Thesis Proposal
Adversaries, Psychology, and World Politics
Statement of Study
In The Experience of “Negative Otherness”: How Shall We Treat Our Enemies (2002) psychologist Stephen Gilligan, Ph.D. argues for an alternative to dealing with our enemies rather than simply fighting or fleeing. He claims that these two options are often insufficient, limited in their effectiveness to resolve conflicts.
Fight or flight is the traditional way in which creatures resolve conflict in the world. This calls forth images of a Hobbesian state of nature and the way creatures coexist in such a state. Gilligan writes that different ways humans display fight are: repression, domination, demonization, demonization, numbing something, analyzing, disassociating. Exhibiting flight, we: “check out,” take drugs, surrender, have anxiety, paralysis, or depression. Gilligan observes that responding in ways such as those listed above often does not seem to get us very far. We continually encounter conflict, threats to our happiness and freedom, and sometimes even other people who want to kill us. However, Gilligan poses that dealing with negative situations using fight or flight results in a continuation of cycles of violence and human suffering. Following an analysis of modern and pre-modern myths, Gilligan posits the possibility of another way to be in the world. Instead of responding to an adversary in one or another form of fight or flight, one could seek to transform a situation. He asserts that when one is able to stay connected to themselves during a conflict with a negative other, and maintain a relationship with it, the encounter can become creative, a “nonviolent event that leads to new understandings, new conversations, and new realities,” (3.) He offers us some examples of what this looks like for individuals.
A self-ascribed post-modernist, Gilligan wants to shift our consciousness from the fight and flight response. However, it must be noted that even Gandhi himself (who is put forth as an example of this third way of engaging with an adversary) said that there were situations were violence is the only correct response. (In Merton, 36) Although this may be the case, every encounter with a negative other is an opportunity to see if we can remain “connected,” and examine whether an alternate way is possible, even beneficial.
His essay is tailored to a discussion of personal psychology, but is Gilligan’s analysis of how we understand, perceive and act in relation to “negative others” applicable to social phenomena? In reading Gilligan, I believe to have discerned themes of his psychological analysis in a) religious terrorism, as discussed by Mark Juergensmeyer in his Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence, and b) in the nonviolent protest of British rule in India by the followers of Gandhi, as portrayed in Steve York’s documentary India, Defying the Crown. Is it the case that these movements exemplify Gilligan’s analysis on a large scale? I will argue that they do. The goal of my study is to defend this position and consider the implications to social struggle around the globe.
I will begin by explaining what is meant by Gilligan when he uses the term negative other. As a broad concept applicable to diverse situations, Gilligan uses the term to encompass a variety of adversarial situations. A negative other can be an adverse thought or feeling, it may be an addiction or a compulsion; the term can also apply to other people, structures, and/or institutions perceived to be causing one harm. This is significant because it shows that this psychological term is able to be applied in a political and social context, and to individuals and groups.
Next, I will explore Gilligan’s analysis of two ways in which we may deal with a negative other. The first I will refer to as the fight or flight paradigm, and the other I will term the transformational paradigm. I describe them as paradigms, because these methods of dealing with an enemy are informed by two distinct ways it is possible to view the world and our relationship with it. I find foundations for these views in ontological philosophy, and I will explain their philosophical underpinnings by turning to the works of Descartes and Merleau-Ponty. Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy expounds mind/body dualism, and Merleau-Ponty’s The Phenomenology of Perception provides a discussion of the I’s intrinsic embeddedness in the world. Touching upon these works places Gilligan in an academic context and substantiates his analysis.
Descartes
Descartes is a figure to whom we owe a great deal when it comes to science and philosophy in Western culture. Since Descartes, there has been an ongoing debate in philosophy. Scientists and philosophers continue to puzzle over the “true” nature of the mind/body relationship, that of the self and “the other,” and of the subject/object relationship.
Descartes is credited with the thesis that the mind and body are two separate “things.” This Cartesian thinking is evident in how we speak today. For instance we may well hear said that a trip to the spa is beneficial for body, mind, and spirit (as if we possessed these three mutually distinct components). “…[T]he fact that I can clearly and distinctly understand one thing apart from another is enough to make me certain that the two things are distinct,” said Descartes in Meditations. Descartes described the mind as immaterial, non-extended in space, indivisible and governed by reason. The body described as material, extended, divisible, and party driven by causality and physical necessity. Consequently, Descartes was preoccupied with the question of how these apparently opposite substances interact with one another.
