Dr. Calvin O. Schrag: A Sharing.

 Dr. Calvin O. Schrag, George Ade Distinguished Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Purdue University, passed away at 95 years of age on March 11, of this year. He was my uncle. His daughter, my cousin, Dr. Heather Stampfl, asked me to prepare a eulogy for his memorial service Friday, April 27th, on the campus where he taught for more than 4 decades. I was honored to do so. My thoughts follow.

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My Uncle Calvin was the youngest of 9 exceptional Schrag siblings born a century or so ago on a sizable farm in southeastern South Dakota close by the present-day towns of Marion and Freeman. My generation called them the 1^stgeneration, and we the 2^nd. Somewhat surprisingly Calvin cherished his place in the birth order of that 1^st generation. 

 

I recall him addressing the birth order issue during some family gathering, maybe during schmekfest, or perhaps during an official Schrag reunion. Despite medical opinion to the contrary, Uncle Calvin claimed complete awareness shortly after being born. He clearly recalled looking up at Grandmother Schrag’s face as she declared, “Finally, the one I have been waiting for!”

 

And it was a special gift for us 2nd generationers. As the youngest of our Uncles and, for many years, unmarried and so free of the obligations of home and family, he often seemed more like a playmate than an Uncle.  

During those years Calvin seemed to rotate between Springfield, Ohio where my family lived, and my father, aka Felix, Jim, Chummy, was a sociology professor at Wittenberg University; and Mundelein, Illinois where another of Calvin’s brothers Delbert, had a church. In those two Schrag households Calvin would serve as guest of honor for Thanksgiving or Christmas. 

 

I remember quite clearly an episode at Thanksgiving – versions of which were apparently played out in the homes of other 2^nd generationers.  The meal was over and Dad and Uncle Kelly – back in those innocent days - would break out their pipes, get a good blaze going in the bowls, refill their coffee cups, and begin to debate whether Sociology or Philosophy was the more relevant discipline. 

 

As the smoke swirled Gandalf-like around them they would mutter mysterious incantations – “existentialism” “ontological”  “cultural imperative” natter, natter, natter. And while I was, for a while enchanted, what I really wanted was for Uncle Calvin to come down and play wiffleball with me in the basement! I know my sister Margaret sent Heather a picture of Uncle Calvin and I playing chess, but wiffleball was really much more my game.

 

“Come on!” I would entreat. “Just let us finish this last cup of coffee.” They would reply. What I failed to realize was that these to two liberal arts scholars had mastered the intricacies of quantum mechanics’ alternate universes – their coffee cups would never be emptied!

 

That playfulness, humor and generosity were themes oft repeated in the stories my fellow 2^nd generationers sent to me.  As Uncle Calvin traveled the world, teaching and studying in Germany, he would return with dolls and other mysterious gifts for his nieces and nephew in Mundelein, Illinois – just a few hours up the road. And like whiffle ball in the basement, he would get down on the floor with them to join in the play.

 

Then, to steal a movie title: Calvin met Ginny. My sister Margaret recalls that he squired her over to Springfield, Ohio to meet us in a convertible!  How cool was that! Eventually they gifted us all with his greatest present, our dear little cousin Heather 

As Calvin’s primary focus expanded to include house and home, our relationship with him inevitably changed - different but still wonderful.  I remember an earlier but significant transitional moment – on my 13^th birthday he gave me a copy of his book Existence and Freedom. I doubt he seriously expected me to understand it at that point in time, but perhaps he realized that many years down the road his later work “Communicative Praxis and the Space of Subjectivity” would make him a star in my discipline, Communication, and how proud I would be to sit with my brilliant Uncle at our national conventions, sharing a bourbon while the big names in the field would stop and point with envy.

 

 But perhaps more wonderful was the fact that outside the academic spotlight “Herr Professor Schrag” remained the open, honest, funny, and approachable uncle we had always known. My sister Margaret, academic advisor to the student athletes at Northwestern for 40+ years, remembers her playful competition with him when her Wildcats would meet his Purdue Boilermakers on some athletic field. My wife Christine and I made it a point to seek out a favorite gasthaus of his in Heidelberg and raise a glass of weiss wine in his honor. 

