Barry Goldwater

Barry Goldwater in 1941.

Phoenix would benefit from some heroic statues to enrich the downtown streetscape. It's not as if we're lacking in heroes and audacious history. Instead, we get a bronze of Barry Goldwater in Paradise Valley, unreachable by pedestrians but with an adjacent parking lot. Then there's terminal four at Sky Harbor named after Goldwater. And a street in Scottsdale. A newcomer might think the only history worth remembering, if badly painted, concerns the long-serving senator and 1964 presidential candidate.

Readers of this blog know better. But understanding Goldwater's place in Arizona is a daunting challenge. The magisterial biography remains to be written. And for most of his public career, Goldwater was a national figure. We must also contend with a good deal of nostalgia and hagiography concerning the hero. An example of the latter was a recent article in National Review about how Barry was a leader in Phoenix's school desegregation before the Brown decision. The former goes something like this: Barry was no Kook, he fought the religious right and one shouldn't conflate today's conservatism with that of Goldwater. Even I have been guilty. But the reality is more complex and interesting.

Barry was a native Phoenician, born in 1909, three years before statehood. He attended Kenilworth School (as did I), then was shipped off to the Staunton Military Academy in Virginia. This is an important point to remember: The Goldwaters were among the moneyed elite in the frontier state. His Jewish grandfather, "Big Mike" Goldwasser left Poland at age 14. In 1859, he and his brother Joe established a mercantile business in the mining town of Prescott. M. Goldwater & Sons — the name was Anglicized — expanded to Phoenix in 1896 under the management of Big Mike's son, Baron, who was also Barry's father. Barry's biggest early influence, however, was his mother Josephine Williams Goldwater, an Episcopalian. Barry came back from Staunton, where he had graduated at the top of his class, and enrolled in the University of Arizona. He never graduated. Instead, his father died and Barry was forced to drop out and gradually take over the family business.

It thrived under him, becoming Goldwater's Department Store. Barry is remembered as a natural at the business. Charming and charismatic, too, he became a well-liked figure in the small city. As general manager of Goldwater's, he initiated a five-day workweek and improved benefits for employees in the mid-1930s. The store also became desegregated, although few if any blacks were hired and Goldwater's was the most expensive of the city's department stores.

Barry was a man of wide enthusiasms, from photography and amateur radio to learning to fly. When the United States entered World War II, Barry was too old to be a combat pilot, but did serve in the Army Air Forces ferrying planes to theaters of war. He also flew supplies over  "The Hump" — the Himalayas — to China, a dangerous series of missions. Eventually he became a major general in the Air Force Reserve and a command pilot. At right, Goldwater is in the cockpit of a F-102 Delta Dagger Interceptor in the 1960s. He also established the Arizona Air National Guard in 1946 and ensured it was integrated — two years before President Harry Truman did the same for all the military.

When the Charter Government Movement cleaned up Phoenix politics in the late 1940s, Goldwater was a natural fit for "businessman's government." In 1949, at the urging of his friend Harry Rosenzweig, he ran for City Council and won.

As a councilman, he supported Charter's agenda of civic improvements, including building a new public library, art museum and theater, the Phoenix Civic Center at Central and McDowell. Barry liked politics. More, he was bored with the department store business — and perhaps longed for horizons beyond Phoenix. He didn't want to become a legislator or governor.

"Senator" had a nice ring. But he was a Republican in a Democratic state. Here, timing and demographics were on his side. The Korean War and "loss" of China to Mao's communists made Harry Truman one of the most unpopular presidents in modern times. The Democrats held total national power from 1932 to 1948, and FDR's old coalition was fraying.

Meanwhile, post-war prosperity created more middle-class voters who found the Republicans appealing. In Arizona, the population reached nearly 750,000 in 1950 compared with half a million in 1940; many were conservatives from the Midwest. In 1950, Republican Howard Pyle was elected governor in a campaign Barry worked on. He set aim on the 1952 senate race against Ernest McFarland.

"Mac" was the Senate majority leader, the father of the GI Bill and a beloved Arizonan. But 1952 was a very bad year for the Democrats — the wildly popular Dwight Eisenhower was running for president as a Republican and Barry unseated McFarland on Ike's coattails. The margin of victory was 7,000 votes.