Few philosophers today accept dualism. Additionally, there are many scientists who argue that there is nothing that cannot be explained through the natural laws of the physical world. Nevertheless, Descartes, devout and skeptical at once, attempted to reserve a special place for the mental in the physical world of mechanistic cause and effect. Descartes is credited for 1) creating a space for the possibility of free will distinct from a physical universe guided by mechanistic laws of cause and effect, and 2) for placing subjectivity at the front and center in the study of the mind. It is, after all, a unique position to be in as a human being, a witness, a self. In contrast to the inanimate universe, many of us believe, we are special in that we have consciousness. So, the question comes up, what is it like to be a human being?
Merleau-Ponty
The work of Merleau-Ponty is significant in outlining a shift in thinking about the human experience in the world. In Phenomenology of Perception, Merleau-Ponty responds to Cartesian thought that separates the self and the world. Science, he argues, is merely a second-hand explanation of the world, of our experience in the world. There is a primary experience (that of perception) that is a more direct experience– a more poignant reality. He explains how, for example, a hand is not primarily known to us by its anatomy, structure, and make-up. It is rather more intimately known by its ability to grasp things– we understand a hand through its graspability. According to Merleau-Ponty, the world is known by what it calls forth from us. The stairs, for example, are understood by us as something to climb up or to descend, rather than the notion of a construction of wooden planks nailed together, with a series of levels connected to each other in 90 degree angles. This implies an interwoven relationship of us and the world, where one is upheld by the existence of the other.
Merleau-Ponty analyzes patients with brain injuries and anomalies and missing limbs, and their particular psycho-physical responses to sense data. Outlining his discoveries, Merleau-Ponty sheds doubt on a simple stimulation/response explanation of behavior in the body. For instance, sometimes it is the case that simple cause and effect does not explain a phenomenon in the body. For instance, when one feels pain in an arm that has been severed and is no longer there, it is not because this hand has been injured. It has in fact been long gone. Thus, Merleau-Ponty throws his support behind the notion of being-in-the-world, or the imbeddedness of the “I” in the world it inhabits. The “I” is called forth by the world as it acts, or manifests behavior. Merleau-Ponty explains:
My body and the world are no longer objects co-ordinated [sic] by the kind of functional relationships that physics establishes… I have the world as an incomplete individual, through the agency of my body as the potentiality of this world, and I have the positing of objects through that of my body, or conversely, the positing of my body through that of objects… because my body is a movement towards the world, and the world my body’s point of support. (Phenomenology of Perception, 408)
Merleau-Ponty further shows where the Cartesian cogito fails. If thought of oneself is the foundation of their existence (I think therefore I am), then the “I” is only able to be accessed by the self. (The thought of yourself is accessible to you alone.) In this schema, subjectivity, my humanness, is alien to others, because others aren’t able to have my thoughts. Simultaneously others’ subjectivity is alien to me. In Descartes’ world it is not out of the question that an evil demon is creating the world that we perceive. And our senses easily fool us. In his skeptical approach, it is not certain at all that there are other consciousnesses walking around in those bodies called other people.
The “problem of other people” is tackled by Merleau-Ponty. He claims to begin to find a solution in the body. If bodies cease to be “objects” and rather are understood as manifestations of behavior, then I am not reduced to an object by another person, and they are not reduced to such in my field of experience. Here it is not the thought of oneself that defines the subject, there is no subject, per se, there is a manifestation of behavior, something done equally by all humans. My body perceives the body of another, and discovers in that other a familiar set of intentions and similar way of dealing with the world. For Merleau-Ponty, language, communication, inter-subjectivity is key in breaking down existing cognitive boundaries between one and the other: I may have so much mystery surrounding a stranger that has walked into the room– all I know of him really is the appearance of him, all of my experience of him (so far) is his body as an object. How do I really know he is not an empty shell of muscle and bone? How do I know really that this particular stranger has thoughts like mine, feelings like mine, behaviors like mine, or that he has them at all? I can only begin to get a sense of his humanness, his subjectivity when we enter into dialogue.
