A man's got to know his limitations.*

As regulars know, I'm not a big GOP fan. That said, I think Clint Eastwood's convention gig last night could've easily transcended its initial thematic weirdness if Clint himself didn't come off as such a senile old coot. Holy crap, how the mighty have fallen. It was nigh impossible to picture this frail, incoherent fumbler as the uber-cool Harry, pointing his behemoth of a sidearm at that last bank robber and asking, "Do you feel lucky, punk? Well, do ya...?"

One never wants to tempt fate, but watching poor befuddled Clint, it occurred to me that there are at least a few people out there who haven't (so far as we know) had strokes who sound a whole lot more mentally impaired than yours truly.
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* This is the most obscure of the Dirty Harry memes, from 1973's Magnum Force. As fans of the series will know, each film had its signature line, a la "Do you feel lucky?" and, of course, "Make my day."

Letters, we get letters. Or, 12 steps to heaven*... not.

I received an emailed note from a gentleman named Michael, who was kind enough to give me permission to print it and respond to it on the blog...knowing, of course, that I'd do my best to defeat his logic. I publish Michael's thoughts here unedited except for typos and minor grammatical stuff:

I started to read your book, but I couldn't make it past page 20. By that point you had trashed AA and the other 12-step programs so many times and in so many ways, I couldn't go further. I've been a member of many 12-step programs for 24 years, and your ignorance of their value is stunning. I'm going to share some of what you might call psycho-babble, but you've missed the point of the program so badly, I have no choice.

Substance abuse winds up to be, finally, a problem of isolation. In many cases it's just you, alone, in a room with a bottle, a needle, or a crack pipe. The 12-step programs promote the idea that "what we cannot do alone we can do together." You discover immediately that you have hundreds of friends who actually give a damn what happens to you. All the programs function the same way, AA, CA, NA, Pills Anonymous, Smokers Anonymous (one of the biggest). Sure, it may"appear" to have a high dropout rate. But you know what, they come back, cause they know they're always welcome, without judgment, It makes you feel you're part of something bigger than yourself. It's not a religious program, it's a spiritual one. You take what you need and discard the rest. The program is a bridge back to life, and once you cross the bridge, it's not necessary to constantly re-enforce it by going to meetings forever. I haven't been to a regular meeting in 12 years. But the principles live with me every day. They offer tools to help you cope with everyday life.

So though the rest of your book may be amusing, your failure to really do thorough research on the 12-step programs, cancels any trust I have that you've done anything more than just collect a bunch of soundbites and published them.

For starters, rather than repeat myself (too much), I invite readers to review this post, which I wrote back in 2007. From here on, keep in mind that I'm not out to play GOTCHA by picking apart Michael's note, which was clearly heartfelt and well-argued. I just think that in making his points, he often ends up making my points. In my experience, this is often true of defenders of the recovery movement.

For starters, Michael writes: "The 12-step programs promote the idea that 'what we cannot do alone we can do together.' " In truth, the 12-steps (unwittingly) promote many things...and to my mind, the sense of shared impotence is at least as striking a feature of these programs as the sense of common purpose against a shared foe. Michael himself tells us that he has been involved with 12-steps for 24 years. Twenty-four years. If alcoholism is indeed the disease we now culturally recognize it to be...what disease requires a 24-year (-and counting) cure? But wait, I already know the answer to this one: You are never cured, in the ironic lingo of recovery. (Doesn't recovery presuppose, at some point...a recovery?) And that may be the problem in a nutshell. If you persuade people that they're hopeless, that there's no way out (except entrusting yourself to some nebulous higher power and the attaboys of like-minded friends), you create precisely the sort of helplessness I had in mind when I penned SHAM's subtitle. This is all the more true in a group setting. (Why do you think every poor-man's Tony Robbins dreams wetly of the day when he can lure a few hundred people to some hotel ballroom? In mass psychology there is strength: not your strength, but the guru's!)

And so I would say to Michael, if my ignorance of these programs' value is stunning, then perhaps his ignorance of their dangers is sad.