For the rest of the decade, Goldwater worked to build a robust Republican Party in Arizona. His legislative achievements were thin. He didn't go in for the worst of McCarthyism but neither did he vote to censure Joe McCarthy. He did catch the eye of three groups working to reconstitute a Republican majority in the wake of Herbert Hoover's disastrous defeat. One was conservative intellectuals led by William F. Buckley Jr., trying to create a modern conservatism as opposed to the anti-New Deal reaction that drove much of the right during the 1930s and 1940s. The second were adherents of the John Birch Society, a far-right fringe believing even Eisenhower to be a commie — but it was energetic as only fanatics can be, and thus valuable to mainstream Republicans. Straddling the two were businessmen aggrieved by the expansion of government, regulation and taxes during the Roosevelt-Truman years.

Senate candidate Goldwater shakes Ike's hand during a 1952 rally at Phoenix Union High School's Montgomery Stadium. At right is Arizona Gov. Howard Pyle.

Goldwater was appealing to each of these constituencies. He was a handsome Westerner, the idealized image of individualism, a tough talker against communism and big government and in favor of "freedom" and state rights. This appeal was cemented with Barry's 1960 book, The Conscience of a Conservative, which continues to be an alpha text of the right. Although the book pivots off some of Barry's speeches, he didn't actually write it. The real author was Brent Bozell, the brother-in-law of Bill Buckley (JFK didn’t write Profiles in Courage, either. His ghost writers were Ted Sorensen and Jules Davids).

An important question becomes how much Goldwater was an idea man of the right, vs. being the appealing merchandiser? By contrast, Ronald Reagan, despite his image as "just an actor," thought and wrote a good deal about conservatism and conservative governance.

By the early 1960s, then, Barry Goldwater had become a national political figure. Goldwater still loved to roam the wild parts of the state and mingle with the Navajos and Hopis. He dutifully voted to support Arizona in its water battle against California. No one could question his credibility or authenticity as a native Arizonan. But Barry was already a national icon of the right and a bogeyman of the left. He was the "show horse" senator. Carl Hayden was the "workhorse."

Goldwater's was sold to a national chain in 1962. Later, Goldwater would be pilloried for not supporting the anti-abortion movement and other causes of social conservatives. But he was never a social conservative. His first wife Peggy was a founder of Planned Parenthood in Phoenix. Barry liked running with a fast crowd, reveled in being a celebrity, enjoyed liquor and was a swordsman of note. Among that fast crowd were not just Hollywood entertainers but also Vegas and Phoenix mobsters, although Barry's direct connection to the mob wasn't proved. He was as likely to be in Palm Beach as in Phoenix.

A meeting in Palm Beach in early 1962 gives some insight into Goldwater and Arizona. As recalled by Buckley, Barry arrived incognito to meet with some conservative intellectual heavyweights. Although warned not to ask him about his presidential ambitions — he had repeatedly denied them, although many believed he wanted to run against President Kennedy — Buckley at least wanted to nail down a Goldwater denunciation of the John Birch Society. Buckley writes:

But that, Goldwater said, is the problem. Consider this, he exaggerated: “Every other person in Phoenix is a member of the John Birch Society. Russell, I’m not talking about Commie-haunted apple pickers or cactus drunks, I’m talking about the highest cast of men of affairs. Any of you know who Frank Cullen Brophy is?”

As everyone knows, Goldwater and the men behind him went on to take over the Republican Party from an exhausted Eastern establishment at the San Francisco convention of 1964 (a paradoxical foreshadowing of Jeanne Kirkpatrick's "San Francisco Democrats" speech 20 years later). Goldwater was nominated for president. In Phoenix, Eugene C. Pulliam of the Arizona Republic and Phoenix Gazette declined to endorse the hometown hero. At Kenilworth, only I and a girl wore Goldwater buttons ("In Your Heart, You Know He's Right"). LBJ buttons proliferated at his alma mater.

Goldwater won only 38.5% of the popular vote and only six states, five of them were in the Deep South and the sixth, Arizona, had been claimed by the Confederacy. Yet Barry's drawing power was greatly diminished by the country's anguish over the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Before that, JFK's legislative agenda was going nowhere and Kennedy worried about Goldwater as a potential challenger. Ronald Reagan gave an impassioned pro-Goldwater speech on the eve of the election, two years later was elected governor of California — you know the rest of the story.

