92. Design Intent, Comedy & Tragedy

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It is laugh or cry —
the tragedy of humans
in hormonal rage.

This is one I did not want to have to write. But owing to the resurgence of mass shootings — emerging to fill the gap, now that the COVID pandemic has cut us some slack — I feel I would be remiss to continue along the lines of treating less controversial dimensions of design thinking, Zen, and the reality we face. Perhaps because I have recently re-watched some old videos of George Carlin and Richard Pryor, I am subject to irresistible flashes of standup routines parodying relentless social issues, in that half-awake, half-asleep state of awareness known as hypnogogic or hypnopompic, depending on whether you are retreating from, or returning to, full consciousness, reminiscent of the old Taoist Zhuang Zhou’s famous saying:

I dreamed I was a butterfly, flitting around in the sky; then I awoke. Now I wonder: Am I a man who dreamt of being a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man?

Butterflies, of course, are known for flitting from flower to flower, gathering nectar I suppose, but at the same time, distributing pollen for the reproductive needs of the plants in question, the flowers being their genitalia. A very public case of in flagrante delicto, usually considered an act of wrongdoing. Which brings up another quote, from the Precepts of Zen Buddhism as currently received in ceremony:

Honor the body; do not engage in sexual misconduct

Which, in turn, begs the question of which kind of sexual behaviors amount to misconduct, and which do not. A tellingly large portion of religious, philosophical and ideological beliefs is devoted to making the cultural norms on this question as explicit as possible, with variations from culture to culture, loosely construed as “values.” One need look no further than the animal kingdom, particularly that of the insect world, to find that, as far as Nature is concerned, anything goes, basically, and not to even mention the plant kingdom. If a human being were to emulate or imitate any one of thousands of behaviors found in the fecund orgy going on out there, they would be driven out of society with no mercy. Marquis de Sade, move over.

This discussion inevitably moves into treacherous territory, skating on the thin ice covering theistic beliefs in the creation of humankind, and God’s divine intervention from the get-go in our daily affairs, no pun. Theists, please forgive me in advance — I mean no disrespect — but as a designer I have to give license to an interpretation of Intelligent Design from a perspective embracing human frailty and folly. I find myself — or rather my unchained, dreamy unconscious — imagining the “design arguments” familiar from struggles with problem definition and solution in professional design circles, only the kind that must have arisen from time to time on “God’s Design Committee.” Any one experienced in a design-build organization at any scale will tell you that teams of specialists typically actualize the output of the conceptual Genius, who himself is far too busy with bigger things to be bothered with the details.

I suppose it would be theologically proper to speak of God’s “angels” discussing these ideas in process, probably a committee of elders and perhaps some creative youngsters. Delegated the task of detailing the nuts and bolts of God’s vision — as sentient beings evolve through the inevitable developmental stages, from the earliest glimmerings as single-celled organisms through ever-more complex forms, until finally arriving at the absolute apogee of all creation — thee and me, in all our homeliness.

A few perhaps impertinent questions naturally arise as to how, exactly, this might have transpired. Of particular relevance to the current topic would be those surrounding the reproductive design of the only being “made in God’s own image,” after all, and the lively debate that must have taken place amongst those responsible for final design intent — form, features and styling — and implementation. Surely there must have been some competing opinions as to best potential solutions.

For example — and this pivots toward the issue of violence and its possible root causes, so buckle up (or conversely, loosen your belt) — the cultural meme against masturbation. Not a historian, so not sure how widespread this prohibition has been in the development of civilization (using the term loosely), but certainly grew up in the inhibitory climate of the 1950s, myself.

As an aside, by the fourth grade, I could already draw pretty well, and had initiated a comic strip about our family’s pet fox terrier, a couple of years earlier. My best friend in middle school brought what was called an “eight-pager” in those days, a primitive form of pornographic comic book featuring Betty Boop and Dick Tracy, which he had obtained from his older brother. I decided to try my hand at drawing naked women, and turned out to be pretty good at it, minus the details, of course, of which I was blissfully ignorant. When one of my sketches came to the attention of the teacher, she demanded to know who was the ringleader. All my friends in the classroom pointed at me. My first betrayal. Busted at 10 for running a porn ring.

From a personal perspective, the intervening scope creep in porn — from the cartoon book I was exposed to, to the advent of Playboy Magazine, culminating in the cascade of virtual information overload available online today — is breathtaking. Whether this is having a majorly negative or positive impact on today’s youth, I am not sure. In one sense, it is better to know, than to have to imagine, the gross details of “bumping uglies,” as a Hollywood film so charmingly put it. In another sense, a bit of mystery does not hurt. Ignorance is not necessarily bliss, in all cases.

