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Don’t Be Fooled by False Narratives

Since long before human beings began to write or even to develop alphabets, they told stories, the earliest of which are recorded in the form of cave drawings. Later, around campfires, oral literature began to be created and transmitted; by the time the written language was ready to record stories for all time, there was already a body of oral literature waiting to be set to paper. Then came the printing press, and then came social media; so now, as things happen to us during the day, we’re already mentally composing our social media story to be sent out as soon as we have a free moment or as soon as the boss isn’t looking.

Story telling is as integral a part of being human as eating, sleeping, and the other necessities of survival. In fact, stories—or narratives—are themselves among the necessities of survival. In addition to fictional narratives in the form of novels, short stories, movies, and TV shows that entertain us and offer a few moments of escape into another world, narratives form the underpinnings of our belief systems and our relationships to our fellow humans. They connect us to our fellow humans and determine how we will relate to them. Every culture has its stories, shared by its members and passed from one generation to the next.

Most countries of the world have a story about children receiving gifts in the month of December; but the character who delivers the gifts, the type of gifts delivered, and the method of transportation for the gift giver vary widely from one culture to another. Our American Santa Claus, as we all know, is a jolly old white-bearded, red-suited guy who circles the globe in a single night, propelled through the sky by eight reindeer, and who goes down every single chimney in the world and leaves gifts for every child. Never mind that such a feat would actually take several years and a team of workers instead of a single night and one overweight guy surviving on cookies, this story has fascinated children for hundreds of years and underlies some of the most cherished memories of all of our childhoods.

In Iceland, thirteen mischievous creatures known as the Yule Lads deliver the gifts. In Norway, Finland, and Sweden, the Tomte are small, gnomish creatures who may travel by sleigh, but the sleigh doesn’t fly; and instead of living at the North Pole, they are said to live in the woods surrounding people’s houses. In Italy, the Befana is a witch-like character who also flies around the world but on a broomstick instead of a sleigh; legend has it that she is a kind character who provided food and shelter to the three wise men on their journey to visit the Baby Jesus. Name the location, and there is yet another legend, and all form part of the fabric of the shared experiences of that culture.

Stories are an important part of our human efforts to explain and make sense of the world we live in. Creation stories attempt to answer questions about how the world came to be and how we came to live here. Stories of gods and goddesses who are always raising a ruckus, engaging in plenty of shenanigans, and acting out their petty disagreements offer primitive explanations of things such as weather, human emotions, and other natural phenomena. Biblical writers used stories to explain and illustrate human relationships and try to steer us toward right relationships with ourselves and others. Family stories unite members and give us a sense of identity and pride in those whose DNA we share and carry on.

In June of this year, a movie was released—The Free State of Jones—about a Civil War story involving my great great grandfather Jasper Collins. He has always been a legend in my family, and now his story—and the story of his comrades—has been told to the whole world. Through reading the book and seeing the movie, I have learned even more about Jasper than I learned from my family; and I have an increased sense of pride in knowing that I am descended from such a great man.

Because stories are such an enormous part of our personal, family, and cultural identity, they’re not easily changed or let go. The Santa Claus story never made a lot of sense; there were always doubts and questions, especially among those of us who didn’t have chimneys. Yet we rationalized and dreamed and held onto that story, even when we began hearing whispers among our classmates at school that Santa was not real. Angrily, we dug in our heels and declared “I believe!” as the evidence continued to mount and the pressure to let go escalated. But if we let go of Santa, what else might we have to let go of? Would the Bunny be next to get the axe? Or what if it was something even more serious? What other parts of our shared lore might also be false?

This is my second post about stories, or narratives, because they are such an integral part of who we are and what we believe. Even though stories are not always factual, they are always part of our truth. Santa Claus, a magical sleigh, eight flying reindeer, and a large toy manufacturer at the North Pole are not facts; but in our childish minds, they were the most sacred truth. And our belief in those things was enough to induce us to be on our best behavior throughout the year so as to avoid ending up on the “naughty list” come Christmas time. Our belief steered our behavior.

What other narratives drive our behavior? What other narratives, not backed by fact, but believed as truth in the deepest parts of our beings, cause us to treat others in inhumane, immoral, and unethical ways? And how do those narratives then justify the wrong we’ve committed?

Throughout history, whenever one people group have wanted to exploit or persecute another, they’ve first had to give themselves permission to do so by creating a narrative that justifies the abuse. Hitler could not have carried out his agenda to create a perfect blonde-haired, blue-eyed Aryan race without attempting to eliminate or weaken the parts of the human race that didn’t fit his plan; and eliminating those unwanted humans required a narrative to justify the action. A passage from his well-known book Mein Kampf, which makes frequent references to the “filthy Jew,”  is quoted on The History Learning Site:

The Jewish youth lies in wait for hours on end . . . spying on the unsuspicious German girl he plans to seduce . . . He wants to contaminate her blood and remove her from the bosom of her own people. The Jew hates the white race and wants to lower its cultural level so that the Jews might dominate. Was there any form of filth or crime . . . without at least one Jew involved in it. If you cut even cautiously into such a sore, you find like a maggot in a rotting body, often dazzled by the sudden light – a Jew.

If that’s the narrative embedded in one’s mind as truth, one could kill a Jewish person as easily as squash a cockroach and feel as little guilt. In fact, the person who killed a Jew could feel he had done the world a great service by ridding it of such a menace. For over half a century, people have wondered how on earth Hitler persuaded so many people to go along with his diabolical plans. He created a persuasive story.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll shows the results of white Americans surveyed on the questions of whether African Americans are equal to whites in their intelligence, work ethic, manners, violence, and lawfulness. The poll rated four groups, divided by the presidential candidate they were supporting during this year’s primary: Clinton, Trump, Cruz, and Kasich. On the matter of intelligence, an average of 22.5% of respondents saw blacks as less intelligent than whites. On work ethic, an average of 26.8% saw blacks as lazier than whites. When asked about manners, an average of 31.1% said blacks are ruder than whites. An average of 32.8% said blacks are more violent, and 33.2% saw blacks as more criminal than whites.

Once again, if this narrative is someone’s “truth,” it’s pretty easy to figure out why whites see people of color as inferior and why police officers might be quicker to pull the trigger on a black person than a white person with all other circumstances being equal. It’s easy to see why some women walk a little faster and avoid eye contact when approached by a black male.

And the narrative works from both sides. One memorable experience of my life happened when I was a 17-year-old newly licensed driver, eagerly volunteering for any errand that involved my getting behind the wheel of the car. My family was visiting my Alabama relatives, and my aunt had a woman who happened to be black doing some light housework for her. The woman needed a ride home, so I drove her. As I slid into the driver’s seat, I glanced over expecting to see her in the passenger’s seat. When she wasn’t there, I looked around to see why she wasn’t in the car yet; and I discovered that she was in the car: in the back seat. I felt so strange, I asked, “Why don’t you come up here?” This thought had obviously never occurred to her, as she replied, “Oh, no! I couldn’t.” I insisted that she could, but there was no persuading her.

That experience lingers in my memory after all these years because I can’t help thinking of the narrative written into that woman’s heart and mind. Her narrative had taught her the truth that she was unworthy to take a position equal to a white person—even when that white person was a 17-year-old girl. What I wish I could say to that woman now is “You are worthy. You have lived. You have been a good, honest person. You do not need to take a back seat to anyone. My 17-year-old self should be learning from you.” Sadly, that is a narrative I feel sure the woman never heard.

The narratives about women, of course, are too numerous to list: they’re the weaker sex, their main goal in life is to get married and have children, they’re suited only for certain types of jobs, they need men to protect them, they want to be complimented more for their beauty than for their brains, they’re not as smart as men—just a small sampling but enough to make it clear why we’re just now seriously considering electing a woman as president.

Cultural narratives also play a huge part in our inability to reduce gun violence. Many gun owners have accepted as truth the NRA narrative that the government is hostile and that their personal stock of weapons is their only defense against police and other law enforcement officials. In spite of the fact that NO president or presidential candidate has ever threatened to confiscate all guns from private citizens, the narrative continues to be told as truth: Obama/Clinton/whoever is coming to get your guns and repeal the Second Amendment. And once again, if the narrative is your truth, you’re going to resist any attempt at placing even the most sensible restrictions on gun ownership.

