I was an obsessive “Great Brain” reader in childhood. The stories were real to me. I wanted to time-travel there and be everyone’s sister and save Abie.
I highly recommend the adult books. Papa Married A Mormon, Mamma's Boarding House, and Uncle Will and the Fitzgerald Curse. The latter is very hard to find -- I checked very often on many rare books sites until I found one for under $300. The other two are easier to find. All are wonderful.
100% Agree. Any group of people who could convince human beings to commit these kind of atrocities cannot exist in a civilized society. Hamas must be excised like the cancer that it is.
Indeed. I’ve never felt the mix of disgust and shame at seeing representatives of my country’s highest legislative body not only carry water for Hamas, but also celebrate this act in particular. Beyond the pale.
As someone who leans Libertarian the phrase "but what if ________ goes to far" is never far from my political and socio-economic calculus. It's a question that is valid to ask about how governments act as all too often many future actions of a government is very much determined by what they were able to do or get away with in the past, but it is also driven by context to an insane degree that many do not want to think about because it is so easy, for people on both sides, to stop with that initial statement.
"But what if the fire bombing goes to far?" had to be asked about Tokyo and Dresden, but the calculus there involved prolonging the most bloody war in history by months if not years and the deaths of millions as opposed to hundreds of thousands as well as potentially handing more political and military clout to the USSR which was quickly becoming as much of a problem as the Nazi's had been.
"But what if the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki goes to far" had to be asked to end the Pacific Theater, but every scrap of evidence we had from the invasion of Iwo Jima and Okinawa showed that the Japanese Government would literally march their people off the cliffs if it meant harming US troops and showing the fanaticism of their beliefs. Even the conservative numbers said the USA would loose almost as many soldiers invading the home islands as they had in the entire Pacific Theater up to that point, almost 150,000 men dead and many more injured. The war department had already minted over a million purple hearts in anticipation of the unprecedented casualties and injuries that would come about from such an invasion.
That same kind of context shows, in my opinion, that while the Palestinians can perhaps be saved, and I hope they are, and some kind of peace come about, Hamas and its supporters cannot; and right now the simple arithmetic of warfare is that it will demand the deaths of thousands to hopefully spare many, many times more down the road. It sucks, it runs against what I would hope the world could function like, but that doesn't change the facts of what we can see. The simple answer is that, even accounting for the things Israel has done over the last few decades that have made things harder for the Palestinians, there is a simple set of questions one can ask. If Israel controlled all the territory, which they want to do make no mistake, would their still be Palestinians? Yes there already are Palestinians living in Israel and even holding elected office and living as citizens of Israel. If Palestine/Hamas controlled all the territory, which they have also claimed they want to do, would their still be Israelis? No there would not be, not if they could help it based on their rhetoric.
A powerful piece of writing. Probably the best written so far, as near as "fuck" is to swearing odds on that. Certainly the best that I've read. I shall now go and link to it elsewhere. There is no Lord; but this is the work they would be doing if there were.
At some point, Hamas must know the Jews won't be deterred by pre-pubescent meat shields. It's hard to conclude that the folks in Gaza actually love their kids.
I'm amazed. Thank you so much. Most of my neighbors don't care that much about these terrible realities and how they affect ME as THAT minority, and I'm in a comparatively less toxic part of America right now where the Jew-hating is theologically driven. And I barely go out, these days.
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
I have mentioned it before, but it bears repeating. There are thousands and thousands of Oskar Schindlers in the US. But we're all armed to the teeth, and largely well-trained.
I've been wondering about this too, whether their moral calculus is warped by the fanatical conviction that their dead children will be martyrs to the cause, ergo their sacrifice is a noble act of "love" and the perfect tactic against an enemy constrained by valuing life more than martyrdom. It seems similar to problem that WWII fleets had dealing with kamikaze pilots who were happy to martyr themselves for the cause if they could kill and maim the enemy through their death. Perhaps using children this way is an artifact of honor/shame culture, taken to the ultimate extreme? It boggles the mind, regardless.
