I digress. I'll leave the hope-for-the-future speech for another time. Back to why I brought up supervising... When those of us who aren't doing the dirty work put on a pair of boots and go supervise, we don't tell the people that we're supervising that they don't have a clue what they're doing. It makes them not want to work for us. Well, in the United States, we all watch everyone else. But, just because we're watching them doesn't mean that we understand what's going on in their work; but just because we don't yet understand doesn't mean that we couldn't someday. Our general public is, by extension, the "science supervisors". We elect people who decide how much money scientific research gets, which specific types of research get the most funding.

Look, we can choose what to believe, even if it's been shown to be wrong, if it helps us get to sleep at night (if it's just too emotionally difficult to acknowledge that our lives are truly but an instant compared to the length of the existence of our species, life, the planet, or the whole universe or for some other reason in people's heart that I don't know), but at least in the voting booth and the bank account, we should not be giving our money to people who pervert logic and reason to fund pet projects and keep their big desk and light work schedules. Following the people who twist and malign the scientific method and have a pre-teen's understanding of critical and scientific reasoning (I'd guess that mine might be slightly past adolescent black-and-white at this point in my maturation. Please don't think that I see myself as perfect.) is what's really holding our society back. Don't get me wrong; I'm not a "progress for the sake of progress" kinda guy, but I am a "let's not go backwards" kinda guy.

Creationism is wrong because, while it's fine to question scientists about the finer points of their work, like asking which is really the most accurate dating of the Earth, these people were trained on time-honored practices of scientific thought and methodology that have advanced human knowledge so much that it's insulting and shows a complete lack of trust in the people who do this work for a living to tell them that they don't know what they're doing and to let ourselves be led by people who don't understand the first thing about the scientific method or critical reasoning, and, if they do, claim to follow it but actually pervert it. It's fine to ask a painter if that's really the best that she can do, to ask a pilot if he's gotten enough rest, but it's insulting to ask a craftsman if he really knows the difference between wood and metal. When people have seen the truth through their own experience, it's fine to question them, but that questioning should operate off of a basic level of trust. A basketball coach of 20 years knows the difference between zone defense and man-to-man defense. People might openly wonder (or semi-openly wonder as anonymous internet posters) if the coach really knows what he's doing, but, if you got us all talking long enough, we'd still know that even unsuccessful coaches at, say, the college level understand the fundamentals of the game... Heck, that's why network execs hire basketball coaches to be commentators even if the coaches weren't all that remarkable. Science researchers should be given the same respect.

Stop being a Creationist. It's mean.

A request from an artist - avoid the "T" word

When I write these blog posts, I work very hard to not be prescriptivist, that is, I seek only to share my opinions while not making the assumption that I'm right about everything. What you're about to read is a simple request from a vocal performance artist. I don't like reading those lists in people's blogs that seek to establish rules for how we should behave in certain situations. Social protocol is fluid and, as Tolkien wrote through the mouth of Gildor the elf, "Advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill.

When you come up to me after a performance, please feel free to tell me that I'm skilled, that you liked certain things, or anything specific, but I have a request, and it is the following:

Please avoid the "T" word. The "T" word gives artists a sense of entitlement, like, of course we're doing this, we were built to. Really? The thousands and thousands of hours that we've spent working on technique, checking out other people's work, thinking about what matters in the world and how we can apply it to what we produce... Please don't tell me that I'm talented. If I critically review my work and see lay people doing what I do but I can't find it as pleasing or meaningful as what I do, there's a darn good chance that I know that I'm "talented", that I have something that some people will never have. But, you can be darn sure that I'm going to try to teach people everything that can be taught.

You know what the other bad thing about "talent" is? It's that there are things that can be done on sheer talent, but I've watched enough karaoke to understand that what the lay person relates to is not talent; it's heart. I was a very unskilled baseball player; I couldn't hit worth a darn, had average speed, and my depth-perception issues made fielding difficult (I can throw, but that's another story.) But, I gave it my all because I loved to play. That's what I look for at karaoke. Some can sing the right notes by "talent" alone (mostly... tuning theory tells us that what some people think is in tune - the perfect-pitchers - would sometimes serve to communicate better if the pitches were higher or lower relative to the other notes in the chord. But, I digress.), but there's so much more to a performance than just doing what can be done by talent alone. There is a woman who sings karaoke where I go every Friday who is my favorite karaoke singer of all time. She always starts out with the same song, Journey's "Open Arms". She goes up there, closes her eyes, and does the song almost exactly the same way every single week. Does she occasionally sing a note a little bit under its correct pitch? Yes, about once or twice during the song. But, she feels that song in a way that I can't even understand as it's so obviously personal. She sings with more soul in those 4 minutes than some karaoke singers, these "talented" people who just go up there and imitate the original, throw blind energy with no subtext into the song, and sing the notes perfectly right probably have done in their entire life. I'm not criticizing them; it's karaoke; do what you want. But, is this woman "talented"? I'm not sure. It's hard to tell. But, her performance is so raw and so powerful that I love witnessing it every week. The woman makes art. As artists, many of us want to reach people. I hope that, someday, I can find some way to reach people the way that this lovely person reaches me. And it's got nothing to do with talent.

