Galen to Jaromir: On Dawkins, etc.

Tuesday
November 14, 2006

Dear Jaromir,

Thanks for the very thoughtful note. Your English is much better than my Czech. (Which is nil.) Again, it was a breath of fresh air to hear my own sentiments so succinctly articulated by a kindred spirit. So much so, in fact, that I'm going to take the liberty of passing them along to a select few friends via my Symposium Mythoklasticum. Hope that that's OK. As we say in show biz: "I think you totally nailed it!"

Since you mention Dawkins, I thought that perhaps I'd put in a plug here for Sam Harris's The End of Faith, which came out in paperback recently. Ten years from now, it will be interesting to see which approach will have had the deepest impact on the public's consciousness. Myself, as the inventor of the mythoklastic school of therapy and the founder of the Institute for Mythoklastic Studies, I'm always and forever in favor of whatever catalysts result in folks' awareness being raised. If I recall correctly, growing up was a sometimes painful process, fraught with what we used to call "disillusionment." So that, if ontogeny does indeed recapitulate phylogeny, then it's apt to prove equally messy for these billions of us participating in 21st century global society. Eh?

As far as Thanksgiving is concerned, Marie & I are entirely flexible. Completely. We would be honored to join the two of you wherever -- and would love to bring along a case of presentable pilsner as our contribution. We'll simply await word from you.

Mythoklastic Sunshine,

Galen

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Hi Galen,
you very welcome and it was a pleasure to have you two around. I agree with you, meaning the working "environment" - people over here are quite weird, regarding world wide views. That is the toughest part of the life in Midwest - for me. We feel many times very strange, I would describe it as the movie "Back to the future" without that fun, more like myself appearing suddenly in Spain in the inquisition time.
Talking about the Thanksgiving, we have the plans already - but, Magda will let you know soon if they can be altered regarding you and Marie. Mainly I am replying about Dawkins. I found an article in "Wired" magazine 'The church of the non-believers', where the reporter is resembling the thoughts of the three most 'statued' atheists in US. A very good friend of mine, who is reputable chemist - physicist professor, researchist, and also the believer, who refuses Dawkins because of Dawkins being so selfish and not leaving any room for the opposite side. I suppose he would perfectly agree with Francis Collins, who opposes Dawkins in the same way as well (article in 'Time' magazine). But I can not help myself - from all of them (Harris and Bennet) - Dawkins is the most consistent in his thinking about the problem. I think, he is not selfish at all, but he most probably feels, that the time is running out and the humans should start thinking
really hard and face to the real problems, in the order to survive, and to keep the nature on this planet going, before we destroy it by ignoring the facts and keep polemyzing and arguing about the nonsense. And I understand, that in the play is the greed for the power and money and this kind of the people does not give a rat about anything else than about how to achieve what they want. The religion is the best tool so far discovered, to make the masses to do what "the management" wants. That returns us back to Dawkins - genetically motivated development of an individual (evolution) and a sense of the survival. More "capable" will win, n'est pas? (how very Christian!)

Jaromir

OUR KANSAS CITY BRANCH OFFICE

DISCUSSION TOPIC FOR NEXT SEMESTER

%%%%%%%%%%% Then said I, Wisdom is better than strength: nevertheless the poor man's wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard. -- Ecclesiastes 9:16 (KJV) %%%%%%%%%%%

SONG OF THE REVOLUTIONARY


1.
The car I drive is no limousine,
And I scrounge all day just for a porkchop.
Staying alive my # 1 goal.
I live above a butcher shop.

Everyday is Halloween for me, ever since I substituted
The slave I was, who’s now on parole, for the freelance revolutionary
Bum you see here, half-polluted and dressed for a more realistic parade,
One in which I play my own Fairy Godfather to the Self I’ve blessed
And dressed in robes of fade and suede.

Let Destiny lead me to my nest
And teach my legs to intervene
On the side of all oppressed
Bums like me who need a hole
To hide in an they live this jest.

2.
All day I hear the guillotine
Singing, humming. When will it stop?
Its nagging voice exacts its toll
In blood pressure, as I crawl and hop my way.

Since I was 17, I’ve seen the slave I was uprooted,
Cast into the wind to stroll and break, beneficiary
To the poverty of the persecuted peasant-slaves who masqueraded
As my parents, Margaret and Harry, who nursed me on a poisoned breast.
(That was folly. Let it fade.)

Let me drive the age-old pest
From out of this house and quarantine it
For 30 minutes, as in the West
The bloody sun sinks beyond the flag pole,
Nature’s Will to manifest.

3.
My hand glides over velveteen
Women, as fresh sunsets drop.
I yield myself to their control
(Or pretend to), as I reach the top
Of the bottom I’m hitting, unforeseen
And unforeseeably executed,
Clean as a bullet through a buttonhole.

Like you, I check the obituary column each morning to see who’s computed
The final sum, dead, underpaid,
And cut loose from this all-too-scary horror movie where we’re pressed
So hard we shriek our serenade.

All day, my nose goes mad, obsessed
With the smells of sex and Kerosene
And innocent victims under arrest.
Thursday nights, I try to bowl
The salad of my butchered quest.

4.
In their offices I’ve overseen
The mutilation and mopping up
Of what’s left of the human soul
After their con-game’s ruthless bop.

Stupidity, smelling of wintergreen and aftershave has prostituted
Itself to itself. And that’s the whole of the joke. And that’s why women marry
Men who swallow it undiluted.

Once I was a slave who played their suckers’ game , contemporary
And hollow as an empty chest.
But now I stand at the barricade they’ve erected to rob the dispossessed.
They can break my body like a figurine, but my mind might prove a harder conquest,
For I listen to the Deepest Oriole, singing the song they fear the best.

5.
Sisters and Brothers, this tambourine
I shake in your faces like a clergy-cop:
Forgive it...and my wish to scroll
Reality into an edible crop.

Once I was a slave in a submarine, just like you, electrocuted
By the taste of tuna casserole in a church basement on the lone prairie.
But life need not be convoluted, pressed and dried, if we invade
The kingdoms of vocabulary. Take care of your health. Get plenty of rest.
Trust your guts. Be not afraid. Free your hearts from their Budapest.
Dowse Tradition with gasoline. Here is my match for you whose stressed
Existence might be burnt to coal and then to diamond. Be my guest.

Words and Music by Galen Green c 1986

WE MOVE AND THEN WE STOP




We move through our space and then we suddenly cease to be.
There’s really nothing to prove. We fly until we drop.
We won’t come around again, once we’ve fallen from the tree.
It’s just this simple: we move and then we stop.

There’s really nothing to prove. We fly until we drop.
It’s just this simple: we move and then we stop.


You can study a ton of Zen, searching for the key.
You can say you’re in the groove with every tear and raindrop.
But here in the world of men, it’s as simple as one-two-three.
What happens is: we move and then we stop.

You can say you’re in the groove with every tear and raindrop.
What happens is: we move and then we stop.


You’re as fragile as a wren; though your wings are not as free.
There’s a curse you can’t remove. It descends with your first lollipop.
You learn it before you’re ten; so you don’t have to learn it from me.
It’s just this simple: we move and then we stop.

There’s a curse you can’t remove. It descends with your first lollipop.
It’s just this simple: we move and then we stop.



Words and Music by Galen Green c 1979