 

And we all remember him as the source of “deep background” family history. Stories about our fathers that they often chose not to share. He would regale us with those tales that somehow made “Dakota” even more of a “home place” than it had previously been. Cousin Judy fondly recalls when he took her and her kin on a magical Christmas trip to NYC, and while the youngsters enjoyed Rockefeller Center she savored precious conversation time with Uncle Calvin. 

 

And precious conversation was, I think, a core gift that Uncle Calvin possessed. It did not matter if you were an academic press editor, a Ph.D candidate, or his youngest niece or nephew – when he talked with you, you were the entire focus. Yes, he might sigh, close his eyes and lean back for a moment. But when he opened them again, you realized it was because he was thinking about you and your conversation. So wonderful. So very special.

So, were we able to glimpse that higher plane of existence where Uncle Calvin now holds forth, we would no doubt behold the great philosophers of days gone by, Hegel, Kant, even Plato and Aristotle, seeking a word with the new kid on the block. But they would find him chatting with his brothers, and would have to learn, as we did, to wait until they finished one last cup of coffee.

 

 

An Addendum: If That’s All There Is

If that's all there is my friends

Then let's keep dancing.

Let’s break out the booze . . . 

• Peggy Lee, 1969

The question of “Is that all there is?” Is one my best and oldest friend, Dan, and I have been knocking about for decades. From candy-fueled grade school overnights, through 3.2 beer reflections in high school, to twisted fictions in our college dorm room, we would often return to the existential question, “is that all there is?”

Most religions and philosophies posit some sort of existence after this one, or a heightened awareness that transcends the here and now. Heaven, nirvana, enlightenment, olam ha-ba; take your pick.

The question Dan and I struggle with is, “OK, let us assume some sort of higher or different realm exists. What is consciousness like in those realms?” Are we aware of the lives we lived in the many, many, many worlds posited by the extended many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics explored in the previous post?

Ah, ha! I’m glad you asked. And let me say this about that, and make no mistake about it: 

I have no idea.

Doing the Right Thing

This is sort of a sequel to the post Write One True Sentence and shares with that post a significant degree of ambiguity. So I will share with you the advice I would often give my students prior to a rather obtuse lecture: “Don’t worry if, at first, this lecture doesn't seem to make sense. Just keep listening with an open mind and it may eventually become clear.” So, with that proviso, let’s give it a shot.

I read in a recent edition ofThe Art Newspaper, that a a Swiss company was using AI to authenticate the paintings of Old Masters. In this case a previously authenticated 1505 portrait by Albrecht Druer. They train an AI app using hundreds of previously authenticated images and some examples of known forgeries. They would then show the app the image in question, the Druer portrait from 1505. The AI determined the image’s authenticity at about 82% certainty.

Interesting, but somewhat in conflict with a more “quasi-metaphysical” process for authenticating - or at least evaluating - one’s decisions and behavior drawn from an older, and less computer intensive, method for discovering art forgeries.

In this method, no doubt an older version of the AI concept, you take a high resolution black and white digital image of a known, authenticated image. Then you subject the suspected forgery to the same procedure, making sure that the suspect image is exactly the same size and resolution as the authenticated original.

What you now have are two images that are exactly the same size. Next you digitally superimpose the two images. The idea is that even the best forgeries are slightly flawed. They will miss a line here, a spacing there, flaws that are often missed in colored forgeries or forgeries in which tiny errors are missed for lack of size. By superimposing our two matched high resolution black and white images, these flaws are revealed. “Forgery detected! Danger! Will Robinson!” “Danger!” Neat, huh?

