Part # 3 (conclusion) Story of a Dysfunctional Family Analysis of a personal disaster The method of reasoning employed here is called abduction. Obviously in a philosophical context the word does not mean the same thing as it does in a court of law or in news stories about missing persons. The concept was first identified by Charles Saunders Peirce in the late 19th century. Peirce (pronounced "purse") is generally credited as the father of pragmatism, the formal philosophy, not the figure of speech. How abduction works is that you start with available real world evidence and devise one or more scenarios that have a decent possibility for explaining a mystery of some kind, or maybe resolving a serious question for which there is no obvious good answer. Abduction is best known these days from TV crime shows like CSI. The idea is that, in he process of creating a scenario of how a crime might have been committed, new avenues of investigation are opened up that should lead to discovery of new empirical evidence. With new evidence it becomes possible to revise early scenarios and create new scenarios that better explain things. Finally the mystery vanishes when a scenario does a really good job of explaining an event that calls for explanation. A crime is solved, as on CSI. This was how I was able to piece together what happened in early July of 2015. Keep in mind the fact that had he asked me I would have helped Robert empty the locker. I had helped him load up the locker in the first place and would have been motivated to help him remove the contents and return them to the house by a desire to keep my books and record collection intact. Here is what seems to have happened, indeed, it is highly unlikely that any other scenario would make any sense: Here is what I presume he was thinking- Robert was seething at the unfairness of it all. Why was he alone being compelled to do all the work of emptying the locker? And Billy had 'betrayed' mother and was not helping her at the house. He had walked out on her. Worse, in all likelihood he would make out like a bandit with mother's will, at least to the tune of getting an equal share of the estate. Meanwhile Robert could not look forward to getting his fair share, yet he had done -by far, no comparison- most of the work necessary to maintain mother's health and lifestyle. Billy was always mother's favorite. He had all the freedom in the world to do what he wanted even if he was perennially short on money. Why must Robert make all the serious sacrifices? Well, it was time to get even with Billy....... And so, Robert took box after box of books and threw them out, and then he took several boxes of LPs and a cabinet filled with LPs and threw all of the records out as well -except for one box as a sort of cover, to be able to say "these are all the records you ever had." Later, when Robert realized that his plan was defective and that he had gone too far, he determined on a plan to get himself off the hook. He would -O, so clever was he- start a propaganda campaign to convince Billy that he never had more than half the books in storage he actually had, and about one tenth of the LPs in his collection. He did that by repeatedly saying that "you didn't have all that much stuff." This did not convince Billy, of course, and merely raised questions. As for the art, "so Billy is an artist, is he? He can pay for my discomfort by losing all of the art he ever did for mother. And he had the privilege of tutoring Grace in drawing. We will see about that." Out went all the art Billy had ever done for mother, and out went all the art associated with Grace -as punishment for Billy not helping Robert in his hour of need. All the art was destroyed. This is the most plausible explanation for what happened. Things would never have gotten that far except that by late June or early July of 2015 Robert was an emotional wreck, the result of endless kowtowing to mother's ceaseless demands while, at the same time, always going to work at a physically demanding job, and needing rest. But why didn't Robert stand up to his slave master and say, "you are going too far, I will not continue to obey your irrational orders?" Who had forced Robert to move all the locker contents back to the house? Who was constantly forcing Robert to cater to her every whim? Who was berating him for every small infraction, constantly insulting him and increasing her demands with each passing month? It certainly wasn't me. But I would serve nicely as a scapegoat because, of course, Robert was in love with his mother and any actual rebellion against her was out of the question. He could not blame her, the love of his life, after all. Not that there weren't a number of times in the past when things were horribly bad for Robert. But the most that he could ever bring himself to do was to "run away from home" and sleep in his car for 2 days or so, days he was off work anyway, but enough to make a show of protest against mother's endless irrationalities. Robert ran away from home about five times in the years from about 2005 to 2012. Three of those times, after sleeping in his car one night, he came over to my apartment for a night's rest. He could count on me not to tell mother and each time I slept in the living room and gave him the bedroom to sleep in. Robert always returned and mother always rewarded him by buying something he wanted. As an overwhelming rule, despite how abusive mother could be toward him, Robert would not show any backbone except episodes of nasty -sometimes utterly vile- yelling. Evangeline witnessed at least a few of these episodes, which I know because I was on the scene when she was present, one time in particular, which clearly had to have been part of a pattern of similar events. But Robert never took any kind of action to actually change his situation, yet he could ruin life for Billy and justify theft and destruction