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America's Greatest Enemy: Ignorance
Nov 1, 2011
Charles D. Hayes
Charles D. Hayes is a self-taught philosopher and one of America's strongest advocates for lifelong learning. He spent his youth in Texas and served as a U.S. Marine and as a police officer before embarking on a career in the oil industry. Alaska has been his home for more than forty years.
Promoting the idea that education should be thought of not as something you get but as something you take, Hayes' work has been featured in The L.A. Progressive, USA Today, and the UTNE Reader, on National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation and on Alaska Public Radio's Talk of Alaska.
Praised for his remarkable depth of knowledge across numerous disciplines, Hayes affirms through his work that active, continuous learning is what makes life worthwhile. His books encourage the kind of thinking that can transform human relations on a global scale, urging us to continuously examine our values, motivations, and common beliefs. He inspires us to acknowledge our mortality and live authentically as a result, taking deliberate action to leave the world a better place than we found it.
"The temporary nature of our lives may be a reason for unavoidable despair," says Hayes, "but such is the price of intelligence--it doesn't render our lives meaningless. To the contrary, the opportunity to live a life as a human being makes us the most fortunate creatures on the planet. We should be experts at being human and creating a world where humans can thrive."
Promoting the idea that education should be thought of not as something you get but as something you take, Hayes' work has been featured in The L.A. Progressive, USA Today, and the UTNE Reader, on National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation and on Alaska Public Radio's Talk of Alaska.
Praised for his remarkable depth of knowledge across numerous disciplines, Hayes affirms through his work that active, continuous learning is what makes life worthwhile. His books encourage the kind of thinking that can transform human relations on a global scale, urging us to continuously examine our values, motivations, and common beliefs. He inspires us to acknowledge our mortality and live authentically as a result, taking deliberate action to leave the world a better place than we found it.
"The temporary nature of our lives may be a reason for unavoidable despair," says Hayes, "but such is the price of intelligence--it doesn't render our lives meaningless. To the contrary, the opportunity to live a life as a human being makes us the most fortunate creatures on the planet. We should be experts at being human and creating a world where humans can thrive."
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Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
I’ve been writing about aging and mortality for many years, and the older I get, the slower the going and the greater the existential gravity. I’ve long believed that each of us has a threshold for change, and that once past that threshold, we begin to grow fond of the notion that we are ready to be out of here. Enough already.
Okay, maybe not fond, but warming to the idea that there is an upside to nonexistence because it means an absence of the steady escal2 months ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes The 2016 presidential election made it clear that America is suffering an egregious vacuum of goodwill. Too many of our citizens are ill-equipped to cope with life in the twenty-first century. Simply put, they lack the knowledge to deal with the angst that comes with being mortal.
For decades, I have been trying to articulate the benefits of a liberal education. I have fully experienced the rewards myself, having gone from growing up as a hard-right conservative to3 months ago Read more -
Blog postThis is an excerpt from Existential Aspirations: Reflections of a Self-Taught Philosopher © Charles D. Hayes
A few years ago, I watched an episode of Real Time with Bill Maher. Among his guests were comedian Gary Shandling, actor Sean Penn, and former Congressman Harold Ford Jr. from Tennessee. They were discussing the war in Iraq, and Shandling suggested that we need to get beyond our “winner consciousness” regarding the issue of war. Penn seemed interested but remained silent. Harol4 months ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes If you care about future generations and have reached an age when you realize the time you have remaining is short, perspective about what is truly important has a way of surfacing with a resounding sense of urgency. This is ironic because you realize at the same time just how little impact you have for influencing future events.