Okay, but now I’m going to get a bit - well, more than a bit - weird. So bear with me. The method of "life authentication" I am exploring is a version of what goes under the rubric of “content analysis” in university communication, English and related disciplines.  The first step is to turn one’s personal belief system into something that can be graphically represented. The sort of things we encounter most often in the sciences - graphs that represent elements present in some physical sample, peaks on a screen that show how much iron, or any other element there is the sample. Images that allow us to match finger prints, or DNA. Those are rather precise data points. But my proposed method rests on images of beliefs, attitudes, behavior, values; far more slippery data points.

Harder, but possible. There are lots of related studies out the in communication, psychology, education, etc. But what makes this a bit trickier is those studies, if they are worth their salt at all, are based on large groups of individuals from which generalizable conclusions can be drawn. X number of people favor fossil fuel power, Y favor geothermal, etc.

But that is not really our concern. We want to create a personalized template that represents our own personal beliefs, attitudes, values, behaviors so we can hopefully make a stab at understanding how well we are doing in living up to our own expectations. These are very slippery concepts, asking us to play with questions like  “I believe it is mandatory to always tell the absolute truth, no matter its effect on others.” Or “I believe it is Ok to eat meat.”  Or “Killing somebody is self-defense is not murder,” “I should be free to put whatever I want into my body, no person has the right to interfere.” “I should always assist those in need.” Far more believe-centered, personal belief issues. Very different from elements in a meteorite sample stuff.  Not many sharp lines in these personal templates. ( A bit of a spoiler  -  here: we usually  cling to more than one template and we need to blend them.)

Ok, let’s talk templates. Where do they come from? They are, at least initially learned. First from the home into which we are born. There we learn the basics of language and behavior, and how to use language to elicit the behavior we desire. Do we obtain desired behavior - food, attention, privileges - by following the “rules of the home,” or by acting out until those in power give in? Pretty Pavlovian stuff. But eventually we move out into the wider world and encounter more formal templates. Usually schools with specific rules and expectations. Again pretty Pavlovian: spell the word this way, use this sentence structure, use these words, not those. 

But interestingly it is in these initial interactions with the wider world that we begin to encounter formal templates with cultural, moral, political and ethical implications. I still remember in the 50s, hand over heart, class rising to repeat the pledge of allegiance. No more questionable than long division, and easier to understand. I had a friend who went to Catholic school with even more templates to confront. What, we sometimes wondered, did a third grader need to confess? And did the guy behind the curtain really have a direct line to God who assessed the transgressions of every third grader in the world and assigned specific acts of penitence? We figured no, so I helped him make stuff up.

As we grew older the “one-size-fits-all” cultural templates of belief and behavior were beginning to rub up against the often confusing realities of living life. But life’s templates continue to multiply: home, school, religious affiliation, academic specialty, profession, ethnicity, gay, straight, bi-, vegan, carnivore, athletic team fan identity, republican, democrat, independent, Taylor Swift - pro or con? I know, I know, I have left your favorite identity template out. I apologize, but you get the idea. Templates that are chock full of “thou shalt” and “thou shalt nots;” seemingly black and white but are really so full of grey you could paint a herd of elephants.

Yet we really only have a couple of options here. Option 1, the easiest, inherited from the fable (fable ‘cause they don’t really do this) of the ostrich hiding their head in the sand to avoid anything they don’t want to think about; you become a fundamentalist and choose one template to be the one true template and follow all its demands. Any old template will do. An inerrant religious tome, Bible, Quran, Vedas, Tripitaka, the Mahayana Sutras. The party platform or unique beliefs of some political entity. The writings of some advocate of a particular template; Edgar Cayce, L. Ron  Hubbard, J. K. Rowling - it really doesn’t matter.

For the fundamentalist the important thing is that the texts or the beliefs of the prophet removes doubt and the necessity of personal thought or reflection. Nice work if you can get it, but be careful of the inevitable contradictions.