Rather than just continue to be snarky, I will focus on Michael's other main allegation: that I haven't done my research on 12-steps. Oh yes I have. And in this case, research does not consist of simply talking to people who relapse and keep coming back for more (which would not truly be research—it would be opinion polling—and which, in itself, again, makes one question the value of the therapy). Research consists of analyzing the cure rates put out by AA and looking at objective studies of the genre. Had Michael made it past page 20—to, say, Chapter 8, "You are All Diseased," he would have encountered a fairly thorough review of the literature on addiction and recovery. And there have been even more startling physiology-based findings about the true nature of addiction since SHAM was published. In time, such findings almost always yield new interventions. (This is a pretty good overview of addiction and the various therapeutic approaches...at least in the UK. But I suppose their addicts are pretty much like our own.)

Michael would have found that AA has not even come close to meeting its burden of proof in terms of documenting its efficacy; he would have found a consistent pattern of obstructionism and deceit on AA's part. But why should that surprise anyone? After all, the "philosophical core" of AA, and the rest of the 12-step universe, was pulled out of thin air by a couple of guys who had about as much business reinventing the world's approach to addiction as I have conceiving a new approach to neuroscience. (But wait, why shouldn't I conceive a new approach to neuoscience? I had a stroke. Doesn't that qualify me as an expert on neuroscience? ... Then why take advice on alcoholism from drinkers?)

And then we have the point I sought to make in my still-born letter to Harper's, which I blogged about here. This goes back to the impact that 12-step programs tend to have on a disciple's self-image. The addictions/disabilities, or imagined addictions/disabilities, propagate: You start out an alcoholic, then you're a codependent, then pne day you're a card-carrying member of underearner's anonymous. Are all of these things legitimate flaws that require treatment? Or do suggestible people who may, may have one basic maladjustment become psychological hypochondriacs, conceiving themselves hapless victims of each new syndrome that comes into vogue, by being chronically exposed to that kind of thinking? I'm just askin'.

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Last but not least, although Narconon is not a 12-step, I think it's well worth looking into NBC's  investigation of the Scientologist-run program. It suggests that apart from being ineffective, Recovery-land is also rife with abuse. 

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UPDATE, Saturday afternoon, August 18: I promised to give Michael the final word(s) on the subject, and he has chosen to exercise that privilege as follows:

Thank you for posting my letter.

I'm not going to play shot for shot with you, it's meaningless. You just don't get "it." And I'm not talking about Erhard's Seminar Training.

It may just be as simple an issue as that maybe you're not a substance abuse addict who's had to go in search of answers and solutions for himself.

I gotta tell ya, you're really cynical. I watched that Rock Center piece last Thurs, on Narconon: $30,000 to be hustled by Scientology. And you can't come back unless you pay another $30,000. Twelve-step programs you can keep coming back. That's the principle of the whole program. I've been to rehab: 30 days, $2500.00. Good launching pad. Works for some, fails for others. Twelve-step program costs a dollar donation. And any rehab worth a dime follows the format of the 12-step programs, and encourages meeting when you leave the rehab.

My final word about them is that they give you tools to function in recovery, that will last for the rest of your life. I know because I meet many people that don't have those tools and are so lost in their day to day functions.

* I'll use any excuse to make an allusion to a Miles Davis classic. Non-jazzophiles, take a listen; you might like.

Would you buy a complete metaphysical system from this woman? ... Byron Katie, Part 2.

In our last episode, we met Byron Katie and were introduced to her Four Questions, which supposedly will take you to a new level of peace, happiness and fulfillment. And, in fairness, you'll have no trouble finding legions of online fans.

But...you'll also find legions of people who swear by oxycontin, at least in terms of the narcotic's propensity for making life seem rosier and less anxious (till you run out of the drug). Which raises, in my mind, a Fifth Question: Is what Katie espouses really a valid metaphysical system? Or is it just the New Agey equivalent of oxy...a convenient, seductive-sounding way of rationalizing all the bad stuff (and generating enormous revenues for Katie, or so we're led to believe)?