I grew up in a Christian cult. My parents had other, unrelated problems, but plenty of the kids I grew up with had normal-range parents. Parents who loved them desperately, yet they often did terrible things, like "spanking" them ten or twelve times in one day, crying but feeling they had to, to obey god. It would take me several thousand words to give a full and accurate assessment of my thoughts on that (I both empathize with and condemn the parents) but that experience does make it easy for me to imagine loving your kid but being delighted to send them to do evil for your god. It's just a more extreme version of something I grew up witnessing.
It’s a mistake to think you can read the minds of these people or explain their motivations. What they think really doesn’t matter, unless it can be used to make them stop. It’s hard to get any leverage on people who don’t seem to care if they die and take their families with them. But that’s a problem for the Israelis to solve. At the very least, we should stay out of their way & stop supporting their enemies. Meanwhile, we have our own problem dealing with the moral imbeciles who have been revealed to infest our colleges and seemingly, our government.
I'd not heard of this author or these books. What age are they aimed at? I'm usually at a loss for Yuletide gifts; but the All-Father seems to have this turn sorted for me.
The eight Great Brain books are good for approximately 7 to 11 year olds, I think, maybe a little younger for a good reader. There's some serious moral reflection in them. I think the story I quoted here is probably the most intense/potentially upsetting (beyond normal childhood events like the loss of a beloved pet).
Given their provenance, I shall tell my sister to mention them to her parish priest. If they are not already in St Joseph's RC Junior School library; they damn well should be. More worthwhile than most of the parables in the Wholely Wibble IMHO.
Powerful. Thank you. Please don't think this is criticism in any way, just a minor typo. Under the excellent graphic of moral concern, when you're describing the possibility of having to kill one's brother, you used the word "painlessly" and I believe you mean to say "painfully." At least I think I'm reading that right. I read your articles very carefully, they are very influential for me.
"The placement explains why, though in an extreme circumstance you may have to kill your brother, you would do so painlessly and with great sorrow."
At first reading I wasn't sure how to parse the word painlessly, but reading it a second time I thought that the word painlessly meant choosing a method that would be painless.
However, Holly rarely makes errors of clarity, but mistakes do happen, and knowing how helpful (ha ha not) autocorrect can be, it could have decided it knew better what word Holly meant to use than she did.
I absolutely agree with you that this essay is powerful and as is usual when Holly expresses her ideas, thoughts or beliefs, very thought provoking.
You are probably right! That makes perfect sense and I thought that I could be wrong which is why I made the comment the way I did. Your interpretation makes sense.
I loved these books when I read them 35 years ago. Some scenes are still stuck in my memory - the boomerang, the quarter-horse race, and how excited they were to get oranges for Christmas.
I did not, however, realize just how adult and insightful the highlighted passages on Abie were. Wow.
Right? I cried four times yesterday, making notes to prepare to write this. Holy shit, the man could write. I got goosebumps at the two clergymen looking helplessly at each other. "I am sure both God and Abie will understand."
I've been thinking about your essay about the evil neighbor since I read it. This one will stay with me too. You are correct. All the innocent lives - even Palestinian ones - are on Hamas and those who support them.
And that is one of the biggest issues today, worldwide. There is far more cowardice and shallow thinking than morality, out there. The recognition that the deaths of innocents is on the heads of Hamas is relatively easy, although “both sides” logic tries to deny it. What is harder is the logical conclusion: that concern for those innocent lives most not be used to protect Hamas from what Israel has to do, and that condemning Israel for it is moral cowardice.
Even harder is recognizing the steps the world has taken to get us to this point. I’m not sure that’s even practical any time soon.
The moral clarity is so strong that it burns. Please let us know if anyone cancels their sub due to this piece. I find it hard to imagine, but perhaps I should not.
There are those of us out there who understand it, but our media today is a bit like an echo chamber. They amplify the crazies and deboost and outright hide the logical, normal, sane ones. I know of one in particular on Twitter who's been going on and on about being censored on Twitter since he started speaking out since the Oct. 7th attack.
Just because you don't see people saying things like Holly did here, doesn't mean they're not being said or thought. At least you can see from her comment section that many who read her work agree with her, myself included.