I grew up in a racist culture in the 1940s and 50s. Now in my eighth decade, I’ve spent more than thirty of those years writing about how5 months ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
The early European settlers who first came to America were a diverse lot, but they had one thing in common. They shared a history in which feudal and monarchical authority had a way of encroaching upon those who failed to follow the protocols of deference to the signs and symbols of their time. As I explained in Existential Aspirations, the perils for misinterpretation included the gallows, the rack, having molten lead and sulfur poured into one’s open wounds, and i6 months ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes Day in and day out, confirmation that the political Right has reached a stage-four level of wing-nuttery is evident in social media, newspapers, radio, and television. Commentators of every political persuasion have grown weary of uttering the familiar refrain that “You can’t make this stuff up.” But people can. They are making up bizarre things to say, and other people are believing them. Every day we seem nearer to DEFCON 1 lunacy. Ultra-c8 months ago Read more
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Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
Sarah Palin put my community of Wasilla, Alaska, on the map, as the land of know-nothings. Over a few short months, after she accepted her place on the Republican ticket as vice president in 2008, her approval ratings here and nationwide dropped like a rock, mostly for coming across in interviews and on the campaign trail for lacking knowledge about important matters, that anyone running for high public office should have.
Sarah Palin, in my view, is9 months ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes In the presidential election underway, do not make the mistake of assuming anything other than different standards apply when it comes to gender. The eons of our existence have resulted in hierarchal assumptions so deeply imbedded and ingrained in all human cultures that many prevailing prejudices are harder to distinguish and comprehend than what fish might have to experience in order to perceive the nature of water. I’m referring to the social malignancy we know as mis10 months ago Read more
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Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
If a sense of objective reality (as best as we human beings can discern it) represented the True North of life experience, where do you suppose a compass would show your location to be in relation to True North? How far away would you be from being as close as you could get, that is, if you were to try with all of your might to discover it? Imagine having a cell phone app that would give your position on a given subject with respect to True North and tell you how m11 months ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
Have you ever wondered how the concept of freedom has evolved? Try to imagine what freedom meant to the immigrants in the seventeenth century who indentured themselves to five or more years of hard labor to pay for their passage to America. Then compare that frame of mind to the outlook of the slaves brought here from Africa in chains.
Imagine longing to fulfill an indentured servitude contract to secure your independence. Try to assume the mindset of those w1 year ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
In 1990, Walter Truett Anderson published Reality Isn’t What It Used to Be: Theatrical Politics, Ready-To-Wear Religion, Global Myths, Primitive Chic, and Other Wonders of the Postmodern World. The subtitle is discerning. Anderson’s stunning observations offered cultural insight into the new century we were fast approaching in the same way Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock had been prescient twenty years earlier.
The 1990s saw the term postmodernism bantered about1 year ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
If you ask people how they would like to be remembered, you will likely be met with silence, often with a look of bewilderment. Legacy is not something that most people give a lot of conscious thought to apart from material bequests. Psychologically though, at a deep subconscious level, how and for what we will be remembered is far important than many of us realize. For some of us this becomes clear as time passes.
To understand what an impact our inevi1 year ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
I’ve been a gun owner since I got a Daisy Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas in 1948 at age five. I still have it. My grandfather laid out all of the ways in which the use of guns required common sense. Since then I’ve served in the Marine Corps and as a police officer.
In February of 2015 I caught a burglar in my home and held him at gunpoint until a state trooper arrived. The burglar pointed a pistol at me. I had a shotgun and convinced him to1 year ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
Imagine what would happen if the referees calling penalties in professional football were paid exorbitant salaries by only the richest teams. One thing is sure: we would deem it a sham. If the game was obviously rigged, most people would stop watching. Ironically, that’s precisely what we have today in American politics. Our elected representatives (our supposed economic referees) are being openly bribed because not enough of us are watching and so many of our citiz2 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
My fascination with Alaska began in Irving, Texas, in the 1950s, when my fourth-grade teacher read to her class every day from Jack London’s Call of the Wild. Some sixty years later, I’m now a resident of Alaska and have been for more than four decades. Perhaps it’s my fate that, as a result, I would have the opportunity to drive the legendary Alaska Highway, not once, but seven times, four of those times by myself. I never tire of the drive and always look forward2 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
The pace of change has always delineated differences among generations. As often as not, each generation longs for something they grew up without. For this reason, in my view, the not too distant future promises a rediscovery of the rewards of solitude as something that will suddenly seem astoundingly meaningful because it affords so much time for thought. With thought comes perspective, and with that comes wisdom worth passing on.