Once again, we'll let Katie set the tone in her own words. This is from her site:

"The Work of Byron Katie is a way of identifying and questioning the thoughts that cause all the anger, fear, depression, addiction, and violence in the world. Experience the happiness of undoing those thoughts through The Work, and allow your mind to return to its true, awakened, peaceful, creative nature.

On another page appears this quote from Katie herself:

"I discovered that when I believed my thoughts, I suffered, but that when I didn't believe them, I didn't suffer, and that this is true for every human being."

The premise of Katie's system, then, as I understand it, is that very little in life is objectively true. It's just a matter of how we see things. And since so many of us harbor thoughts, feelings and beliefs that are unduly dark—i.e., like looking at the world through the antithesis of rose-colored glasses—we need to learn to try to see life for what it really is, stripped of our own overlay of fear, diffidence, etc.

OK then, since we're operating in the realm of questions, let me ask another: If, as Katie suggests, there's no such thing as objective truth...then why would we question only the negative human interpretations of that higher, unreachable truth? Suppose my abiding view of my life is, "I am happy and safe here. I feel confident and whole." If I subscribe to that thought, am I supposed to subject it to the scrutiny of the Four Questions? (Or do I just leave that one alone.) And if not, why not? What kind of "philosophy of life" is it that applies only to thoughts you don't want to have or facts you'd rather not know?

Similarly, take a look at Katie's emotions list, to be used as a guide in answering the "How do you feel" question. It presupposes that when you take this course, your emotions are negative, and thus the turnaround will provide positive answers. This makes no sense to me on its face. Why are we questioning the legitimacy of the thoughts that breed anger, fear and depression, and not the legitimacy of the thoughts that cause peace, happiness, elation? After all, who's to say that the natural state of your mind is to be peaceful and creative? (OK, well, Katie says it. But who the hell is she?)

Like recovery theory, which posited that "it's never your fault," blaming all dysfunction either on genetics (over which we're powerless) or upbringing (again, you don't pick your parents), Katie's Work is an escape hatch—a mechanism not for finding truth, but for avoiding it.

To get down to cases:  In this piece from Oprah.com, a woman with cancer uses The Work to question her medical status and thus feel freer, better. She finally comes to an epiphany of sorts where she concedes she doesn't literally know that she has cancer; that's just the diagnose she was given. Thinking that way makes her feel better. As she writes:

"The thought that I had cancer made me feel terrified and immobilized. Without that thought, I was free—I was just myself, sitting on my bed with the windows open, completely alive and enjoying the breeze."

So let's turn that around. In my case, I haven't been given a diagnosis that I have cancer. But how do I know that I don't have it? Doesn't The Work also contemplate my way of thinking? While I'm sitting here in my home office with the window open, enjoying the breeze, there might be cancer afoot somewhere in my body, alongside the stroke I already had (or maybe I didn't have it; the bastards could have lied). Or maybe there's a strain of airborne Ebola wafting in through the open window...

But seriously, even if the woman above is correct in posing that she doesn't know that she objectively, factually has cancer, her diagnosticians, with all their years of training and accumulated expertise, surely would be closer to ascertaining the objective truth of the matter than she is in denying it.

And don't we absolutely need to consider probabilities in everyday decision-making? "No, I don't know that the gun I'm putting in my mouth is loaded. I don't even know that it's a real gun (And what is a gun, anyway?) So I guess I'll just pull this trigger here and..."

I wonder: Is Bryon Katie the kind of person who just plows right on through red lights because she doesn't know there's cross-traffic racing through the intersection?

If a philosophical system is valid, then it is always valid, for all people in all settings. Any system of though that "works" only when you use it to make yourself feel better is not a metaphysical system.... It's a crutch. That's why I have to give Rhonda Byrne props for being philosophically consistent (if for little else): If you're going to argue that projecting happy thoughts into the Universe can bring vast riches into your life, then you have to concede the possibility that negative projections can attracts the likes hurricanes, terrorist hijackers and other gross misfortunes.

In the end it would seem that for all its New Age flair, The Work reduces to little more than an over-intellectualized entreaty to "Just feel better about life, dammit! ... Accentuate the positive!" Why does anyone need Byron Katie for that?