First thing I did (without listening to other people's views) was write about it and the need for people to have guns to enforce their boundaries against abusers. I was more focused on the US, but the whole point was based on the idea that Israel has to defend itself against abusers, and we (in the US) do too.
I guess saying "this" wasn't specific enough. I've seen others understand that Israel has the right to defense, or side with Israel based on shared values. I haven't seen anyone else identify that people are taking sides based simply on where they place the respective sides in their circles of moral concern based on predetermined prejudices.
My husband related a “thought experiment” he was taught in some management seminar. Put 5 monkeys in a room with a ladder and put a banana on top. Whenever a monkey tries to get the banana, spray it with cold water. Eventually they will stop trying. Replace a monkey with a naive one and the other 4 will stop it from trying to climb the ladder. If you slowly replace all 5, you’ll have a group of monkeys that, even though they’ve never personally been sprayed with cold water, will stop others from trying to get the banana.
This is what Israel needs to do to Hamas. Strike so hard, so decisively, so forcefully, that even after the current generation is gone, no Gazans will ever try something like that again, and will stop anyone who tries.
Correct. There's a theory of three types of violence -- social (this is what we have, which is why the state is supposed to have a monopoly on violence), instrumental (like hitting someone to take away their wallet), and bonding (mostly symbolic here in the West, like fraternity hazing; in the ). The Middle East is *real* bonding violence. The only response is overwhelming force so that they bond another way.
I was an obsessive “Great Brain” reader in childhood. The stories were real to me. I wanted to time-travel there and be everyone’s sister and save Abie.
Thanks for this.
I highly recommend the adult books. Papa Married A Mormon, Mamma's Boarding House, and Uncle Will and the Fitzgerald Curse. The latter is very hard to find -- I checked very often on many rare books sites until I found one for under $300. The other two are easier to find. All are wonderful.
You can find an online reading copy at https://archive.org/details/unclewillfitzger0000unse/page/n1/mode/2up
Thank you
Thank you for reading!
100% Agree. Any group of people who could convince human beings to commit these kind of atrocities cannot exist in a civilized society. Hamas must be excised like the cancer that it is.
If this wasn't bad enough to sign their death warrants, nothing will ever be.
Indeed. I’ve never felt the mix of disgust and shame at seeing representatives of my country’s highest legislative body not only carry water for Hamas, but also celebrate this act in particular. Beyond the pale.
Thank you for your moral clarity.
Thank you for reading!!
As someone who leans Libertarian the phrase "but what if ________ goes to far" is never far from my political and socio-economic calculus. It's a question that is valid to ask about how governments act as all too often many future actions of a government is very much determined by what they were able to do or get away with in the past, but it is also driven by context to an insane degree that many do not want to think about because it is so easy, for people on both sides, to stop with that initial statement.
"But what if the fire bombing goes to far?" had to be asked about Tokyo and Dresden, but the calculus there involved prolonging the most bloody war in history by months if not years and the deaths of millions as opposed to hundreds of thousands as well as potentially handing more political and military clout to the USSR which was quickly becoming as much of a problem as the Nazi's had been.
"But what if the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki goes to far" had to be asked to end the Pacific Theater, but every scrap of evidence we had from the invasion of Iwo Jima and Okinawa showed that the Japanese Government would literally march their people off the cliffs if it meant harming US troops and showing the fanaticism of their beliefs. Even the conservative numbers said the USA would loose almost as many soldiers invading the home islands as they had in the entire Pacific Theater up to that point, almost 150,000 men dead and many more injured. The war department had already minted over a million purple hearts in anticipation of the unprecedented casualties and injuries that would come about from such an invasion.
That same kind of context shows, in my opinion, that while the Palestinians can perhaps be saved, and I hope they are, and some kind of peace come about, Hamas and its supporters cannot; and right now the simple arithmetic of warfare is that it will demand the deaths of thousands to hopefully spare many, many times more down the road. It sucks, it runs against what I would hope the world could function like, but that doesn't change the facts of what we can see. The simple answer is that, even accounting for the things Israel has done over the last few decades that have made things harder for the Palestinians, there is a simple set of questions one can ask. If Israel controlled all the territory, which they want to do make no mistake, would their still be Palestinians? Yes there already are Palestinians living in Israel and even holding elected office and living as citizens of Israel. If Palestine/Hamas controlled all the territory, which they have also claimed they want to do, would their still be Israelis? No there would not be, not if they could help it based on their rhetoric.
