The Ghost of Nathan Hale's

THE GHOST OF NATHAN HALE

                          BY,



                  David E Reiser







When I was nine, a classmate showed me a photograph. In the picture, I beheld a mountain of corpses and, in its great shadow, a Tonka Toy bulldozer toiling away, shoveling the bodies back into a ditch. I did not learn that day that I was a Jew. I already knew this. What I did grasp for the first time were the consequences. For the first time, I comprehended that there really were people out there just itching to kill me, people who would gleefully do so on little provocation, just for the hell of it. Just for fun.





Yes, I mean exactly what I say. For fun. And I said some people, not all. They repeat their atrocities over and over, and not on the basis of any political belief. Ideology has been used as a moral smoke-screen for too long. People who derive pleasure from another person’s agony don’t do so what they do the name of communism, fascism, socialism, or capitalism. They do it because they want to. They find torture immensely gratifying. I will at least give them this much credit--sadists who ride the coat-tails of ideology are usually aware of their motives. They just don’t give a shit.

If you stop and think about it, any other conclusion would be psychotic. Can you really imagine a KGB operative torturing a fellow human being in a dungeon because of his deeply held ideals about Marx and Hegel? Were CIA spies vastly nobler? Did they make their sacrifices from love of country? Did they lay down their lives because they were inspired by the courage of our forefathers? Because they passionately defended the Constitution? Give me a break! I’m not in the mood for your bullshit.

Permit me to go back a couple of hundred years…Did our forefathers who framed the Constitution lay down their lives defending the ideals embodied there? Of course they did! Why else would a twenty-one year old boy go to his death at the gallows saying in a steady and measured voice, “I regret that I have only one life to lose for my country”? Of course Nathan Hale died for those ideals. What other conceivable reason could he have had? There were witnesses who attested to his courage that morning, and his serenity.

Four of them.

But I have little doubt that while a youth may have been dragged from his cell that morning, a wise man plunged to his death fifteen minutes later, a hideous death. Time is an exceedingly relative matter in the final minutes and seconds before you are hanged.

I invite you to imagine, as I did, what must have been going through Nathan Hale’s mind on Sunday, September 22, 1776 at 11:00 AM. He was standing at the gallows and the hangman had just asked him if he had any final words. As you consider the matter, ask yourself whether the ghost of Nathan Hale would come back today to a country whose moral deportment affirmed the value of his terrible sacrifice. Or the ghosts of his mother and father? And before you puff up with righteousness, ask yourself honestly if you would display as much courage as that boy did, two centuries ago. Do not give your answer to me. And for God’s sakes, don’t ham it up for the camera. Quietly—ask yourself. Because I am convinced that your answer will be critical in determining a future that looms dead ahead. Your conclusion is your own business. Just tell yourself the truth. I asked myself this same question, of course, and my personal determination is also my own business. But I will share with you one lesson I learned

from this exercise. We all want people to judge us on the loftiness of our intentions. History will measure us by what we did.

This, it seems to me, is at the very core of human morality. Talking a good game is a verbal ability. Standing up and being counted is an action. This is how we all know instantly that a CIA operative is certainly no goddamned hero, and that a boy of twenty-one was, even two centuries later.

Morality, of course, derives from religion and…NOT!

It comes from taking a stand and then putting your money where your mouth is. No theology is required. If yours guides you wisely, you are fortunate. But you should also know that the vast majority of atrocities in history have been committed in its name. Before you jut out you jaw at me and set your lips in a scowl of condemnation, go look first in the mirror. Then sentence me to be hanged.

Realizing your wish has probably never been easier. In a world where parents murder the hearts and souls of their own children for vengeance and profit, I do not feel reassured by our commitment to the Constitution. Nor do I feel safe from the pursuit of a regressed and instinct-driven mob.

And just this once, just this once—DON’T blurt out your answer. That is your own affair. I ask you to endeavor to be truthful with yourself. Go look in the mirror. I did. And I was shocked by what I saw.

When I tried to put myself in Nathan’s shoes—to the miniscule extent that I could—this is what I envisioned:

He cleared his burning throat. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I do.” He stood as tall and proud as any man can, whose hands are cinched behind with hemp, and whose ankles are manacled to a heavy rusted chain. A mist was falling.

He spoke.

“I regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”

Nathan’s eyes, I suspect, must have searched the sky for his one sentence masterpiece. And if this is true, I can also tell you that before he discovered himself, he saw a fist of darkness overhead, opening and closing fingers of nullity. What he saw was the fist of Self-Extinction, then still in its infancy. Today it is enormous.

This is what I imagine: He searched past the fist’s writhing fingers and saw a star, just one, but boy was it a beauty! In that diamond he beheld clarity, compassion, courage, and morality. And peace.

I’m going to close in a moment. I don’t intend to go and envision myself atop the scaffolding of a hangman’s gallows, either. I’ve even begun to wonder if I’ve been loitering in the vicinity too long. I am going to skip this evening’s network news as well. I’m heading back to the mirror and I’m going to try. I know that I will not fully succeed, but I will try to face whatever truth I find there.

Things are heating up on this planet. And yet, people go about their businesses as though nothing were going on at all. The heart-stopping chasm that is opening up between our imminent annihilation and our indifference makes the hair on my arms bristle with terror. I am no better than you are. I am no worse. I’m just as bad.

What you do is your business. But I have decided to seek out some new sources of information. Foxx Mulder is convinced that the truth is out there. I believe his character to be earnest (he’s made up, remember?), but I suspect he is wrong. I think what we seek out there is actually in our hearts. We idealize these as strong and loving and compassionate. That tells me that we are all keeping dreadful secrets from ourselves. I am through pointing fingers for the moment. I’m sure I’ll be back sounding off in a couple of days, once again eager to find the source of my problems “out there.” Old habits are hard to break. But for a day or two, anyhow, I have promised myself that I will pronounce no judgment on any one, any profession, any gender, race, creed, political ideology, religion, any government, or any practice that ends in an “ism...” At least for a day or two anyhow. I’d suggest that you turn off the monitor on your CPU, too. For a little while anyhow, silence the chattering little brains that swarm all over you, swooping down from the fringes of cyberspace. Even mine. Maybe especially mine.

I will disclose one of the revelations that horrified me the most last night when I looked in the mirror. Some of the traits that I despise the most in all of you, including my readiness to adopt a stance of moral indignation in an essay such as this—when I finally found the courage to face myself, I’ll bet you can never guess who I saw gazing back.

When I was nine, a classmate showed me a photograph. In the picture, I beheld a mountain of corpses and, in its great shadow, a Tonka Toy bulldozer toiling away, shoveling the bodies back into a ditch. I did not learn that day that I was a human being. I already knew this. What I did grasp for the first time were the consequences.

For the first time, I comprehended that there were parts of myself concealed within me just itching to annihilate the species. Just for the hell of it. Just for fun.



David Reiser, MD.



David E. Reiser is a writer and physician. His books and articles in the 1980s addressed medicine's urgent need to make education and patient care more humane. Along with others, he quietly changed the way students are taught throughout the world. The New York Times described his book, Medicine as a Human Experience, as a textbook that revived "a long-lost skill" in physicians--"compassion."



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[1] It is hard not to see parallels between this British practice in the Revolutionary War and the Iranian government’s present penchant for leaving executed corpses dangling from the cranes that hoisted them aloft.