Bickering Mynah Birds are a common sight in Hawaii. And they are considered a nuisance. In fact, Hawaiians call them piha ‘ekelo (full of voice) and manu ‘aipilau (trash-eating bird). Ornithologist E. L. Caum described them this way:
“The mynah is a perky, self-confident, pugnacious, and noisy bird, in many of its actions and antics disconcertingly human. It is gregarious, and the large flocks that gather at roosting time are most noisy and quarrelsome.” [The exotic birds of Hawaii. Occ. Pap. Bernice P. Bishop Museum 10:1-55, 1933.]
What’s more, they are foreigners. The official story is that they were brought to the islands from Southeast Asia in 1865 to combat an infestation of army worms. (Army worms are not really worms at all; they are a turf caterpillar.) But, as we all know, facts can be an elusive commodity, and “spin” is nothing new. Because, you guessed it, the “army worm” isn’t a Hawaiian native either. And guess where the “army worm” originates? Yep. Southeast Asia.
The fact is that the same trading vessels in the 1860’s traveling between Southeast Asia and the Hawaiian Islands that brought the Mynah birds to cure the “army worm” infestation, probably also brought the “disease” before they brought the “cure.” I surmise that the army worm arrived in Hawaii as stowaways in cargoes of sandalwood, tea and opium from China, hardwood timber for shipbuilding from the Philippines, hemp and cotton from India.
Mynahs settle their differences by fighting. They are so divisive and combative that they gather in gangs and if one mynah strays into another gang, it will be beaten or killed by the others. Watching these Mynahs fighting, I can’t help but think about the ways that conversation has suffered over my lifetime. I grew up in a home where conversation was not a rare commodity, and where a difference of opinion was celebrated, so long as you could defend your position. At our dinner table, there were generally 6 different conversations going on at the same time; mostly at a high volume.
I am not saying there weren’t arguments, or occasionally even hurt feelings. But that was such a small price to pay for growing up in a place where even though I was a kid, my voice could always be heard and my thoughts were given serious consideration. I learned how to think critically because I was exposed to facts I didn’t know and opinions I hadn’t considered. And growing up, if I disagreed, I was required to respond with facts and logic to back up my own view. A resort to name-calling was a clear admission of defeat.
Isaiah 1:18 says, “Come, let us reason together…”
To me, these bickering mynahs epitomize the demise of civil discourse in our society. Conversation about serious matters simply doesn’t happen anymore, unless everyone participating in it agrees with each other’s point of view.
Winston Churchill famously said, “Everyone is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people’s idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone else says anything back, that is an outrage.”
Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. said, “If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other, it is the principle of free thought, not free thought for those that agree with us but freedom for the thought we hate.”
This state of affairs is not just sad; it is the proverbial canary in the coal mine, — an early indicator of the death of civilization. I don’t need a sounding board for my opinions. I already know what I believe and why I believe it. I am willing to listen to opinions I disagree with, and the reasoning that supports them. And I would love to have a meaningful conversation with anyone, whether they agree with me or not. But just like Diogenes with his dog and lantern searching the streets of Athens for an honest man, I am still looking for someone on “the other side” willing to have an open-minded and open-ended conversation on subjects that matter. If we want to save our country, somebody has to invite that conversation. Someone has to take the first step back to civil discourse. I am one of those people.