The history of conflict in the Middle East is long and complex, and telling the whole story would require volumes; it would also require a different story teller, since I don’t claim to understand it all. So for the purpose of this brief article, I just want to look at the effects of narratives on how the rest of the world responds to the violence and turmoil. Those who accept the Zionist narrative that the Jews are simply returning to their homeland to claim God’s promised inheritance interpret any resistance or act of self-defense on the part of the Palestinians as aggression. The Jews who build settlements in Palestinian territory are claiming what is rightfully theirs, and if the Palestinians don’t want to get hurt, they should be a little more cooperative.

But that’s not the only narrative. The other story says that in 1947, the United Nations adopted a Partition Plan, to take effect in 1948, which would create two independent states: Palestine and Israel. Those who accept this narrative as their truth see the continuing conflict as Jewish violation of international law and the building of settlements in land awarded to Palestine as illegal and immoral. In this story, the Jews become the perpetrators rather than the victims, and their offenses against Palestinian human rights amount to apartheid.

Stories drive actions and attitudes. Increasingly, reciting facts to people is futile, since their stories are their truth; and any fact which doesn’t match that truth is obviously incorrect in their minds.

Since our narratives are much of what bind us together with our families, our communities, our tribes, they’re not easy to change or let go of. Many people know what it means to be ostracized from family and community because they’ve adopted a different belief system from the one sanctioned by the tribe. Our narratives are part of our world views, the belief systems that have made sense out of chaos and confusion, that have given us a sense of safety and security in an unstable and frightening world. They’ve been the anchor that’s kept us from going adrift. They’ve given us a sense of belonging, a feeling of being right, a feeling of being good and virtuous. They’ve even influenced our relationship to God. It’s understandable that we’re reluctant to make changes.

But change is necessary; if we’re to survive, the stories must be rewritten. My story is what I will pass on to my children and grandchildren, and it will affect what they pass on to their children and grandchildren. I have to get it right, even when it means making sacrifices and stepping out of my safe territory. Wrong narratives perpetuate injustice. Denouncing and working to eliminate injustice is a human responsibility, and it begins with changing the narratives. Our stories will be told for generations to come. Someone has to be the change.

 

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Politics

Changing the Narratives

Everybody has a story; and factual or not, that story–or narrative–forms the lens through which each person is judged. Remember when your mom taught you that you should always strive to make a good first impression because “First impressions are lasting impressions”? Your mom may not have known it, but she was talking about narratives. That first impression becomes the lens through which everything else you learn about a person is viewed, and any new information that conflicts with the first impression is either twisted to fit the narrative or discarded because it won’t fit.

A few years ago, I met one of my neighbors from down the street for the first time. She was falling-down drunk in her front yard, trying to catch her little dog that had run across the street. I’m not really sure if I’ve ever met that neighbor again; but if I ever do, I’ll have to make a conscious effort to erase the image of her ridiculously sprawled on the grass and create a new narrative in my mind reflecting who she really is when she hasn’t emptied too many glasses.

Biblical literalists have been known to measure whales’ stomachs and study their digestive systems searching for proof that Jonah really could have gone down that whale’s esophagus, survived three days in its belly, been puked up on shore, and gone about his business only a little smellier for the experience. Those willing to consider a different narrative, however, find that the real message of Jonah is so much more important than whales and their digestive systems. The reason Jonah was headed in the wrong direction is the first place is that he was sent to express God’s love to a group of people he deemed unworthy of God’s love or of their fellow humans’ love and respect. What Jonah really teaches us is about our relationship with and attitude toward people who are different from us, whom we see as the “other.”

It takes time and a concentrated effort to change a narrative—or, as your mom called it, a first impression—once it’s set. Unfortunately, many people are the products of schools which for several decades have been so focused on teaching students to pass high-stakes standardized tests that they’ve had no time in the curriculum to teach critical thinking: challenging narratives and assumptions, analyzing sources of information, or even the necessity of having sources outside one’s own narrow “opinions” and biases. Add to that the overall dumbing down of our electorate and the anti-intellectualism that has dominated the last few decades, and it’s not too difficult to understand why we’re in the shape we’re in.

I watched an online video this morning in which Jordan Klepper, in a sort of man-on-the-street segment on Trevor Noah’s The Daily Show, goes to a political rally to interview some of the attendees on their opinions of the presidential candidates. After hearing some pretty outrageous narratives, he asks for their sources; and the interviewees proudly admit their sources are Facebook, Twitter, and “my own opinion.” Most smug of all in her ignorance is the last woman interviewed: “Do I have proof? NO. Do I have articles? NO.” In response to the interviewer’s question “So your mind is made up without any information?” she proudly responds with a self-satisfied smile, “My mind is made up.” Wow. This is scary.

How is it possible for voters’ minds to be made up without any information? Narratives. It’s all about the narratives: those stories that have been embedded in their consciousness and into which they have to fit any new information they may happen to hear.

Think about it.

Jimmy Carter was the fumbling, bumbling nobody from Plains, Georgia. His arrival on the political scene was greeted by the question “Who the hell is Jimmy Carter?” Largely ridiculed during his one-term presidency, he left office in 1981 widely regarded as a failure and an object of derision.

John F. Kennedy was the first member of the Catholic faith to become president. I remember hearing concerns that the Pope might wield too much power over U. S. affairs because of the narrative regarding his total authority over all members of the Catholic Church.

Ronald Reagan was a divorcee. Could a divorced person be president? Not according to the narratives of the time.

Lyndon Johnson was sworn into office on November 22, 1963, aboard Air Force One, just before it departed for the return trip from Dallas to Washington, DC. He became president amid conspiracy theories that he had been complicit in John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

President Obama is a Muslim. He was not born in America and is therefore not a citizen and not qualified to be president. He founded ISIS. He’s an ISIS sympathizer.

Hillary Clinton is a cold, aloof, deceptive, lying, murdering criminal who should be locked up. Oh, and she cofounded ISIS.

Donald Trump is a wildly successful businessman who would bring his financial acumen to the oval office and clean up our country’s debt problems. Also, he “shoots from the hip” (so does your drunk uncle) and therefore must be honest.

Jimmy Carter has overcome the narrative that accompanied him onto the public stage; he is now a Nobel Prize winner and the model ex-president. Historian Richard Norton Smith, cited in a New York Times opinion piece by James Warren,  says of Carter, “He invented the modern ex-presidency.” George Edwards III is quoted in the same article: “He’s shown how a former President can use his fame, status, connections and talent to make the world a better place.”

During President Kennedy’s brief time in office, the narrative of the Pope’s influence was dispelled; but after his death, we learned a new narrative which was not public information during his time in office because the media had not yet taken up round-the-clock stalking and the 24-hour news cycle was still a thing of the future. The new narrative about President Kennedy revolves around his dalliances with many women, and his relationship with Marilyn Monroe seems at times to have eclipsed his accomplishments as president.

President Johnson went on to sign the 1964 and 1968 Civil Rights Acts and is also credited with a long list of other significant domestic accomplishments, including overseeing the first manned flight to the moon and appointing the first African-American justice, Thurgood Marshall, to the Supreme Court. People pretty much forgot about the conspiracy theory narratives and replaced them with narratives recognizing his accomplishments.

Narratives can change, but change is usually slow, and many people resist change, a fact most graphically demonstrated in today’s refusal to believe any facts which don’t fit the narratives about our presidential candidates. Judd Legum, Editor-in-Chief of Think Progress, cites statistics from PPP (Public Policy Polling) showing that 65% of voters favoring Trump believe that President Obama is a Muslim. All facts, including his many personal expressions of his Christian faith, are wasted on those people, because when the facts don’t fit the narrative, the facts are discarded—not the narrative. According to that same article, 59% of Trump supporters believe—regardless of the overwhelming facts to the contrary—that our president was not born in the United States. When there’s a controversy, narratives win over facts far, far too often.

Let’s pretend for a moment that you just read an article about a woman named Gertrude McClintock. This article speaks of Gertrude’s brilliance and accomplishment. She began as a teenager, when many young people are interested only in partying and having fun, to take an active part in political activities and was inspired by Martin Luther King to enter a life of public service. She graduated with honors from Wellesley College, having served as senior class president, and went on to earn a law degree from Yale University.

During her summers as a college student, Gertrude continued her activity in politics. She served as staff attorney for the Children’s Defense Fund and a consultant to the Carnegie Council on Children. She cofounded Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, in alliance with the Children’s Defense Fund. She went on the serve as a very active First Lady of the United States, a U. S. Senator, and U. S. Secretary of State. The rest of the article is filled with enough other credentials and accomplishments to make your head spin. You’d probably think, “Wow! This Gertrude is amazing! How could one woman do all of that? I wonder if she’d ever consider running for president?”