of valuable property as "justice" for the wrongs he suffered -from mother. About all of this, several comments would be a good idea. ( 1) My freedom often wasn't all that great, and how can it be when it sometimes comes along with misery? My income is poverty level by government standards and that means doing without all kinds of things that surely would improve life Yes, it is FAR better to be free than unfree, but who was preventing Robert from becoming free? No-one but himself. All he ever needed to do was walk out, and tell mother that she needed to adjust to a life without a passive slave to obey her every command. That is it, become a man, tell the old crone that her reign of terror was over. However, to use insulting jargon that is quite effective, Robert is a pussy. He has no balls. He is weak, gutless, and a jellyfish. (2) The loss of so much art, not even counting the paintings he trashed, was an unpardonable crime. And bad as it was to destroy my art, why in hell did he need to destroy a large number of drawings by an 11 year old girl who had never caused Robert the least harm? What kind of sick mind does he have? One thing is very clear, Robert not only is a dirty son-of-a-bitch, he made himself into a basically f*cked up psychological basket case after all those years of internalizing mother's pathological values. Who destroys irreplaceable art? Muslim religious fanatics like the Taliban and the Islamic State. Nihilists. Nazis who hate any kind of art that contravenes the spirit of Nazism. Lawless punks and street gang members who "get their kicks" through conscienceless acts of depravity like destroying artwork. Robert put himself in that kind of company, one more criminal with a defective brain. (3) Who destroys books? Pretty much the same cast of characters, Nazis, Muslim fanatics, lawless punks, and so forth. Concerning books, their loss is also unforgivable. Sorry, but I do regard some crimes as unforgivable; I do not take the view of Christian pietists that everything can be forgiven and that the distinguishing characteristic of Christian faith is forgiveness. For one thing, that view is unbiblical; throughout the holy book stress is placed on the need for a sinner be repentant before forgiveness can even be considered. But in other cases even repentance is insufficient. As deeply as I feel pain about Robert's destruction of Grace's artwork, I cannot forgive him for his crimes against her. That is not thinkable. And I cannot forgive him for destruction of my own art because that art is part of myself, and whatever destroys part of my self is inexcusable. To forgive such destruction would be suicidal. But maybe more to the point, a criminal needs to accept responsibility for his crimes. Forgiveness unjustifiably absolves a criminal from that responsibility. Yes, there are cases where forgiveness is the best alternative, sometimes it is called for because of someone's honest mistake, but this decidedly is not in that category. For a scholar a book is an extension of his memory, it is a repository of facts and ideas that make his life what it is. Books may also summon memories that anyone, scholar or non-scholar, may associate with them. Books also may provide identity to someone. Indeed, in the world that means the most to me, people are -in large part- known by the books they read. When I visit someone's home one of the first things I do if it is possible is to look at his library. And I judge the people who visit me partly on the basis of their interest in my library. A person with no library is all to easy to judge as someone with no intellectual curiosity, probably someone not worth knowing. In the case of the books Robert destroyed, most were in storage because they would not be needed in the near future. But some were in storage because I wanted to safeguard them for the future, like the first Bible I ever owned, purchased as a teen-ager in the 1950s. Not a text that I needed to consult because I have collection of other Bibles, but a book to cherish because of all of the memories associated with it from a time during my life that is impossible to return to. And now it is gone, thrown out by a criminal sibling. The only lesson of value to take away from all of this is that at least I know what a dirty son of a bitch Robert really is. I do not want him in my life ever again. The only concession I will make is that I have no plans to press criminal charges against him. His public humiliation will suffice. And it should ensure that he will keep his distance and not seek me out for any reasons, at any time, ever. Fortunately the great majority of my books are with me, in my apartment, approximately 75% of my collection, generally the most valuable. But after looking through the books that were in the garage, returned from the locker, -this took place in late November- it became clear that any number of volumes were missing.When Robert departed to California in January, with no other books returned to me, I finally understood what had happened. Some people may say, "what's the big deal about books? Once you have read a book you don't need it any more." That attitude is ridiculously short sighted. Unless you have a photographic memory, which is extremely rare, you can't possibly remember everything in the books you have read. What happens when you want to look something up? What happens when you need to refute someone's argument and you cannot consult a book you had but that is now gone? If you say "but I remember X about the history of the Civil War, or Z about Freud's analysis of sexuality," but cannot cite exact source for the information, there ordinarily is no chance at all someone will take your word for it. Books are an insurance policy against an imperfect memory, and no-one has a perfect memory. If the world of ideas matters to you, you will have a private library. The Internet is a real help, but