A powerful piece of writing. Probably the best written so far, as near as "fuck" is to swearing odds on that. Certainly the best that I've read. I shall now go and link to it elsewhere. There is no Lord; but this is the work they would be doing if there were.
At some point, Hamas must know the Jews won't be deterred by pre-pubescent meat shields. It's hard to conclude that the folks in Gaza actually love their kids.
I think they probably do love their kids, just less than they hate Jews.
to-may-to to-mah-to.
;^)
IKR?!?!?
I'm amazed. Thank you so much. Most of my neighbors don't care that much about these terrible realities and how they affect ME as THAT minority, and I'm in a comparatively less toxic part of America right now where the Jew-hating is theologically driven. And I barely go out, these days.
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
Well said, Muad'dib.
I have mentioned it before, but it bears repeating. There are thousands and thousands of Oskar Schindlers in the US. But we're all armed to the teeth, and largely well-trained.
Praise the Lord, said the atheist, both ironically and not.
Don't forget the second part "... and pass the ammunition". ;-)
Thank you -- hope I've chosen well-enough where to get to for these all-too-foreseeable circumstances.
I've been wondering about this too, whether their moral calculus is warped by the fanatical conviction that their dead children will be martyrs to the cause, ergo their sacrifice is a noble act of "love" and the perfect tactic against an enemy constrained by valuing life more than martyrdom. It seems similar to problem that WWII fleets had dealing with kamikaze pilots who were happy to martyr themselves for the cause if they could kill and maim the enemy through their death. Perhaps using children this way is an artifact of honor/shame culture, taken to the ultimate extreme? It boggles the mind, regardless.
I grew up in a Christian cult. My parents had other, unrelated problems, but plenty of the kids I grew up with had normal-range parents. Parents who loved them desperately, yet they often did terrible things, like "spanking" them ten or twelve times in one day, crying but feeling they had to, to obey god. It would take me several thousand words to give a full and accurate assessment of my thoughts on that (I both empathize with and condemn the parents) but that experience does make it easy for me to imagine loving your kid but being delighted to send them to do evil for your god. It's just a more extreme version of something I grew up witnessing.
It’s a mistake to think you can read the minds of these people or explain their motivations. What they think really doesn’t matter, unless it can be used to make them stop. It’s hard to get any leverage on people who don’t seem to care if they die and take their families with them. But that’s a problem for the Israelis to solve. At the very least, we should stay out of their way & stop supporting their enemies. Meanwhile, we have our own problem dealing with the moral imbeciles who have been revealed to infest our colleges and seemingly, our government.
I'd not heard of this author or these books. What age are they aimed at? I'm usually at a loss for Yuletide gifts; but the All-Father seems to have this turn sorted for me.
The eight Great Brain books are good for approximately 7 to 11 year olds, I think, maybe a little younger for a good reader. There's some serious moral reflection in them. I think the story I quoted here is probably the most intense/potentially upsetting (beyond normal childhood events like the loss of a beloved pet).
Given their provenance, I shall tell my sister to mention them to her parish priest. If they are not already in St Joseph's RC Junior School library; they damn well should be. More worthwhile than most of the parables in the Wholely Wibble IMHO.
Powerful. Thank you. Please don't think this is criticism in any way, just a minor typo. Under the excellent graphic of moral concern, when you're describing the possibility of having to kill one's brother, you used the word "painlessly" and I believe you mean to say "painfully." At least I think I'm reading that right. I read your articles very carefully, they are very influential for me.
Thank you!
"The placement explains why, though in an extreme circumstance you may have to kill your brother, you would do so painlessly and with great sorrow."
At first reading I wasn't sure how to parse the word painlessly, but reading it a second time I thought that the word painlessly meant choosing a method that would be painless.