Then we change the name from Gertrude McClintock to Hillary Clinton, and the narratives of Crooked Hillary, Lying Hillary, HilLIARy, eclipse ALL of the facts; the facts become meaningless because they don’t fit the narrative. It’s impossible for some to think of her as simply a clueless Baby Boomer who’s a little slow picking up on technology because their narrative says she’s crooked and evil, and she was intentionally subversive in her use of the wrong kind of email server. Even the testimony of the FBI Director is suspect for those blinded by the old narrative; instead of accepting his word for her innocence, they conclude that he obviously can’t be trusted either because his conclusion doesn’t fit their predetermined belief. No matter what she does, it is interpreted through the assumption of criminality.

Now imagine that every day for over a year, you’ve heard about the outrageous antics of Elmer Jones. Elmer has insulted every group of people in existence, he has criminal suits pending against him for fraud and child rape, he owns a lot of companies which send jobs overseas, he has a long history of stiffing the people who work for him on his big buildings and has ruined many small businesses, he even stiffed some little girls who sang at his convention, the only person who has benefited from his “charitable” foundation is himself, he is proven by Politifact to lie 71% of the time, he’s had four bankruptcies and three wives, he’s cheated on at least two of his three wives, he’s boasted publicly of his sexual exploits, he has discussed the size of his penis on national TV, and he has committed about a hundred or so other egregious acts. Elmer would rightfully earn your and everyone else’s disdain, he would never so much as be considered for public office, and he would quite possibly be in jail.

But change that name to Donald Trump, and those facts suddenly become meaningless, because the narrative is that he’s the consummate businessman who is worth ten billion dollars and therefore obviously knows what he’s doing. Also, his lack of political correctness and his reckless speech mean he is honest; so Politifact is clearly just a left-wing propaganda machine trying to discredit this good person. Of course, he is doing his part to see that the narratives don’t change by refusing to release the evidence of his fraud: his tax returns.

The most dangerous false narrative is that Clinton and Trump are equivalent choices, as would be the case in most presidential elections. Even a quick look at the facts would belie this narrative, but we’ve already seen that narratives supersede facts most of the time. This narrative is the one, however, that we must let go of. There is no equivalence between these two candidates, and treating them as equal but different is what has led us to the scary place where we are now.

The Republican Party narrative has also contributed to the problem. It is the party of family values and conservatism, although neither of these labels is supported by the current facts. Yet the power of the narrative compels party-line voters to believe it is their duty to support a con man in order to preserve the alleged values of their party.

Narratives can be changed, but it’s hard work; and lots of forces are at work to prevent changes in our thinking. Fear of rejection by one’s tribe wields a powerful influence. I know since I could list at least half a dozen topics which are avoided among various members of my own family because maintaining the family relationships is more important than being “right” about those topics. But we have to do better than we’re doing now. Facts matter. Say it with me: FACTS. MATTER.

 

Categories
Politics

A Tisket, a Tasket, What’s inside Your Basket?

Hillary Clinton said Donald Trump’s supporters can be placed into two baskets: the “deplorables” and the people who are “desperate for change.” I’ve taken the liberty of creating my own categories: The Deplorables, the Government Haters, the Party Liners, the Trump Book Club, and the Hillary Haters. Not all of these people are bad, of course; but their votes will all contribute to an unprecedented disaster in our government, our national security, and the status of the United States of America on the world stage.

Let’s go ahead and talk about the “deplorables” first since they are the scariest ones. I applaud Mrs. Clinton for calling them what they are, and I believe she should neither recant nor apologize for her statement. Trump’s most rabid supporters are angry white men, many of whom are racists who identify themselves with the alt-right, a group that promotes white supremacy and who are—according to NPR—against “multiculturalism, immigration, feminism and, above all, political correctness.”

Sound familiar? Those are the very pillars on which Donald Trump has built his preposterous “presidential campaign.” Flying in the face of political correctness was his rallying cry, and these alt-right supporters, according to Nicole Hemmer, see political correctness “as the greatest threat to their liberty” (quoted by NPR). Ms. Hemmer goes on to say, “They believe saying racist or anti-Semitic things . . . is not an act of hate, but an act of freedom.”

As if having alt-right people and David Duke sympathizers as followers were not enough, Trump hired the man who gave this fledgling group a platform—Steve Bannon—to be the CEO of his then floundering campaign.

Those who cheer for Trump’s racist, xenophobic, Islamaphobic rants, who chant “Lock her up!” whenever he mentions Hillary Clinton’s name, who believe every bit of vomit that spews from his mouth and stand ready to use violence if necessary to support him are indeed deplorable and a menace to our society.

Not all of Trump’s supporters, however, fall into this category, or to use Hillary Clinton’s word, “basket.” The other groups I have mentioned are not deplorable; in fact, some are pitiable, but they are no less a threat. The deplorables won’t change; they have dark, menacing ideas, and Trump has given them credibility and a safe place to vent their bile and venom. The other groups of Trump supporters are not dangerous in themselves; but ballot counters don’t count motive, so they are just as hazardous as the alt-right people.

Most pitiable of all Trump supporters are the Government Haters. These people are so unhappy with their lot in life that they grasp every delusional word Trump says as if it were a lifeboat that would take them to a better place. In the greatest and richest country on earth, millions of people feel so angry, so betrayed, so powerless, so disenfranchised, so cheated, and so dehumanized by their government and their politicians that the rantings of a crazy man sound like words of hope and promise!

Hillary Clinton describes them this way:

people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they’re just desperate for change. It doesn’t really even matter where it comes from. They don’t buy everything he says, but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won’t wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they’re in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.

I’ve often said that Trump is the effect, not the cause. Anti-intellectualism, failing schools, failing churches, hatred, prejudice of all sorts, political polarization—these are our real problems. Trump simply played on people’s vulnerability, the spineless Republican Party allowed him to take over, and the even more spineless media gave him the free air time to do so. The Government Haters are correct in much of what they say but sadly misguided in what they see as the solution. Their messiah is using them to achieve his goal but would do little for them if elected.

Then there are the Party Line Republicans. They’d vote for a hamster if the Republican Party nominated it. In all fairness, some Democrats would do the same for their party; and party loyalty is not all bad. It becomes problematic, however, when loyalty to party supersedes loyalty to country. President Obama is credited with the statement that we are not red states and blue states; we are the United States. When either party loses its mind and nominates a menace to our democracy as its presidential candidate, every citizen—regardless of party affiliation—should unite to extinguish that threat and keep our country united and safe. The Party Liners are not deplorable, just naïve and misguided.

Certain members of the Party Liners, however, are deplorable: the high-ranking Republicans such as Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell and the snake in the grass Reince Preibus, who don’t agree with a word Trump says but urge voters to support the party candidate. With leadership like that, the party as we know it is in danger of extinction. But that won’t affect Trump since–even though he’s riding on the wave of party loyalty–he himself has no loyalty to any party. Now that he’s built his mob of supporters who are loyal to him alone, he doesn’t need the support of any party; and he would certainly not work with any party if elected. A demagogue’s power comes from his exploitation of crowd passions, not from checks and balances or due process.

Next up are the Trump Book Club. Book? Oh, that’s right, Trump doesn’t read; and neither do these followers. They’re not bad people; they’re just used to trusting the process to the “experts” and showing up on voting day to follow their leaders’ recommendations. Many in this group pride themselves on “doing their own research,” but that usually means seeking and following the opinions of sources who lean the same direction they do and scoffing at anything which challenges their personal biases. They’re not deplorable, but they are a threat because they’re not informed enough to know what they don’t know.

For me, the most disturbing group in this election cycle is the Hillary Haters. I’m not saying Mrs. Clinton is above criticism or that all of the criticisms against her are unjustified. She has spent her entire life in public service, so she has made mistakes along the way. Ever make a mistake on your job? I made my share of them. Anyone who’s doing anything is going to screw up periodically, and the more a person is doing the more opportunities there are for screw-ups.

