Discussion between Karen E. Lile and Allan Lefcowitz
published July 5, 2006
This is the contribution of Karen E. Lile and Allan Lefcowitz to the OrdinaryEvil.info Project Formal Discussion. It was conducted by email over a period of 5 months time. See The Discussion Begins for more information about the Discussion and its guidelines.
- -----Original Message-----
- From: Allan Lefcowitz
- Sent: Saturday, February 18, 2006 6:11 AM PST
- To: 'Karen Lile'
- Play
Karen,
Good morning. I send along "Philosophy 101." Though, I hope, a comedy (redemption at the end), I also think of it as a presentation of the evils inherent in an educational system run by administrators who pay only lip service to the ends of education and students who really only want licenses. I wouldn't absolve teachers from having non-academic agendas but the only one in the play is old fashioned. In short, the play is a satire.
I underestimated run time. Even with fast pacing, I think it will play in about 40 minutes.
Thank you for your interest.
Al
Allan,
I went ahead and read Philosophy 101 tonight (I am staying up way to late). I loved it. It made me laugh outright several times. It somehow captures the stuff that goes on in just about every community college and university I have had experience with. So, now for the guidelines on Ordinary Evil, I believe that this play is within the guidelines and I would like to accpet it into the OrdinaryEvil.info project. More about that later.
Just to bring up a few of the questions this play provokes:
- Is the Dean acting in an ordinary evil manner by putting his own pleasure in power above the needs of the students, knowing that by his policies and cavalier way of treating the administration of the department he could be blocking Phil and other faculty from truly serving the needs of the students and in many cases may be hurting the students themselves?
- Is the father, whose emphasis on making a living over doing something like teaching philosophy, ordinary evil? Is he really trying to persuade his son to go into undertaking to hurt his son to get his own needs met? Or does he do it because he thinks it is best for his son and wants his happiness? If he were ordinary evil, would he be willing to accept it when his son turns down his offer?
- Can it be said that any of the students rise above "unclarified" as defined in the "ordinary evil" guidelines at: OrdinaryEvil.info in the course of the class? Do they even know enough and think enough to make a decision about their lives and apply themselves towards accomplishing an intention. When they come back and thank Phil for the lessons learned, were the things they heard (which might be a radical departure from what Phil thought he was teaching) really what they learned? Or were they influenced by the fact that Phil did not give into the pressure to give them good grades when they didn't deserve them? Or was it something else?
- Does Phil's weak moments and vacillation between various fantasies and possibilities of what he might do make him less than ordinary good? If free will and intention, are enough to make a person ordinary evil, then would that mean that he could be judged by only his thoughts and that action is not necessary? If that were the case could we even use the definition of ordinary evil about another person since we can never know the thoughts of another if they don't reveal themselves through an action of some kind?
Ah, now I am putting aside my Socrates alter ego and telling you what I think about how the plays characters reveal the concepts of the guidelines of my theme.
I think Phil is my candidate for ordinary good. And the Dean is my candidate for ordinary evil. I think it could be argued that neither of them qualified for these judgments, but the opposite could also be argued, so that is enough for me at this point. I think the other characters are "unclarified". You don't have to agree with me. In fact, even if you disagree, I would still like to include your play in the OrdinaryEvil.info project.
Thanks,
- Karen E. Lile
- Project Director
- OrdinaryEvil.info Project
- -----Original Message-----
- From: Allan Lefcowitz
- Sent: Saturday, April 08, 2006 6:50 AM EST (03:50:00 a.m PST)
- To: Karen E. Lile
- Subject: "The Hearing" and "Philosophy 101"
Good morning. It's pleasant to boot up the computer and find that someone likes your work. In a way, it's always a surprise to sit in the back of a theatre and feel the pleasure or displeasure of an audience while the actors figure forth my words. Pleasure is better and, after a rough winter, your email came as a robin.
You'll remember the expression used to describe Eichman, one of the architects of the holocaust: He demonstrated "the banality of evil." I believe that evil most often grows from ordinary men and women having tunnel visions of one sort or another. For example, Yale ran a study in which students participated in the apparent torture of other students when caught up in the experiment and driven by the experimenters to give increasing jolts of electric current to apparent subjects. In fact, the subjects were not receiving shocks but acting as if they were. The "torturers," despite their misgivings as the tortured howled, thought they were doing good because they were contributing to scientific knowledge and that "good" allowed them to do evil. And what about those who devised such an experiment to make ordinary men and women do evil? Certainty that one is doing well, leads many people to accepting means that are horrifying. You can think of a front page instance today: torture in Guantanemo for the purpose of extracting information that would be useless. More than accepting, participating in the means leads to evil. I've written at least twenty plays exploring this evil as it manifests itself in a variety of circumstances -- government (actually "The Hearing" is one such play), academe, military, religion, institutionalized art, marriage, science . . . . And not all of them are comedies.
