A Heartfelt Public Prayer

A few days ago, Danny Wool posted a comment about a disturbing story that took place close to where he lives. It seems that a public school teacher in Port St. Lucie, Florida, allowed the classmates of a 5-yr old boy being diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome to rebuke him and vote him out of the class.

Amanda Baggs, who writes extensively about issues related to the diagnosis and treatment of Autism Spectrum Disorders, has published her analysis of this heartbreaking story.

Very likely there will be a clamor to sanction the hapless teacher, Wendy Portillo, whose astonishing lack of empathy for her afflicted student is nothing short of disheartening.

But I'm not in favor of rebukes or sanctions. After all, that's what the classmates were visiting upon young Alex Barton at the behest of the teacher. So I can hardly countenance the same treatment for Ms. Portillo (or the faculty or the school bureaucrats).

To my mind, remorse is the most appropriate naturally occurring affective emotional state that immediately precedes a personal decision to revise one's practices, going forward. To my mind, public rebukes or sanctions would interfere with the process of coming to remorse, and are thus a contra-indicated treatment.

That leaves me but one functional alternative, which I now invoke.

I sincerely pray that Wendy Portillo's heart be softened and that she and her cohorts in the Port St. Lucie school system find their heartfelt remorse, and resolve never again to abuse their students or any other fellow human beings.

Lamentations and Remorse

I’ve read and reviewed pretty much all the news reports, commentaries, analyses, profiles, tributes, and lamentations that have been published online since Aaron Swartz hanged himself on January 11th.

A lot of people — including those close to Aaron who knew him well — were variously shocked, surprised, angered, grieved, and perplexed by his decision to take his own life.

By his own admission, Aaron Swartz was on a “crazy roller coaster” in the wake of his indictment by the US Attorney.

One of the features of being on a “crazy roller coaster” is that one’s emotions rapidly oscillate between both familiar and unfamiliar extremes. At times, one has high hopes. The next moment, one has high anxiety that plunges into despair.

Aaron was known for his mood swings. He could be enthused one day and lethargic the next.

His life story reads like his own idiosyncratic version of a passion play. He could be passionate about a cause and then undertake a systematic campaign that calls for sustained effort and dispassionate problem-solving.

If I had to guess what Aaron Swartz was thinking and feeling the day he took his life, my best guess is that he was feeling scapegoated, and perhaps thinking that he was hopelessly ensnared in a long-term, nightmare, no-win, dispiriting drama with the US Attorney.

When one is ensnared in a lunatic scapegoat drama, there is likely to be a crucial phase where the protagonist feels forsaken. That’s the phase that is most likely to immediately precede a fatal moment of irreversible despair.

Justice is supposed to be a dispassionate process. But in Aaron’s case it clearly was not. The prosecution has been characterized as over-zealous and vindictive. To an idealistic person on the receiving end of such relentless persecution, the whole system comes off as being arbitrary, capricious, and beyond redemption.

There are reports that Carmen Ortiz has been shaken by the turn of events associated with Aaron’s suicide and its aftermath. Perhaps now she is also feeling scapegoated, too. That’s the odd thing about passion plays. The extreme emotions of the protagonist become unexpectedly transferred to the antagonist.

In the end, all that’s left to feel is remorse.

The Mark of Cain and the Mark of Pain

In the early chapters of Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament, there is a murder story.  Readers may be vaguely familiar with it.

In this story, there are two brothers who represent the first two occupations of the nascent Agrarian Culture, when humans first took control of the Food Supply.

Cain is the Farmer who tills the fields.  Abel is the Herdsman who tends the flocks.

At the County Fair, Abel's succulent lamb chops take the Blue Ribbon, while Cain's soggy platter of suffering succotash is rudely dissed by the judges.  In a foolish fit of jealousy, Farmer Cain rises up in anger and butchers the Herdsman, Abel.

This unexpected turn of events — the first murder in the nascent Agrarian Culture — is a bit of scandal.  Cain, the surviving murderer now fears retribution by the aggrieved Meat Lovers of the Fertile Crescent.

To forestall a civil war between the Meat Eaters and the Vegetarians, Farmer Cain is obliged to wear a visible sign on his forehead, a stigma known as the Mark of Cain.

The Mark of Cain is a mark of stain, a sign of anguish and remorse.

Today, miscreants in our culture no longer wear stigmatic Marks of Cain on the outside of their skin.  But many who have been stained by haphazard misadventures wear Marks of Pain on the inside.

Can you recognize someone who has been traumatized, stigmatized, or victimized by an unfortunate misadventure?

Can you recognize an anguished Mark of Pain on the soul of a fellow traveler?