What’s disturbing to me about the Hillary Haters is that most of them have bought the false narratives spread by her enemies and have closed their minds to any information that contradicts those narratives. This weekend, I read an excellent article called “Media Narratives Imprison Clinton, Trump—and Voters,” by Neal Gabler (published on Moyers and Company). Mr. Gabler’s premise is that narratives drive election coverage and largely contribute to elections’ outcomes. He explains:

Narratives are the stories and characteristics that the media attach to candidates, so the election turns into a “movie” pitting one protagonist’s qualities against another’s. In this election, we all know the narrative constructs because the media hammer at them day after day after day: Hillary Clinton is a cold, secretive, defensive liar who is nevertheless competent; Donald Trump is a loose cannon who is nevertheless plain-spoken and says exactly what’s on his mind. The media never deviate from these ideas. Indeed, they are high-security prisons from which the candidates cannot escape.

Applied to Mrs. Clinton, this means that

No matter what Clinton says or does, it will always be filtered through the pre-existing scrim. If she talks policy, she is cold. If she insists — rightfully, to my mind — that the email brouhaha is a molehill turned into not just any mountain but Everest, she is defensive. If she meets, as every politician does, with friends and favor-seekers, she is corrupt, whether she has doled out favors or not. These are the traits the media have assigned to her.

Gabler goes on to comment on the Trump narratives and then makes this comparison:

But you may have noticed something. Even the negative attributes the media have slapped on Trump . . . are better than the ones they have put on Clinton. Her actions can all be chalked up to duplicity; Trump’s, on the other hand, to his politically incorrect honesty. Never mind that Trump may be, if you follow PolitiFact, the single most mendacious [For the Trump Book Club people, that means lying] candidate in the history of presidential politics.

In another article, Neal Gabler says:

The bigger point is this: whatever you may think of the Clintons, the scandals didn’t create the meme of untrustworthiness about them. The meme of untrustworthiness created the scandals. The media just kept hunting for those scandals as confirmation of what they had already determined. That is how so many in the MSM work — backwards from presumption to incident. It also happens to be the surest path to career advancement for journalistic opportunists. (“The Media Have a Hillary Story and They’re Sticking to It,” Moyers and Company)

The obvious problem here is that voters have been so conditioned by these narratives that no amount of information about Trump’s criminal activity or his sleazy lifestyle can overcome the narrative that he’s just a straight shooter who wants to help the underdogs. And the much-publicized lists of bankruptcies, failed businesses, and frauds can’t tarnish the narrative that he’s the consummate businessman who will apply the skills that have made him a multi-billionaire (although we will never know his actual net worth) to the national budget and make the country financially great again.

As for Hillary Clinton, the press has never cared much for her or her husband, so it’s unlikely she’ll ever get a break. Press treatment of them is similar to the biblical literalists’ making up a doctrine or taking a position and then going through the scriptures in search of “proof” for their preexisting belief.

If she has a case of walking pneumonia, instead of giving her credit for being tough enough to work through it, they’ll dedicate the next several days’ news cycles to showing how this proves that she really is dishonest and deceptive because she didn’t make a public announcement the minute she was diagnosed. And they’ll demand that she release even more medical records to prove she isn’t hiding anything else. Never mind that her opponent has released a tiny fraction of what she has.

The Hillary Haters are not exactly deplorable, but they’re misguided, and they can be appallingly nasty. Like the media’s, their narrative is embedded, and anything she does will be viewed through that lens. Even when Politifact calls her the most honest candidate they’ve fact checked, her haters call Politifact a phony liberal organization that supports her evil agenda.

Washington Post writer Robert Kagan offers this astute summary:

What Trump offers his followers are not economic remedies — his proposals change daily. What he offers is an attitude, an aura of crude strength and machismo, a boasting disrespect for the niceties of the democratic culture that he claims, and his followers believe, has produced national weakness and incompetence. His incoherent and contradictory utterances have one thing in common: They provoke and play on feelings of resentment and disdain, intermingled with bits of fear, hatred and anger. His public discourse consists of attacking or ridiculing a wide range of “others” — Muslims, Hispanics, women, Chinese, Mexicans, Europeans, Arabs, immigrants, refugees — whom he depicts either as threats or as objects of derision. His program, such as it is, consists chiefly of promises to get tough with foreigners and people of nonwhite complexion. He will deport them, bar them, get them to knuckle under, make them pay up or make them shut up. (“This Is How Fascism Comes to America,” 18 May 2016)

The prospect of a Trump presidency is deplorable. The groups who vote for him have different backgrounds and reasons for their choice, but a vote is a vote; and every one of them is contributing to the apocalypse that will befall if this know-nothing is elected. Time to wake up!

 

 

 

 

 

Categories
Politics

DO NOT Vote Your Conscience!

Now that I have your attention, let’s talk.

I don’t know any delicate way to say this, but with early voting starting this week, it must be said: A vote for Donald J. Trump is a vote against America. If the unthinkable should happen and this utterly unqualified person becomes our president, the blood of our country will be on the hands of everyone who voted for him. Yes, that’s harsh, but the reality of what would happen to our country under a Trump presidency is even harsher.

Voting is a cherished right, one which many have died to preserve. Each of us owns our vote, and we are bound by conscience and duty to country to use that vote responsibly. Each of us has to search his or her conscience before exercising this most solemn of duties, so here are a few facts for your conscience to chew on before you cast your ballot in the next 7 weeks.

The most important fact that must drive our thinking and our voting in this election is that this is not a normal election. I’m not talking about the drama, the infighting within the Republican Party, and the daily reality-tv-esque antics. I’m talking about the fact that this is not a contest between two equally qualified and prepared candidates, a contest in which we could have robust debates about the two opponents’ policy proposals and positions on important issues. It’s not a contest in which we strongly prefer one candidate, but life will go on and our country will survive with the other one.

This election is a contest between the most highly prepared and experienced candidate in history and a builder of buildings, maker of reality-tv shows who knows nothing whatsoever about government and refuses to be taught. It’s a contest between someone who has made mistakes in a long career of doing good for the world because she has had a long career of doing good for the world, and it would be impossible to have such a career without having made a few bad judgments, and someone whose entire career has consisted of amassing a large personal fortune at the expense of taxpayers and contractors who have been the victims of his greed.

How’s your conscience feeling now?

The most deceptive part of this campaign has been the normalizing of a candidate who is anything but normal and the legitimizing of a claim on the presidency by someone who should never have been allowed to win the nomination. In other words, Donald Trump is a fraud. Oh, I know we can vote for him if we’re foolish enough; but his candidacy is a scam, and the fact that he has been allowed to become the nominee of one of our major political parties is nothing short of a crime against the voters of the United States of America. The media and others who have treated this “candidacy” as normal and legitimate have created a false equivalency which has led to the dangerous dilemma in which we now find ourselves.

A friend of a friend said it this way on Facebook:

But while Trump was hosting a game show, Hillary was in the situation room, watching as Bin Laden was shot. Her record has stains, as does every Republican, Democrat and general who came before her. But she *has* a record, and she has admitted to her failures and shortcomings. She’s still learning and has the humility to admit that. She’s willing to listen, both to her advisers and constituency. Trump won’t even admit that President Obama was born in the United States. (Adam Tendler) [The last statement has changed, sort of, since this was written.]

President Obama said in a recent speech, “We can’t afford to act as if there’s some equivalence here.”

Eric Alterman, in an article titled “’Normalizing’ Trump,” says this:

Every effort by the media to treat Donald Trump as a “normal” presidential candidate brings us closer to the potential destruction of our democracy. And yet we can see it taking place at virtually every level of our media.

The media deserve a good deal of blame here, not only because of the billions of dollars’ worth of free airtime television networks have given to Trump but also because of their insistence — against all evidence — that he is someone other than the person he clearly presents himself to be. (The Nation, 15 Sep 2016)

Nicholas Kristof, in his New York Times op-ed “When a Crackpot Runs for President,” says:

This does raise the thorny issue of false equivalence, which has been hotly debated among journalists this campaign. Here’s the question: Is it journalistic malpractice to quote each side and leave it to readers to reach their own conclusions, even if one side seems to fabricate facts or make ludicrous comments?

There are crackpots who believe that the earth is flat, and they don’t deserve to be quoted without explaining that this is an, er, outlying view, and the same goes for a crackpot who has argued that climate change is a Chinese-made hoax, who has called for barring Muslims and who has said that he will build a border wall and that Mexico will pay for it.