Barry's allure among whites in the South was no accident. He opposed federal civil rights legislation, including voting rights and opening public accommodations. He spoke often of state rights. Later, Goldwater regretted his votes and positions on civil rights. His apologists point to his background in a small Western state. Perhaps. But Arizona, and especially Phoenix, had both blacks and some segregation. And a man of the world such as Barry Goldwater could not have been ignorant of lynchings and Jim Crow. Goldwater was a paradox, however, being a lifelong member of the NAACP, helping fund the local Urban  League, and pushing for equal rights in Arizona. He voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and the 24th Amendment to the Constitution (barring poll taxes).

In his 1964 acceptance speech, Goldwater left this one for the ages (and his critics): "I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!" LBJ's men effectively latched onto the first part of the quote, to stoke fears that Barry really would (to use one of my favorite Goldwaterisms) "lob one into the men's room of the Kremlin." But an equally pertinent statement is the second sentence, especially in the context of civil rights. Faced with centuries of injustice, Goldwater at best chose "moderation in the pursuit of justice." In other words, leave civil rights to the states. It is a complicated legacy from which he cannot wiggle. So were his votes against Medicare.

Goldwater's career is full of such unsettling questions, however much most Arizonans love him, liberals want to use him as a cudgel against today's right-wing loonies, and he has been cast in bronze as a "principled conservative." Questions such as, what does his watchword "freedom" mean? Freedom to lynch and deny votes? Freedom from Medicare, which he opposed, and Social Security, which he wanted to privatize or repeal, to keep millions of seniors in poverty and ill health. The "freedom" of corporate personhood? The "freedom" to pollute the commons and send jobs to Asia? How, exactly, does conservatism address the needs of a complex, large modern society? What does the individual owe the commons and vice versa? If the government won't act as a counterweight against giant business interests, what will? And if an activist federal government is injurious to our liberties, does this include the one that funded the water projects upon which modern Phoenix was built?

Did he ever really think deeply about these issues? Or was he still deep down the Marlboro Man playboy, the small-town businessman who could work out desegregation with his friend Lincoln Ragsdale — suddenly faced with old age and the realization that the revolution he started had reached the inflection point where he would have be abandoned and criticized by newer conservatives?

Easy answers won't be found. Goldwater worked to preserve the upper reaches of Camelback Mountain after his 1964 defeat (with help from the federal government), He returned to the Senate four years later, where his legislative accomplishments included support for handing the Panama Canal to Panama and the Goldwater-Nichols Act, which reorganized the armed forces to ensure more cooperation and less inter-service bickering. Goldwater was a harsh critic of the Reagan administration for Iran-Contra. 

He performed a substantial service to the republic when he went to the White House during Watergate (along with fellow Arizonan Rep. John Rhodes) and told President Richard Nixon that congressional Republicans would not protect him from impeachment.

Goldwater won a narrow victory in 1980 and retired at the end of his term. He died in 1998 at the age of 89, a paradox to the end but a beloved Arizonan.

Learn more about the history you don't know in the Rogue Columnist Phoenix 101 archive.

Comments

[soleri]

Goldwater presaged the Republican Party's hard-right turn in philosophy and optics That is, he made grand oversimplifications the foundation of a new politics where citizens were, if wealthy enough, "rugged individualists" who didn't need or want government in their lives. If they were merely white, however, they could join the club by virtue of their shared victim status in a new era of activist government. Goldwater was not a bigot except that his politics were functionally bigoted, much like the Republican Party of today. The code words "states' rights", "freedom", "individualism" stroked the race-conscious id of white America. Goldwater knew this even if he was a regular guy with an attractive personality.

A lot has been made of Goldwater's later epiphanies such as his disdain for Jerry Falwell and his embrace of gay dignity. I suspect Goldwater dealt with the contradictions of modern conservatism the way most people still do - with ad hoc deviations from the tribal solidarity of traditional Americanism. Modern society had created something altogether new in that market values superseded older values. There was no room for antique prejudices in this brave new world, but the linchpin of modern conservatism was located precisely where race and identity were most resistant to this change: the South.