Having established a philosophical framework for Gilligan’s analysis, I return to Gilligan, who advocates shifting our posture from one based on the idea of disembodied intellect (a mind separated from body and the world) to that of embodied consciousness, or the understanding of the interwoven nature of the “I” with the world.
Gilligan attributes the phrase “embodied consciousness” to psychotherapist Marion Woodman and her book of interviews Conscious Femininity: Interviews with Marion Woodman. By removing the rigid boundary between self and the world, a picture emerges where an adversarial situation, rather than being taken as completely exterior to a person, is seen as something that is a part of the “I” experiencing it. It is the world calling forth a behavior. Here, we come to a choice of how to respond. Will we have a knee-jerk response and fight or flee, or will we engage in dialogue to better understand and even gain control in what is happening? Obviously, one of all three may be most appropriate in a variety of scenarios. I am simply suggesting that knowledge of another way to look at things may yield new options heretofore closed to us due to our lack of awareness of them.
Gilligan describes methods to place oneself in a frame of mind enabling one to access the experience of embodied consciousness. The prominent examples he uses are aikido, the japanese martial art, and satyagraha: the practice written about and put into practice by Gandhi. Both of these methods offer an alternative to dealing with adversaries violently.
The discussion of satyagraha brings me to an analysis of the methods, strategies, actions we take in relation to our enemies and their varied results. It also brings me back to my question, whether we can relate our individual experiences of this to the experiences of groups. At this point of my thesis I will also need to define “social movement,” so that I may engage in a comparison of strategies social movements use to engage their negative others. In the next section then, after explaining Gilligan’s theory, I look to case studies that seem to illustrate the fight and flight paradigm and the transformational paradigm in relating to enemies.
The first case study I have chosen to examine is Al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda is an example of the first paradigm of relating to the enemy. I argue that for Al-Qaeda, the enemy is seen as something separate and objectified, as something that must be destroyed. I will discuss ideas and systems present for Al-Qaeda which influence the strategy used in response to the perceived threat the United States presents for them. To discover these ideational and systemic factors, I examine Osama bin Laden’s “Declaration of War Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places” and interviews with Al-Qaeda operatives and would-be suicide bombers.
Second, I explore Gandhi’s nonviolent movement against the British in India, which, founded upon the principles of satyagraha resulted in the liberation of Indians from their British colonizers. In that historical moment, Gandhi’s strategy transformed the Indians from subservient, oppressed subjects into a free people, unable to administered by their colonizers; and the British, who retreated from using unjustified violence which would have been necessary to continue their role as dominators, abandoned their position in India. As in individuals, one success in choosing a nonviolent strategy to solve problems does not indicate that any kind of transformation is permanent. Personal experience can attest that personal growth and new ways of being take constant practice– each moment produces new challenges, choices, and possibilities. Gandhi’s assassination and the failure of India to form a peaceful and united nation indicate that asting transformation did not take hold in India. All this said, I claim that Gandhi’s movement is a pertinent example of the second paradigm identified by Gilligan, discerned on a mass scale. Furthermore, I must note that we are not assured that all of Gandhi’s followers were of like mind with Gandhi. Not all of his followers were able to refrain from objectifying and demonizing the British. Therefore, I cannot imply an assumption that all people in a movement are of like mind. Therefore I will have to restrict my discussion to the principles according to which mass action is organized. I will discuss ideational and systemic variables at play in India to parallel my study of Al-Qaeda. Additionally I will incorporate at least one interview with someone who had participated in Gandhi’s movement.
I have chosen these two case studies because they are extreme cases of the two different paradigms I discuss, while both encompass a religious dimension. Both case studies include groups of people experiencing oppression, but, interestingly, both groups did not implement a common strategy. Also, because al Qaeda is at war with the United States, I have an opportunity to identify that the response of the United States to her adversary is fight, in kind. This makes my analysis and argument relevant to the challenges of our times.
With this juxtaposition of groups, one with a violent strategy and one with a nonviolent strategy, I hope to show two examples of the divergent ways people deal with enemies, as put forth by Gilligan, on a large scale. I argue, based on the evidence, that systemic factors such as oppression do not necessarily cause a violent strategy in group action. Crucial, however, seems to be the particular stance of an accepted moral authority. Ideational leadership seems to have more to do with whether group action is violent or nonviolent.
