Child Wisdom from To Kill a Mockingbird

Jem and Scout, from the film starring
Gregory Peck

Somehow, I never read To Kill a Mockingbird until now. Go ahead. I'll wait until everyone is done lambasting me. [Looks at sky. Whistles. Bounces up and down on toes. Listens. Waits for a guy in Gdansk to get in his last barbed verbal missile.] But I'm glad.

Experiencing the book, now, as an adult, might be better than having read it, as many of our kids do in the U.S., in the eighth grade. I might have just chalked it up as a good read that I remembered fondly, had I read it then. Now, I am nothing short of in love with the book. As far as I'm concerned, it is just about a perfect novel.

That said, the book is sad, in lots of ways. But, most powerfully, it explores, through the eyes of children (eyes which, sadly, must be opened to such things), the general awfulness and superficiality of people. Of late, and as a consistent theme on Hats and Rabbits, the idea that society and groupthink are bad things has weighed heavily upon my disposition. I feel much as Jem must in this excerpt from the novel, after he and his little sister, Scout, witnessed the unfair trial of Tom Robinson, a black man in the white-dominated Southern town of Maycomb, in 1935. Scout starts:

You Must Comply: On Mandatory Birth-Control Funding for Religious Institutions

I'm not a political writer. But, today, I'm going to pretend I am, because I think it is the only way to get my jaw off of the ground.

In case you haven't heard -- and you may not have, because coverage for this seems to be quite limited (I mostly found reference to it on Catholic-associated websites), the United States Department of Health has made a new rule, which did appear in the Courier Post, a New Southern New Jersey paper:

At issue is the Jan. 20 announcement of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that the nation’s new health care law requires nearly all employers to provide insurance plans that offer free birth control to women. While the Obama administration had already stated that churches and houses of worship would be exempt from that provision, Sebelius said religious-affiliated institutions like hospitals, colleges and charities must comply.

Are they serious? -- "religious-affiliated institutions like hospitals, colleges and charities must comply"?

Fearing the Way

These things seem true to me, regarding sexuality:

1) It is one of the most profound things in human existence.

2) It is so profound that it frightens many of us.

3) That fear causes some of us to hide from sexuality's profundity.

4) That drive to hide from sexuality often makes us behave illogically.

These things seem true to me about traditional wisdom:

1) Self-control is held in high esteem. 

2) Self-control is often regarded by students and teachers alike as a constant need, rather than a thing that may be let-go, under the proper circumstances (which, in itself, is a kind of modified control).

3) Therefore, any abandonment of control is regarded as failure and, sometimes, immorality.

Because of the truths above, many a bride -- and perhaps many a groom -- over the course of time, have fellt guilt over their pleasures with their spouses, even if they followed the rules of her religion and "waited." Why? Because the act in which they engaged felt like a loss of self-control; like an abandonment of everything they were taught. They stood too close to the doorway to Tao -- that place where all of our morals, all of our logic, and all of our social graces evaporate into the vapours of all creation . . .

Blame Yourself: The Egyptian Soccer Riot

You might have heard that seventy-four people died in a brawl between rival soccer fans in Egypt.

People are sickening, sometimes, maybe not so much for their tendency to do violence for just about any conceivable reason, but for their immediate reactions of external blame. A man who was at the game says, in a Yahoo interview:

“Those in charge are responsible for this... And the military hasn’t provided a safe and secure environment. This is a national tragedy and those in charge bear the blame.”

Astounding. So it is not the fault of the losers who have so little control over their emotions that a mere sporting event can turn them into a mindless, homicidal mob. It is the government's fault. (The guy does accuse police of not having acted to stop the riot. That complaint, I get: they should have helped stop things before -- and even after -- got out of control. That's what police are for.)

Yeah, yeah. I know. Mubarak is gone after thirty years and everything is in a tizzy. But I'm talking about individual human responsibility. To me, that doesn't change. We each have a responsibility to be better than that. In fact, if one can't be better than these animals, one has serious problems.

The Chain

Yesterday I was off, so I had the chance to drive my boys to school. On the way in, my ten year old mentioned a problem he was having. I won't plaster it on the Internet, because I respect the little guy's privacy as much as anyone else's, but we talked a little and he seemed okay -- he even changed the subject on his own.

When I got home, my wife informed me he had been talking about it to her, earlier. She told me he had been visibly upset. It was a bigger problem than I had thought. Had I blown the chance to help him on his way in?

I was on familiar ground -- in that place of knowing my boy has to fight some of his own battles, but wanting to save him from pain.

To use an American football metaphor, I don't feel the urge to carry the ball for him, like a lot of parents do; I just  want to be his blocker -- to knock away opponents so he can score touchdowns. But sometimes, even that is too much. He needs to build his own character. He needs to take some hits.

That's easy to say.