Mos2 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes “Education is a defense against culture,” said educator and critic Neil Postman. An education that doesn’t result in a lifelong desire for knowledge is an education that didn’t take. If one’s efforts cease, the battle is lost to those who use political anxiety to manipulate vulnerable people.
Consider John, the accountant, police officer, engineer, attorney, welder, electrician, or any other occupation that requires learning, skill, an2 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
A strong middle class is like a vegetable garden, requiring a rich economic environment in the same manner that a garden needs fertile soil. We do not say to seeds, “It’s all up to you. Don’t worry about the PH factor or the nitrogen or the potassium in the soil. Just do your thing, seeds.” But this is precisely the economic policy that many people advocate.
Vegetable gardens require constant care. If their soil is depleted, testing may be necessary to e2 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
Harper Lee’s shocking revelation in Go Set a Watchmanoffers us an extraordinary learning opportunity. Set twenty years after the events of To Kill a Mockingbird, this second novel discloses that Atticus Finch, the saintly hero of the first book, actually harbored some of the racist views dominant in the early twentieth century. In Watchman, Jean Louise, known earlier as Scout, returns home as an adult only to have the idealized memories of her childhood destroyed b2 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
The universe is visibly menacing. Our lives were made possible only because of freakish cosmic catastrophes. Our lives are short and fraught with danger, which makes reality scary. This is why we require a significant measure of illusion in order to cope with the ruthless nature of existence.
We seldom acknowledge that escape is a crucial reason for culture, but it’s easy to demonstrate. Many small children, for example, buffer reality by adopting security bla2 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
When flipping through the cable TV channels, it’s not unusual to find a pride of African lions getting ready to feast on Cape buffalo. Sometimes we’ll see several lions take down a buffalo while the rest of the buffalo in the nearby herd appear to stand around like idiots. At other times, a second buffalo will come to the rescue of the downed and chewed up animal, followed by more and more members of the herd, until finally the lions2 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
Contempt for free riders—people who cheat or who game the system by taking more than their share of anything in short supply—is an innate human trait that appears to be deeply imbedded in our DNA. We witness the same sentiment in our primate cousins. Give one chimpanzee a plum and another a grape, and the chimp that feels cheated is apt to throw a fit. In our own society it seems the most effective free riders are found, not at the bottom economic rungs of society,2 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
Human genetics are a roll of the dice, and nothing highlights life’s unfairness like health issues. Some people sail through life in great health while others never seem to get a break, having one illness after another until they finally succumb. Needless to say, health is a major topic of interest among seniors.
Far too much attention is paid to the economic juggernaut but false promise of products and services offering eternal youth. What we ought to focus2 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
Whether intended or not, one of the most successful war movies in decades very subtly makes the case that America is increasingly undemocratic. American Sniper brings this message home. I’ve both seen the movie and read the book, and as is often the case, I have mixed feelings about how the two compare.
First, a little background may be helpful. I’m an ex-Marine and an ex-cop. After four years of service, I was honorably discharged from the Marines in February2 years ago Read more -
Blog post©Charles D. Hayes
A primary function of the human brain is to record an accurate snapshot of reality so as to improve the odds that the rest of the organism will have an opportunity to reproduce. Our brains work 24/7 to keep us safe from danger and free from surprise and embarrassment. Although genetics research suggests our species may be continuing to evolve, we have the same physical hardware that we had when we were on the menu of large predators. Because surprise can spell2 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
Now in my eighth decade, I find that my confidence in America’s future no longer resembles the enthusiasm I grew up experiencing in the 1940s and ’50s. My first job in 1956 was a paper route delivering the Dallas Morning News. My district manager’s name was John Galt. He was an affable man who seemed to work hard, but he was not without faults that were obvious, even to a teenager. The very next year, Ayn Rand would publish Atlas Shrugged, featuring a flawless2 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
If you were to die in the next ten minutes, are there things your surviving family members would need to know but would have no way of figuring out? Are there things that you would really want them to know? If your answer is yes, please read on.