it simply is not nearly as good as one's own collection of books. A library is an investment in yourself that has incalculable value. That value is worth far more, infinitely more it may be said, than you could ever get if you sold your books at a used book store for cash. (4) My LP collection was gutted. The total collection was around 500, of which a hundred or so had somehow gotten mixed in with Rita's belongings in California. This was an effect of the fact that, for a time, many of my books and records were kept in Rita's basement at her home in San Francisco. But, with me in Oregon, were somewhere between 350 and 400 LPs. All that remained after Robert went on his crime spree were 30 records. Mostly the value of the LPs was in the fact that I had been trying to replace each record with a CD. But that task was far from complete. I needed to look at the exact LP in order to find a replacement, simply buying another Beethoven symphony is not the same thing as buying a CD version of, say, a special recording by Thomas Beecham and the London Symphony. Now any further replacements are out of the question -minus any unexpected good luck that might happen at some unknown time in the future. There also was monetary value. Even pricing the LPs at some low number, say one dollar each, Robert stole several hundred dollars worth of now rare recordings. A collector might have paid considerably more. Much the same story applies to the books Robert stole and then destroyed, possibly worth somewhere in the thousand dollar range in the used book market. The dollar value of the art that Robert destroyed cannot be estimated now because I have no idea at all what my creations might be worth in the future if, finally, success comes my way. But everyone knows what happens to the value of art when an artist does gain fame; what was once worth next-to-nothing suddenly commands thousands of dollars. But to return to the trashed LPs....... The loss of so many recordings also brought to mind a curiosity that had perplexed me for some time. Over the years, mostly at Christmas, I had bought various CDs as gifts for mother. In almost every case these were recordings of classical music that mother liked, a number of ballets, and performances by her favorite pianists, like Arthur Rubenstein. On days when I might visit the house and spend some time there, I would play some of these CDs, since I also enjoyed the music. But at some point I noticed that there weren't as many of these CDs as before and eventually there weren't any! I asked Robert about this and he was evasive. In a rather defensive way. Now it seems reasonably clear that what had happened was that, as mother took more and more of his paycheck, Robert being strapped for cash, decided to sell off the recordings I had bought for mother. As far as I could tell, he did not sell off any of his CDs, just the ones I had purchased for mother. It would have been easy enough for him to do this. Eugene still has a market for used CDs, and back when this was happening there still was a store in town noted for a liberal purchase policy concerning second-hand CDs. That store is now gone, replaced by a new fire station. Robert had gotten away with selling off CDs that I had purchased as gifts for mother; psychologically the stage was set. In July of 2015 he would try to get away with much worse crime. (5) Robert had made the choice to become mother's private doormat. On what grounds could he have reasonably expected anyone else to volunteer for the privilege of being another doormat? Strange as it may seem to Robert, not everyone enjoys being a full time masochist. If he had even an ounce of objectivity in his mind he should have recognized just how sick he had become, how psychologically damaged, and how stupid he was being -year after year after year. Surely, as he destroyed large numbers of books and recordings, he must have realized that he was asking for trouble, that a time would come when he must face the consequences. In effect he was destroying himself, certainly destroying any opportunity he might have had for a second-chance future. How stupid can anyone get? Robert, when all is said, and about some subjects he is relatively smart, is fundamentally stupid. Not to mention harboring some unbelievably dysfunctional personal values. Doubtless there also was the factor of my various talents and skills. My impression is that he felt he could not compete with me in any field of interest to him. Perhaps he had such inclinations, to achieve something worthwhile in the realm of art or writing, but being mother's de facto eunuch servant gave him an excuse to be a non-achiever, not merely an under-achiever. But out of his emotionally incestuous "love" for mother, he could not bring himself to blame her for his failures or non-accomplishment. His logic, as I read it, was that Billy is to blame, for if Billy had taken it upon himself to also become mother's slave, there would be less pressure on Robert and he might then have had the time to do great things. There are so many flaws in this line of reasoning that it should not be necessary to flesh them all out but suffice it to say that this is still another example of Robert's bad judgment. He never developed anything like a sense of self-criticism, viz., being clinically honest with himself and taking real world steps to improve the situation. Robert has close to zero self-confidence but the cure is not hyper-dependence on one's mother for emotional support, rather it is courage to stand on your own two feet and trying to do something good that matters to you. At least by way of self reference, I know how I have acted in cases of what may be called "talent envy." If it was a a skill that I admired that meant something to me, my reaction has habitually been to, first, try and learn that skill for myself, and, second, to try -real hard- to make myself as good