“In fact, it is a very bad thing because the belief that you are special is accompanied by profound responsibilities. If you believe that you are unique and separate, you will strive to live up to that standard. If, on the other hand, you believe that you are qualitatively no different from the chimp, moose, or whale, you will have no internalized standard to live up to; you will be free to indulge in the primal. This group, to whom we both refer, takes great joy in seeing nobility in nature and none in mankind. They have gone beyond shrugging off egocentrism and have progressed to a destructive self-loathing.”
“Why?”
“Because self-hatred grants the one who feels it both freedom and power. Those who hold this belief do not feel that they belong on this planet or deserve a single resource. They believe that every apple they eat has been stolen from an animal that is far more deserving, that every breath they draw diminishes the quality of the environment. Reese, what does your training in psychology tell you happens within most people who hate themselves?”
“Transference.”
“Precisely. Your mind was not designed to hate itself; it consciously rejects that. The inevitable result of developing a philosophy of self-hatred is the turning of that hatred against mankind in general. Once you have transferred your hatred against others, you are free to set yourself up as their teacher and their judge. You decide what resources they may consume, where they may live, how much food and water they may have, how much they should weigh, what should be the source of their electricity, or whether they really even need electricity. You do all of this while proclaiming that you are setting the example of self-denial and self-improvement. Covering your body with brightly colored Spandex and pedaling your $7,000 bicycle is neither self-denial nor self-improvement; it is merely a pathetic narcissism.”
“It’s true,” Reese interjected, “that the basis of the narcissistic personality is a horrible self-image. But isn’t there a contradiction in your statements? You said a moment ago that feeling special was good?”
“I was, perhaps, unclear. For that to be positive, people must feel part of a special group, a group which they place above themselves as individuals. The narcissists direct all feelings toward themselves. No one is above them, including me.
“Reese, I warned you in our first conversation how easy it would be to take a path of digression, as we have just done. To resume my answer to your question…all that has occurred in the past was to prepare this environment for mankind. The Earth was a garden designed specifically not only to feed mankind, but to provide it with the tools and the resources to advance to a great civilization. Achieving that goal required more than a supply of the basics; it also required trees for timber so that homes and other buildings could be built, minerals that could be converted into metals, fuels that could be used to power machines.
“All of those things would have been for naught if there were no mysteries for man to solve. As you have described so well in your lectures and books, once needs are met, mankind must have something more to strive toward. Those goals must be easy enough to be attainable and difficult enough to be challenging, or they will be abandoned out of frustration or boredom. Chemistry, the atom and the various subatomic particles, as well as the exploration of space, have impelled your breed forward over the centuries. The quest for answers has been so unrelenting that there have been many times throughout your history that additional layers of complexity have been added.”
“Add additional layers, how so?”
“Remember, in your youth, you were taught that the atom was the fundamental particle?”
“Yes, I do.”
“At that point in time, it was. There was nothing beyond it, no subatomic particles that together comprised an atom. I have always believed that your species must never reach an end point of knowledge. To ensure the continued pursuit for knowledge and understanding, the makeup of your universe was modified to provide quarks and muons and neutrinos and the like. My task has been to make certain there has always been another frontier for mankind. It has been so for many thousands of years.
“As a result of the physical, emotional, and spiritual nourishment that you have received, your people have flourished.”
“You make it sound as if we’re a crop.”
“In a very real way, you are. I created the garden, tended it as needed, and watched you grow and ripen. There is a point, a moment in time, when some of the fruits are at their ripest, while many of the others are not; several have long ago withered; and numerous others have begun to rot before ever fulfilling their promise. If the ripest of the fruit are not picked at that moment, the rot from the rest will overwhelm them, destroying them.”
“That is why you are here.”
“Yes. I have come to harvest those who have fulfilled their promise before they are lost, as I have done twice before.”
“What becomes of the rest when the best are picked?”
“Are we still speaking in metaphors?”
“I prefer not.”
“Very well. Mankind underestimates the powerful influence that the few exceptional members have on the whole. Even those who do not become leaders of state, but simply contribute within their own smaller sphere of the community, have a profound stabilizing and guiding effect on the rest. In the past, following my previous two visits, although I only took a small portion of the society, the civilization unraveled. It was almost as if those few whom I took were the anchor for the rest. Without that anchor they were blown and tossed and, in fact, destroyed. The same peoples who once built great cities and monuments are, today, barely able to farm their own lands.”
“The disappearance of great civilizations in our distant past has never been explained.”
“That is the sad explanation for many of the groups following two of the events. After the Chosen departed, the rest turned upon one another and eventually upon themselves. Indulging in our garden metaphor for another moment, there was no need for the farmer to clear the crop and plow it under in preparation for the next planting.”