Goldwater's legacy is a contradiction of itself by itself. He loved the land but hated protecting it. He loved freedom but only for those who could purchase it through wealth and power, and then only as a vector of conformity. He loved the military, and then blindly overlooked the federal government's open checkbook that made it so huge. The man was exquisitely equipped to be the visual symbol of a nation unmoored by relentless change. But his long life showed the same ravages of logic one sees in a demented aunt. Time doesn't stop even though thinking in closed loops can make it seem that way.

[100 Octane]

Goldwater. Just another political hypocrite who hated the TVA yet supported the Central Arizona Project. Got his ass handed to him by the voters of 1964 who fought in WW2, fought in Korea, and built post WW2 America.

[dawgzy]

Herblock "said" it best.

[Rogue Columnist]

For those who don't know of the classic Herblock cartoon:

http://myloc.gov/_assets/Exhibitions/herblockgallery/1961/Assets/05493u_enlarge.jpg

[100 Octane]

@dawgzy & Rouge....Outstanding.

[phxSUNSfan]

After speaking to older relatives, including my parents, I was told that many went to school (in the 1940's and 1950's) with White classmates. Granted, they went to school in smaller communities west of Phoenix (Buckeye, Tolleson, Glendale, and Peoria). Were the schools segregated for all minorities in earlier years? Did this only occur in Phoenix? I know segregation was made legal in 1909 in the Arizona Territory. However, I cannot find examples beyond the George Washington Carver High School (Phoenix Union Colored High School) of schools in Arizona that were segregated. My great aunt, in her late 80's, remembers being "segregated" until learning to speak better English. But she also doesn't remember any Black students in her school.

[phxSUNSfan]

I accidentally posted the above comment in one of your older articles, Phoenix 101: Minorities. I was looking up any information on segregation in Phoenix and found that page.

[morecleanair]

Soleri: I marvel at your ability to weave words. In very few sentences, you capsulized Barry's contrasts and contradictions.

[cal Lash]

Sherman Alexie might have an interesting opinion.

[Diane D'Angelo]

"Goldwater's career is full of such unsettling questions, however much 'Zonies want to love him, liberals want to use him as a cudgel against today's right-wing loonies and he has been cast in bronze as a 'principled conservative.'" -- Thank you! And if I see one more liberal posting a pic of St. Ronald of Reagan attached to an out-of context quote, I'm gonna hurl.

[eclecticdog]

Goldwater's three most damning things, in my opinion, were his opposition to civil rights, letting Glen Canyon Dam destroy Glen Canyon, and the Central Arizona Project (a socialist ponzi scheme for the REIT funded by us taxpayers).

The Herblock cartoon is very topical even today. The best way to make money is to of course inherit it and at least have a modicum of brains to grow it (look at the Kochs, Waltons, and even that moron Trump).

cal, Bill Moyers has a great interview with Alexie on his website. Give it a watch:

http://billmoyers.com/segment/sherman-alexie-on-living-outside-borders/

[Emil Pulsifer]

This looks like a great, nuanced remembrance. I'm going to defer additional comment until I have more time to give it the careful read it deserves, but in passing, I can't help but notice that, in this particular photograph, he reminds me just a little of Fidel Castro at a similar age:

http://i.cdn.turner.com/trutv/trutv.com/graphics/conspiracy/gallery/government/dictator-fashion/fidel-castro.jpg

[Petro]

Now that's apophenia, Emil!

Viva la contrarrevolución!

:D

[cal Lash]

Apophenia
what do Fidel Castro and Sonny Barger have that Barry Goldwater didnt

[headless lucy]

... a 4" penis?

[eclecticdog]

Apophenia = the "unmotivated seeing of connections" accompanied by a "specific experience of an abnormal meaningfulness"

I think that sums up the Kooks and Wimps.

headless lucy, how did you know that?

[Petro]

Actually, apophenia is the hallmark of genius.

And madness.

[cal Lash]

4" penis
Maybe (skull)headless lucy has been keeping an eye out.

Actually, apophenia is the hallmark of genius. And madness.

AZ Rebel you think Petro qualifies

[eclecticdog]

Madness indeed!

[eclecticdog]

I had to type this in to get the last post up:

aqueoglacial

I really thought it a real word. Apophenia?

[Ruben Perez]

I thought Apophenia was Michael Corleone's girlfriend when he was hiding out in Italy.

[Petro]

And the Reb demonstrates that not all meaningless connections are unpleasant.