as the person I originally had admired -or envied. Sometimes I did not bridge the gap but sometimes I did, but I always tried. Robert-the-wimp never even tried. You may fail but part of being a man is learning how to overcome failure. This may be painful but it is a necessity. Robert never figured out this basic truth. But, then, he isn't truthful even with himself and there is no way to cope with failure, to learn from it, to overcome one's weaknesses, without basic honesty. Starting with clinical honesty about one's own limitations and facing the fact that you make mistakes. Not for the purpose of wallowing in self pity, a game that Robert excels at, but so that you will not make the same mistakes again or even the same general kinds of mistakes Which is all part of the process of growing up. Robert has never grown up. He still is a 'grade school age' sad excuse for a man. Very early in my life I remember one lesson that mother taught, something that stuck with me ever since: Be objective. Don't be snookered by fairy tales or wishful thinking or childish fears. Don't buy into crap of any description. Healthy skepticism, she taught us,is healthy. Without it you become prey to all kinds of nonsense, everything from unrealistic desires to conspiracy thinking. Objectivity is absolutely necessary in life. At the time I left home for good, at about age 20, mother was still advocating this point of view as her 'private gospel.' As far as I know, her views on the subject were promulgated to each sibling, Rita, Ramona, and Robert. Considering how much this wisdom meant to me over the years, my assumption had always been that it would have similar meaning to the others. This does not now seem to be true. Something happened to cause mother to abandon objectivity as a guide to life. What this was is uncertain. At the end, and it was really obvious by 2009 or 2010, she had lost nearly all sense of objectivity and functioned in her own realm of sick fantasy in which she was the queen, everyone else an inferior, and the only possible values that were worth having being those espoused by the Democratic Party. I still think favorably of a good number of views of the party; I probably will continue to do so for as ling as I live. But I now have seen what 'true belief' in the Democratic Party can do to someone, turn them into caricatures of human beings, into poorly informed opinionated ideologues. To say it again, I hate the Democratic Party and regard most of its social values as completely evil. This manifestly does not make me a Republican; it makes me a political Independent. ----------------------------------------------- In January of 2015 when Robert showed up at Rita's door in California, it did not matter to him that he was about to irredeemably compromise her. For his plan to work he had to convince Rita that he was what he wanted her to believe he was, innocent of any wrong-doing, with nothing but good purposes, and pure of heart. And I think that Rita had the best of intentions with respect to Robert. She never saw the worst of things in his life but nonetheless knew enough to understand that mother had basically sabotaged Robert's life. Rita, as I understand the situation, wanted to do what she could to help Robert start a new life -this time on a healthy basis. What Rita overlooked was the possibility that her judgement about Robert might be horribly mistaken. Which it was, many times over. There were several exchanges of e-mails between Rita and myself early in 2016. Many of the things said in this essay were pointed out to her as forcefully as possible. Her response was to cease saying anything at all. There were no replies from her to anything I said after some point in mid 2016. Considering what she had said before she broke off all communications, and considering my growing comprehension of all that Robert had done, the following conclusions seem irrefutable: Early on, Rita realized that Robert had been lying, big time. That is, he had, in fact, lied to Ramona, lied to Rita and me at the time of mother's funeral, and had lied to Rita repeatedly after he had moved in with her. The evidence I had supplied to her no later than some time during 2016 was as solid as anything gets; she could not think otherwise. However, two factors over-rode any possibility of a decent moral response. First was Rita's health. The massive heart attack she suffered in early 2015 had left her with several impairments that meant she could no longer drive a car. Robert had 'sold' the idea of his moving-in with the promise that he would be pleased to act as her chauffeur, just as he had done for mother. Second was, so I take it, Rita's maternal instinct to try and help Robert regain his life. My distinct impression was that she wanted to "reform" him, teach him such rudiments of civilization as not eating all the food on his plate as if he was racing against the clock, and not selfishly choosing to listen to hate-speech radio when he was driving, subjecting everyone who might be in the car to political harangues with no thought to what they might prefer to listen to. About so much, a lot, Robert had always been a complete ass. And he was oblivious to just how obnoxious he was being. He was also oblivious to non-verbal cues as guides to civil conversation, he had no understanding of social rules virtually everyone adheres to, which make good conversations even possible. And how could he? His world was a world where everything was black and white, as defined by mother, a woman with close to no understanding of non-verbal cues or social rules either. Everything was a matter of getting out the sledge hammer and hitting people over the head. Also in the mix, again as I understand things, was Rita's desire to humanize Robert, to allow him time to 'heal' from the psychological wounds that mother had inflicted on him. Never mind that Robert was a willing