Month: November 2015

THANKS

It is the eve of Thanksgiving Day, 2015, and I would like to add my little thanks for all of the blessings I have received.

I am deeply thankful for the wife I have been privileged to live with for lo these many years.  I am equally thankful for the three incredible women with whom we so enjoyably shared their childhood and now so enjoyably share their accomplishments.

 

I am grateful for all the worldly goods that fill my life — a wonderful home and an inexhaustible supply of books and food in abundance and entertainment aplenty.

 

I am grateful for those who inundate me with thoughtful observations and drive me constantly to find the real meaning deep down things.

 

I am grateful for a country that still holds on to the fundamental ideals of the equality and inherent rights of all human beings.

 

I am grateful for the example of all those who stand up to the oppression of power, whether military or political or financial.

 

I am grateful that there are people in the world who have needs about which I can do a little something, and I am grateful for the meaning they give to my life by allowing me to do it..

 

I am grateful, if sadly so, that I live in a world relatively untouched by hatred and violence and poverty and oppression.

 

I am, in the end, grateful that I still have time to do whatever I can and should to help the world turn away from that hatred and violence and oppression, that I still have a chance to give all those others in my life the ability to also be grateful.

 

And to all of you, who have given me so much, I give you thanks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WHAT IS THE AMERICAN IDEAL?

Everyone has experienced the torture of watching monstrous young men, men who have apparently been scoured of any shred of conscience, going about killing everyone they can find. Everyone has equally experienced the torture of seeing a man carrying the body of a little boy who was drowned while fleeing the horror of the world created by those monstrous young men. The juxtaposition of those two experiences forces us to face a critical question, a question beyond all others, a question that might very well decide our fate as a culture and perhaps even as a species. It goes beyond the obvious question of how we expunge these deviate moral mutants. It goes even beyond the question of how we respond to the pleas of these thousands upon thousands who give up all they have to flee the hell that their home has become.

The real question, the question that is being dodged, ignored, evaded, but the question that will define us is not easy to formulate, not because it is so complicated but, on the contrary, because it is so simple. It is the first question, the key question, the question that precedes all other questions. It is the question of meaning, of worth, of value, of significance. It is the question of how we define ourselves. Who are we? What do we stand for? What is it that gives us our identity?

There was something sinister about the Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump demanding that we uproot millions of people and build a wall between us and our neighbors and close our borders to those oppressed by violence and hatred and poverty. What made it so much worse than just bad policy was that Trump insisted that we had to do these things “if we are a country.” To be a country, he was suggesting, means building our own isolated kingdom, identifying ourselves by our assets and our powers, and therefore relating to all other nations and all other people as adversaries, opponents, rivals to those assets and powers by which we have defined ourselves.

There is nothing novel about defining a group of people by power. Kings and czars and dictators have been doing that for centuries. The problem is that, if you define yourself by power, your use of power will ultimately result in your own destruction. As a great thinker who suffered through the wars of the twentieth century once put it, “Not only modern war but every war employs arms that turn against those who wield them.” If you define yourself by power, then you have agreed to the use of power against you. Justice itself will be defined by the use of power. More accurately, there is no such thing as justice or the morality that grounds justice. Justice is the will of the strongest, and there will always eventually be a power stronger than yours, and that power will destroy you. Value, worth, meaning, are all just propaganda techniques.

The problem is that America was not created on the basis of power. It was, in fact, created precisely in opposition to a rule by power. The logic of the Declaration of Independence begins with a first principle, a principle so critical and so elemental that it is self-evident, i.e., impossible to deny. All human beings are created equal, and each human being is endowed by his or her creator with certain inalienable rights, including (but not limited to) life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Being an American is based, not on power, but on the responsibility for the rights of others.

No doubt the questions of responding to ISIS violence and caring for the refugees from the violence of the middle east and elsewhere are difficult, and no doubt the answers to those questions are complex. Before we can begin to answer them, however, we must decide the elemental question of what we stand for. We are a country only so long as we stay true to the ideals upon which we were built. About that, at least one thing is sure: we were not built on walls.

THE AMERICAN VENEER

Nature abhors a vacuum, or so Aristotle taught us.  That may not be true as a physics theorem, but it is certainly true of the history of human affairs.  It was a vacuum of leadership that allowed the great monsters of our time, Hitler and Stalin and others, to gain power and work their epic evils.