[soleri]

Is it even possible to write a "magisterial biography" about Goldwater? While I understand his importance as a pivotal figure in the Republican Party during its geographic shift away from the east coast to the west and south, what else is there about him that merits someone like Robert Caro to explore his life? The great figures of modern American history actually accomplished things that made a difference in ordinary lives and the national destiny. Goldwater accomplished virtually nothing besides getting elected senator (and just barely at the end, squeaking out a 7,000 vote victory over neophyte William Schulz in 1980).

The sad truth here is that Goldwater's relative importance is only as a forerunner to the inarguable importance of Ronald Reagan. Goldwater was not a giant in the US Senate. He could have delivered a lot of pork to Arizona but did not (because he didn't have to. That's the advantage of being a "legend", particularly a lazy one like Goldwater). He didn't galvanize the white reaction to the civil rights struggle (give credit to George Wallace and Richard Nixon for that "accomplishment"). And he didn't command the attention and respect of the American citizens aside from his self-important pilgrimage to the White House to tell Nixon it was over. Nixon knew it was over. He didn't need Goldwater or Rhodes to tell him that.

The last 20-some years of Goldwater's public life were spent in a kind of reaction against the people and ideas he helped unleash. This is probably the only reason we really respect him. Finally a "conservative" who got how awful modern conservatism really is! But by that point, his usefulness as a counterweight to right-wing triumphalism was essentially too little, too late. History had passed him by not because he was a prophet born too soon but because he was more a harrumphing curmudgeon than a real leader.

[Emil Pulsifer]

Easily the best summing up of Goldwater I've seen. Bravo. Some insightful contributions by Soleri also (very finely expressed, as usual). And I second Diane D'Angelo's sentiments.

[Emil Pulsifer]

Great word, Petro, and very useful too. A pleasure to have to look it up. I must remember it.

The definition makes for an interesting philosophical discussion. Here, I'm going to go with A.J. Ayer's definition of philosophy as a tool for analyzing language and thus the ideas the language is supposed to express.

Apophenia: "The experience of seeing meaningful patterns or connections in random or meaningless data."

All patterns and connections are imposed by the observer. Meaning is also conferred by the observer. So, we're left with the concept of "random or meaningless data".

The word "random" opens up a whole separate can of worms -- whole books have been written trying to define it or trying to demonstrate that it can't be well defined -- so let's stick with "meaningless".

What determines whether data is meaningless? The observer. Since no observer simultaneously claims that data is meaningful and meaningless, what we're really talking about are two or more different observers, or putative observers, disagreeing about whether some particular data is meaningful or meaningless.

What objective agency resolves the disagreement? We only have recourse to other putative observers (whether actual or illusory). So, the resolution of such questions (insofar as it is accepted by any particular observer) can only be determined by one of three things: (1) his own personal perceptions; (2) popular consensus (also known as truth-by-voting); or (3) "expert" opinion.

Since each observer must decide whether either consensus or expert opinion are valid and compelling methods of resolving the truth, we're really back to the fact that each observer must individually determine the meaningfulness or meaninglessness of some particular data.

Let's also note that not all putative observers are real observers. Dream figures disagreeing with me have no actual perceptions and are not legitimate sources of contrasting opinion. As a solipsist I also believe that the world itself is a creation of mind, and therefore that the particular meanings which appear for the observer are in fact created by the observer as well as perceived by him.

[Petro]

I'm tellin' ya Emil, we make a fine pair.

Your thesis is that the self is the only reality, while I hold close that the self is a fiction.

If we can each refrain from accusing the other from being delusional, some useful ground could be covered. (As long, I suppose, as we can both admit that our positions are - unavoidably - provisional, yes?)

But "apophenia," yes - to flesh out my quip about genius and madness... I agree that it is difficult to objectively define what is truly random or meaningless, but we are imprinted very early in life with a structure that defines what the bounds of "sensible" associations are. Some of that, I'm sure, is biologically imposed by our evolutionary past, but a I suspect great deal of it (like the Jungian archetypes) is socially imposed even during our pre-verbal years (before thought itself begins to articulate.)

A person who cracks that "cosmic egg" of subjective sensibility is in great danger of a psychotic break, but if by chance or skill is able to measure the crazy that emerges from that abyss against the acceptable structure, to bust out of the structure and still hold on enough to communicate within it, well, that's where the genius of creativity is born.