From a religio-theistic perspective — if I may be permitted the coinage — sexual exploration and giving in to our desires is not given much cover. From an early age we are admonished to not — as my beer-drinking, tobacco-chewing, Jehovah’s Witness maternal grandmother put it so delicately — “go around acting like dogs.” In every other respect, of course, we virtually worship the dog, which, spelled backwards, is… never mind. Dog has buddha-nature. Let it go at that.

But back to the committee: if God really didn’t want us to play with ourselves, why did S/he make our hands come out exactly where our genitals are located? They — the latter, that is — could have been located in the middle of our back, where they would be virtually unreachable. Which would lend new meaning to the song, “Back-to-back; belly-to-belly; well I don’t give a damn ‘cause I done that already.” I can remember from the tender age of six or so becoming aroused simply by sleeping on my belly. To this day I cannot see how that situation was somehow my fault.

I could go on. But to return to the main thrust of the dreamworld: When the assignment hit the desks of the co-chairs (Heaven must be highly organized), they would have called the committee together for some initial brainstorming, perhaps with some high-level aspirational direction from the Big Guy himself. The team had just successfully completed the exhaustive establishment of all manner of mammals around the world, and were basking in the glow of that accomplishment. So when considering this next task — the ultimate challenge of the top-of-the-line model of sentient beings, a cut above all other animals, requiring a breakthrough yet to be determined — what did they do? Like most design teams in that situation, they played it safe. Landing on a small refinement of the latest in that series, with some tweaking, that turns out to be what we cavalierly call the “hairless ape.” A caveat — no slur intended on other innocent bipeds, who would likely regard some of our behavior as unforgivable, or at least unconscionable. One of Buddha’s honorifics is translated “honored among bipeds.” Not making this up.

So when it came to the reproductive system of a species designed for eternal life in Heaven if not on Earth, what did they come up with? Mammal is a mammal is a mammal. I think it likely that at least one of the committee members, perhaps a few of the younger and less jaded, might have objected. “You’re telling me that this, our highest achievement, will have one with an innie and one with an outie — and have to stick the outie into the innie in order to reproduce? That’s disgusting.” “Yeah, that’s just another mammal, man!” “Why can’t we do something nice and clean, like we did with that amoeba. Just split in half, clean break down the middle. No muss, no fuss.”

Well, we can’t blame them. Maybe the obiter dictum came down that He Who Shall Not Be Ignored wanted it that way. Just wanted to make things a little more challenging for his only begotten. Like that just-another-ape thing. Give the old ego something to work on. Just spit-balling here.

Someone capable of thinking ahead would offer, “Well, then, for something this intelligent, we are going to have to make that feel really good. Otherwise you’re going to get pushback. Have to stuff a lot of nerve endings in there, maybe sacrifice some in the back. Where, remember, I was the one who suggested we put the reproductive junk in the first place.” Some ideas die hard.

So the tragedy of what we see happening today may have had comic cosmic beginnings. Nonetheless, it is necessary to take a sober look at where this particular madness is coming from. This constitutes a real exercise in problem definition. Which is our only hope of finding a solution.

When we look at the mass murders now taking place weekly, like some kind of insane competition — and the parallel phenomenon of so-called suicide-bombers (some would say homicide-bombers) from a different culture — an eerie commonality emerges. One theory I came across in what passes for cool and collected scrutiny today is that these incidents are largely the brainchild of young men, probably “incels” — involuntary celibates — a term coined relatively recently. Which suggests that the prevailing witches’ brew of seductive and restrictive cultural conditions may not have obtained in the past. Of course, a mere couple of centuries or so ago, no one person could have so casually pulled together the means of mass murder and destruction on offer, and on demand, today. Violent repression leads to violent expression.

Speculation on the pathology of the madness, meaning its true causes, abounds. In ancient times, in one particular city-state in early Greece, the local overlord decided it would be a good idea to parade all nubile young women through the streets, nearly naked. Purportedly in order that the young men could see what ladies look like under their clothes, to remove some of the mystery, and relieve the urge, to that degree. Young men, in turn, apparently competed naked in sporting competitions, presumably with young women permitted to watch. The important thing was who won the game, after all. Nowadays maybe scantily-clad cheerleaders represent the vestigial remains of those traditions.