We owe it to our readers to signal when we’re writing about a crackpot. Even if he’s a presidential candidate. No, especially when he’s a presidential candidate. (15 Sep 2016)

Veteran journalist Dan Rather, in a scathing Facebook rant, says this about Trump and the media:

This is not about partisan politics, about who is right on immigration or gun control. This is about the very machinery that has allowed our American experiment to persist and thrive, a machinery which is far more fragile than we would like to believe.

Trump’s relationship with the press is at the heart of so much that is troubling about his candidacy . . .

And yet when presented with this challenge, too much of the press has been cowed into inaction. This is a man who can be fact-checked into obscurity by any second grader with an Internet connection. And yet when he issues a mealy-mouth non-apology about President Obama’s obvious pedigree as an American, here we are with too many in the press not acknowledging his years of lies (check your Twitter feeds about how the New York Times initially covered this event). All of this of course sets the stage for Trump to lie again about somehow birtherism being Clinton’s fault. (“Stop Giving Trump a Free Pass and Do Your Damn Job,” 17 Sep 2016)

Donald Trump is not presidential material, and the press’s and voters’ treatment of him as a normal candidate has placed our country in grave danger.

Adam Tendler, in his Facebook comment, also says:

The danger is that when people view voting as fundamentally a form of self-expression, in a tight race where every vote counts, the reality is that this rugged individualism actually tends to undermine the actual tangible possibility for change in this country, including the change that voter actually believes in. You may *feel* fantastic and totally aligned with your values voting third party, and that’s wonderful for you, but the follow-through is essentially, in this case, one less vote for Clinton and a strengthened chance for a Trump majority.

And here’s the point: There’s a lot more to “voting your conscience” than just casting a ballot for the person you believe would do the best job. Your conscience should also tell you where your vote might do the most harm. You might argue that a vote is never wasted, but the reality is that a vote can be wasted and can lead to unintended results.

In this election, a vote for Donald Trump is a vote for evil and for the destruction of our democracy. A vote for Jill Stein is a vote for Donald Trump, because in our system as it exists now, a third-party candidate has no real chance of winning; and the only thing voting for them does is pull votes from someone who does have a chance of winning. A vote for Gary Johnson is also a vote for Donald Trump, for the same reasons, regardless of how pure the motive for which the vote is cast. Abstaining from voting is a vote for Donald Trump because Trump deplorables are the ones most eager to cast their ballots; none of them will be abstaining. The ONLY way to prevent the apocalypse of a Trump presidency is to vote for Hillary Clinton. To do anything else is naïve, idealistic, and misguided.

Will your conscience allow you to contribute to the election of an uninformed con man who has risen to prominence by peddling conspiracy theories, insulting just about every group of people in existence, and—according to fact checkers—lying in 71% of the statements that were checked?

Will your conscience allow you to contribute to the election of a 70-year-old man who speaks and reasons like a 5-year-old? A man who says nice things about a foreign leader hostile to American interests because that leader has said nice things about Trump? Are we in second grade?

But his immaturity, his lack of ethics, his lifestyle that does not mirror the beliefs of the far-right “Christians” who support him have all been hashed over; and his supporters are unmoved. What should be front and center, according to Melissa Bartick, is Trump’s criminal history. Ms. Bartick lists ten criminal charges against the man the Republican Party thinks should be our president:

-Trump and his father were sued by the federal government for housing discrimination in the 1970’s for refusing to rent to blacks.

-He is being charged with fraud in connection with Trump University.

– Trump Tower was built using undocumented Polish laborers to demolish the building that previously stood on the site.

-Trump is alleged to have violated immigration laws in hiring foreign models for Trump Model Management. These models worked illegally, and he failed to pay them fairly.

– Trump’s charitable foundation appears to have repeatedly broken IRS rules, according to the Washington Post.

-His charitable foundation violated tax laws by giving a $25,000 political contribution to a campaign group connected to Florida’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, in 2013.

-Trump is accused of bribing the Attorney General of Florida, Pam Bondi to drop her investigation of Trump University. She successfully solicited a donation from him before the fraud case, and afterward, he held a fundraiser for her at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach.

-In 2007 and in 2012, Trump and his wife bought two gifts for themselves at charity events for his foundation, totaling $32,000, breaking IRS rules. One gift was a $20,000 painting of himself.

-A deposition describes him raping his first wife Ivana, pulling out fistfuls of her hair in a fit of rage, stripping off her clothes, then penetrating her forcefully without her consent, after which she hid in a locked room and cried all night.

-He is currently being charged with child rape in a case for which there is an eyewitness and credible information to support the claim. The woman filing suit in April 2016 claims that as a 13-year-old in 1994, she was enticed to attend parties with the promise of money and modeling jobs at the home of Jeffrey Epstein, a Level 3 registered sex offender (the most dangerous kind), after Epstein was convicted of misconduct with another underage girl.

The woman alleges Trump initiated sexual contact with her on four separate occasions, with the fourth being a “savage sexual attack” in which he tied her to a bed and forcibly raped her while she pleaded with him to stop. He threatened that she and her family would be “physically harmed if not killed” if she ever revealed what was done. (“Trump’s Criminal History Should Be Front and Center,” 14 Sep 2016)

Several of these cases are currently pending, so our president would be the defendant in a series of criminal trials. How does your conscience feel about that?

And if your conscience can swallow ALL of this to avoid voting for someone who was careless with her emails and waited 48 hours to reveal that she was suffering from pneumonia, something is seriously wrong with your conscience. If you can vote for an uninformed conspiracy theorist, alt-right/KKK sympathizer, 71% liar, and rapist to avoid voting for a woman who has lived her entire life by the mantra “Do all the good you can, for all the people you can, in all the ways you can, as long as ever you can,” something is seriously wrong with your conscience. If you can vote for a man who refuses to release the proof of his fraud and dangerous foreign alliances (aka, his tax returns) to avoid voting for a brilliant and gifted woman who is flawed and imperfect but who has lived a life of public service and to whom millions of people in the world are beholden for her goodness and charity, something is seriously wrong with your conscience.

Bernie Sanders says this is not the time for a protest vote:

Sanders continued making the pitch he’s been honing since he returned to the campaign trail: This isn’t a year to vote third party. Mentioning Clinton’s name sparingly, Sanders told several hundred voters — many still wearing gear from the Democratic primary — that their votes could stop the election of a Republican “who thinks climate change is a hoax.”

And finally, here’s the commonsense wisdom of American sage Garrison Keillor, in a September 13, 2016, Facebook post:

Hillary didn’t have a prolonged adolescence and fiction was not her ambition. She doesn’t do dreaminess. What some people see as a relentless quest for power strikes me as the good habits of a serious Methodist. Be steady. Don’t give up. It’s not about you. Work for the night is coming.

The woman who does not conceal her own intelligence is a fine American tradition, going back to Anne Bradstreet and Harriet Beecher Stowe and my ancestor Prudence Crandall, but none has been subjected to the steady hectoring that Mrs. Clinton has. She is the first major-party nominee to be pictured in prison stripes by the opposition. She is the first cabinet officer ever to be held personally responsible for her own email server, something ordinarily delegated to anonymous nerds in I.T. The fact that terrorists attacked an American compound in Libya under cover of darkness when Secretary Clinton presumably got some sleep has been held against her, as if she personally was in command of the defense of the compound, a walkie-talkie in her hand, calling in air strikes.

Wake up, voters! Our only choice is to vote for Hillary Clinton. If your conscience tells you anything else, trade it in and get one that works.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories
Politics

How Conservative Are Conservatives?

Image result for liberal conservative spectrum

Perhaps some of the most misunderstood and misused words in our 21st-century language are “liberal” and “conservative.” In a fractured and splintered political atmosphere, both ends of the spectrum have more factions than most of us can keep up with; and for many, both terms are nothing more than pejoratives used to describe the “idiots” on the other team.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “A sect or party is an elegant incognito devised to save a [person] from the vexation of thinking.” With our modern appetite for categorizing, combined with a widespread distaste for reflection and analysis, this saying has perhaps never been more accurate. Religious affiliations and political parties allow us the security of being surrounded by like-minded people and the luxury of having someone else articulate the beliefs to which we profess allegiance, whether or not we know or understand them.

Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, in this year’s Democratic primary, demonstrated the various shades of blue on the liberal end of the spectrum. And that brings us to one of the problems with categorizing: most terms are relative. To an extreme conservative, for example, even a moderate or slightly left-leaning person can seem like a raging socialist. Add to that the tendency to bandy about terms about whose meanings we are clueless and you have a recipe for the confusion and tension that now exist.