[Petro]

*Sorry - self is the only verifiable reality. Which is even more interesting when I flat out call this "solely" verifiable thing a fiction. :)

[cal Lash]

ABSURD ?

[Pat]

The adage that you're known by the company you keep is very selectively applied. I don't know whether Goldwater was just a mob groupie, or whether he and Bob were in deep, but Arizonan's acceptance of those associations, and the Arizona Republic's reluctance to harp on it might have led to the environment in which Arizona now finds itself, one in which the Attorney General can't even trade in the stock market, and the most powerful political players are constantly caught up in laughably bizaare scandals, but still get re-elected, and continue to rise to even higher elected positions.

[cal Lash]

Well Pat U R on to something here. And I been around long enough to know Jon could write a book of fact on your suspicions. Probably the most "honest" AG this state ever had, had a deal.Only after that AG left did legalized gambling of any kind come to Arizona.
At least in Hudson county the crooks are more colorful and the food is better.

[Emil Pulsifer]

Petro, if the self is a fiction, whose fiction is it?

Regarding genius and madness, the closer I look at the world, the more it seems like a form of madness: a tangle of threads that don't really connect, posing as a skein that must be unraveled, but which cannot be untied because it was never a real knot to begin with; that the tangle itself provides the illusion of continuity and coherence, and serious attempts to unravel it merely disintegrate it, reducing it to its elements and to the power which "unifies" them.

Consider something as simple and generic as "two things which meet at a border". Of what does the "border" consist? If there is anything separating the two things, then by definition they do not "meet"; but if there is nothing between them then they coincide and cannot be "two things".

This problem, expressed above in spatial terms, can also be expressed in temporal terms: How can X "become" something else (not-X)?

Can an idea "become" a different idea? If not, how can a thing (a manifestation or expression of an idea) "become" a different thing? But if you reject this philosophical formulation, consider the problem in starkly logical terms.

Before the transformation, you have X. After the transformation, you have not-X. The "transformation" serves the same function here as the border did in the previous example: it is a kind of temporal "border".

Of what does the transformation consist, logically speaking? That is, what exists during the transformation itself? (We've already said that X exists before and not-X exists after.)

Either X exists or it doesn't (not-X) but there is no third option. You can have X, or you can have not-X, but you can't have both at the same time, and you can't have neither.

So, your choice of what exists at the point of transformation is either X or not-X; but since the transformation is supposed to be a bridge process taking X into not-X it's clear that there is nothing from which to construct such a bridge. There can be no logical act of X "becoming" not-X because there is no logical entity to support a process or state of "becoming".

Here's another simple question that gets to the fundamentals: How long is "now"? If "now" has any length at all it can be subdivided into parts, some of which are earlier, and some later, than the middle part; but a period containing past, present, and future together isn't what the word "now" means. Now means "the present". On the other hand, if "now" has no length then it does not exist at all.

Everywhere I look in the foundations of mathematics and science, I see contradictory premises, nothings posing as something, and infinite regresses that can lead nowhere.

I also see attempts at "rigor" which are doomed because all definitions are circular and ultimately depend on primitive (undefined) terms. Every dictionary is finite, hence every word must point to another word.

Every formal argument is finite (if it weren't the conclusion could never be reached), which means that the premises are necessarily unproven. If you create a new argument to prove those premises, that new argument itself contains unproven premises. There is no logical escape from this. And it's important to remember that the conclusions of formal proofs (or other arguments) follow only from the premises; if you use false (or contradictory) premises, you can derive all kinds of false conclusions.

The meaning of primitive terms can only be assigned by an observer through an associative process, and truth can only be known by direct apprehension. None of which is to say that logic isn't a useful tool, but it helps to apply logic to itself to understand the limitations of formal proofs.

[Emil Pulsifer]

A clarification for Petro: I define solipsism (my own variety) to refer to a condition in which: (a) the universe (my universe) is the creation of my mind, or at least the manifestation of my mental resources (which is not to say that it is by design, desirable, or free from corruption -- quite the contrary); and (b) I am the only sentient being in that universe.