I observe that the paradigm a leader of a movement uses in framing the adversary influences the actions of a great many people, as demonstrated by the followers of both Gandhi and bin Laden. The organization of movements based on one or another of these strategies potentially either leads to exponentially increasing amounts of bloodshed, or it can lead to a largely peaceful mass movement able to achieve even a momentary victory, aligned with what has been called a developmental force by psychologists: love.
Whether on an individual or mass scale orchestrated by a clear leader, it seems that we have a choice in determining our strategy at overcoming adversity. Will there be progress towards peace, independence and prosperity, or a will there be the perpetuation of a cycle of violence? It is because of this that my study is significant. Leaders of movements wanting freedom from a perceived enemy display this choice writ large.
In order to free ourselves from an incomplete paradigm and effectively deal with enemies in a manner that has the potential to better resolve an adversarial situation, it is helpful to understand the framework behind the divergent strategies that are available to us. Additionally we need the courage to face the fear and anger that an encounter with the “other” may call forth. The more of us that are aware of these ideas and methods, the more likely it is that we will produce leaders able to orchestrate peace and progress, as these factors mutually support one another.
Literature Review
In “The Experience of Negative Otherness: How Shall We Treat Our Enemies?” (2002) Gilligan critiques the philosophical legacy of modernism, linking it to ineffective, violent strategies in reacting to adversarial situations. He poses a theoretical framework with which he suggests an alternative. Gilligan introduces us to a concept of “embodied consciousness” which improves upon the notion of the “isolated, disembodied intellect.” Vivacious and connected to the world, nature, and the present moment, embodied consciousness is a state of mind that “allows one to deal with differences creatively, without demonizing one’s adversary or getting locked into fixed understandings or rigid positions,” (5.) Gilligan describes how one can access a perspective of embodied consciousness, and describes it phenomenologically.
Gilligan’s term “embodied consciousness” comes from therapist Marion Woodman in her book Conscious Femininity: Interviews with Marion Woodman (1993). This book explores the theories used by Woodman in psychotherapy. Within it I find discussion of Woodman’s conception of soul, which need not be a religious concept (as asserts Jonathan Lear in Love and Its Place in Nature: Soul is not necessarily something immortal and separable from the body.) Soul is a crucial component to tapping into a new perspective, and a cornerstone in Gandhi’s satyagraha, as I will explain in my thesis.
Mark Juergensmeyer’s Terror in the Mind of God (2000) is significant to my work as it demonstrates a method used to explain a certain type of violence exhibited at the societal level. Analyzing instances of contemporary religious terrorism around the world, Juergensmeyer analyzes five cases and conducts personal interviews with participants. He finds common themes that run through his case studies. Juergensmeyer analyzes ideas present behind religious terrorism and the conditions that seem to propel it. He asserts that it takes a culture of violence to pull off religious terrorism. Like Juergensmeyer, I will look to case studies and interviews in an attempt to discern patterns and explore possibilities. ?
As I study Al-Qaeda, I will look to Osama bin Laden’s “Declaration of War Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places,” (1996.) This is a primary source for a leader of a group that has chosen the ultimate form of violence towards an enemy. I find the ideological foundation to Al-Qaeda here, and I find the manner in bin Laden discusses the enemy. This provides me the insight into the manner in which he thinks ontologically. Bin Laden describes exactly how America is the “negative other,” and what must be done.
Anat Berko’s book The Path to Paradise: The Inner World of Suicide Bombers and Their Dispatchers, (2007) provides insight into the personal psychology of the individuals involved in this type of religious terrorism. With this book I hope to gain an understanding of some of the systemic factors at work surrounding Al-Qaeda. I hope to discern what their society is like and how it fits in with what they do.
Talal Asad’s On Suicide Bombing is a scholarly work which questions assumptions prevalent in the West related to death and killing. Contextualized in knowledge of secular and religious tradition, as well as social, political and anthropological research and theory, Asad examines various explanations of religious terrorism as well as the emphasis of many writers on motives. He provides a valuable insight on the old and familiar concept of fighting evil. For Asad, it is important to be mindful of the forces that shape the discourse surrounding this kind of violence, which is a stance that I adhere to as well in my work. I expect that this book will help support my argument.
