Simple Arithmetic

Traditionally, in what is called mainstream American culture, when things go wrong we subtract until we either find the cause of the problem or declare it unsolvable. Scientists try to isolate the causes of obesity, parents isolate children who cause disruption, the courts isolate law-breakers, sociologists isolate behavior patterns that cause cultural stress. But what if we added instead of subtracting? As a wise person has pointed out, if you work to alleviate the pain, you stay focused on the pain. If you work to heal the cause of the pain, you focus on the healing.

We’ve been told for many years that eating more calories than we burn is the cause of obesity and the only way to shed the excess pounds is to subtract the excess calories from the diet. There are hundreds of books to tell us which calories and which foods to eliminate. If the premise were correct, only one book would be necessary. There is other evidence than the inundation of diet books to demonstrate the fallacy of the premise. Every one of us knows at least one very thin person who practically eats his or her weight in sweets on a weekly basis, and never gains an ounce. What would happen if, instead of subtracting foods when our figures flare, we added them? Suppose we added a baked potato, with or without sour cream? Or a big salad composed of fresh, crisp vegetables? Or a slice of whole grain bread rich with sunflower seeds? We might find that, having given our bodies the nutrients it needs, our appetites are satisfied. If we didn’t set ourselves up for failure and disappointment by working from an incorrect premise, and if we approached the project with love for our bodies instead of anger, it might be that by adding health-giving foods, our bodies would return to good health and the excess weight would gradually disappear.

We often hear people say of an unruly child that he or she only wants attention. The usual response of the adult in charge is to send the child to his room until he can behave. The child’s needs are not met and behavior problems may get worse or the child may withdraw, feeling that he is not important to the people around him. Maybe a more appropriate response would be to give the child the attention that we know he needs. Ask the child what he wants, listen to the answer and respond accordingly. This is not rewarding the unacceptable behavior, this is meeting the needs of the child and thus, of the family.

When a child breaks a rule, it is the custom in America to punish the child. The more important the rule is to us, or the more power over others we take, the more severe the punishment will be. It is not uncommon for us to respond to one child striking another by striking one or both of them. Sometimes we get caught up in legalistic transactions, demanding to know who started it and listening to a blow-by-blow account of the dispute. Sometimes we refuse to listen to the children at all, sending both to isolation until they can be nice. The absence of logic in these responses confuses the children and very often they grow up believing that bad behavior is acceptable if it is paid for in some way. What if, instead of subtracting the child from the group, we added logic and justice? What if we explained the reasons for the rules and allowed the children some genuine input and thought constructively about their points of view? Children are inherently logical and just; they know when things are not fair. They are comparatively easy to manipulate because of their lack of experience but adults are not fooling them. Even though they may not be able to articulate the illogic or injustice, they know it is there.

When adults break the law, we punish them. We remove them from the mainstream of life and place them in prisons. We have a Penal Code to guide us in sentencing our criminals; the more heinous the crime, the longer the punishment, the fewer the privileges. There are times when isolation is the appropriate response, when it allows the law-breaker to contemplate her crimes and truly repent. But this is not really the purpose of our prisons, we don’t even call them penitentiaries anymore. Ideally, our penal system is supposed to isolate the criminal in order to protect society while she is undergoing the rehabilitation process. In fact, we are far more concerned with making sure that criminals get what they deserve and pay for their crimes in full. The real purpose of imprisoning people is to exact revenge on them for their crimes.

What if we operated our prisons as penitentiaries and assumed that most, if not all, criminals could be rehabilitated? Would this shift in philosophy have any effect on the criminal element? What if we strove to truly understand the causes of crime and concentrated on adding those things to life that would keep people in the mainstream of society instead of alienating them? This is not an easy task, or a cheap one, but policing and incarcerating the criminal element isn’t easy or cheap, either.

We in America are such an amalgam of so many races, nationalities, religions, and differences that we have developed the "us against them" mentality to a remarkably destructive degree. We divide along any line that allows us to differentiate, at times whipping our fervor up to the degree that we actually kill people simply for being different in some miniscule way. The harder we try to erase the differences, to take away the criteria for divisions, the more new distinctions we invent. For instance, when we tried to bring immigrants into the mainstream by ridiculing their cultural artifacts, we drove a wedge between the generations. This has been refined to the point that it seems natural to group people according to age and assign them appropriate interests. Take music, for example. It is considered bizarre for elderly people to enjoy rock music and for pre-teens to enjoy classical music. The fact is that enjoyment of all musical styles cuts across the age lines and age is not a factor in music appreciation, although experience may be; we tend to like the familiar. What if we added the perception that it’s okay to think outside the box, that it’s okay not to fit the mold for your age, race, sex, religion, or sociological niche?

What if we behaved as if we really believed the preamble to the Constitution? All men are created equal. That does not mean that all people have equal talents or taste or intelligence or luck, it means that all people are of equal importance. There is no reason to value a singer above a plumber or a politician above a homemaker. There is simply no valid basis for one person or group to assume superiority over another. Scientists are now finding and beginning to understand evidence that we are all connected, not only to each other, but to other species and to all life forms. Everything on earth is connected to every other thing in one ecosystem. When any action is taken, it has repercussions far beyond what we can see and often beyond what we can imagine or comprehend.

So how would it be if we enjoyed our diversities? What if we accepted each and every individual as an individual and not as a member of some disparate group? What if we added love and joy to our repertoire of responses to the divergencies of life?