Next time we get down to Business...

Can we get government out of our pants?

UPDATE, Friday morning, August 24: While we're on the subject, I'm sorry, this is not, in itself, a crime. Apparently the cops in my area are hunting for a man who offered a ride to a 9-year-old girl. In today's lexicon of thought-police paranoia, that constitutes the so-called crime of luring. Look, I'm a grandfather, and I adore my three beautiful granddaughters (and, of course, my grandson). I also continue to love my other granddaughter-in-absentia. I never want anything to happen to them. It goes without saying that I do not want them abducted, molested and/or killed. (Point of fact: They are far more likely to be molested and/or killed by people they know than by total strangers driving by in cars. So maybe we should proactively lock up my children and their spouses?) But if offering a ride to a child is wrong—because you may have sinister intentions—then is it also wrong to walk into a bank wearing a baseball cap, because you may be planning a robbery? Apparently the answer to both questions, nowadays, is yes. Regulars may recall my confrontation with a bank guard who insisted that I remove my ballcap. I refused, strolled up to the counter, did my banking and left without robbing the place, which I should have, on principle.

I absolutely love kids, and often go out of my way to engage with them. I find them and chat them up in supermarkets, at playgrounds and just about anywhere else. At such times my wife will stand by in the background, examining a grapefruit or whatever, and make a point of calling out to me in some sweet, congenial way, to demonstrate to bystanders that I am not (a) a man alone, or (b) dangerous. Still, the moms and dads tend to eye me warily, but that's their problem, not mine. A lot of kids today get far too little (positive) attention, from their parents in particular. I know that I am adding a bit of sunshine to these children's lives in my own small way, and if society wants to make something ugly out of that, then screw society. It's getting ridiculous out there.

Pretty soon the law will be: GOT A PENIS? GO TO JAIL!

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Consider this a preview post. Very busy today, but wanted to "throw this out there" and get something down in black and white so I know to come back to it at the length it deserves. We need to revamp our policy on sex, in all its aspects. And it's possible that I'm still being too Puritanical in these examples:

• Female high-school teachers should not go to jail for having sex with male students, as long as there's no coercion involved. (I'm still thinking about the other configuration: There may be reason for a double standard here. Or there may not.) I'm not saying that such teachers should get merit raises, but jail time is crazy. Perhaps they should lose their jobs. Perhaps not.
• No two (or three, or five) consenting adults should go to jail for having sex, ever. 
•  No one should go to jail for exposing himself to another adult. Again here, I'm not saying this behavior should be encouraged, permitted or penalty-free, but absent other circumstances, jail time is overkill. There have to be other ways of dealing with it, short of ruining people's lives. 
• Sandusky aside, there is a huge difference between (a) sexual molestation and (b) innocent horseplay that has a minor sexual component or subtext. Guys engage in this foolishness among themselves in the locker room all the time. No one is damaged by it. Possibly because of the Catholic Church scandal and other matters, we are way too hung-up on "sexual abuse" and pedophilia nowadays. I cannot prove this, but I suspect that too many parents and other adults are in trouble and/or registered under Megan's Law for "crimes" that reduce to simple playfulness that has zero prurient content. On the other hand, we chortle about TV shows like Toddlers & Tiaras (photo above), which comes as close to kiddie-porn as anything you're ever apt to see.
• This is hardly a new argument, but speaking of double standards, rethink the one that regards violence as less objectionable than sex. We can show a grisly sword fight on network TV, but not a wet vagina. We can show a head-shot (the kind involving bullets) but not a cum-shot. Huh?
• The use of an offensive term is not "sexual harassment" and does not constitute a "hostile environment" unless it is chronic and directed at a specific person in an intentionally derogatory or abusive manner. I find it amusing that a woman can come to work and effuse loudly about the fact that "We're pregnant!!", but God help the guy who comes to work and starts effusing in mixed company about an especially enjoyable instance of the act that sometimes leads to pregnancy. Would we prefer to pretend that all conceptions are immaculate?