party to his own self-abasement, Rita never factored that fact in with her calculations. As I explained to Rita in early 2016, I understood her well-meaning objectives. I also explained as best I could, that she was overlooking some very important considerations. Could Robert use some sisterly TLC? Of course. But where in the picture was there recognition of his criminality? There wasn't any. Robert was supposed to receive a free pass for crimes he committed against me? O, yeah? And if I don't like it, then what? Sometimes Rita can be stupid herself. In this case she did not think through any of the implications of her bad judgment. And now her potential losses could well be monumental. Rita had decided that being driven around the Bay Area was a vital interest to her. For one thing, at the beginning of Robert's residence, Richard, her one time parasite live-in boyfriend, was still alive. He had advanced COPD by then and only had a year to live (as things turned out; no-one knew that at the time), and he was hospitalized in San Francisco, not some place easy to get to from her home in the East Bay. Robert could take her there and make Rita's life much easier. Of course, if you ask me, what Rita should have done was to have told Richard that he was a worthless nobody and stopped visiting him altogether, but she wasn't about to experience a sudden flash of objectivity about Richard and she did what she did, go out of her way to see him repeatedly as he insulted her and cussed her out because he was feeling bad. Some women thrive on being abused. Usually we take this to mean wife beating or an equivalent. This was emotional abuse but it was all too real yet Rita took it as her preordained lot in life. Sort of self-imposed Stockholm syndrome.... What Robert thought about his task of driving Rita to Richard's bedside I can only guess but he was as opposed to Rita's relationship with that worthless blood-sucker as anyone else. And he would have known, first hand, how verbally abusive Richard had gotten as his end approached, how paranoid in his thinking, and how generally disgusting. But there are other uses for a car, like getting groceries from the market, like visiting her daughter (my niece) in a nearby town, like visiting the doctor, and my feeling is that Rita was unwilling to forego Robert's chauffeur services and would have done what she did by keeping Robert in her home for this reason alone. I also think that her scheme for reforming Robert had become an idee fixe in her mind, a "project" that she had become committed to, strongly, and therefore all of his crimes could be overlooked and if this totally alienated Billy, well, that was a price she was more than willing to pay. To go into this further, Rita had taken over the role of mother in the family, down to the 'detail' of increasingly looking like her. At one time trim and curvaceous, in years past a model, plus a cabaret singer, Rita, the last time I saw her in the early Spring of 2015, who was close to mother's height (5'-4" or thereabouts), was now close to mother's weight, as a reasonable guess about 220 pounds, with mother herself more like 250 pounds. The transformation of what Rita had become compared to what she had once been was dramatic -and sickening. But how could Rita be wrong about Robert? She needed to justify her decision to proceed with her plan despite all the crimes committed by Robert and despite his flagrant lying. What could she do? What was her 'best' alternative? The answer to that question was simplicity itself: Psychological denial. Pretend that Robert was being truthful, or more truthful than otherwise. How to deal with Billy's observations and comments? Do not say anything, ignore the problem. And so Rita made the same kind of ridiculously ill-advised investment in Robert that she did in Richard. Hopefully there will be no need for me to say anything further about Rita or Robert after concluding this essay. But there still are a few things to add... I told Rita early-on that her remedy for Robert, her plan for his "rehabilitation," was structurally flawed. At what point would Robert be able to function as an adult in society? He has now been living in Rita's home for 2 -1/2 years. There is no indication that there are any plans for him to leave and make it on his own. He continues to be a mama's boy even if, this time 'round, his 'mother' is his sister. Rita's "solution" to the problem of Robert guarantees that he will remain a dysfunctional boy child in perpetuity. He will never grow up. And this surely is having a negative impact on Rita in the process. Not to mention a negative impact on her daughter. But, hey, far better not to admit yet another case of rotten judgement about a male than to cease making that bad judgement and making a fresh start, right? Who likes to admit being wrong? Nobody. But it sometimes is the very best alternative if for no other reason than thatit enables you to stop making an on-going stupid mistake. I also told her that I did not have a answer to her predicament, her wanting to do nothing but good for Robert's sake, yet now acting as hostess to a criminal who has never taken responsibility for his criminality. She was unwilling to deal with the ugly side of Robert in early 2016 and remains unwilling to do so now. How does that kind of attitude make any sense? It doesn't. Instead it creates problems of its own as Rita needs to live with a lie, with the many lies perpetrated by Robert, and, hence, with a pathological liar. She has created a mess for herself and she really should know better. There is no way to excuse that kind of poor judgment. Rita is worth so much more, or she could be worth so much more. Because of Robert she is destroying herself. Maybe someone -besides me- will tell her. ---------------------- Billy Rojas Eugene, Oregon July 20, 2018 -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