Gandhi’s movement is the obvious case study to look for the principles of satyagraha, or soul-force. Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj (1938) outlines Gandhi’s basic ideas and philosophies. I use this essay as a primary text for Gandhi. It defines “home rule” and discusses how it can be achieved. Selected Political Writings by Mahatma Gandhi, edited by Dennis Dalton include Gandhi’s writing on satyagraha, as a practice and as a strategy against the oppressor. These sources provide the ideology and world-view espoused by Gandhi, the principles upon which his movement was organized.
I have also found an interview with a participant in Gandhi’s social movement of Indians’ struggle against the oppression by the British. Rita Kothari, in “An Interview with Narendra Desai, a Gandhian Activist,” discusses the organization of his campaign: secret messages and subversive writings, “machinery of communication” that disseminated information. This interview brings to light the systemic operations of a group on the ground that provided a unifying aspect to the group.
Taken together, these works that describe both ideational components to religious violence and nonviolent resistance, and systemic factors at play among individuals and their cultures, historically situated in a particular socio-political context. The first case study reveals the cycle of violence unleashed by demonizing a negative other, that this does not seem to resolve the conflict in any lasting way. The information on Gandhi and satyagraha by contrast, demonstrates what “embodied consciousness” looks like in the world, as the Indians momentarily transformed themselves into a free people as they nonviolently pushed the British out of India.
What has preceded has been a review of the literature I will be using in my study to argue that ways in which individuals see the world manifest in the concerted actions of groups in response to adversaries.
Theory
In his essay, Stephen Gilligan expounds a theory describing how and why we relate to negative situations the way we do. His theory is grounded in philosophy, incorporating ontological elements of analytic and continental traditions. Thus, Gilligan asserts two paradigms that inform the way conceptualize or think about adversaries, and explains how these respective paradigms influence the way in which we act in relation to conflict.
The first world-view assumes a distinct split between the subject and object (between the self and the world.) In this paradigm, one traditionally fights or flees from something perceived as a threat. It even occurs that one demonizes an enemy. Juergensmeyer says that this is “easy enough” when one is dominated, feels oppressed, and has suffered under the influence of an outside power. Additionally, it is easier to kill someone to whom you have no personal connection; it is easier still to kill someone that has been objectified, dehumanized, and made into a representative of evil itself. (Juergensmeyer 175-177)
The second paradigm presents the “I” as intrinsically embedded into the social and natural world. It frames an adversarial situation as the world calling forth a behavior. Conflict poses an opportunity to recognize the choice one has in reacting to someone or something posing a threat. This presents an opportunity for growth and development.
Gilligan believes that when one acts from the dualistic standpoint where one and the world are completely distinct, where an individual is completely separate from the enemy or negative other, one generally perpetuates conflict rather than solves problems. When the self and the world are viewed from a more holistic perspective, one is much more effective at actually resolving adversity.
Method
My purpose is to investigate whether Gilligan’s psychological theory of engaging the negative other can be applied to social movements. In doing so, I will be using Mark Juergensmeyer as a model for the method I will use to achieve this goal.
In Terror in the Mind of God, Juergensmeyer explores the phenomenon of religious terrorism. After selecting five case studies, Juergensmeyer interviews militant religious activists and their supporters. He scrutinizes the mindsets, the ideas, the associated communities, and other forces at work combining in a particular historical moment to produce a culture of violence. (7-10) He describes his work as a cultural study of religious terrorism. (14) “It takes a community of support and, in many cases, a large organizational network for an act of terrorism to succeed,” writes Juergensmeyer. This points to an interconnectedness between individuals and the group to which they belong. Violence happens, according to Juergensmeyer, when specific political, social, and ideological circumstances combine to produce it. (10) Thus, by studying individuals, political and social contexts, and religious story lines, Juergensmeyer opens a window to examine “cultures of violence.” (6-12)
Juergensmeyer intentionally and precisely chooses to use the term “culture” when describing the “cultures of violence” because of the way it has been defined by several scholars. He wants to encompass the elements these scholars have brought in. I too, wish to build on this foundation as it is pertains to my work. Juergensmeyer’s culture includes the ideas of Foucault, Bourdieu, and Geertz on the topic. Thus, Juergensmeyer’s cultural analysis includes the notion of “episteme,” which is a world view or paradigm that is the prerequisite of all knowledge. For Juergensmeyer, culture draws in a notion of network of socially entrenched ideas about society– a system of cognitive and motivating structures. This is the social basis for what Clifford Geertz described as the “cultural systems” of a people. This system includes the meanings, the patterns of thought, and the systems of knowledge adhered to by a particular society. This includes both secular and religious ideologies. (Juergensmeyer, 13.)