Theoretically, one could be a solipsist in this sense while believing in (or in the theoretical possibility of) other minds; it's just that they would have to exist in their own universes. One might even postulate communication of a sort between universes, facilitated by a non-sentient intermediary. An example of this would be a computer simulation in which each individual's world exists only in their head and any attempts at communication are passed on (or not passed on), with or without alteration or corruption, by the computer(s) running the simulation. Of course, a computer capable of recreating simulated expressions of real persons would be capable of creating simulated expressions of non-existent persons (in fact, it might be less work and easier to synchronize), resulting in some degree of (or complete) isolation of each individual.

I'm absolutely convinced, on excellent evidence accumulated over decades, that this is a fake world. The computer simulation idea is the best "conventional" (i.e., scientific or quasi-scientific) hypothesis consistent with that fact (and with many of the details observed); but for various reasons I have essentially abandoned that hypothesis in favor of a metaphysical one.

[Emil Pulsifer]

A follow-up comment to Petro was eaten by the spam trap and awaits Mr. Talton's convenience to be resurrected.

[Emil Pulsifer]

P.S. It now appears above. (Fast work!)

[Petro]

Emil,

Short answer: There is no "who." Why would I grant an identity to any entity. if I deny it for my (ahem) self? :)

In observing the movement of thought, it appears that there a number of "selves" - or centers from which observation is made. To observe an aspect of my consciousness, I detach from it in order to objectify it, creating a new center, and in the effort to see this new "me," I spawn another, etc. - the result being the realization that my identity-of-the-moment (that thing that we reflexively imagine being a point about an inch or so behind our eyes), is a bit of a phantom.

This shifting of the center is apparent in involuntary form, when we find ourselves taken over by a mood or an emotion - where the transformation of who "I" am is apparent even to the people around me. I, of course, cobble together a semblance of a coherent identity through a stubborn and willful effort to have these different parts remain aware of each other and allow them to negotiate for their time in "the cockpit," or to operate in with a sort of parliamentary consensus. (Some forms of mental illness - popularly misconstrued as "schizophrenia" - display the symptoms of when this healthy self-awareness is not achieved.)

It is my feeling that we are fundamentally aware of the fiction of the self, and it is this that explains the fundamental insecurity from which we cannot escape. Indeed, it is when this knowledge comes to the fore of consciousness that we are driven to "protest too loudly" and behave in the most defensive and egocentric behavior (the disciplines that Eastern philosophies cultivate are designed to obviate such reactionary behavior as the true nature of "selfhood" is mined.)

It is not apophenic to point out (haha,) that this concept of the structure of the self, which is really the study of the movement of thought, is directly related to the questions regarding boundaries and transformation you have brought up.

You are correct in stating that the boundary is an illusion, and that transformation does not result in anything new (if I am understanding you correctly.) "X" and "not-X" are not distinct at all, except in the most superficial sense - one comes from the other. All duality is illusion, but that is a threatening revelation for thought to apprehend, since duality is the very thing that thought rests upon in the most fundamental, existential sense.

In order for the first thought to begin, the first mark - the first division - must be created, literally out of nothing. That first division is "I" and "not-I". Only when this is done does thought begin its movement.

That is why I have always found Descartes' "proof" of self - Cogito ergo sum - to be nothing more than a tautology.

Of course, none of this de-mystifies the astonishing fact that I am here, observing, in the world, for this brief moment, this slice - where it appears that I was not for eternity past, and where I will not be for eternity ahead. This continues to stun me, and that is all the religion I need.

[Petro]

I see that you have commented further while I was working this up - I wish to submit for your approval the observation that the structure of reality that you have postulated is necessarily more complex in order to accommodate your solipsistic premise, and so I claim advantage under the strictures of Occam's Razor. :)

[Petro]

(Tip o' the hat to Jon for tolerating this crazy shit in his Goldwater thread. And my apologies to everyone else.)

[Petro]

One thing I'd like to add is that in our struggle to understand the "nature of reality," we are constrained in that all of our endeavor only results in the metaphor of reality that we construct inside our minds, using thought. It may be an elegant and sophisticated metaphor (look what Einstein has pulled off!), but it is still necessarily a subset of what it "really" is. We are "of" reality, and it will never be the other way around (no matter what the philosophers who posit the primacy of consciousness like to, um, think. As in "all is consciousness," etc.)