The irony is that we do live within institutions and the most "ordinary" evils of all grow from our inability to maintain independent spirits when it is easier to go along with the process in which we find ourselves. To paraphrase Thoreau, we expect machines (i.e. institutions) to have squeaks but when the machine exists FOR the squeak we have to resist. Few do.
I guess I'm saying that people allow themselves to do evil because they don't or can't or won't allow themselves to see the evil they do. To be "disinterested" (I refer to Matthew Arnold's definition as a dispassionate search for truth) is too difficult or painful. I suppose that I often respond to this "banality" of evil by holding up to the light, even though I know that no satire is likely to result in real fact-finding hearings that lead to real results or educational institutions that are about education rather than licenses. And if occasionally we do stumble upon such an institution or system, we feed it hemlock as we did Socrates. Think of how our government is trashing the messengers who are bringing the truth about global warming, or torture, or evesdropping, or corruption, or . . . .
I'm really quite a cheery person and my response to the banality of evil is ironic laughter at my romantic desire that the world be a better place than it has ever been.
Anyway, I don't know how much this talks directly to the plays but they are, after all, plays about human interactions and not philosophical discussions. That's a way of saying that they are fictions that tell the truth.
Best, Al
- -----Original Message-----
- From: Karen E. Lile
- Sent: Saturday, April 08, 2006 8:09 AM PST
- To: 'Allan Lefcowitz'
- Subject: RE: "The Hearing" and "Philosophy 101"
Al,
Well I too am delighted to wake up and find your communication. You have given me some good thoughts to chew on this morning and rather than dash back a quick reply addressing all the issues you brought up, I am going to ponder this a bit and then respond specifically to what you said. In the meantime, here is where I am coming from.
I am extremely interested in the things that you are exploring through your own plays and the email you just you sent me. My idea here is to begin with theatre and find other playwrights who are interested in helping me build a framework for discussing "ordinary evil" and "ordinary good" across the racial, religious and cultural divide. I am looking first at the individual and their own choices in relationships one on one and in small groups. I am hoping that the body of work that comes out of this project will help expand all of our thinking, yet still create viable tools to provoke and encourage intelligent theatre that (as you say) deals with human interactions. Also, I plan on applying my business skills and opportunity-making abilities to this OrdinaryEvil.info project. This is an arena where I can mix business with good thought and the desire to live the examined life.
Karen
- -----Original Message-----
- Sent: Saturday, April 15, 2006 10:23 AM PST
- To: 'Allan Lefcowitz'
- From: 'Karen E. Lile'
Al,
I have been thinking about our discussion about the designers of systems.
This is such an important subject! I think it deserves its own call for plays after I am finished with the Ordinary Evil call for plays.
I could to this:
A call for ordinary evil - to help us establish cross-belief systems vocabulary for identifying it in the individual. (I have already initiated this)
A call for better systems? (or whatever we name this call - I am open to your ideas) - to help us establish criteria to judge a system that is set up to benefit a few at the expense of the many as opposed to one that benefits the interest of many and the few are willing to make sacrifices to help the many.
Or perhaps I will include a category for "ordinary evil systems" in the discussion group and allow playwrights who sent plays for the first call on these topics to participate in the discussion?
Or perhaps I will just include some plays that deal with "ordinary evil systems" into the Project with no explanation as to which one s are and which, because they all provoke intelligent thought on this theme and I have become convinced that they should be included?
I am allowing this to evolve ...
We will watch it unfold. I believe the time is ripe for change.
Karen
- -----Original Message-----
- From: Allan Lefcowitz
- Sent: Saturday, April 15, 2006 8:18 AM EST (05:18:00 a.m. PST)
- To: 'Karen E. Lile'
Dear Karen,
I'm not quite sure what a "cross-belief systems vocabulary" would consist of. It sounds like one of the forces for ordinary evil that my plays attempt to expose. That is, special vocabularies in all systems get internalized and either make people think they are saying something scientific, or something unique, or -- in the saddest cases -- something different from what they are really saying. For instance, taking people into "preventive detention" sounds almost benign. "Throwing them into jail" is really what is happening.