More to, uh, come...

'Now send my boys to Harvard...or I'll shoot!'

We've talked before about so-called helicopter parents. (See, e.g., here and here.) However, Diana Zhou (not shown), is what you might call a one-woman bomb-wing parent. Zhou's two sons are both gifted in math, while one has Asperger's, a mild form of autism—and to her, no amount of accommodation is ever enough. Over the past few years she has cost the cash-strapped Bethlehem School District, about five miles east of me, nearly a half-million dollars in legal fees and related expenses as she attempts to bludgeon the District into sending her two sons to a costly private school. It appears that Zhou even admitted filing certain lawsuits and/or making outrageous demands in order to intentionally drive up Bethlehem's costs so that the District might relent and give her what she wants. (Zhou disputes that allegation). As an example, according to the school board's litigation, "Zhou also demanded the district pay for a Mandarin interpreter for her children at the special education meetings, even though the family speaks English."

We all want the best for our kids. But too many parents translate that natural desire into a sense of entitlement amid the past few generations' climate of uber-coddling and parental intervention into every facet of a child's life. To parents in this category, a level playing field is insufficient; they want to rig the outcome of the game itself. (In fact, people like Zhou seem to conceive a level playing field as one that by definition ensures a favorable outcome for their children.) Fortunately very few moms and dads take their obsessive parenting as far as Diana Zhou...and imagine if even 10 percent of them did! But I wish all parents would realize that they do their children no favors by attempting to micromanage their young lives and ensure kid-glove handling every step of the way. For that is the surest path of all to the sort of helplessness I had in mind when I chose the subtitle for my book.

Would you buy a complete metaphysical system from this woman? ... Byron Katie, Part 1.

For quite some time now, SHAMbloggers (as well as sundry media types), have been asking me why I've never written anything about Byron Katie. Certainly it would appear that there's no shortage of things to write about her (yes, for the uninitiated, Byron in this case is a she). So I'm going to take a whack at it. We'll do this in parts, with this installment devoted to  introducing the woman and her teachings. Subsequent posts will also explore Katie's sincerity, business model, etc.

Katie's signature product, "The Work," is rooted in its "Four Questions" plus a "Turnaround," as described here on the site of one of her key sponsors—this will not shock you—Oprah. And here's a walk-through of the Four Questions from Katie's own site.

So, to summarize, the questions are:

1. Is it true? (The "it" is a thought that an individual assume to be true or at least operative, and thus to some degree governs that person's feelings or behavior.)
2. Can you absolutely know that it's true?
3. How do you feel when you believe that thought?
4. Who would you be without that thought?

And then the Turnaround, which asks you to embrace, for the purposes of argument and introspection, a belief opposite to the one that's been the subject of the process just outlined. This is Katie's way of getting followers to challenge their world-views and arrive at some purportedly liberating notion of how much happiness they're sacrificing via their misconceptions about life and even the most routine human interactions. (Her trademark line is, "Where would you be without your story?")

Of this approach, one reviewer says:

"Her methods are remarkably simple; she only asks that you question your own thoughts and that you accept reality for what it really is. You will wonder why you never thought of it.... Byron Katie is leading a revolution of the mind.... She is espousing a form of meta-cognition, a way of thinking about thinking. Are your thoughts a true reflection of the reality around you, or do they come unbidden from your unconscious? Can you trust what your own mind tells you? Byron Katie would say no."

But then, why analyze Katie in terms of someone else's characterization of her methods? So I offer in evidence this interview given by Katie herself in 2001—which is to say, back when she had just begun to hit her stride as a cultural phenomenon and thus was perhaps less aware of the need to "mainstream" at least some of what she says (as she has in later interviews, like, say, this one, or on Oprah). I urge you to read the first interview, beginning to end, so you get the flavor of what we're dealing with.

OK, so now you've finished the interview...and we'll give the woman the benefit of the doubt and assume that she is indeed fully sane. Really. (Stop laughing.) Humor me. Next time around we'll pull back from the woman herself, or the It itself, and look at the logical integrity of what she/It argues.