One of the great mysteries about these historical nightmares is why the people under the rule of these monsters did not rebel and throw them over.  Even Hitler, with his carefully crafted programs of propaganda and repression, had relatively few enforcers under his command compared to the population as a whole, and that population was one of the most highly educated and intelligent peoples in the world.

The answer to that question has, no doubt, many layers, and people far more informed than I have no doubt explored the answer at a level far beyond my abilities.  Whatever that answer may be, the phenomenon itself is a perfect illustration of the venerable adage, attributed to C.P. Snow and others, that the veneer of civilization is exceedingly thin.  Over and over, in literature and in photographs and now daily on social media, we see descriptions and pictures of people who, while presumably also peace-loving parents and children, spew out mindless hatred and bigotry.  I have in mind, as I write these words, those gruesome photos and films of ordinary citizens cursing Jewish men, women and children as they are ripped from their homes and led to unspeakable torture and death.  I have also in mind the smiling faces of white men and women standing under the bodies of black men strung from trees.  Those people no doubt went home and ate dinner, and they got up on Sunday and went to church, and they went home and hugged their children and tucked them neatly in bed.

Whatever else it was that drove these people to accommodate these hideous deeds into their otherwise civilized lives, one conclusion must be drawn:  that whatever they had identified in their lives as of value was, at base, vacuous, empty, meaningless.  Nothing identified as a true, meaningful value could ever have allowed these nightmarish occurrences, and yet there can be no denying that they did indeed occur.  Whatever God they worshiped, whatever cultural practices they followed, whatever family values they espoused — all of that was sufficiently specious to allow them to engage in activities so monstrous that, if called savage, would be an insult to the word “savage” itself.

Recently a dear and wise friend suggested that the recent political discussions made him conclude that it was within the realm of possibilities for American citizens to engage in some event comparable to Kristallnacht.  That night, in November, 1938, a horde of German and Austrian citizens smashed Jewish businesses and places of worship and beat and killed scores of Jewish people who were themselves German citizens.  That brutality set the scene for hundreds of thousand of Jews to be sent to concentration camps, and ultimately to the massacre of millions of innocents.

I initially scoffed at my friend’s observation, but then I put it before myself as I listened to the most recent debate in the race for a Republican candidate for President.  I watched Donald Trump insisting over and over that we must uproot millions of undocumented aliens from their homes.  I heard Jeb Bush denounce Trump’s suggestion on the grounds that it was “not possible.”  Oh, I thought, but what if it were?  Would you do it then?  Because, with just a small change in policy, it would be possible.

I know you are thinking that all of that is ridiculous.  This is, after all, America.  But here is the problem:  do we know what it really means to be an American?  In theory it means that we endorse the principles that all human beings are created equal and that every human being is endowed by his or her creator with certain inalienable rights.  In practice, however, I am hearing more and more that to be an American is far different from that, and, to my mind, far less than that.

I put it to my dear reader that there is, in America, a growing dearth of ideals, and that dearth is edging toward a vacuum.  Our policies are far more often guided by more parochial, more economic, more self-centered goals than Jefferson’s earth-shaking definition of the American ideal.  When political positions are assumed not on those ideals but on the size of your wallet or the color of your skin, the veneer of your civilization threatens to become diaphanously thin.  If it does, it takes only some relatively trivial event to tip your world into a nightmare akin to Kristallnacht.

I hope and pray that my dear wise friend is wrong.  I fear that he is not.

It is too easy, too frighteningly easy, to ridicule the grammatical faux pas of Marco Rubio and the bizarre present and former views of those leading the race for Republican presidential candidacy.  What is far more frightening is the philosophy — yes, philosophy — that apparently drives the strategy and tactics, and ultimately the political intentions, of these candidates.

Apparently Mr. Rubio’s use of “less” rather than “fewer” was closer to the mark he intended than we thought.  He was, I suspect, really encouraging us to engage in less philosophy and more welding.  Consider the rationale he provided for his statement.  He recommended that we have fewer philosophers (and presumably fewer of anything that a university might designate as within the purview of the liberal arts, such as history, art, foreign languages, literature and certainly English) because, he said, welders made more money than philosophers.  Never mind that he was wrong about that.  The point is that his announced measure of value to the community was purely monetary.  By Rubio’s reasoning, a person’s value is measured by the amount of money she makes.