The play between ordinary desires that may lead to ordinary evil AND systems that allow or encourage ordinary desires is an interesting topic. To desire security, for example, is surely a positive value but what happens when that desire is manipulated by a system which creates security at the cost of privacy or any other fundamental good? If you call actions by their right names, it is often difficult to think you are doing good. Call "homeland defense," by another name -- say "police state" -- and you might worry about supporting some of the outragious actions taken in its name. Call Guantanemo as "concentration camp" creates a different picture.
So, is seems to me that bad systems are inexorably tied to individual behavior and all evil is tied to deceptive language and bad logic. And, perhaps, vice versa.
Best, Al
- -----Original Message-----
- From: Allan Lefcowitz
- Sent: Saturday, April 15, 2006 8:21 AM EST (05:21:00 a.m. PST)
- To: 'Karen E. Lile'
That sounds right on. Read my previous email.
You could then go on to focus on the use of language to deceive and the ignorance and self-serving that allows that language to be effective.
--Al
- -----Original Message-----
- From: Karen E. Lile
- Sent: Saturday, April 15, 2006 10:41 AM
- To: 'Allan Lefcowitz'
- Subject: In search of vocabulary...
Al,
I don't know what word or combination of words to give this concept that I said "cross-belief systems vocabulary" for. Perhaps you can help me. Here is the concept.
As individuals we all relate to the world in three circles, all of which rise from our existence. I am using the analogy of a circle to contain what I am going to put inside it and to suggest that it has boundaries and all the circles are the same size, so no one is higher than another in my model, they are all important. One should not be compared to another with the result being "this is better than that".
Lets just label them by the three primary colors for purposes of discussion. Since each of the colors is an essence of something and we can combine them in various ways to create other colors, like a painter with his pallet.
- Blue circle: This contains our human experience. What we experience with our body and emotions. Anyone who is born and dies, shares this experience. Anyone who has emotion shares this experience. In this circle everything is defined by what is perceived as real to the person that any other human being should be able to relate to. So, when you get people who have bodies that are different, one has no arms and one eye, the other has all body parts, you would need to subtract from this circle anything that is not common to all humanity. And when you get different minds, say one is able to think and talk, but another perceives the world through illusions of the mind (like in schizophrenia), then you would need to subtract all that is not common to humanity. In essence this circle is what is left when we subtract all our differences as human beings. All human beings have these things contained in this circle.
- Yellow circle: This circle contains the desire to be something more than we are born with. It contains consciousness and a willingness to examine our lives and the lives around us with a desire to change it somehow. Not everyone will have the things contained in this circle. It contains our explorations individually and together to identify and define this desire we have. What is not part of this circle is any belief system we may have about why we have this desire. Thus religious beliefs, scientific theories, philosophies, and any thing else that attempts to provide a framework to answer the question of why we do this, would not be part of this circle.
- Red Circle: This circle contains our beliefs to understand the why of our existence. Not everyone will have the things contained in this circle. This circle contains our labels, our filters, our belief structures, and every part of what we create as individuals and societies to explain the why of our existence and to influence our own actions and the actions of others on the basis of those explanations.
So, when I created the term ordinary evil and ordinary good, it was an attempt to explore what is in the yellow circle with other people who shared the same desire to understand the things that I saw. And I started with a definition as just a place to start and put out the call for plays in the hope that someone would answer and we could learn about it together. And then when playwrights started sending me their plays, I saw I was not alone in this desire. And I wanted to talk about it with others, but without entering into the divisions that occur because of our differences in the red circles. So I made the definition of ordinary evil and ordinary good as narrow as I could, so it could be talked about no matter what red circle a person had.
I have a desire for us as human beings to be able to set aside our red circles for a discussion of the yellow circle. Because if we want to understand this desire we have, we are going to have to find a vocabulary to talk to each other so that we can have a productive discussion that results in something we can all use, even if we don't all agree with it. And I want that discussion in my OrdinaryEvil.info project to include mutual respect and that will take place without putting designs on each other to change each other's red circles. I desire to see human beings find a way to work together at this yellow level. And it is in this yellow circle that we might hope to find the threads of ordinary evil system design and ordinary good system design that are working amongst us so that we can discern one from the other and also identify the unclarified. (I am using my definitions for the ordinary evil call for plays at: ordinaryevil.info just because there has to be a place for us to begin and this might be it.)
So, what do we call that?