For nearly four decades I worked in the Alaska oil industry. Most of my time was spent on the North Slope, although I worked in several other remote locations as well. All of those positions involved sharing a jo3 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
If you are getting on in years and facing the reality that time is running out, you may experience an existential alarm that rings erratically and gets increasingly louder. You breeze by the aging markers of 40, 50, 60, and then, all of a sudden, it seems you are elderly. More and more, I find instances of people being described as elderly who are years younger than I am.For some people like me, being elderly comes with an urgent call for perspective, a pressing nee3 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
A great strength of the Internet is its ability to bring people together, and this, ironically is also a great weakness— a weakness that is dangerous if not commonly understood. By enabling identity-based ideology to trump geography, the Internet is the perfect device for the retribalization of the world. Bear with me as I explain.
In the 1960s, when I was a police officer in Texas, I was involved in a disturbance in the West Dallas Projects that escalated int3 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
Futurist John Naisbitt once equated high tech with high touch. These days high touch is eclipsed by high surveillance. Not only has video technology made us much more aware of police brutality and the use of excessive force, it also offers us the security of policing the police and witnessing disputed situations on behalf of the police.
To put law enforcement in perspective, we first have to have a better understanding of our human behavioral predispositions a3 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
I’ve always thought that America’s Founding Fathers made a mistake by focusing on the pursuit of happiness. If, instead, they had prized the pursuit of wisdom, we would likely have many more reasons to be happy.
Just about everything we create comes with an owner’s manual. Everything, that is, except us humans. For nearly four decades, I have been in pursuit of self-education with a goal of learning, to the best of my ability, the value of having been afforded3 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
If you doubt that we’re born to deny reality, you’re actually proving the point. The evidence is indisputable that we human beings have built-in reality buffers. We smoke, drink, overeat, waste resources, and engage in every possible kind of risk-taking activity, oblivious to or disregarding the likely results of our actions. At the core of our tendency to deny reality is the barefaced inevitability of our own death. Unless we are threatened wi3 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
Educational philosopher Robert Hutchins championed the life of the mind, which he encouraged through the study of literature and ongoing dialog with learned peers. He called this "The Great Conversation" and published a book by that name in 1952. I credit Hutchins’ work, and particularly the Great Books series that he fostered, with motivating me to embark upon my pursuit of self-education and to continue the course of lifelong learning that I follow to th4 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
In 2011, Stephanie Coontz published A Strange Stirring, a book about the status of women at the dawn of the 1960s. Even though I lived through those times as an adult, the memories Coontz brought to mind were shocking. Fifty years since that era, gender inequality still exists, especially when it comes to employment compensation, but the fact that today many of the cultural assumptions of the ’60s seem far afield is a sign of genuine progress.
&nbs4 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
Instantaneous annihilation by a massive object from space seems like a merciful death compared to losing oneself day by day, moment by moment, in the passageways of your own mind. Okay, it's not an asteroid, but what's coming is just as bad, if not worse. I'm talking, of course, about Alzheimer's disease, and for more than five million people the asteroid analogy is too late; it's already struck with a vengeance. The result is nearly $200 billion a year in medical4 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
Picture a young man who’s born and raised in the post-war South, trained in the Marines, and steeped in the ideological culture of Texas law enforcement. That’s who I was in the early 1960s. Like millions of others, I had internalized the popular ideas of my geographic region, which imbued me with a xenophobic and racist worldview as the one true window on reality. I was up to my neck in mainstream indifference. It would be another decade before I embarked on the pr4 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
A radio news broadcast recently reported that we are using up natural resources at a pace that exceeds our planet's largesse by half; if we continue, by 2050, we will require three planets to cover the deficit. This was followed by a discussion about our enormous budget deficit and political gridlock. These are formidable issues, although the evidence is overwhelming that few people are paying close attention.