Take a deep breath and consider that.  Subtracting the televangelist hucksters, those priests and nuns and pastors and other religious who dedicate their lives to their fellow humans while living a voluntary life of poverty might wonder how Rubio was going to be evaluating them.  Those dedicated men and women who practice medicine and do research on human needs and give of their time to public office in the true interests of the people — all of these many, many people are, by Rubio’s announced standard, somehow just a drag on what he apparently considers the true measure of a human and of a community, i.e., making a buck.

It is not sufficient to characterize this as a dumbing down of America, or even, as one Columbia professor suggested, a playing to a community that has already been successfully dumbed down.  It is far worse than that, and it is what scares me most about every one of that horde of people whom the Republicans allow on stage.  What Rubio, and what all of these people, are recommending is no less than an abandonment of the American ideal of responsibility for our fellow humans and a devolution to a standard of greed and self-interest.

We should remember that the founding fathers were all well-educated, and that they were all familiar with the political and moral thinking of the great philosophers of their time.  The American ideal, so succinctly and eloquently expressed in the Declaration of Independence, is grounded in the profound thinking of John Locke.  The founders had been thoroughly trained in the fundamental and critical problems of justice and statesmanship set forth by Plato in The Republic.  They had all given of their time freely, without consideration for profit, and profit is nowhere to be found in their considerations of what the foundation of this government and way of life is and should be.

During the ill-fated war in Iraq, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was asked why things were not going as predicted.  He answered by saying that the public should be more concerned about the world series or some other sports event.  The philosophy suggested by such a scurrilous comment seems to be blossoming among these Presidential pretenders.  Don’t think, and certainly don’t question what we do with your government.  Just go make money and watch football.

The word “philosophy” is too often misused to describe a certain set of first principles, principles that are far too often set forth without question or verification.  The real meaning of philosophy lies far deeper than that.  It is, as the philosopher Richard Cohen once wrote, a search without regard for the consequences.  It is a striving to know who we are and what we mean without allowing prejudice to sway the answer.  It is the queen of the sciences most of all because, without it, we cannot long survive in any meaningful sense.

We might indeed need more welders.  We clearly do need more philosophers, and less Rubios.

WHAT RUBIO REALLY MEANT

It is too easy, too frighteningly easy, to ridicule the grammatical faux pas of Marco Rubio and the bizarre present and former views of those leading the race for Republican presidential candidacy.  What is far more frightening is the philosophy — yes, philosophy — that apparently drives the strategy and tactics, and ultimately the political intentions, of these candidates.

Apparently Mr. Rubio’s use of “less” rather than “fewer” was closer to the mark he intended than we thought.  He was, I suspect, really encouraging us to engage in less philosophy and more welding.  Consider the rationale he provided for his statement.  He recommended that we have fewer philosophers (and presumably fewer of anything that a university might designate as within the purview of the liberal arts, such as history, art, foreign languages, literature and certainly English) because, he said, welders made more money than philosophers.  Never mind that he was wrong about that.  The point is that his announced measure of value to the community was purely monetary.  By Rubio’s reasoning, a person’s value is measured by the amount of money she makes.

Take a deep breath and consider that.  Subtracting the televangelist hucksters, those priests and nuns and pastors and other religious who dedicate their lives to their fellow humans while living a voluntary life of poverty might wonder how Rubio was going to be evaluating them.  Those dedicated men and women who practice medicine and do research on human needs and give of their time to public office in the true interests of the people — all of these many, many people are, by Rubio’s announced standard, somehow just a drag on what he apparently considers the true measure of a human and of a community, i.e., making a buck.

It is not sufficient to characterize this as a dumbing down of America, or even, as one Columbia professor suggested, a playing to a community that has already been successfully dumbed down.  It is far worse than that, and it is what scares me most about every one of that horde of people whom the Republicans allow on stage.  What Rubio, and what all of these people, are recommending is no less than an abandonment of the American ideal of responsibility for our fellow humans and a devolution to a standard of greed and self-interest.