Speaking of scantily-clad: “Quora Digest.” This site pops up on my email daily, maybe more than once. Under the guise of featuring factoids of general interest, including a heavy obsession with Beatlemania and Nazi stories, the lead item always has something to do with photos of youngish female celebrities: wardrobe failures, T&A, boobs and butts, beaver shots, et cetera. Soft porn. Rarely is the subject of the feature male nudity, and never their accidentally exposed parts.

With this kind of “infotainment” readily available today, in our hyper-sexualized media and culture, even to those most sheltered by parental controls, it is no wonder that the youth are obsessed with sex. Boys in full hormonal rage are confronted with images of nearly-naked women on all fronts, and the harder porn message is that they all want it, bad. But when they turn to their own immediate circle, they are met with rejection, ridicule and scorn. Their personal reality is badly out of sync with their perceived social reality. One definition of madness.

It reminds me of an incident a good friend in college once related. He was a lifeguard on the beaches of New York in his high-school days, when one day a little girl, maybe five years old, came running up to him wrapped in a towel. Suddenly she flung open the towel, revealing her stark naked body, shouting “No shame! No shame!” then ran off to accost her next convert.

I, too, wish we could all walk around naked, with notable exceptions. If the Emperor literally has no clothes, you could literally not un-see that. I had a friend in Chicago who, with his two girlfriends after his first marriage ended, were nudists. He was well-endowed, worked as a trainer in a gym, and was always encouraging everyone to get naked, asserting that if you did, you would not have much more to hide. I knew him well enough to know that he still had plenty to hide, fully starkers, though I did not tell him so. There’s more to that story, but I will leave you wanting more.

Suppression and repression are defined as pretty much synonymous in the dictionary, so I do not know which would be more appropriate to define the attitude toward sexuality, and its public presentation, in the context under consideration. Currently parents are up in arms over teaching critical race theory, the racial replacement conspiracy, and sexuality, in schools. I think these are all facets of one private problem. And that the violence we are witness to all too frequently is its public manifestation. Like most maladies, it is not going to get any better on its own. The question is, What to do? First, define it.

The reemergence of conservative ideology and values in countries dominated by Islamic extremists appears to be another example of this same syndrome. The cultural imperative may be the opposite — women required to go full burqa in public, accompanied by a male 24/7, et cetera, only serves to exacerbate the situation they are trying to control. Hiding the body may inflame the hormonal dysplasia afflicting the young men of the society. The proposed solution to the problem is different, but like the televangelist caught with the prostitute, making something absolutely evil is to make it absolutely irresistible. Especially if it feels good. Addiction occurs because the drugs work.

Bodhidharma, the great sage credited with brining Zen Buddhism to China, is reputed to have encouraged fellow monks to watch animals fight, in order to learn how to defend themselves without weapons against armed opponents, by whom they were frequently attacked. Religious jealousy and animus are not recent phenomena. This was one of the origins of the martial arts, according to the story. But he did not suggest that they observe animals for instruction in the romantic arts as well. Monks were mostly celibate, if you accept the historicity of the written record. Likewise, we are not going to go there. I leave to your imagination what kind of Kama Sutra might have emerged.

The disconnect between the social and personal worlds revealed by these mass killings, or even individual suicide, is a universal condition shared by all who have reached their maturity. Meditation is the direct way to resolve all such seeming contradictions. In this context, masturbation is not wrong, but meditation is better. Those who would argue that any waste of sperm is an abomination should consider the amount of semen in a typical ejaculation, estimated in the hundreds of millions. What are the odds that any but the most minuscule percentage will ever impregnate an egg? Do the math.

Buddha himself is said to have lived a life of dissipation and self-gratification under the care of his family, who wanted him to inherit leadership of the Shakya clan, rather than take up the life of an itinerant religious leader, as had been prophesied. He is said to have become so “refined” — we would say “jaded” — that he no longer desired anything. This disaffection, along with his reputed estrangement from the intense suffering he witnessed, led to his leaving home on a quest for salvation, the beginning of Buddhism.

But Buddha’s ultimate insight became the basis for the Middle Way, the instruction that the extremes of self-gratification and self-mortification were equally “unworthy and unprofitable,” and the Eightfold Path, completing the triangle of findings, conclusions and recommendations that any worthwhile research study must produce, in order to be useful to oneself or others. For him, and for innumerable followers of the Zen way, these teachings stand as a most comprehensive definition of the fundamental problem of existence. They also offer a universal solution. The only thing is to get on with it.