Karen
- -----Original Message-----
- From: Karen E. Lile
- Sent: Saturday, April 15, 2006 10:55 AM
- To: 'Allan Lefcowitz'
Al,
Now getting it: the use of language to deceive, etc. Read my other email first and lets build on that.
The three primary colored circles explain ..? A way to compare basic experience we have in common?
Then there is how we go about trying to influence ourselves and each other. For this, I think we need another model. Perhaps that of the toolbox. And we look to find the essence of the tools that we use to have influence and effect change. And this vocabulary should be without judgement as to how we judge these tools. The tools should be nuetral. For example, I started to do this on my website http://www.karenlile.com/pastprojects/intro.htm. I labeled my projects according to their function.
For example the first project I called "Recognition Delivery" because it was designed to influence people through the use of providing them recognition in a way that would resonate with their basic human needs to be accepted, loved, belong, etc.
So, maybe we call these Tools of Influence? And then maybe we find the essential tools that are used by all mankind. Then if we understand what these tools are and what basic need man has that they try to satisfy in some way to have influence, then perhaps we have a vocabulary to examine how ordinary evil and ordinary good people use these tools to effect changes in others. And then with this analysis, we can all have the power to discern for ourselves where we want to stand. And all of our primary color circles available to us will influence what paintings we create with our lives.
But, a discussion like this might be enough to break the shackles that many have been burdened under by the ordinary evil people in the world whose systems have influence over us. And it might be a place to start the respect and mutual trust with others to find ways to fix some of the problems we see around us, by working together in the yellow circle where we can come together to create environments where ordinary good and unclarified people can flourish and ordinary evil people can be blocked from having influence over us without our consent.
Your thoughts?
Karen
- -----Original Message-----
- From: Karen E. Lile
- Sent: Saturday, April 15, 2006 11:18 AM
- To: 'Allan Lefcowitz'
Al,
I had assembled our discussion into a word document to print it, and my laserjet printer (black ink printer) has a defective toner cartridge. So I was using my CYMK inkjet color printer. And it is getting out of blue and red ink, but I only needed black so I sent it to the printer and the black ran out just in the middle of the printing of our discussion.
And I thought, what a good analogy. The function tools of influence are like the black ink. They have no color, but make things a lot easier on the eyes to read. And black is the absence of color. Pigments that do not reflect light. So what if we call the primary color circles:
Our primary colors of human experience.
- Red human experience circle
- Blue human experience circle
- Yellow human experience circle
And for the tool box I mentioned below
Our black tools of influence. (This later became: Lile Tools )
Would these work as a vocabulary that we can continue our discussion with? Can we decide what goes into these four color categories through our discussion so that we have a vocabulary that works for us?
Karen
- -----Original Message-----
- From: Allan Lefcowitz
- Sent: Saturday, April 15, 2006 11:54 AM (08:54:00 a.m. PST)
- To: 'Karen E. Lile'
- Subject: RE: In search of vocabulary...
Karen,
I'm not sure that I can help you because I'm a nominalist. There are things and actions and feelings and we need to or want to talk about them. We give them names. Some, of course, we give names to and they don't really exist (ghosts). So, the name isn't a thing; it's a way of pointing at it. The problem is that we are in our own skins (I guess that's your blue circle) which contain our desires (your yellow circle) which we grasp through our systems (your red circle). But the neat containments, as I'm sure you realize, are an intellectual construct (a red circle) in themselves. You see, you try to think out of the box and you find yourself in another box. A scientist would call it an infinite regression and argue that, since you can never be outside a system, you cannot say your system is provable. I guess that if it works, it is sufficient.
The upshot for me is that I live in all circles at once. They bleed in and out of each other AND, in fact, the very idea is an abstraction of self. I don't know how we could find a way of talking about universal love that will be the same for you as for me. We always circle it. Of course, in art we can share the actual presence of love and, at the best of time, understand how his or her or your or my love works out.
Abstract universal understanding is meaningless and only a another ghost we want to believe in. Proof? Lawyers, for one.
You might consider that the very difficulty that you are having in expressing what you want to get at with your thinking about circles is telling you something.
Best, Al
- -----Original Message-----
- From: Karen E. Lile
- Sent: Saturday, April 15, 2006 1:29 PM
- To: 'Allan Lefcowitz'
- Subject: RE: In search of vocabulary...
Allan
I can't use language right now. My body and mind is trying to process this on non-verbal levels. I am going to go dance my ideas out.
You have identified an important problem.
Karen
- -----Original Message-----
- From: Allan Lefcowitz
- Sent: Saturday, April 15, 2006 2:37 PM (11:37:00 a.m. PST)
- To: 'Karen E. Lile'
- Subject: RE: In search of vocabulary...
