is at best fatuous, referring to (if not directly speaking about) ‘bad apples.’ The best I can suggest is that Indigenous people should hang him upside down and shake him for as much as he’s got; he owes it to them, as does the Catholic Church (don’t get me started on that). But what I really wanted to talk about was a revelation that came from the mouth of Kaluhyanu:wes Michelle Schenandoah, of the Oneida Nation. She said: “Because we didn't have souls, that gave the right for these explorers to do whatever they wanted with Indigenous Peoples — murder, rape, enslave.” This is a very profound and tragic -- but also beautiful -- idea. It’s also true. And it’s also nice to hear someone speak of ‘the soul.' Do we, in fact, have souls? One isn’t so sure as ever more frequently the transhumanists go on at length about how computers can write poetry. and we can download our personalities onto them. But computers will never replace people, thank God — though they may try to. (It happened to me recently -- twice -- at the bank. My debit and credit cards were both denied. When I complained they said — “We don’t know quite why the computer did it.” When I questioned one woman further, she said: “It was probably due to an algorithm.” It occurred to me, naturally, that the algorithm had something against me, but that’s what’s supposed to make algorithms so wonderful — that they couldn't, possibly. An algorithm has no soul, and if it makes a booboo it’s merely a booboo, there is no malice behind it. But, I must insist that a booboo is still a booboo; it still smacks you in the eye and makes you bleed, malice or not.) No. Humans have something called ‘the soul’ and no amount of bad computer poetry is going to convince me otherwise. There is something magical about truly bad poetry, truly bad art, and truly bad thought, because it comes from that glorious imperfection we call humanity. It’s as if God didn’t finish us. She/they didn’t get something completely right. The neoplatonists did not believe that; they believed that God intentionally bequeathed us with all his dreaminess, craziness and poetry, that there are various levels of reality. At the top is God. Then comes angels, then pure soul, then the human spirit, and then the material world. (I may have missed some levels — I’m imperfect, due to my soul, sorry.) The point is that most of us are pretty much always floundering around somewhere between the material world (the body) and the soul (spirit). What I love about neoplatonism is they’re actually not too bad on sex; they realize the body is necessary, and that people do need to get off -- a little more than occasionally (whew!). But they also believe that the kind of union we really need with other people is spiritual, which can only be achieved through love, And love is also the same as beauty. (Which is the really good part.) Lord in heaven (to coin a phrase) why am I telling you all this? Because I’m old, and will be dead in no time at all I’m sure. As I write this I can feel my spirit very leaving my body, ever so slowly. It’s a good thing. I don’t mean I am ascending to heaven (or hell, for that matter…) but my the body is becoming less and less useful, I experience less desire, less physical joy — and loads more physical pain — as my body gradually disintegrates with age. I will not be sad to see my body go (my body and I always had issues). And I will still be there, but in some unrecognizable form — which I know is not reassuring. I may come back as a beetle, or a cock (not a penis, but a chicken, unfortunately, and not that kind of chicken unfortunately, maybe even -- a hen). I won’t bore you with any more of this, but I wanted you to know why I find the soul so interesting right now, because mine is definitely going somewhere else, soon. So my ears perked up when I heard the word ‘soul’ from the mouth of Kaluhyanu:wes Michelle Schenandoah — it struck me that what she talks about here is the essence of human evil. It’s a principle also articulated by Hannah Arendt in her various studies of The Holocaust. Arendt theorized that the Nazis rationalized exterminating the Jews by dehumanizing them, compared them to animals -- to rats and pigs. As they were not human, they necessarily had no souls, and one could dispose of them. This kind of dehumanizing is central to genocide; unless you are a psychopath (or Donald Trump) you will identify with other human beings, but not with soul-less animals (we’ll leave animal rights activism aside in this analogy, as it is left out by Arendt). Therefore, you cannot and will not kill them because they are human and have souls. But here comes a difficult concept; try and get your mind around it. Everyone has a soul. Every human being. (How do you know you are human? Well if you are reading this and you are not a computer, then you are human). Yes, that means Hitler and yes, even The Pope, and Stalin and Putin and that guy who won’t wear a mask in the elevator (and is an anti-vaxer), and racists, and sexists, and homophobes -- they are all human. Ergo, therefore, as angry as we get about other people we should not kill them. And it might be advisable not to even wish them dead. Living, you see, is not something some souls deserve and others don’t. Living just is, well, a thing. And for all our theorizing, we are not entirely sure, yet, what.