For myself, and I would guess for many of you, the more difficult task is the merging of the templates. For me it often feels like trying to work a jigsaw puzzle with no picture on the box or the pieces. It is an exercise in position, agreement and fit that really can only be figured out through experiencing life. You have to find, and fit together those pieces of experience that make a pleasing, coherent, justifiable - and, what the hell, - good, truthful, kind, humane, template for you.

Siddhartha went through many varied life experiences before finding enlightenment and becoming the Buddha. Enlightenment, wow, that is probably setting the bar a bit high, but it might not be asking too much for each of us to try for at least a glow in the fog. A glow that flickers a bit, sometimes may hide for a bit behind a deceptive cloud, but gradually comes into view again, a bit brighter, a tad more constant.

And how do we begin to build that more constant template, that more illuminative flame? Ah, patience, grasshopper! Or as Heinlein put it in his 1961 sci-fi novel, Stranger in a Strange Land, “Waiting is.” But to expand upon that a bit, it is not just a question of passive listening, it is listening and paying attention, listening and looking for patterns that point the way to a worthy life. I’m going to cheat a bit here since I have been trying to follow my own advice for a couple of decades now, sometimes successfully, sometimes with astounding failure - painful to myself and others.

 

But let me share a couple of “templates” that I have tried to blend.  Teaching media for 40 years it should not surprise you to learn that I draw some of these template from narratives drawn from the media. Now, lower that disdainful upper lip for a bit. It is true that for decades the “cultural influencers” of their day were deign to admit the narratives carried by flickering light into whatever canon they chose to adhere to. When growing up, we kept the TV in the basement. But why do you think the chorus in Greek tragedies would flutter their arms to presage the coming of a storm, and perhaps the arrival of the gods? Because they didn’t have classic stage lights to hide behind the proscenium for crying out loud.

Stage writers from Euripides, to Shakespeare, to Jane Cavendish brought significant narrative templates to our attention via media other than the printed page or the various pulpits of the sage in current vogue. So let us be open to some TV templates. Back in 1981 I wrote an article with two of my graduate students (in the Western Journal of Speed Communication with Lawrence Bernabo and Richard Hudson) titled Televisions New Humane  Collectivity. In that piece we asserted that:

“Analysis of the manifest content of Taxi, Barney Miller, Lou Grant, and M*A*S*H reveals three predominant fantasy themes: the realization of significant others, the alliance in action, and membership into personhood. From these three themes emerges a rhetorical vision, the new humane collectivity, which focuses on a meaningful and rewarding existence based on humane, sympathetic awareness of and concern for the group, the individuals who comprise the group, and the society which surrounds it.”

Or in real people-speak, “we should treat individuals kindly, and carry that sympathetic and kindly attitude into our behavior with all groups of people - friends, family, check-out clerks, wait staff, - etc. So that became one template by which I tried to live.

Eventually, over a number of decades, I continually tried to refine that into a cleaner, clearer set of guiding principles with which I could find my way in an increasingly adult life. The result was what I have come to call Distilled Harmony.

As I have written before it is comprised of four hierarchical tenets:

First tenet: Foster Harmony

Second tenet: Enable Beauty

Third tenet: Distill Complexity

Fourth tenet: Oppose Harm.

More recently I have come to the realization that the hierarchy is more flexible than I had previously imagined. One can envision the Distilled Harmony hierarchy as a simple pie chart like this:

[Please excuse these clumsey freehand drawings, which I cannot rotate 😟]:

But that would be wrong. A more realistic image would better resemble a round slightly under-inflated ballon that morphs shape as you squeeze it. Sort of like this:

You see, the various tenets shift situationally as we move through life. The was a picture of the path of the recent solar eclipse that might make this clearer. Let me see if I can find it.

There we go, I think. Hope it will paste to The Wall. Anyhow, as you look at the path of the eclipse, think about this: A person observing the eclipse in any one of those circles will see a different version of reality. It is the same underlying solar event, but a different perceptual reality.