If looked at from the angle that thought itself has its root in fragmentation - the creation of the first division - the notion of understanding totality becomes even more absurd. Reality can only be beheld, not contained.

[cal Lash]

Azrebel now u know

[cal Lash]

apophenic
Jon, Since we are on Barry, how about the Biltmore Circle, in 1966. I was the paper boy for this private road just on the edge of the Biltmore Hotel and the Wrigley Mansion. My customers for the Arizona Republic were Jay Rockfeller, Bob Goldwater, (Front room curtain was always open and a clear view was available of a large assortment of bottles), Mrs Cudahy, Robert Gosnell Sr., and The Singers, Nancy Reagans parents among others.

[Emil Pulsifer]

Petro, you use the words "I" and "my" as well as first person verb conjugations so many times in your paragraphs denying the self: how can the irony escape you?

The ability to respond to changing conditions with changed moods does not demonstrate the nonexistence of the self; to assert that the ability to feel different emotions is evidence of multiple selves (or no self at all, as you seem to claim), merely demonstrates only that your definition of "self" is insufficiently robust. It's a strawman argument. And anyway, who is feeling these various moods if not the self? How can you talk about "healthy self awareness" if there is no self? These kinds of claims suggest to me that I am conversing with a "machine intelligence" (or something akin to one) that has no understanding of consciousness because it doesn't have any.

Also, the ability to imagine things (including other personalities) or to concentrate on some aspect of one's own psychology, isn't what you claim either. You write "I" detach, "I" objectify, "I" create a "new center" (except that you do not, insofar as it is "I" that beholds and contemplates this supposed "new center" not the new center itself).

You fail the Turing test.

[Ruben Perez]

If there is no self, how come stores and gas stations have self serve?

[Petro]

No irony - language and thought are also dependent upon the first distinction, and so operate solely within the fiction of a self. Of course it speaks - I speak - from that fictional center as well. It cannot be any other way, unless I were moved to use the somewhat pretentious "royal we."

That's why it's hard to talk (think) about. It was literally twenty years after I intellectually understood this (thanks to the writings/lectures of Krishnamurti,) before I awoke to it as a palpable, experienced truth. So I understand, believe me.

I wasn't expecting to convert you to a new way of thinking about it here, I only wanted to offer it up for consideration - a little intellectual candy, as it were.

[Ted Rushton]

Somehow James Stewart, a year older than Goldwater, was not "too old" to be a combat pilot.

Also, give Goldwater credit as one of the architects of Arizona's 'Right-to-Work-for-Less' law, which forever condemned the state to its low-wage status. It also kept him from having to re-hire returning veterans who had worked in his store prior to the war.

[dave]

paradise valley, the home of the statue of barry goldwater follows his traditions faithfully. there is shrubbery and landscaping at the 'shrine' and the paradise valley township had a serious discussion on whether to include a drinking fountain in that mini-park.

the inclusion of a watering system would have made the drinking fountain trivial. the discussion centered around whether people might linger or the 'wrong' folks might arrive and quench their thirst...

on one side was the camelback inn and the other the paradise valley country club--neither 'jew' friendly...more so now--but traditionally 'exclusive'...

[Robert H. Bohannan]

Jon's original post is well-written and an even-handed summation of Goldwater's life, as well. The drivel that follows--not so much. At least there was one adult in the room!

[Allan Starr]

During his campaign for President, I was hired to photograph him. As I approached him by the pool of his home, I was suddenly surrounded by U. S. Secret Service agents. He looked up, and seeing my situation, shouted out, "Allan - get your ass over here (where I am)!"
The Secret Service agents quickly backed away and let me pass - even not inspecting the contents of my shoulder bag. . . . Typical B.M.G.!

[John Thompson]

During the Vietnam war he installed a Ham radio set up in his guest house. The antennas were erected between his house and Lincoln Dr. and were multiple stories tall. He cut a deal with AT@T and was able to patch phone calls to the service members in Vietnam. Parents were able to come up to his house and talk to their sons and daughters. He had that Ham station manned twenty four hours a day seven days a week.

[John Keller]

To add to the naming of Phoenix buildings after Barry Goldwater I remind you of Barry Goldwater High School in north Phoenix. My kids graduated from there in the early 1990s. He came to their graduation for a short talk. At did this most every year.