However, Holly rarely makes errors of clarity, but mistakes do happen, and knowing how helpful (ha ha not) autocorrect can be, it could have decided it knew better what word Holly meant to use than she did.
I absolutely agree with you that this essay is powerful and as is usual when Holly expresses her ideas, thoughts or beliefs, very thought provoking.
You are probably right! That makes perfect sense and I thought that I could be wrong which is why I made the comment the way I did. Your interpretation makes sense.
I edited it to make it more clear -- thank you to both of you, it was helpful!
Yes, for me too. Thank you for being on here.
I loved these books when I read them 35 years ago. Some scenes are still stuck in my memory - the boomerang, the quarter-horse race, and how excited they were to get oranges for Christmas.
I did not, however, realize just how adult and insightful the highlighted passages on Abie were. Wow.
Right? I cried four times yesterday, making notes to prepare to write this. Holy shit, the man could write. I got goosebumps at the two clergymen looking helplessly at each other. "I am sure both God and Abie will understand."
I don't agree with everything in this article, but I'm not canceling my subscription because I feel that you, Holly, have a lot to offer the world.
Thanks for your perspectives.
It's funny how we need not agree on everything in order to get along.
I've been thinking about your essay about the evil neighbor since I read it. This one will stay with me too. You are correct. All the innocent lives - even Palestinian ones - are on Hamas and those who support them.
And that is one of the biggest issues today, worldwide. There is far more cowardice and shallow thinking than morality, out there. The recognition that the deaths of innocents is on the heads of Hamas is relatively easy, although “both sides” logic tries to deny it. What is harder is the logical conclusion: that concern for those innocent lives most not be used to protect Hamas from what Israel has to do, and that condemning Israel for it is moral cowardice.
Even harder is recognizing the steps the world has taken to get us to this point. I’m not sure that’s even practical any time soon.
The moral clarity is so strong that it burns. Please let us know if anyone cancels their sub due to this piece. I find it hard to imagine, but perhaps I should not.
No one else not Jewish seems to understand this. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
Thank you for reading and commenting. And thank you to Papa and Mamma Fitzgerald.
There are those of us out there who understand it, but our media today is a bit like an echo chamber. They amplify the crazies and deboost and outright hide the logical, normal, sane ones. I know of one in particular on Twitter who's been going on and on about being censored on Twitter since he started speaking out since the Oct. 7th attack.
Just because you don't see people saying things like Holly did here, doesn't mean they're not being said or thought. At least you can see from her comment section that many who read her work agree with her, myself included.
I see people on the street agreeing with her, but I'd be very surprised if you told me you independently came up with the same train of thought.
First thing I did (without listening to other people's views) was write about it and the need for people to have guns to enforce their boundaries against abusers. I was more focused on the US, but the whole point was based on the idea that Israel has to defend itself against abusers, and we (in the US) do too.
I guess saying "this" wasn't specific enough. I've seen others understand that Israel has the right to defense, or side with Israel based on shared values. I haven't seen anyone else identify that people are taking sides based simply on where they place the respective sides in their circles of moral concern based on predetermined prejudices.
Yes, she was amazingly wonderful. Thanks for being on here as well.
My husband related a “thought experiment” he was taught in some management seminar. Put 5 monkeys in a room with a ladder and put a banana on top. Whenever a monkey tries to get the banana, spray it with cold water. Eventually they will stop trying. Replace a monkey with a naive one and the other 4 will stop it from trying to climb the ladder. If you slowly replace all 5, you’ll have a group of monkeys that, even though they’ve never personally been sprayed with cold water, will stop others from trying to get the banana.
This is what Israel needs to do to Hamas. Strike so hard, so decisively, so forcefully, that even after the current generation is gone, no Gazans will ever try something like that again, and will stop anyone who tries.
Excellent article. Thanks Holly.
Correct. There's a theory of three types of violence -- social (this is what we have, which is why the state is supposed to have a monopoly on violence), instrumental (like hitting someone to take away their wallet), and bonding (mostly symbolic here in the West, like fraternity hazing; in the ). The Middle East is *real* bonding violence. The only response is overwhelming force so that they bond another way.
Thank you - well written!