Although there are clearly shades of blue, I think they may not be quite as confusing as today’s shades of red. A favorite article, which I review periodically, especially during election season, is called “Why Voters Should Turn from the Pseudoconservative Party of the Great Recession,” by Louis Guenin (Huffington Post, 24 Dec 2012).  In Mr. Guenin’s introductory paragraph, he suggests that modern conservatives and liberals have somewhat switched places, with liberals demonstrating more of the traditionally conservative principles than do those who currently call themselves conservative:

The politicians who now travel under the banner of ‘conservatism’ happen to espouse views and methods that . . . are incompatible with the philosophy bearing that name. Meanwhile members of the opposing political party have imbibed a dose of the wisdom conveyed by conservatism.

Guenin goes on to offer this definition of “conservatism”:

Conservatism, as eloquently introduced by Edmund Burke (1729-1797), advocates esteem for government and established institutions. It holds that within them lies an accumulated wisdom that citizens and their leaders should respect and consult. Revering the established order, its constitution, and its history, conservatism cultivates a cautious disposition.

According to Guenin, that was then; this is now:

Today’s Republican Party consists of pseudoconservatives, wearers of the ‘conservative’ mantle who repudiate conservatism. Rather than esteeming government, they disdain it. They seem to delight in ridiculing government’s failings.

Nowhere does one find a greater disdain for government than at Donald Trump’s rallies. The vile, abusive, violent atmosphere and language are the opposite of reverence for “the established order, its constitution, and its history”; and there is no evidence anywhere of “a cautious disposition.”

But la-de-da! We citizens of the 21st century are not ones to let facts get in our way. The pseudoconservatives of whom Louis Guenin speaks are actually a diverse group united around their religious beliefs on abortion and what they consider traditional family values.

The Tea Party Movement was a populist response within the Republican Party for whom the party was not quite “conservative” enough. Sparked by Rick Santorum’s remarks on February 19, 2009, opposing President Obama’s mortgage relief plan, the movement quickly grew through social media to include far-right voters whose common umbrella was hatred of the president.

The Tea Party ranks were swelled by ‘Birthers’—individuals who claimed that Obama had been born outside the United States and was thus not eligible to serve as president (despite a statement by the director of the Hawaii State Department of Health attesting that she had seen Obama’s birth certificate and could confirm that he had been born in the state)—as well as by those who considered Obama a socialist and those who believed that Obama, who frequently discussed his Christianity publicly, was secretly a Muslim. (Brittanica.com)

As I said, we modern Americans never let facts stand in our way! The Tea Partiers were angry at government, especially government spending policies.

According to Paul H. Jossey, “Today, the Tea Party movement is dead, and Trump has co-opted the remnants. What was left of the Tea Party split for a while between Trump and, while he was still in the race, Ted Cruz.” He goes on to say that Tea Party rallies have given way to Trump rallies (“How We Killed the Tea Party,” Politico Magazine).

Think about it: same people, same attitudes, and same utter disdain for government. Conservative? Not by a long shot!

The most disturbing right-wing faction now gaining attention is the alt-right movement. Until a month ago, I’d never heard of alt-right; and I was feeling embarrassed about that until I heard some very knowledgeable pundits on the news admit that they too were just learning about it.

The name is short for “alternative right” and, according to NPR (“What You Need to Know about the Alt-Right Movement”),

It is mostly an online movement that uses websites, chat boards, social media and memes to spread its message. (Remember the Star of David image that Trump received criticism for retweeting? That reportedly first appeared on an alt-right message board.

Hillary Clinton, in a Reno, Nevada, speech, commented on the movement:

This is not Republicanism as we have known it. These are racist ideas. These are race-baiting ideas. Anti-Muslim, anti-Immigrant, anti-women ideas—all key tenets making up an emerging racist ideology known as the ‘Alt-Right.’

And Mrs. Clinton’s assessment is affirmed by the NPR description:

Most of its members are young white men who see themselves first and foremost as champions of their own demographic. However, apart from their allegiance to their ‘tribe,’ as they call it, their greatest points of unity lie in what they are against: multiculturalism, immigration, feminism, and, above all, political correctness.

Quoted in the NPR article, Nicole Hemmer, says, “They see political correctness really as the greatest threat to their liberty. So, they believe saying racist or anti-Semitic things—it’s not an act of hate, but an act of freedom.”

It should come as no surprise that this group found its ideal presidential candidate in Donald Trump, who has built his campaign on all of the same pillars articulated in the list of things they’re against. Before Trump, the Alt-Right found its home with Breitbart News Network, and now the merger between Breitbart and the Trump campaign has been completed by Trump’s hiring of Stephen Bannon, chairman of Breitbart News Network, as his campaign’s chief executive. And thus what was a radical lunatic fringe group has now moved center stage in American politics.

Although Nicole Hemmer does not believe Trump “pledges allegiance” to the Alt-Right, she believes “They are attracted to Trump [and]see him as a vessel for getting their ideas out there.” And I would add that Trump has not disavowed their support; so whether he pledges allegiance or not, he clearly welcomes any fringe element (KKK et al.) that will help get him elected. Such are the choices of those who have no moral compass.

In this same article, Hillary Clinton is quoted as saying, “Donald Trump has a ‘profoundly dangerous’ disregard for the nation’s values.” And her assessment is echoed by many newspapers, including the Dallas Morning News, whose editorial board has announced they are breaking with a tradition they have held to since 1964: they have always endorsed the Republican nominee for the presidency.

This year, however, the editorial board has announced that they cannot in good conscience endorse the Republican, since Trump is “no Republican and certainly no conservative.”

We have no interest in a Republican nominee for whom all principles are negotiable, not in a Republican Party that is willing to trade away principle for pursuit of electoral victory. Trump doesn’t reflect Republican ideals of the past; we are certain he shouldn’t reflect the GOP of the future.

(Huffington Post 6 Sep 2016)  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-dallas-morning-news_us_57cebaf3e4b078581f13d342?section=&

Tea Party, Alt-Right, birthers, conspiracy theorists, science deniers, guns are more important than lives advocates, racists, misogynists, “Christians” who know nothing of Christ’s example, white supremacists. Do any of these terms sound conservative?

On Thursday, September 8, the Family Research Council, a group that calls itself “Christian” and “conservative,” held a Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C., and Donald Trump was the featured speaker. This is an excerpt from an article by Amy Sullivan:

Enthusiastic chants of “Lock her up!” filled the room in the middle of Trump’s speech, only to be replaced by earnest applause minutes later as he read from the New Testament: “No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us.”

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a more graphic image of sheer hypocrisy: juxtaposing chants of “Lock her up!” with a scripture reading about love for one another as the evidence of God’s love being made complete in humans. Where’s the love? This behavior is neither Christian nor conservative, and it certainly doesn’t speak of any values I’d want to emulate. This sounds more like the alt-right than traditional evangelical values, but evangelicals have moved so far right of center that it’s hard to see the dividing line between the Christian Right and the Alt-Right.

I recall learning in my high school and college government classes about the liberal-conservative spectrum. According to the most simplistic explanation, in the center of the line are the moderates/centrists; to the left are the liberals, moving in degrees from “left-leaning” to the most extreme point: radicals. To the right of center are conservatives, also moving in degrees from “right-leaning” to the most extreme point: reactionaries. I see very little true conservatism among those to the right of center in our current political atmosphere, and I see a lot of reactionaries. According to The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought,

A reactionary is a person who holds political views that favor a return to the status quo ante, the previous political state of society, which they believe possessed characteristics (discipline, respect for authority, etc.) that are negatively absent from the contemporary status quo of a society.

Ring any bells? “Make America Great Again.” “Back to our roots.” “Back to the Christian beliefs our country was founded on” (our founders were mostly deists). These people left conservatism long ago, and they’ve been opening new right-wing territories ever since.

Donald Trump—in his ignorance and irreverence—and the Republican Party—with its factions, infighting, and collective spinelessness—have muddied the waters of true conservatism and brought the far-right fringe to center stage. The Trump Train has carried the Party of Lincoln to a place Lincoln—with his knowledge, wisdom, and eloquence—would never have dreamed of going. It’s time to turn the train around before it goes off the cliff!

 

 

Categories
Musings Politics

Facts Are Facts, and That’s the Truth!

Andy Borowitz, the Jonathan Swift of the Internet, wrote this about how contemporary humans often respond when confronted with facts:

Scientists have discovered a powerful new strain of fact-resistant humans who are threatening the ability of Earth to sustain life, a sobering new study reports.

