Instead of just posting my thesis on prejudice I thought I'd spice it up these posts just a little by also posting some personal experience with prejudice taken from some old journal passages that I kept while traveling the country. The incidents provide some of rationale relating to why prejudice matters to me and why I am posting my thesis here.
Being young certainly has its advantages, but sometimes being young has its dark side also. I went through my “black period” a long time ago, but I bring this up because this dark side may be a common “rite of passage” for many writers. The following post is a description of an event that opened for me a door leading into the light (although back then it still seemed pretty dark) and second, it is a post containing my musings concerning the writings of the philosopher, Fredrick Nietzsche, who helped me appreciate both my “black period” and escaping my “black period.” These events took place while I was living on the beach on a south Texas island.
End Of The World
Nov. 7, ‘70
Three Rivers Junction
The ride wasn’t boring! My excitement was not prompted by any extraneous event. Instead, it was the result of a revelatory experience, an eruption of thought. This revelation deeply affected me; it changed my perception of reality. It was not however, the result of an inference or reasoned deduction. It had nothing to do with logic. The revelation was just that, a revelation that popped into my head (it had no voice attached to it). I was absolutely convinced of its authenticity.
On that night, it was raining hard enough to make driving difficult. I was doing my best to stay on the highway and still make good time. At 3 am, nothing was unusual. Mike and his chick were in the backseat asleep, and I was thinking normal thoughts (for me at least) like: How can existence be so paradoxical? What makes a person do what he does? Why am I never sure of myself? Then, for no apparent reason, something flashed in my brain. It was like words crossing the bottom of a television screen warning of an impending disaster. In my mind’s eye those words read: Flash…There is no such thing as human nature. Man is capable of anything…Flash…There is no such thing as human nature. Man is capable of anything. I didn’t know why or how the words came to be. I didn’t think them. Nobody spoke them. They just appeared, and reappeared, and reappeared. The question of whether to believe them did not arise. They were true. They are true. Suddenly, everything was so clear, and I couldn’t believe that it took me so long to comprehend such a simple truth. The question, “What is man?” had always perplexed me. I had always thought of him as a greedy, malicious, self-centered, egoist – a Hobbesian puppet, but human motivation isn’t like that. It’s too slippery to mold, box or explain. It can’t be contained in one cracker-jack theory. Where are the absolutes? There aren’t any! Where are the valid labels? There aren’t any!
I have not fully realized the meaning of this revelation. Perhaps it cannot be realized. Indeed, perhaps it can only be realized when I realize that it will never be realized! You can’t know part of nothing, yet the affects of this nothing on the norms, mores, and morals are inundating to the point of becoming lethal. When there is nothing to begin with there is no divine law. Where is guilt? Guilt is no more! Show me guilt, and I will show you fabrication, hoax, and myth! I am the originator and terminator of my every action. I am everything and nothing simultaneously. I am all there is, and I only have to look to myself for the answers. I am the bestower of good and the creator of evil, and I am equally capable of both! I am the beginning and the end – of nothing! There isn’t any right or wrong! There is no redeemer or redemption! There are no wrong choices! When you enjoy, dislike, pity, love, and hate, you are doing these things to yourself. You are the center of the universe and the universe doesn’t even exist!
The ultimate truth of this revelation, - There is no such thing as human nature. Man is capable of anything-- I am only now beginning to understand. It will take more than my lifetime to fully digest what’s going on here. There are no essences, only annihilations. With this revelation, a feeling of total freedom filled my body, and simultaneously a feeling of rapt unimportance filled my body. After my revelation, I knew I would have to change my priorities; yet, I also knew that it didn’t matter if I changed my priorities! I knew that from here on out whatever decisions I would make were only accountable to me, while I was meaningless and accountable to nothing. I spent the rest of the ride down to McAllen on this mental merry-go-round. Not at any moment, however, did I feel bored.
A little before daybreak, we came to Three Rivers Junction and that’s where I said good-bye to Mike. I slept under a tree and remained sleeping until the sun rose high in the sky. I started hitching back to Padre Island after that, but I was so entrenched in thought from the previous night’s revelation that I totally forgot to get out of the car when it passed by my destination. I had to backtrack fifteen miles. Instead of hitching, however, I walked the beach. There was nothing but seagulls and hermit crabs to keep me company. I needed time to reflect on the meaning of the previous night’s revelation. It was a cold and gloomy day, but I hardly noticed. When I finally arrived back at Bob Hall Pier, the bottoms of my feet were raw.