This aspect of Juergensmeyer’s work is significant to my own because as I seek to show that individual psychology can be discerned in the actions of groups and that world views inform both phenomena, Juergensmeyer demonstrates how individual actions are linked to cultural paradigms and world views, ideas, meanings and social systems.
Thus applying Juergensmeyer’s theory as well as method, I will partake in a comparative cultural study of two groups using different strategies in response to an adversary. I will rely on foundational documents to gather information on the ideational factors of the movement. I will look to interviews with participants to understand systemic factors and psychological elements at work in the actions of organized groups. I will compare and contrast these case studies, inferring that the theories I discuss fit the patterns analyzed in the case studies.
Conclusion
The goal of my study is to discuss that there is more than one way to think about an enemy, and to demonstrate a link between the way we conceptualize our enemies and the actions we take towards them. I wish to show that this pattern is observable not only on an individual level but that it also appears on a larger scale in the world. I will discuss two “social movements” that I claim exemplify two paradigms of approaches we take in response to the “negative other.” I discuss two of the alternatives: one in which an enemy is demonized and dealt with by violence; and the other in which the adversary and the subject are mutually transformed in a historical moment. Both on the individual level and in considering actions painted large on the world canvas, it is important to know that there are often options in how we resolve problems. Bloodshed and prolonged suffering can be avoided, and cycles of violence broken. Human growth and development are the by-products of acknowledging the option.
Works Consulted
Asad, Talal. On Suicide Bombing. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.
Berko, Anat. The Path to Paradise: The Inner World of Suicide Bombers and Their Dispatchers. Translated by Elizabeth Yuval with a foreward by Moshe Addad. Westport: Praeger Security International, 2007.
Bin Laden, Osama. “Declaration of War Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places.” Online News Hour (August 1996). http://www.pbs.org/newshour/terrorism/international/fatwa_1996.html (accessed November 11, 2009)
Descartes, Rene. Meditations on First Philosophy. Edited and translated by Cottingham, J. London: Cambridge University Press. 1985.
Gandhi, Mahatma. Selected Political Writings. Edited by Dennis Dalton. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. 1996
Gandhi, Mohandas K. Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule. Edited and pulished by Jitendra T.Desai. Ahmedabad, India: Navajivan Publishing House (Navajivan Mudranalaya.) 1938.
Gilligan, Stephen. The Experience of Negative Otherness: How Shall We Treat Our Enemies? (2002) Seishindo. http://www.seishindo.org/articles/st_gilligan2.html. (accessed July 6, 2009.)
Juergensmeyer, Mark. Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence. 3rd ed. Berkley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 2000.
Kothari, Rita. “An Interview with Narendra Desai, a Gandhian Activist.” Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, 3, no. 3 (2001): 439-445.
Lear, Jonathan. Love and Its Place in Nature: A Philosophical Interpretation of Freudian Psychoanalysis. New York: The Noonday Press. 1990
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Phenomenology of Perception. New York and London: Routeledge Classics, 2002.
Merton, Thomas, ed. with introduction. Gandhi on Nonviolence. New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1964.
Woodman, Marion. Conscious Femininity: Interviews with Marion Woodman. Toronto: Inner City Books, 1993.
Nina Lois is a graduate student at the University of Colorado at Denver obtaining a Master's Degree in Humanities with a B.A. in political science. Her passions are broad when it comes to the human condition. She is deeply interested in philosophy, psychology, environmental and social justice, peace studies, music, nutrition, tradition, and progress. 
Upon her imminent graduation, she wishes to contribute to the health, wealth, and happiness of the community through involvement, writing, and research. For goodness's sake, love the body, cultivate the mind and a garden, and feed the soul!
Thanks again