James Dean: " A man has a CHOICE ! "

I read with much interest your Lifebeat article this

    morning :  " Why do so few people take the blame for their

    actions ? "  ( Providence Journal, Jan.20 , page E1 ) .

        There is a picture of Dan White, " who assassinated San Francisco

    Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone in 1979 " and

    " blamed junk food addiction for his rage ".

          The rule of law - indeed civilization itself - is based

    not on the myth of free will but on the paradox of it : Science-

    in the final analysis - seems to reject it. Perhaps " Twinkies "

    can account for a cold blooded murder, just as surely as a

    lack of iodine can turn a normal child into a mentally deficient

    adult.

           Free Will presumes that there is a divine source for the

    moral law. Yet Science suggests that " In the beginning " there

    was only a very restless nothingness.

              It would be social suicide to deny Free Will ,just as

    it may be psychological suicide to completely deny God .

           Clearly every sane human being must ACT as if he were

    truly free. One of the greatest scenes in  James Dean's acting

    career is when he reminds his dying father at the end of " East

    of Eden " of his own words to his sons : " A man has a CHOICE ! "

          The power of choice makes possible new beginnings. A

     writer said of Steinbeck's  novel : "  We hear in the novel

    the collective voice of the people bemoaning changes brought by

    the end of the 1880s and a desire for the century to end so

    that the country can begin anew ".

         " A man will have clean hands once we get the lid slammed

    on that stinking century ".

           Happy New Year 2000 !

                  ( quotes from " Explicator " , Spring- 1997 )