We should remember that the founding fathers were all well-educated, and that they were all familiar with the political and moral thinking of the great philosophers of their time.  The American ideal, so succinctly and eloquently expressed in the Declaration of Independence, is grounded in the profound thinking of John Locke.  The founders had been thoroughly trained in the fundamental and critical problems of justice and statesmanship set forth by Plato in The Republic.  They had all given of their time freely, without consideration for profit, and profit is nowhere to be found in their considerations of what the foundation of this government and way of life is and should be.

During the ill-fated war in Iraq, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was asked why things were not going as predicted.  He answered by saying that the public should be more concerned about the world series or some other sports event.  The philosophy suggested by such a scurrilous comment seems to be blossoming among these Presidential pretenders.  Don’t think, and certainly don’t question what we do with your government.  Just go make money and watch football.

The word “philosophy” is too often misused to describe a certain set of first principles, principles that are far too often set forth without question or verification.  The real meaning of philosophy lies far deeper than that.  It is, as the philosopher Richard Cohen once wrote, a search without regard for the consequences.  It is a striving to know who we are and what we mean without allowing prejudice to sway the answer.  It is the queen of the sciences most of all because, without it, we cannot long survive in any meaningful sense.

We might indeed need more welders.  We clearly do need more philosophers, and less Rubios.

WHAT RUBIO REALLY MEANT

It is too easy, too frighteningly easy, to ridicule the grammatical faux pas of Marco Rubio and the bizarre present and former views of those leading the race for Republican presidential candidacy.  What is far more frightening is the philosophy — yes, philosophy — that apparently drives the strategy and tactics, and ultimately the political intentions, of these candidates.

Apparently Mr. Rubio’s use of “less” rather than “fewer” was closer to the mark he intended than we thought.  He was, I suspect, really encouraging us to engage in less philosophy and more welding.  Consider the rationale he provided for his statement.  He recommended that we have fewer philosophers (and presumably fewer of anything that a university might designate as within the purview of the liberal arts, such as history, art, foreign languages, literature and certainly English) because, he said, welders made more money than philosophers.  Never mind that he was wrong about that.  The point is that his announced measure of value to the community was purely monetary.  By Rubio’s reasoning, a person’s value is measured by the amount of money she makes.

Take a deep breath and consider that.  Subtracting the televangelist hucksters, those priests and nuns and pastors and other religious who dedicate their lives to their fellow humans while living a voluntary life of poverty might wonder how Rubio was going to be evaluating them.  Those dedicated men and women who practice medicine and do research on human needs and give of their time to public office in the true interests of the people — all of these many, many people are, by Rubio’s announced standard, somehow just a drag on what he apparently considers the true measure of a human and of a community, i.e., making a buck.

It is not sufficient to characterize this as a dumbing down of America, or even, as one Columbia professor suggested, a playing to a community that has already been successfully dumbed down.  It is far worse than that, and it is what scares me most about every one of that horde of people whom the Republicans allow on stage.  What Rubio, and what all of these people, are recommending is no less than an abandonment of the American ideal of responsibility for our fellow humans and a devolution to a standard of greed and self-interest.

We should remember that the founding fathers were all well-educated, and that they were all familiar with the political and moral thinking of the great philosophers of their time.  The American ideal, so succinctly and eloquently expressed in the Declaration of Independence, is grounded in the profound thinking of John Locke.  The founders had been thoroughly trained in the fundamental and critical problems of justice and statesmanship set forth by Plato in The Republic.  They had all given of their time freely, without consideration for profit, and profit is nowhere to be found in their considerations of what the foundation of this government and way of life is and should be.

During the ill-fated war in Iraq, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was asked why things were not going as predicted.  He answered by saying that the public should be more concerned about the world series or some other sports event.  The philosophy suggested by such a scurrilous comment seems to be blossoming among these Presidential pretenders.  Don’t think, and certainly don’t question what we do with your government.  Just go make money and watch football.

The word “philosophy” is too often misused to describe a certain set of first principles, principles that are far too often set forth without question or verification.  The real meaning of philosophy lies far deeper than that.  It is, as the philosopher Richard Cohen once wrote, a search without regard for the consequences.  It is a striving to know who we are and what we mean without allowing prejudice to sway the answer.  It is the queen of the sciences most of all because, without it, we cannot long survive in any meaningful sense.

We might indeed need more welders.  We clearly do need more philosophers, and less Rubios.