As Bad As It Gets, Nietzsche Still Makes Me Smile
Beach Life
Nov. 11, ‘70
I’ve really been living a solitary existence; the cold forced everybody off the beach. I ran out of money (except for the $5. stashed away for my 1500 mile trip home). Iva brought out a bag of groceries; I guess she wanted me to stick around. I’m pushing it now, leaving the beach is a certainty; I’m actually looking forward to it. One of the reasons beach life is less satisfying (besides the money) is my memory of Jolynn. I’m convinced I could love her, that is, if I don’t already. This loneliness is a bitch. The weather hasn’t given me any reason to stay either. It’s fifty degrees in the daytime, dropping to freezing at night. The only thing that’s been good for me is Nietzsche. As bad as it gets, after reading him, I can always count on a smile
I wouldn’t say that I agree with him on everything, but the more I read, the more I enjoy his style. First, I believe he is saying that a “will to power” drives life. Human nature is simply the use of this power to accomplish goals and satisfy desires. All we are, according to Nietzsche, are creatures of desire and need. We might think we want peace and tranquility. Forget it, it won’t happen. To make matters worse, we are burdened with this constant craving to speculate about “ideal existence,” when in reality we are and will always be simple rule followers. The rules that get followed, however, are only meant to work for some people some of the time. At best, we can look forward to a heard-mentality-existence, and then we die.
Its not a pretty picture! Nietzsche counters this vision of reality by saying that if we would just act in accordance with our natural instincts things would be different and better. The problem is that we think we know what motivates us when in reality mental causes do not exist. What’s in our minds, at any given moment, is only a reflection of some previous experience reconstructed. We reason phenomena to fit familiar patterns; patterns that are meant to neutralize fears and anxieties arising from life’s uncertainties. We create “imaginary causes” (Nietzsche’s term) in order to cope with this uncertainty. Religion and morality are prime examples. They are habitual responses to life’s disorder and uncertainty. Guilt, sin, and punishment, along with faith, hope and chastity are all products of our over active imaginations.
Only when morality is driven by the “will to power” does it cease being a product of imagination. “Morality,” says Nietzsche, “must be viewed as a means and not an end.” The “will to power, the will to master,” becomes the moral precedent for all morality. In nature there are few masters and even they, in the end, succumb to decay and death. There is only one true master and that master is the “will to power”; it is a moral imperative. Survivors conform and obey, or they cease to exist. There are no exceptions.
Traditional moral authority (religious authority) falsely commands against the natural instincts of the “will to power.” Society has misrepresented the moral precedent of obedience (the precedent set by the forces of Nature) by inventing the morality of “Thou shalt not.” Growth is stunted when this false morality is substituted for boldness, independence and freethinking. This false morality condemns free spirits to a life of moderation and mediocrity. By denying the moral precedent of obedience, “Thou shalt morality” becomes a contradiction in terms. When “Thou shalt morality,” denies fear, (the source of all morality), it denies itself.
After demolishing traditional morality, Nietzsche develops his concept of “higher man” and higher morality. Higher morality is realized in the warp and woof of mankind’s unceasing, striving nature. When we learn to inexhaustibly affirm life in the face of adversity, when we learn to shrug off pain and suffering, then we also learn higher morality. In this respect, Nietzsche sets the “selfless man” (the sage who pursues renunciation) on his head.
In Nietzsche’s morality there is no protest against life, no purging the self in order to get beyond illusion. In fact, in Nietzsche’s morality, only when one wills (eternally) agony and anguish, is he able to celebrate the masquerade of appearance without the need to get behind it. One cannot have an appetite for life without also having an appetite for suffering, and in Nietzsche’s morality one’s appetite for life feeds off an equal appetite for suffering. Only at this level of affirmation is a person able to unlearn what has been learned, is able to dominate and command, and is able to spontaneously create his own morality, the morality of Nietzsche’s Ubermensch, or “higher man.”
New Orleans
Jan. 1970
The weather was unseasonably cold; snow covered the ground even in Mississippi. The farther south I went though, the harder it became to tell the snow from the litter. Also, the farther south I went, the more rickety the houses became. House was probably not the right word, “old shacks,” I suppose more accurately described the living conditions of the poor blacks. I expected to run into this kind of poverty in Mexico, but I never thought it possible in healthy, wealthy America. These shacks were so dilapidated you couldn’t even build a fire inside them. It was a common sight to see black families congregating around open bonfires trying to keep from freezing outside their shacks. I saw barefooted kids running through the snow while the rest of the family huddled around their front porch fires.
Just before arriving in New Orleans, the bus crossed a twenty-six mile long bridge, (the bus ticket ride that kept me from freezing to death back in St. Louis, Missouri). From the middle of the causeway, you felt like you were driving across the ocean. Due to many delays, the bus ride ended around 6 p.m., lasting more than eighteen hours. I was not in the best of moods when I arrived in New Orleans. I planned on getting an apartment, but I wanted to get to know New Orleans before I made a major decision like that. Back on the street, I immediately started looking for New Orleans’ hip culture. When I asked the street people where the local hippies hung out, they looked at me like I was from a foreign country. Their responses were cold, but not as cold as the nippy breeze that chilled every bone in my body. I finally asked a hotdog vendor where I could get a cheap place to stay. He told me about a few cheapies and then told me I might be able to get a place in his boarding house. He said, “It’s clean and you can cook there too.” I didn’t want to turn away any luck that came my way; these days luck for me was a precious commodity. I thanked the man and left to try and find his place. At least the hotdog vendor was friendly, a friendliness that in my opinion, was in short supply in New Orleans.