Life is much the same. In the sketches above the small circle in the middle is us. But as we move along the path of our lives the dominance of the tenets shift. They will rarely shift dominance, but sometimes may. For example if we walk into a voting booth and know one candidate has a criminal record or manifests crude behavior toward women, then Opposing Harm may partner with Foster Harmony to influence our choice. Or if we find ourselves in the midst of a gorgeous fall forest, or awesome sunset, Enable Beauty may send us scurrying for our sketchpad or camera.

Different specific situations like that affect to some degree the semi-flexible tenets of Distilled Harmony, but each informs the "me" at the center and our search for a constant, somehow balanced, understanding and manifestation of the self.

And now an unavoidable, but related footnote, which I may explore further in a subsequent Wall called "I Love It When the Data Support My Biases."

On April 7th, the online version of New Scientist published an article with the following lead [and a very cool image That I will try to share]:

"The multiverse could be much, much bigger than we ever imagined

The multiverse could be infinitely bigger than we ever imagined, according to a new interpretation of quantum mechanics that describes realms upon realms of parallel universes created with every decision we make."

This is a modest extension of the normal definition of the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics which Britannica defines thus:

"Basically, many-worlds proposes the idea that the quantum system doesn't actually decide. Rather, that at every junction where large everyday stuff interacts with the quantum system, the timeline of history splits and both possibilities happen on different alternate branches."

The important difference lies in this phrase: "at every junction where large everyday stuff interacts with the quantum system, the timeline of history splits."

The difference in the New Scientist" story is that it isn't just large everyday stuff that splits the timeline of history, it is every decision that we make. While exploring a new city you turn left at an intersection instead of right. BAM - the timeline of history shifts and two worlds spiral off, in one - the one we are "conscious of - you follow the left hand world, in another more hidden world's version of reality, another you explores the right.

I love this many, many, many, many worlds reading of quantum mechanics for a couple of reasons. First, in it real live theoretical physicists voice an existential view I [with zero background in physics] have held for a long time.

Two, and most important it - in some way - forgives me for all the questionable decisions I have made in my life. For example:

• When I chose to go to graduate school in Michigan and become a university professor, another me went to California to become a professional actor.
• When I decided to marry one high school sweetheart, another me married the other high school sweetheart I had dated the previous night.
• When I decided to get my degree in communication, another me apprenticed with a practicing artist and became painter/sculptor.

It is not that I regret the choices that I have made in my conscious reality, it is that I often wondered about what my life would have been like had I chosen another path. This new reading of quantum mechanics says I did both.

And here is an interesting extension. Even if choices I made in my conscious reality did harm to others, in other sides of the split in history's timeline, I made the right choice, and am - in one view of existence - forgiven. 

Two Short Walls and a Patio

 Well, that may be a bit deceptive. I call them Short walls, because I have been working on a Long Wall, exploring the unexpected existential tension between the first tenet of Distilled Harmony: Foster Harmony and the fourth tenet, Oppose Harm, that is threatening to become a book. 

Anyhow both these short walls got their starts in the Wayback machine. They are “short” in that they could both be summarized with “been there, done that.” But that would hardly be fair, so I’ll, naturally, give you the long version of each.

Short Wall #1 - or Pills, Pills everywhere.

This Wall got its start not too long after Christine and I were married in December of 2006. I had been bothered by back pain for awhile and been seeing a chiropractor - which wasn’t doing much good. Christine suggested that I see a real doctor.

My doctor of many years had recently retired so I went off to see the doc who had taken over his practice - a fresh-faced young lad who looked like Doogie Houser’s younger brother. He ran some tests, correctly diagnosed multiple myeloma, and, less correctly, said “get your affairs in order, you’ve got about six months.” He was very sorry, actually wept a bit.

I’m not sure which particular flight of angels brought us to Dr. W’s door for a second opinion, but obviously the outcome was far preferable to Doogie’s initial assessment. But there was a fly hidden in the otherwise delightful ointment. As some of you may know one of MM’s presenting symptoms is pain, rather significant back pain. 

