[Vision2020] The Gun-Crazed Hermit of the Applegate: Chinese Philosophy, Machismo, and Gun Violence (Part 2)

[Nicholas Gier]

Dear Visionaries:

*
*

My thanks to Ron Force for correcting a few things about Swiss gun
ownership with a reference to the article in the Journal of Public Health
Policy (2/12).  Only 25 percent of Swiss homes--not "nearly all" as I
incorrectly claimed--have a military rifle standing in the corner.


After reading this my daughter called me and said that she was glad that I
did not become a hermit.


Yours for balancing the Yin and the Yang,


Nick

*
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*Part 2: The Final Straw: Tofu and the Land of Hindu Effeminates***


About 30 years ago I lost my taste for beef, and then pork, chicken, and
finally turkey as I slid into male oblivion.  Preferring tofu to meat
means, according to Bushmaster, instant disqualification as a man, even
though it is some of the healthiest protein known to humankind.


Securing my fate even more, I went on sabbatical to India. According to the
British, Indian males—except for the Sikhs and the Gurkas in Nepal—are the
most effeminate in the world.  I guess Bushmaster would have called them
“cupcakes.”  Perhaps the macho men of the world have not heard about the
Hindu Goddess and her great powers.  I would bet on her in any contest with
the Jehovah of the Old Testament.  She instills holy terror in the hearts
of all male gods. Every drop of blood that is spilled in battles with her
turns into yet another fierce female warrior. She is impossible to defeat,
so forget your 100-round magazines.

*
*

*Lederhosen, Kilts, Barbies, and Mounties*


The NRA points to Switzerland and Finland, which have are third and fourth
in the world for gun ownership.  In 2007 for every 100 Swiss 46 owned a
gun; the Finns had 45; but Americans were highest with 89 per 100
residents.  Why is the gun death rate so low for the Swiss (3.84) and the
Finns (3.64), but so high for Americans (10.2)? Only eight countries in the
world—mostly violent Latin American nations and Swaziland—have higher gun
death rates than the U.S.


Maybe it is the effeminate lederhosen and the family saunas that prevent
the Swiss and the Finns from killing each other more frequently. The
Aussie’s low gun death rate (1.25) is no doubt due to feminizing everything
from “waste tidies” to “barbies.” A real man would bellow “garbage can” and
“grillin’.”  There have been no mass killings in Australia since strict gun
laws were passed in 1996. Does having “Mounties” to enforce the law lead to
the lower gun death rates in Canada (1.25)?  Scotland, however, has an
amazingly low .25, so it must those kilts with no underpants.  No doubt a *
Braveheart* mooning is much more humiliating than brandishing an AR-15.

*
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*Balance the Yin with the Yang for Less Bang*


Pastor Anthony Robinson has taken issue with the NRA’s slogan:  “The only
thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” Robinson
reminds Christian Americans of the doctrine of original sin—that all of us
are basically bad people and that we are good only by the grace of God.  So
Robinson believes that we should put weapons only in the hands of well
trained and mentally healthy (=grace-filled?) professionals.


Robinson’s “everyone is a sinner” is no better a solution than the NRA’s
“good guys vs. bad guys,” or the equally Manichean diagnosis of one
evangelical pastor about mass killings: “The Devil did it.” Far too many
Christians fall into the heresy of giving that much power to Satan.  Martin
Luther was right to preach that Satan and every evil person act only with
divine permission.  Just read the Book of Job.


Even though they have not necessarily practiced their own philosophy, the
Chinese have a much better theory about where evil comes from.  Nothing is
either inherently good or evil, but the latter is due to a lack of
balance.  This is the key to Chinese medicine, most notably acupuncture, a
therapy now gaining credibility among Western doctors.


In Chinese philosophy Yin is a symbol for the female, the soft, the
passive, the dark, and the empty, whereas Yang stands for the male, the
hard, the aggressive, the light, and the full.  They are neither good nor
evil, but social peace and cosmic harmony come about as a balance between
the two.  Persons of virtue live in the Golden Mean between Yin and Yang,
but those of vice fall to the extremes.


Many Chinese sages have been mountain hermits who eat berries and roots,
and eschew the “five grains” and pork of city slickers. The sage is unarmed
and his inner peace tames bears and tigers. He also prefers crooked
mountains paths to the straight streets of towns.  The sage balances the
Yin and the Yang perfectly.


North and South American culture is the most Yang of any in the world. Mass
killers are not evil (certainly not Satan’s agents), but some of them are
terribly unbalanced.  I agree with the NRA that violent movies/TV and video
games are symptoms of a society that has not nurtured its people—especially
its young men—properly.  Dysfunctional families, especially those with
absent fathers, have given us a generation of far too many disaffected and
alienated youth.

*
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*The Gun-Crazed Hermit of the Applegate*

*
*

In June of 1962 I graduated fourth in my high school class of 442, and I
had earned two scholarships to attend Oregon State University.  But I was a
loner, had few friends, and showed my disgust with modern society at every
turn. At the end of the summer I told my dad that I was going to take my
guns and build a hermit’s cabin on the Applegate River.  When my dad asked
me how I was going to make a living, I said that I was going to pan for
gold.  My father, brother, and I once had a very good day on the Applegate
with our home-made sluice boxes.


My dad was never forceful or authoritarian (quite the opposite), but he was
still able to convince me that this was a crazy idea.  Was this smart kid
just several steps away from becoming a Ted Kaczynski?  Good parents and
their basic moral education saved me.  In the worst case scenario, at least
many lives would have been saved by my very poor aim.


P. S.  After reading this my daughter called me and said that she was
really glad that I did not become a hermit.


Nick Gier did get his degree at Oregon State and taught philosophy at the
University of Idaho for 31 years.
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