The research, conducted by the University of Minnesota, identifies a virulent strain of humans who are virtually immune to any form of verifiable knowledge, leaving scientists at a loss as to how to combat them.

“These humans appear to have all the faculties necessary to receive and process information,” Davis Logsdon, one of the scientists who contributed to the study, said. “And yet, somehow, they have developed defenses that, for all intents and purposes, have rendered those faculties totally inactive.” (12 May 2015)

For the full post: http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/scientists-earth-endangered-by-new-strain-of-fact-resistant-humans

Satire is amusing, but anyone who has attempted to make a fact-based argument for or against any political candidate or issue has quickly learned the futility of such an exercise, and it’s not funny. I recently read a post on social media written by an avid Trump supporter. The writer declared that Trump supporters know he’s crass, he swears from the podium, he’s been married three times, he’s cheated on his wives, he’s an egomaniac, he frequently changes his positions, he’s picked public fights with multiple people, he’s filed four bankruptcies—in other words, just a few of the facts his fans have been confronted with for over a year. And the supporter’s response to this list of facts? “We don’t care.” In their minds, the truth is Trump can fix what they see as the problems with our country and the mainstream Republican Party; and their personal “truth”—however baseless it may be—trumps fact.

On the other hand, the “truth” about Hillary Clinton is that she’s a liar and a criminal, and no amount of fact will change that “truth” in the hearts of the true believers. Her humanitarian work on behalf of women, children, military families, and the 9/11 first responders–none of these facts can pierce the thick shell of hatred surrounding her enemies. “Lock her up!” they chant.

Even though PolitiFact, the Pulitzer-Prize winning organization that fact-checks candidates’ speeches, has rated Hillary Clinton (who told the truth or mostly the truth in 53% of 120 claims) among the most honest politicians they’ve checked and Donald Trump (who outright lied in over 60% of 158 claims) among the most dishonest, current polls show voters trust him more than they trust her. A classic case of “Don’t bother us with the facts! We’ll make up our own minds, thank you!”

I won’t even attempt to explain why or how we’ve reached this stage, but the truth is folks don’t care much about facts these days; and that’s a fact. How people feel about someone or something carries far more weight in swaying their decisions than hard fact does.

What is the relationship between truth and fact? Here’s a good way to remember it: All facts are true, but not all truths are facts.

Facts can be proven. They’re not arguable. They’re not affected by opinion. They’re more permanent than truth. Here’s a definition I found on Philosophy Stack Exchange, “a question-and-answer site for those interested in logical reasoning”:

A fact is a reality that cannot be logically disputed or rejected. If I say “fire is hot,” I don’t care how great your reasoning skills are, if you touch fire your skin will burn. . . . Now when I say this, I am not speaking a truth, I am speaking a fact. If you say “fire is not hot,” you are lying, you are incorrect. Facts are concrete realities that no amount of reasoning will change. When one acknowledges a fact, they are doing just that. Facts are not discovered, facts are not created, facts are simply acknowledged.

According to Diana Hacker,

A fact is something that is known with certainty because it has been objectively verified: The capital of Wyoming is Cheyenne. Carbon has an atomic weight of 12. John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963. (A Writer’s Reference, 5th edition)

Truth, on the other hand, has to be discovered. Some people devote their entire lives to the “search for truth.” To those who believe in the existence of God, God’s existence is truth; to those who do not believe in the existence of God, God’s non-existence is truth. Each group can point to facts upon which they base their truth, but the facts alone don’t prove their claims. Truth is subjective; it’s subject to interpretation. Facts are objective; they can support an arguable premise, but they themselves can’t be interpreted.

Facts answer the “where,” “when,” and “how” questions; truth answers the “why” question.

Whether God exists or whether there’s life beyond the grave or whether there is life in other parts of the universe are all valid questions and warrant our most diligent and sincere efforts to search out the truth. Whether 2+2=4, whether fire will burn, or whether the Civil War actually happened are not open for debate. These are facts; they need only to be acknowledged, not sought out or proved.

Facts have, of course, been disproved. Look at a science or medical textbook from a hundred years ago. Everything in those books was fact at the time it was written, but much of it is laughably false in the light of new research and development. Yet even disproved facts are different from truth. The possibility of saying conclusively that something is false is part of what makes it fact-based.

You can choose your truth, but you can’t choose your facts. Climate change is fact; it’s backed by a plethora of scientific research. President Obama is a citizen; that’s a fact based on the same documentation the rest of us use to prove our citizenship. President Obama has repeatedly made clear profession of his Christian faith; to call him a Muslim denies fact.

Claims that the president and the Democratic presidential candidate are “coming to get your guns” and to repeal the Second Amendment have not a shred of fact to back them up, yet I can’t count the number of people who have posted such claims on social media as if they were indisputable truth.

I heard an interview on the news last night in which the reporter was stating facts about Donald Trump to one of his steadfast supporters. The supporter didn’t contradict any of the reporter’s statements, since they were clearly fact; but she said those facts don’t matter to her. In conclusion, she said with conviction, “I trust that man.”

I saw a meme attacking Hillary Clinton, the last line of which mentions her accomplishments, then says, “She doesn’t have any.” That statement is neither true nor factual. The fact is she has a long list of accomplishments, going all the way back to her college days. I doubt many of her critics could come close to her list of credits, yet their “truth” is that she’s a failure as a person and as a leader.

I think we’re headed down a dark path when we collectively make decisions which ignore fact and base our truth on feelings or outright lies. The more we ignore facts the further divorced we become from the truth, and that leaves us in a moral wasteland. Truth is not fact, but it must be married to fact. Truth divorced from fact is fantasy.

The Wizard of Oz, which contains many truths but few facts, is wonderful entertainment. Through the willing suspension of disbelief, viewers can enter the world somewhere over the rainbow, enjoy a delightful fantasy adventure on the Yellow Brick Road with Dorothy and her traveling companions, and end it with affirmation of the truth that there’s no place like home.

That’s great, but the evening news should not require us to suspend our disbelief while grown-up smart people sit around tables trying to make sense of the latest nonsense syllables spoken by the self-professed wizard who is going to save us all from the mess we’re in. It’s surreal! They may as well be discussing whether Dorothy will be victorious over the Wicked Witch or whether the wizard is real or a phony or what the wizard meant when he said “That’s a horse of a different color.”

Fareed Zakaria became my new hero last night when he said to the panel on which he was participating, “There are no flying monkeys!” Actually, it was more like Trump doesn’t know what he’s talking about! We’re sitting here talking about what he meant, and he doesn’t even know what he meant. He’s ignorant, and when asked a question, he has to pull out an answer. We’re trying to analyze nonsense! But it meant the same thing: Let’s stop treating fantasy as if it’s real! “There are no flying monkeys!” or “This emperor is naked; so let’s stop discussing the color, texture, and fit of his clothes!” Bravo, Mr. Zakaria!

The dumbing down of America has reached a frightening stage. Fantasy land is a fun place to visit but a dangerous place to live. We need to make America smart again!

 

 

 

Categories
Politics Religion

If That’s Your Idea of Christianity, Count Me Out!

Image result for god, guns and glory graphic

Still befuddled by the disconnect between evangelicals’ avowed religious beliefs and their support of Donald Trump’s candidacy, opposition to reasonable measures for reducing gun violence, vitriolic hatred for our black president, and general opposition to any laws which might make life easier for people who look or think differently than they do, I have to ask myself “Who is this Jesus whom these people claim to follow?”

For the last several decades, the Republican Party has been known as the “Christian party”; but in 2016, the party has been tasked with trying to defend a candidate whose words, actions, and life history do not in any way represent what most of us have been taught are Christian values. Numerous writers have contributed to the mental gymnastics show, stretching and manipulating their scriptures to make a vote for Donald Trump seem the moral, godly thing to do.

In addition to the “conservative” writers who present their “Christian” messages supporting all manner of non-Christian ideas, some of my social media friends are fond of posting YouTube videos by a young woman named Tomi Lahren, an anchor for One America News Network (OAN). Her videos show the closing act of her “news” show, called “Final Thoughts.” These closing rants of hers are presented in an angry, accusing tone, with no facial expression, and with lots of finger pointing. In a particularly appalling rant, she “takes down” President Obama, whom she addresses as Barry, for his speech at this year’s DNC. She concludes her thoughts with the statement, “Keep your paws off our guns, our God, and our glory.” Now there’s a righteous combination for you: guns, God, and glory!