Albert Einstein was quick to argue that the think5 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes One of my greatest fears about aging is that of becoming lost in the corridors of my own mind. I find the threat of dementia more terrifying than heart disease or cancer. Recently the World Health Organization published a report estimating that by 2030, the number of people with some form of dementia is expected to double and reach 65.7 million worldwide; 115.4 million people by 2050. The financial burden will be so staggering as to threaten the very stability of the econ5 years ago Read more
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Blog postMr. Richard Cordray, Director
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
1500 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
(Attn: 1801 L St.)
Washington DC 20220
info@consumerfinance.gov
Dear Mr. Cordray:
Congratulations on your recent appointment to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. I'm confident I speak for millions of people when I say it's about time for this kind of effort on behalf of American citizens.
I have one simple suggestion that won't cost much, but i5 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes “Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being.” -- Albert Camus
Why does it matter that the past assumes greater importance for people as they age? Why does getting older seem to cause people to discount the future, diminish the importance of the present, and experience a longing to live in the past? Furthermore, will this happen to you, and if it does, what will you do about it?In seventeenth-century Europe, nos6 years ago Read more -
Blog postHere is an essay titled "Killing the Things We Love" by John F. Schumaker, who is one of the cultural critics that I admire most on this planet. I thought you might find it of interest. Best.
http://www.culturechange.org/cms/content/view/762/1/
As always your comments are appreciated.
Charles D. Hayes
KINDLE Books and EBooks on Amazon:
September University: Summoning Passion for an Unfinished Life
Existential Aspirations:6 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. HayesFor decades I’ve seen a spate of new books be published, almost as if the times demand them, celebrating the rewards of aging. Then a few years later, more books emerge to refute the lot of them by focusing on the darker side of growing old. I would like to think that September University falls in the middle, although that’s for others to decide. But four recent books in the latter category come to mind and offer some insight into the realities of aging when we compare the6 years ago Read more
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Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
Described as “an eloquent meditation on the nature of hatred,” philosopher Sam Keen’s Faces of the Enemy: Reflections of the Hostile Imagination, published 20 years ago, should be taken down from the library shelf, reread, and republished. It doesn’t, however need to be updated; it’s as pertinent to today’s reality as it was when it first appeared in print.
Keen opens the introduction with this observation: “In the beginning we create6 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. HayesWhen I was growing up in the 1940s and 50s, vegetable gardens were ubiquitous. Indeed, victory gardens were encouraged in both world wars, and although I was too young to perceive an association with patriotism and gardening, it helps explain the enthusiasm for gardening I witnessed among adults when I was a child. I have clear memories of the custom of sharing food and of a time when neighbors would come for a visit bringing bushel baskets of fresh produce. My guess would6 years ago Read more
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Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
A few months ago, while presenting a September University workshop, I made a point of suggesting that each generation longs for something it grew up without—something that is likely to be disrespected or readily dismissed by the generation to follow. This prompted a question from a participant about today’s younger generation currently in high school and college. What are they growing up without? What will they long for and subsequently rediscover in a f7 years ago Read more -
Blog postSeptember 2010
Sept-U: Setting the Movement in Motion
© Charles D. Hayes
One thing I think most people today would agree about is that the Internet is having far-reaching effects on society, and at this point in time, it’s difficult to predict the outcomes. Radio and television required passivity. The Internet invites participation; it promotes curiosity, conversation, and conviction. Social connectivity makes ideological amplification easy, allowing like-minded people to7 years ago Read more
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