Being Human vs Being Insane
A short talk by Ray McGovern, May 26, 2022
Since earlier speakers at Thursday’s on-line international conference “The Insanity of Politicians Threatens Nuclear War” took a more traditional approach, I decided it might be time for what Germans call eine Denkpause, a pause to think about “what fools we mortals be.”
I suggested giving some thought to broader questions: Might there be another way? Why can’t we all just get along?
To put some gravitas behind this approach, I called on a bunch of old friends – an unlikely congeries of “Denkers,” some of whom have influenced my own thinking. Here is a link to my 18 minutes of prepared (well, sort of prepared) remarks.
The full conference can be viewed here (my initial Spiel can be seen between minutes 1:22:33 to 1:42:00).
To set the tone, I borrowed an insight from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery; namely, human connections are what matter most; that it is only with the heart, not just the eye, that one can see rightly; that most adults have difficulty doing this. And I added the reality that people with little pigment in their skin still tend to see themselves as exceptional.
Included among the dramatis personae enlisted to expand de Saint-Exupery’s insight:
- Presidents Biden, to Xi, to Putin
- Humanist Kurt Vonnegut, to Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount
- Daniel Berrigan, to Theilhard de Chardin
To conclude my brief talk, I chose a line from Friedrich Schiller’s Ode to Joy written in 1785, at the same time our Founders were declaring – like Schiller – that all men are created equal. Even then, of course, with their limited vision (and crass economic interest in preserving slavery), the Founders’ declarations and behavior were far from inclusive.
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