Penny Lane

Penny Lane

My young grandsons and I dance around the living room singing a Beatles standard, “Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes….” We are having a jolly time. The three-year-old suddenly stops and asks, “What does it mean, Penny Lane is in my ears and eyes?”

The melody of the song sweeps us away as I ponder his question. To Paul McCartney, composer of the song, it refers to the sights and sounds of an actual street in his hometown of Liverpool. McCartney used the experiences of his life to flavor his lyrics. Experiences and memories from childhood flavor our lives too.

Gary Marcus, in his 2004 book The Birth of the Mind, writes that newborn brains are not a “blank slate” waiting to be filled: “The initial organization of the brain does not rely on experience… Nature provides a first draft which experience then revises… Built-in does not mean unmalleable; it means organized in advance of experience.” In other words, we are born with innate understandings which are shaped by our experiences. Our brains are prewired to be rewired.

Cognitive scientists suggest that every human possesses innate moral foundations (loyalty/betrayal, liberty/oppression, harm/care, fairness/inequity, authority/subversion, purity/degradation) which are active from birth. Just ask any two-year-old about the fairness of his sibling having two cookies while he only has one. These innate foundations are revised by experience. 

Here’s a very simplified example. Lonnie, age three, is jumping on the couch and knocks over her mother’s favorite vase. Lonnie knows that jumping on the couch is forbidden. Her mother puts her in time-out. Lonnie pouts, (“It was an accident!”) After a few minutes, her mother explains the rule again and Lonnie skips off to play.

Lonnie learns that she must accept the consequences for her actions. She also learns that breaking rules does not cause her mother to dislike her and that Mom wants to keep her (and the house) safe. What if Mom had shouted at Lonnie or struck her? What if she had shut her in her room and ignored her for hours? What would Lonnie learn then? Experience shapes understanding. 

Back to Penny Lane. I explained to my grandson that the song is about the memories we keep as we grow. We remember images and sounds so that we can learn from them. I asked him what was in his eyes and ears. He listed riding on the train, playing in the sand, dancing with his brother and singing with his parents. His ears and eyes hold happy memories. 

What images are in your children’s ears and eyes? How are you helping them to revise the “first draft” of their moral mind? Adults direct children’s moral impulses by the experiences of living they provide. Are you providing happy memories, good experiences, and thoughtful conversations? 

Children’s eyes are bright and their ears are sharp. Fill them carefully.

Imbeciles

Imbeciles

This article was written by a defective. Don’t be shocked. I am in good company. According to some, Albert Einstein, Helen Keller, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Joseph Pulitzer, were “unfit [threatening] to bring down not only the nation but the whole human race.” These people, and millions more, were targeted by American eugenicists as undesirable and unnecessary.

Adam Cohen, in his best-selling book, Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck, details the history of modern eugenics — the science of improving the human population by selective breeding. The eugenics movement in the United States, which hit its stride in the early 20th century, proposed limiting or eliminating those people and races which the movement deemed had “inordinately high levels of physical and mental hereditary defects that were degrading to America’s gene pool.” These groups included eastern and southern Europeans, epileptics, alcoholics, the mentally ill, the physically- or intellectually-handicapped, and the poor.

The eugenics movement was supported by some pretty powerful people: John D. Rockefeller, one of the world’s wealthiest, men funded it; Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, chaired the Board of Scientific Directors of the Eugenics Record Office; and Theodore Roosevelt, the president of the United States, insisted in a national magazine that “the unfit must be forbidden to leave offspring behind them.” The sterilization of the “unfit” was a major goal of the movement.

During this period of history, various states passed laws which prohibited people deemed to be “hereditarily unworthy” from marrying or reproducing. Proponents wanted every American to be “eugenically investigated,” that is, evaluated for defects which indicated that they should be sterilized. Under these laws, 60 to 70 thousand people were sterilized. 

The Immigration Act of 1924, a federal law, severely limited immigration from southern and eastern European nations. The leaders of the eugenics movement claimed that Jews (such as Albert Einstein), blacks (Martin Luther King, Jr.) the physically-handicapped (Helen Keller), eastern (Joseph Pulitzer) and southern Europeans (my heritage) should be denied entry. In 1941, Otto Frank pleaded with U.S. government officials for visas for his wife and daughters, Margot and Anne. He was denied.

Especially targeted were the “feeble-minded.” Many young women thought promiscuous or progressive were judged a “moral or demographic” threat. Cohen details one famous case, that of unwed mother Carrie Buck who was labeled “mentally-deficient,” as were her mother and her infant daughter, even though no reliable intelligence tests existed. Advocates for Buck took the case all the way to the Supreme Court. In 1927, Chief Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes read the deciding opinion, that “three generations of imbeciles are enough.” Buck was involuntarily sterilized. Nazis on trial for war crimes used this case as a justification for their “final solution.” 

Who decides who is necessary and who is not? Those who have power use it against those who don’t. We are appalled when we read of modern-day genocides abroad and believe that the U.S. is immune to such evils. Our memories are short. As late as 1958, inmates in Virginia were sterilized as degenerates. The last forced sterilization took place in Oregon in 1983. 

Who do we marginalize today? Who do we deem “unfit” to be Americans? Could the atrocities of the past return? In the last century, thousands were denied entry to the U.S. and thousands were sterilized because of unfounded theories. Do we now analyze the purposes of those in power and seek verification for theories (or rumors)?

Our society is made richer by diversity. When we marginalize or judge others to maintain power, we weaken our nation. Be aware. Seek the truth. Einstein, Keller, King, and my ancestors made this nation a better place. 

Only imbeciles judge others before judging themselves.