Paul Shelton
Hello Classmates,
My wife and I just returned from Mexico, and are now recovering (literally) in our Hood Canal digs with the fire roaring (until it drives us out). We (no exaggeration here) just “endured” 6 straight months of sunny days. Many positives, however, made the exercise a most engaging adventure.
Looking forward, I am now in a position to resume my efforts toward an eventual fall reunion. Standby.
As for Dave O., as a socially awkward nerdy type, I was on the other side of the social divide from the jocks and the “big men on campus”. But our paths did once cross as members of Mrs. “can’t remember”’s senior English class. We enjoyed a half hour communication in class and discovered an immediate connection, which surprised both of us, I think. Unfortunately, however, we never had time or occasion to build a better acquaintanceship, and I always did regret not getting to share more time with Dave. His passing is sad, as the end of all life lived with value.
I’m surprised to know that Sam Harris is known more broadly than just among us Humanists. I regard Sam as one of my intellectual heroes, but have a hard time keeping up with his podcasts, as intelligent, rational, and worth hearing as they are. He has made a point of exposing the shams of the “radical” left, what was originally called the “Regressive Left”, and now generally referred to as the “woke” left. To be clear, the term “woke” is still rather nebulous, and certainly is a perversion from its original use by African Americans to simply mean to be alert and continually on guard. “Wokeness”, for that matter, is present on both the left and the right, evident in extreme positions derived from extremely narrow perspectives that brook no complexity or nuance whatever.
But to the episode Eric addressed, wherein a twisted perversion (if that isn’t a redundancy, an oxymoron, or a double-negative) of cultural rights gushes, as a knee-jerk, from a committed left wing cultural purist, we can also point to the cynical and downright brutal response to Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s several books on Islam by this same gaggle of moral purists who really believe that any cultural analysis, however sharply perceptive, is a vulgar put down of a human culture, which, they all know, are lovely, beautiful, and morally noble.
When I was first choosing a foreign land in which to go teach English (1999), I encountered an otherwise sensible acquaintance who took issue with my evaluation of cultures as mostly man-made, and quite variable in effect on the success of the people living under such cultural. The thought that all cultures weren’t equally suited for engendering a successful society and the fulfillment of individual desires was beyond consideration to this individual.
Little did I envision that one day this conviction of the equal beauty and worthiness of all cultures would metastasize in various “woke” reactions polluting clear thought in our current national conversations. But here we are.
An equal tragedy is that poor Sam has also been pilloried viciously by his own bedfellows on the far left.
Enough of my rambling. I’ll be back with you, Stephen, on your restaurant information – and thanks for your interest in helping me.
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