“They did it to themselves.”
“Yes, they did. And the reality of my coming became a legend, and the legend a distant myth.”
“This only explains two of the downfalls? The others?”
“There were times that, as I watched, I realized the path mankind had picked would never produce any who could join me in Heaven. I intervened.”
“Noah’s flood?”
“That was one. He and his family were not the only Chosen to survive. As you now know, a genetic pool that small would not do well. I selected others throughout the world and asked them each to gather the plants and animals that I knew would not survive. And then I destroyed the rest.”
“Set aside your seed stock and tilled the garden.”
“Yes. There were other interventions, as well.”
“Oh?”
“Your biologists are now concerned that, due to mankind’s effort to increase efficiency, most of the varieties of corn have been lost. With essentially only one type remaining, they worry that a new disease which targets that specific subspecies would wipe it out, as has happened with the chestnut tree. Hundreds of thousands of years ago, a virus mutated into existence that nearly eliminated mankind itself. I took the survivors to a safe place, nurturing them until they multiplied, while creating some variations which I placed upon the Earth to join the family of humanity.”
“Our races?”
“Indeed. Although the genetic differences are slight, they are sufficient to protect mankind from a single disease that would wipe it out completely.”
“That explains why primarily only blacks are susceptible to Sickle Cell Anemia, the Jews to C.J. disease.”
“And many others. I did not suspect at the time of the creation of these variations how controversial they would become. Yet, like so many other conditions of your life on Earth, it gives each of you an opportunity to show your wisdom or your ignorance, your love or your hatred, your
nobility or your baseness.”
“You created them all equal.”
“Reese, what is equality? Each person on Earth is different from the rest. I should say they all have the potential to be different. Men are also different from women. It is a source of great amusement to me that your people have looked to science in an attempt to prove the blaringly obvious. There are quantifiable physiological differences between the Asian, the black, the white. However, there are also differences among members of the same group. I am certain that you have white friends who are much taller than you, and others much shorter. You have known other whites much stronger or weaker. I doubt you have known any who are much smarter, while nearly everyone you have ever met is less smart, sometimes painfully so.
“Are you superior to the others because of your intellect? Of course you are…if intelligence is the criterion. To another person, height and strength may be all that matter. If you acknowledge that there are differences between men and women, then who is superior, and who is inferior? To decide that, you must place an objective value on each attribute and total them up. Is that possible?”
“It is for you.”
“You are, of course, correct. When I judge, a few are chosen and the rest remain. There are no gray areas; there are no appeals. I will tell you this…all people born on Earth have the ability to become members of the community of Heaven. Whether they do so is their choice. Very few make the correct choice.”
“Certainly you’re not saying that everyone has an even chance; the serendipity of birth allows each of us to begin with great advantages or disadvantages.”
“If my criterion were wealth or social success, you would be correct. I decide based upon the nature of developed individuals: their beliefs; their character; their inner strength; their nobility; their conviction that mankind, as a whole, is more important than they are as individuals; and their conviction that there is a higher power. I also decide based upon their contributions to the whole. Camus was correct: a person cannot become a saint by only avoiding bad acts. Doing nothing wrong does not make you good; it only makes you a nebbish. To be good, you must do good. And by doing good, I am not referring to grand, visible charitable deeds. Having the privilege of looking directly into the hearts, minds, and souls of all, I can tell you that most who join the Peace Corps do so to feel superior to those they help. Most who devote a day helping to build a home – that will be given to a poor, homeless family – do so, if they are not seeking political gain, to atone for private sins. Not to mention that they are doing the homeless family no favor.”
“No favor? Private sins? Please explain. How are we to place the whole above ourselves and not help those who are in need? And to what private sins do you refer?”
“The private sins come in a multitude of forms. Many find themselves in a life pattern that includes alcoholism, infidelity, mild or even extreme abusive behavior toward their families, or perhaps simply neglect. In time they regret their actions and their choices, but they do not have the courage, the discipline, or the desire to change their behaviors. Yet, all people like to be proud of themselves. You, as a psychologist, know that.”
Reese nodded.
“It is a fundamental need. Unfortunately, most are not willing to live in a way that justifies that pride; they are not willing to give up the pleasures or patterns of behavior that diminish them. Instead, they believe they can earn the pride in self by doing grand, external deeds. A small example is a mother of a high school student who plays in the school band. Rather than supporting her daughter, attending every performance, encouraging her to practice, paying for and taking her daughter to private music lessons, the mother becomes a ‘band mom,’ sitting at a table away from the performances and selling T-shirts to raise money for the band. She abdicates her role and responsibilities as the child’s mother, in favor of the attention and recognition that she receives from the band, the band director, and the other mothers. Reese, why don’t you tell me her motives?”
