“The entire modern deification of survival per se, survival returning to itself, survival naked and abstract, with the denial of any substantive excellence in what survives, except the capacity for more survival still, is surely the strangest intellectual stopping place ever proposed by one man to another.” William James It has become a commonplace to…
Bus 109 by Randall Auxier To tell the truth, I don’t remember the bus number. I thought I would never forget it. But I chose 109 because Kate Campbell’s song by that name pretty well sums it up. It was a strange time to be a kid. (I speak from experience.) In the South,…
White Devils by Randall Auxier This woman is many things to the people in her life, but I want to write about some things she isn’t. For the record, I don’t know her name. I know only that she is from Bangladesh –assuming the website has this right (which is not a safe approach to…
There are still those among us who deny that scientific truth has any sort of hold on free minds. We can believe anything we want and call “true” anything we find comfortable they maintain. But while we can certainly believe anything we want to — there are those among us who think the earth is…
Conversion(s) by Randall Auxier Here is a smiling Malcolm X. Many think of him as the angriest black man ever, and the most famous photographs of him show intensity, conviction, defiance, an iron will. Yet, those who knew him well always talked about his sense of humor, his charm, his easy manner. Men and…
True Believers by Randall Auxier To dangle at the end of a tether seems extreme. But these devout fellows don’t worry about the judgments of other people. What calls human beings away from comfort to freely chosen suffering can’t be fully explained. It’s for those who can discern a reality that exceeds our everyday…
The Chrysalis and the Dream by Randall Auxier This carving is female. Of course it is. But how do we know? If I knew that, I’d . . . I’d . . . what? Get the copyright? No, that would be wrong. Use the knowledge to my personal advantage? I hope I wouldn’t do…
Indian Givers by Randall Auxier When I was a kid, my schoolmates used the phrase “indian giver” as a slur against anyone who gave something away but then wanted it back. I probably said it myself. None of us knew any Indians and I don’t know where we got this phrase –probably from television.…
The Heart in the Dark by Randall Auxier A bleeding heart liberal. That’s what Richard Henry Pratt was. At this late date it doesn’t matter whether he believed “white civilization” was superior to other ways of life, or whether he just saw the inevitability of its march. Either way he stood on the advancing…
Culture Wars, Old and New by Randall Auxier I lived in Oklahoma for some years, and learned to be suspicious of pictures like this one. Friends there helped me begin to grasp the depths of my own unconscious racism. One day I was walking with a colleague and our Dean to the faculty lunchroom.…