We had to fight with Blue Cross, Blue Shield before they would approve a kytoplasty to repair the damage that MM had done to my back - the chemo had killed off a swathe of small tumors, leaving me with a kind of Swiss cheese bone structure at the site. The Blues were apparently stuck on the preconceived notion that kytoplasty was a treatment for women with osteoporosis. While they vacillated my back pain continued to get worse. That was went the fly crept into the ointment: OxyContin.

Now remember this was almost 20 years ago and the world was rather unaware of the addictive potential of this amazingly effective analgesic. So you really shouldn’t be all that surprised to learn that I blithely, and regularly ingested various amounts of the opioid over the next 20 years - until about seven weeks ago.

For probably the last decade a number of my doctors suggested that I get off the opioid. I really saw no reason to. In my mind it simply maintained normalcy. Yeah, I could tell when I missed a dose, just felt a bit off, but it was never more than a few hours until the next pill, so no big deal, right?

But it was becoming inconvenient. After retiring, spontaneous travel became a more common opportunity, and it was just an additional hassle to figure out how to maintain contact with my oxy. So when I, much to the delight of Christine, suggested to my current doc that I was ready to follow his advice to taper off, he was delighted to set up a plan. Five week gradual taper. Finished a couple of weeks ago. Not much of a hassle, but again a fly lurked in the ointment.

Think about it. For 20 years I constantly had this “feel good” drug circulating around inside. Not surprisingly, when you remove that from a 75-year old dude some things it had been masking pop up and say hello. For me; diabetes, neuropathy, insomnia, and a strange desire to root for Carolina - just kidding about that last one, Go Wolfpack! 

But, as irksome as those maladies are, they are all far more manageable than trying to schedule drug mules to follow me to Europe. So I’ll keep on keeping on.

Short Wall #2 - or Hermit Crabs do it Better.

It is easy to pinpoint this one as it started as darkly as it gets. On June 12 of last year, or maybe the tenth or the 11th, which would be closer to the date when our dear friend Smitty sustained the injuries in a fall which led to his death. 

Our unique short wall began with the provision in his will that Christine and I were granted lifetime occupancy to the home we had shared with him during our numerous and lengthy visits.

The obvious good news on this wall is that we had a sweet residence in a lovely neighborhood close to the family Christine had been missing during our lengthy stay in Raleigh. The dark part of the wall grew at the other end of the event - moving our worldly possessions up from the South to a state only once removed from Canada. 

The move is a continuing disaster as we discover more cracks, chips and breaks of outrageous misfortune, resulting from our movers seeming inability to read things like “fragile”and “Do Not Stack” and the related ability to completely overlook entire cabinets of dishes. (Tangential good news - the lifetime occupancy clause means we will never have to move again!)

For reasons mysterious to all concerned, the North Carolina house sat idle for nine months, leaving us racking up almost 20k in expenses for a vacant home, and much more than that in stress and anxiety. 

We finally left the chaos of the move at this end and made a run back down to Raleigh to see a 90+ dear artist friend - ended up sleeping in his studio - and to interview realtors to get the house moving. Hooked up with the realtor who sold Christine’s sister’s house when they moved to Wisconsin.

She and Dave, her “ace handyman” swiftly put the house in order for an open house the first week in March. It sold at the open house for 20K above asking! And the check is in the bank! 

New car to replace our ancient Yaris and a European Christmas River Cruise currently top our wish list!

The Patio.

I have no idea why I call this event a patio. Maybe because you sit out on your patio to look around. But, more likely I just liked the way it completed the metaphor. 

Anyhow, Christine had eyelid surgery a couple of days ago. My sister Margaret tells me it is a rather common procedure that some of her friends have had done. What happens is the eyelids droop down and begin to obscure vision. So the surgery is kind of an eyelid lift.

Christine is doing fine, but the post op is quite uncomfortable requiring many drops, ointments, ice water gauze patches etc., etc. Let me simply say that my admiration for the healthcare workers on the end of the “nurse call” button has skyrocketed - since I am now that guy!