I can't speak for dancers, martial artists, or visual artists, but all of the stretching, diet-watching, and at-home practicing that the kinesthetic folks do and the re-doing, scrapping, and constant mistake-making that the visual folks do makes me think that it's probably similar for them.

So, please, don't tell me that I'm talented. I already know that. I've done a lot of work to build my skills and done a lot of soul-searching to have the courage to get up in front of people. I'm an artist, that is, I'm curious, I want to connect with others, and I want to create things. Learning about you and having a brief moment with you after a performance is one of the best parts about being an artist. When you tell me that I'm talented, that makes it all about me. Please don't tell me how talented I am. I appreciate the affirmation, truly, and I know that you're trying to make me feel good. You've succeeded, so thank you. But, next time, tell me how you felt. Or just say thank you. Or give me a hug or a handshake or a thump on the shoulder. Tell me what your favorite part of the show was, even if it wasn't anything that I did. Meet-and-greets after shows, cheering after a karaoke song... these types of things are why we do what we do as artists... we have something that we want to give to you, to show others that something matters. Let's communicate in ways that we can all understand.

Yours in harmony, Michael.

Knowing Our Rock & Roll Roots

This gentleman apparently wanted to be an opera singer. That didn't work out, so he started pursuing a different career. My reading tells me that the song in the following link was supposed to be a ballad, but everyone got a little intoxicated and this happened.

He was to become known as "Screamin' Jay Hawkins". The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame lists "I Put a Spell on You" as one of the songs that shaped rock and roll. I see it as an early influence to bringing about the histrionics of our frontmen, sensationalist visual presentations, and vocal restraint abandonment. Screamin' Jay is seen as a pioneer of shock rock. (Alice Cooper, Steel Panther, etc.) You may recognize the song as a Creedence Clearwater Revival hit. It's very little like that, though. Enjoy.

In memoriam

Maybe these words aren't apropos. Maybe in a tragedy all anyone wants to hear is reasons to be miserable or ways to cope. But that's not fair to my cousin's memory. Maybe a part of me is mad at him for being un-vigilant in that one horrific moment. Maybe I loved his son very much, and everyone was afraid to say they felt anger. But, from what I understand, anger is a very natural thing to feel. But, perhaps in our sadness, perhaps in the no-entirely-complete devotion to his Catholic faith, perhaps in the shock of all that we went through, we completely forgot to talk about how awesome my cousin was. Perhaps the guilt floated across my mind as I thought about how, if I'd called him just to say hi as I'd meant to do in the near future (I was just sitting around at work... my call would've messed up the timing of the accident. Perhaps I was too busy holding people's hand. Perhaps I was too busy crying, and then being confused because I don't understand death, and too busy being angry that all anyone could seem to publicly talk about was my cousin's struggles or his love for his son. But, ow I'm not. I was miserable all that weekend of the funeral, and probably still am, but I think that I can see little bit clearer now.

My cousin, whose name in my older sister's rendering is nearly monosyllabic, was freaking cool. The guy was so real, and so human. When he spoke, you knew that he was being honest. You knew that he knew about his past but had come to terms with it and only wanted to move forward, have fun, and be a good dad. But, in addition to all of that, he wanted to know you. He didn't care what you believed, he just seemed to think that it was cool that you cared about something or had put thought into it. This guy was both young in his curiosity and zest (I love to remember that Jesus is quoted as having told the apostles to "be like the children") and very mature in his sense of responsibility. I'm heartbroken, in part, because I was really looking forward to becoming better friends with him. I feel like, in a tragedy of death, we're all so consumed by the loss and by missing him that we wonder if we will ever meet him again (and then make our decision about). Even to those who believe vociferously that we will see him if we choose to believe the correct thing and say the correct words, you can be damned sure that it won't be like this. Maybe it'll be better, but, in that case, knowing what it was like here on earth, with all of its shortcomings compared to heaven, was still pretty freaking cool.

I can't process the loss of his young son yet, but dammit if the boy's father didn't die living. We love to listen to songs about people who live like they were dying, but I think that he kinda was. I'm angry that he took his son with him, and deeply saddened for the even more amazing man that he was going to become that I'll never get to know, but the guy. died. living. You know who else died living? My grandma. Woman fell ill and went to her death bed while on a trip to see my brother's show. That same spirit lives in many of my family members. A different cousin went skiing the day after the funeral. And that guy is a father of multiple children. His father bicycles all around the Midwest and mountain region. And I'm glad. My aforementioned older sister is an aerial dancer. I go cliff rock jumping and take zillions of road trips.

I think that, when we lose someone we love, there is a piece of us that dies and doesn't grow back. But, hopefully, if we let it, a new vitality for life springs up from the very soil of the dead piece of our heart. I have felt more feisty and sure of myself since my same-age cousin died in that accident. I can't live with enough vim for 3 high-energy guys, but I'm damned sure gonna try to use all of my own energy and live as much as I can figure out how to. I'll miss him forever, but he did not die in vain. He was real, and we were kindred spirits in some ways. I want to be real like him, and take a genuine interest in others. May my cousin's love for life inspire you, as well.

Verbosely yours, Michael