Karen,
Dance all night!
I'm off to New York City. -- Al
- -----Original Message-----
- From: Karen E. Lile
- Sent: Sunday, April 16, 2006 7:48 PM
- To: 'Allan Lefcowitz'
- Subject: RE: In search of vocabulary...
Al,
I did dance that night and it was good. Nice to have more ways of communication than words.
You have given me a very important perspective that I greatly value. I use language, because it is my tool, but it limits me. And I am limited by my own experience. Our conversation has reminded me that I cannot hope to find the answers to all of life's questions. Sometimes I can't even identify the means to point to it.
But I live, I think and I am. And I am where I am and so thus it is.
And since I intend to do something here, which is fulfill my promises to the playwrights of the OrdinaryEvil.info Project, I will just accept my inadequacies and not even hope for a consensus of language because even the act of trying to achieve one might warp everything to the point that it becomes an ordinary evil system in and of itself. And I don't want to be party to creating something like that.
I have been having 3 interesting simultaneous conversations with playwrights. Each of these conversations has revealed something I feel is of value to me. The conversation I have been having with you is one of them.
I think I am going to confine my efforts at discussion with the three of the playwrights I have been talking with and then say no more and let any other playwrights in the project conduct their own coversations without my interference. I will publish insightful discussions between other playwrighters in our project who submit them to me as it seems appropriate to me.
It is enough to just have said what we have said and let others do what they want with it.
Karen
- -----Original Message-----
- From: Allan Lefcowitz
- Sent: Monday, April 17, 2006 2:39 PM (11:39:00 a.m. PST)
- To: Karen E. Lile
- Subject: RE: In search of vocabulary...
Dear Karen,
:->
Now that you have danced, spend an evening in laughter.
Best, Al
- -----Original Message-----
- From: Karen E. Lile
- Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2006 5:30 AM
- To: 'Allan Lefcowitz'
- Subject: RE: In search of vocabulary...
Al,
I have decided to limit my involvement in the Formal discussion so that I don't shape what other people do too much. Also to limit the scope of my time spent.
You will see that I have written up my guidelines for the discussion at: http://www.ordinaryevil.info/discussionbegins.htm. These decisions I made came about primarily because in my conversations with you, I realized that it would be possible for me to create an ordinary evil system if I wasn't careful about the way I set it up. (I wonder if a person can inadvertently set up an ordinary evil system by copying something that was created by an ordinary evil person, but not realizing that the system itself lends itself to ordinary evil?) I just don't want to do that. But, I do want to give some space for all the profound things I have been learning and others will learn as they encounter each other on the exploration of this theme.
And, I think you mentioned in our conversation that you had written some books and/or articles on the use and limitations of language? I really do want to mention those books by name (and identifying facts) for the readers because I think it has everything to do with our attempts at discussion using words. And my husband, who read our discussion wanted to read more of your work as well. If the "Creative Writer's Handbook" is the book you were referring to that has these discussions on language, then that is all I need.
By the way, many times I combine laughter and dancing. It's a good cocktail. Actually, I spend more than 15 hours a week dancing as a means for my own personal expression of whatever I want to communicate without words. I often leave the computer and go to my dedicated dance room in my house, turn on the music and just dance. It frees me. And it gives me a "vocabulary" of movement to express things that mere words alone cannot. My study over the years of many forms of dance from Modern to Ballroom, has given me a physical vocabulary that is pretty broad. My husband does this with music. He is a composer and concert pianist.
Karen
- ----Original Message-----
- From: Karen E. Lile
- Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2006 5:02 PM PST
- To: 'Allan Lefcowitz'
- Subject: RE: In search of vocabulary...
Alan,
Let me know if I have your permission to publish our conversation on the website.
Looking back on what I wrote, I always just want to edit everything, never being satisfied with what I have written. But, I won't do that and just publish this as my contribution....
Karen
- -----Original Message-----
- From: Allan Lefcowitz
- Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2006 2:50 PM EST
- To: 'Karen E. Lile'
- Subject: Permission to publish
Karen
No problem with publishing our correspondence as it is.
Al
Interested in reading more of Allan Lefcowitz's work? Read his book, "The Creative Writer's Handbook" or see one of his plays. Allan Lefcowitz was included in the Ordinary Evil.info Project for his play "Philosophy 101".
Published by permission of copyright owners Karen E. Lile and Alan Lefcowitz. Each owning copyright to their own words.