Considering all of the overwhelming events that had occurred since Reese first met Elohim, this insignificant story profoundly affected him. It affected him because Melissa was in a band, and they had noticed the cult of band mothers all fawning over the director, having countless evening meetings to plan their events and paint their posters while leaving their own children at home alone. Claire, just last week, told Reese of a band mom selling T-shirts at the pre-season band camp performance. The woman’s own daughter came to tears begging her mother for one of the shirts which her mother refused to buy. Claire, observing all of this, paid the seven dollars for a shirt and gave it to the weeping girl. The mother, seeing Claire give the shirt to her daughter, said, “I can’t thank you enough. I would have bought it for her, but I just can’t afford it.” Claire just nodded and walked away. When she and Melissa were out of earshot, Melissa said, “Mom, that woman bought all of those T-shirts and donated them to the band.” As they walked to the parking lot, Melissa pointed at a black Mercedes SUV and said, “That’s her car! I think she could afford seven bucks!” Claire had been furious.
Elohim continued, “Reese, do you think that mother should join me as I leave?”
Reese looked up, startled.
“Forgive me for invading your privacy; however, I wanted to make a point. That mother was born with every advantage, and yet she became a despicable person.”
“Not buying a T-shirt for your daughter doesn’t make you despicable.”
“No, in and of itself, it does not. But what your wife witnessed was not a mother exercising parental restraint to avoid spoiling her child. Claire witnessed a specific behavioral trait that was a symptom of character.
“You also asked for an explanation of my comment that the charity providing a free house for the homeless family does them no favor. Charity has long been touted as a cornerstone of being a good, religious person. The origin of that tradition has solid roots. In a small village where everyone was known to one another and, as a result of either character or peer pressure, everyone contributed to the welfare of the village to the best of his or her abilities, there occasionally came a disaster. It would take the form of a family losing a mother in childbirth, a father becoming infirm or injured and unable to work, a home burning to the ground. The rest of the village would join together and take up the tasks of the deceased mother – feeding the children, cleaning the house, doing the family’s laundry – so that the father was free to work. When a family lost a father, members of the village would take in the children and raise them, many times providing a place for the mother to stay. She, of course, was expected to work in the new abode. If a family home burned down, the village would join together and replace it, asking nothing in return.
“Today you have a society where everyone is not known to all. When you see people without a home, you do not know if they have been hard-working contributors to society or not. All too frequently, the recipients of the free house are people who were faced with all of the same choices that nearly all individuals encounter throughout their lives. As children they had a choice between watching television and doing their schoolwork; they chose television. As teens, they had a choice between doing household chores and going out with their friends; they chose their friends. As young adults they had a choice between getting a menial job and the option of going to college; they chose the job. They chose pregnancy over abstinence. They chose alcohol or drugs over sobriety. They chose sloth over personal grooming. They chose breaking the law over abiding by it. Over a period of twenty-five to thirty years, they consistently chose the path of immediate self-gratification or, at a minimum, the path of least resistance. During the same stages of life, others chose schoolwork over television, chores over friends, college over a job, abstinence over pregnancy, sobriety over drugs, and personal grooming over sloth.
“When people making sound choices need a place to call home, they will probably have a savings account, a steady occupation, and good credit. The people who made poo
r choices will probably have none of these things. I ask you, who deserves to have society provide them with a home?”
“If, by ‘deserves,’ you mean ‘has earned,’ the obvious answer would be the good citizen.”
“Obvious perhaps, but incorrect. The correct answer is neither.”
“Neither?”
“Yes, neither. The explanation as to why must begin with an understanding of what society is supposed to be. When the first nomadic family discovered that life could be easier by cooperating with another family, they formed a society. They made mutually agreed-upon rules that would reduce future friction between them, and they negotiated a system where they would each contribute to the whole, and each could expect the whole to provide certain things in return. It was then discovered that this system worked so well that a third family should be added; the rules were explained to the new ones, and the exchange of efforts and goods were negotiated. The society continued to grow, with each family contributing and each receiving value in return. Karl Marx understood this principle quite well.
“At some point the size of the society grew until one member, lacking in character, decided to reap the benefits of the society while shorting its members of his contribution. This was soon noticed by the others, and a meeting was held. The recalcitrant member was discussed, and the solution was obvious. The committee visited the slacker and expelled him from the community. Now, I ask you Reese, did the group have no human compassion?”
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