After a long walk, I rented a room in a large house from a nice landlady who spoke in a heavy southern accent. The room had a double bed and was fairly clean with adequate ventilation. A stove and sink were in the corner of the room and the bathroom was off to the side of the facilities. I liked my room on the second floor of the house, but living with all the uninvited insects was not my idea of ideal living conditions. I found out later that in the South, even among the more respectable rent districts, living with insects was quite common. The cockroach came in all sizes, with the largest one being the most disturbing. I guess I never did get use to living with my roomies, although I did manage to put up with them.
I became a tourist for a couple of days. I was in the most visited of all southern cities and before I went job-hunting, I wanted to soak up some of the local culture. Without spending much money, I took in the sights and sounds of Bourbon St. and Royal St. The closest thing I could find to hip-culture was a little boutique at the end of Royal St. called the Far Out. Here, the hippies would linger until the cops moved them along. There were a lot of hippie-looking people around, but they were scattered about the French Quarter with no apparent cohesiveness. I believe the cops were the reason there was no organization to hip culture down here. Oh, I’m sure there was some organization, be it at concerts, or at a friend’s houses, but it’s just that it wasn’t happening on the street. This lack of organization, I am sure, had something to do with my living a solitary existence in the middle of a city known for conviviality and its party atmosphere.
With my books to keep me company, my nights were mostly spent reading in my room. Having only a few dollars in my pocket and even fewer friends, painting the town was not an option. One night was worth remembering, barely. After a disappointing day job-hunting, I stopped by a local tavern. At the bar, I sat next to a pretty girl. I listened as she poured her life story out to the bartender. She was new in town and unattached. When she said she was from Huntington Beach, California, I thought to myself, “Now there’s a connection, I’ve been there and I can use that to begin a conversation with her.” Drinking my beer, waiting for the right moment to begin talking to her, a Dylan song popped into my head. In the song, the protagonist in the song strikes up a conversation with a girl at a bar and discovers that both he and she share a common hometown and acquaintances. Sitting there, with the song playing over and over in my head, it was easy to wait for the right opportunity to talk to the girl. Just as her conversation with the bartender was tailing off, in walked this guy who sat down on the other side of girl, and when he heard that she was from California, he asked, “Where in California?” As it turned out, both he and the chick happened to be from Huntington Beach, and they shared many friends in common. That could only happen to me!
Back in my room, I was not in a very good mood. I didn’t feel like reading, but I needed to do something, so I sat down and started to write. I guess I wrote a poem. Well, maybe it wasn’t a poem. The only thing that really mattered is that it helped me get through the night.
My Despair
Discontent is as much a part of my soul
as being human is a part of my body.
I say look to the future for salvation.
You say, wallow in your shit.
I say there is always hope.
You say the future is present now,
and shit stinks forever too.
I say you are a fool.
You say eat shit,
hope for an early death
and win paradise.
I had arrived in New Orleans four weeks before Mardi Gras. The whole time I was there I could feel the excitement building. Every day the city was becoming more alive with its new decorations, fresh paint, and newly installed bleacher seats. Although I was looking forward to Mardi Gras, I didn’t figure on any surprises. The people in the French Quarter were already celebrating. The excitement of watching people throw beer cans, scream obscenities, and, in general, act like jerks, loses its appeal after awhile. I suppose I could be speaking out of envy, since I was not one of the good-time people, but I hope not. The week before Mardi Gras there was the pre-Mardi Gras party. Bourbon St. and Royal St. were awash in drunken celebrations. The highlight of the party came when this muscle bound peacock stopped traffic and tried to pick up a Volkswagen full of terrified tourists. Even with his drunken buddies cheering him on, he could not pick up the car.
The thing that turned me off more than anything else, however, was the indisputable prejudice that was all around me. Although the black population got the brunt of the prejudice, there was more than enough to go around. It seemed some of the people down here were still fighting the Civil War. Being from the north and looking like a hippie, I was not immune from being the object of prejudice. Not one to back down, though, I would often walk through the black section of town up where I lived and stop to swing on one of the swings in the playground reserved for black kids. Everybody, blacks and whites alike, gave me dirty looks. The anti-social stigma of being the wrong color in the right swing, or being the right color in the wrong swing, did not win me points among the locals. Fortunately, I wasn’t trying to win a popularity contest. I just learned to swing with my eyes closed.
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