Poems by Hepner

JONATHAN HAIDT-INSPIRED POEMS

Gershon Hepner

gwhepner@yahoo.com

NINETY PERCENT HUMAN, TEN PERCENT BEES

If humans should incorporate

ninety percent chimp and ten percent bee,

we ought to find out how they punctuate

their equilibrium in their apiary.

Does power of their interest tend to climb

like interest rates when they are making money,

and does it rise still further over prime

when focusing on frolics with their honey?

.

Could they reduce their conflicts of morality

allowing both the forest and the hive

to determine the precise legality

of conduct that enables them to thrive,

not climbing up a tree since largely chimps,

or stinging those who they believe behave

like chimps, contented to withdraw like wimps,

avoiding dangers that befall the brave.

Altruism is the holy grail

that mankind now must ruthlessly pursue,

for if does not find it, it will fail,

and anthropologists will not know what to do.

This altruism must be based on sym-

biosis between ten percent, the bees,

and ninety, a preponderance more dim,

reflecting humans’ chimpish tendencies

SPINNING REASON

The rationale of reason is to spin,

and not to help us understand or learn.

Reason’s spin will justify a sin

when for it we emotionally yearn,

justifying what we have desired,

and can’t resist for what emotions long,

by reason not as much, in fact, hard-wired,

as by emotions driven to do wrong.

David Hume was right when he declared

that reason is the slave of passion: morals

are based on it, and we become most scared

whenever reason with the passion quarrels.

WHAT SMELLS DISGUSTING TO MAN AND GOD

We may say that in God we trust,

but all of us perceive disgust

by means of sense of smell, our noses

a better guide for us than Moses,

whose laws that tell us to avoid

abominations that annoyed

this great lawgiver and the Lord

are by us largely now ignored.

Few people feel disgusted by

the swine and gays he would decry,

or even hold our noses in

the air to scorn them all as sin.

Ditto for remarriage to

a women with whom you renew

your former vows, or shepherds who

in ancient Egypt were taboo,

and people who enjoy cross-dressing,

and treat a cage aux folles as blessing,

but things that don’t smell good offend

all people, and will make them tend

to feel far greater outrage when

confronted by the sort of men

and women for whom they don’t care

than they would feel in clean, fresh air.

Our feelings in foul air start stinking,

while unbeknownst to us we’re thinking

with both our nostrils, not our brain,

and quite irrationally complain,

by our olfactory lobes inspired,

since our disgust-sense is hard-wired.

Objectively we cannot tell

how much our brains are ruled by smell,

as is the brain of God, whose nose

burns when He’s angry. There’s no hose

with power to extinguish what

is troubling His most sacred snot.

We imitate Him when we trust

His sense of smell with our disgust.

DUE TO IGNORANCE WE SACRALIZE

Due to ignorance we sacralize

the issues that we cannot analyze

systematically or understand,

worshipping them in a wonderland

where through a looking glass we only see

ourselves, transformed by idées fixes, without

perspective or the objectivity

required to see issues with great doubt.

We must make sure that vision is constrained,

not focused on what’s sacred, the profane

should by the pious never be disdained:

desacralizing vision keeps us sane.