Ms. Lahren and other “conservative” Republicans are the most vocal opponents of even discussing the problem of gun violence and mass murders because their sketchy understanding of the Second Amendment—actually the second half of the Second Amendment—trumps the importance of saving lives. Yet ironically, those same people claim to follow a pacifist who willingly submitted himself to death by execution; who, according to the New Testament narratives, was often “moved with compassion” when he met people in need; and who spent his entire years of public ministry saving lives—not condoning their destruction.

And how often do you see the most vocal members of the “Christian party” moved with compassion on people who are down on their luck or who are desperately seeking refuge from war and oppression? There’s plenty of passion for saving unborn babies—and I support that discussion—but how about the people who are already here? How about the people whose families would be ripped apart by deportation or who would die on the other side of that great big wall?

I’ve been so baffled by these questions that I decided to review the first four books of the New Testament, also known as the Gospels, which contain the narratives of Jesus’ life. I focused on the first three—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—since these are known as the Synoptic Gospels because they are based on common sources and recount most of the same stories, often in similar sequence and wording. The writers’ point of view contrasts with that of John, who wrote the fourth book.

Quick disclaimer: I am not a theologian, and my comments should not be read as the definitive exposition of the first three books of the New Testament. I am just someone who thinks a lot and who tries to understand things that don’t make sense to me. It’s a curse. But moving right along.

It’s really no surprise that politics and religion so often overlap and even collide; both are part of our individual world views. In our human efforts to make sense of the world around us, we come to various conclusions about the existence or non-existence of a higher power and what our relationship to that higher power should be, if we decide there is one; the proper way to relate to and live in peace with the other more than seven billion humans with whom we share this small planet; and conflicting allegiance to human government and to God’s law. These are heady topics, and some people invest a great deal of time and energy into finding the answers to their questions.

A few years back, it became popular to ask the question “What would Jesus do?”when seeking answers to questions of morality and ethics. More to the point, I think, is “What did Jesus do?” This is the question that led me to review the narratives of Jesus’ life, and here’s what I discovered (again, from strictly a lay person’s point of view). Jesus’ public ministry lasted about three-and-a-half years; and during that time, he spent most of his time healing, teaching, and practicing civil disobedience.

He also invested himself in relationships, not just with people who liked him or agreed with him; he was frequently criticized for dining with “sinners.” On one such occasion, some Pharisees asked the disciples,

“What kind of example is this from your Teacher, acting cozy with crooks and riffraff?”

Jesus, overhearing, shot back, “Who needs a doctor: the healthy or the sick? Go figure out what this Scripture means: ‘I’m after mercy, not religion.’ I’m here to invite outsiders, not coddle insiders.” (Mt. 9: 11-13, The Message)

Everywhere Jesus went, large crowds followed him, many of them desperate for healing, either for themselves or for loved ones. Jesus healed without vetting, without expectation of payment. He never condoned the actions of those who didn’t take the moral high road, but neither did he make their morality a condition of his helping them. He seemed to understand that hungry and sick people would have a harder time listening to and responding to his teachings, so he healed and fed first and then preached.

Although I’m not a country music fan, I recall a Johnny Cash song from many years ago that expressed his response to those who want to teach first as a condition for meeting physical needs:

At the end of our street
Is a mission so sweet
Where me and all my friends
Get a little something to eat

Though you can’t pick and choose
You sure like their stew
And if you don’t get fried chicken
What you get you can use

Praise the Lord and pass the soup
Praise the Lord and pass the bread

Sister, you can bang on your tambourine
Just let my body be fed.

The greatest example of Jesus’ teaching is recorded in what is commonly known as the Sermon on the Mount, which includes a list that we often call the Beatitudes. I’ve discussed those in another article, so I won’t elaborate here, but I think those whom he calls “blessed” may not be the same as some might have expected. Also, in that sermon, Jesus addressed the question of the Old Testament law and whether it must still be observed.

His answer was that he came not to abolish the law but to teach a different understanding of it, an understanding which encompassed not only strict adherence to rules but also attitudes of goodness: it’s no longer enough to refrain from murdering; anger, hatred, and verbal insults are also assaults. It’s no longer enough to refrain from physically committing adultery; men must also cease to look at women only as sex objects and must honor their marriage vows in spirit as well as action. His followers were given a higher calling than merely keeping rules.

Jesus also taught, in Matthew 7 and in Luke 6, that it is not our place to judge others.

Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, “Let me take the speck out of your eye, while the log is in your own eye?” You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye. (Mt. 7: 1-5)

Possibly Jesus’ most comprehensive statement on what his followers should do is presented in his answer to some of the religiously orthodox people of his day who asked him which of the law’s commandments is the most important. He responded:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

In other words, if you love God and love each other, you’ve fulfilled the law. These two commandments summarize all of the laws and commands in the scripture. I think some people have missed this passage, because I’ve met an awfully lot of people who are still worried about a lot of other rules on which they base their treatment of those who don’t share their views.

Another well-known teaching is found in Matthew 25: 31-40. Jesus created an end-of-time scenario when all people would be called to account for their deeds, and he listed six criteria for being judged righteous by God: feeding Jesus when he was hungry, giving him something to drink when he was thirsty, welcoming him when he was a stranger, giving him clothing when he was naked, caring for him when he was sick, and visiting him when he was in prison. Confused, the disciples wondered what on earth Jesus was talking about. “We never did any of those things for you!” Jesus’ answer is a frequently quoted line: “Just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”

Wow! That’s pretty simple, but I wonder why he didn’t say anything about excluding people who don’t live the same way we do or who don’t look like us. Wait a minute! Did he just say everyone is a member of his family? Maybe we’re supposed to treat everyone the same? Nah!

In addition to his healing and teaching, Jesus had to deal with the religious and government leaders of his day; and these are the only people for whom I find he had harsh words: “hypocrites,” “brood of vipers,” “child of hell,” “blind guides,” among others. Along with the crowds who followed him around seeking what he offered, the Pharisees and the Sadducees also followed Jesus and began early on to conspire against him and to entrap him. As early as Matthew chapter 11, we’re told, “The Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him.”

The Pharisees represented the religious orthodoxy of the time and considered themselves superior in virtue and piety because of their strict observance of the written law. The Sadducees were wealthy aristocrats who occupied the highest religious offices and also held a majority of the seats on the ruling council called the Sanhedrin; so they were politically powerful as well being religious leaders. Since Israel was under Roman domination at that time, the Sadducees attempted to keep peace by agreeing and cooperating with the Roman authorities.

Everyone knows how things ended for Jesus, but I’d like to look for a moment at how he responded to the conflict in the years before his eventual execution. As I read it, he practiced civil disobedience. In Jesus’ teaching, he focused on the concept of two different realms and two different kingdoms: the kingdom of God and the kingdoms of human governments. He acknowledged the possibility of divided loyalties and taught that in cases of conflict, those who follow him owe primary allegiance to God.

Like more contemporary examples—Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Henry David Thoreau and others—he lived according to the law of his conscience, even when that law was in conflict with the dictates of the government. Yet, like these others, his resistance was always non-violent. He usually simply left the place of conflict and sought another location to continue his work. He spoke the truth boldly to those who oppressed him, but he sought to stay on message rather than initiating conflict or retaliating against the wrongs done to him.

As President Obama likes to say, let me be clear: Donald Trump in no way exemplifies anything I have found in the narratives of Jesus’ life. None. There is NO resemblance. His words and his actions could not possibly be more diametrically opposed to the narratives of Jesus’ life and teachings. And no amount of theological gymnastics will make him what he is not: a representative of Christian principle. So the Republicans who feel they must choose the Christian candidate would more logically choose Hillary Clinton than Donald Trump; she has spent her entire adult life handing out “cups of cold water” to people in need. Donald Trump has lived his entire life seeking power and wealth for himself only; and so be it, but you can’t sell that as Christian virtue. That pig just won’t fly!

And for that matter, what about the other Republicans making news these days? Disrespecting our black president, scoffing at systemic racism, casually dismissing gun violence as being less important than their “right to carry,” disregard for the downtrodden and desperate, demonizing and vilifying their fellow humans who live or think differently than they do—the list could go on and on. Are those followers of Jesus and their “Christian party” representatives in Washington really doing what Jesus did, or are they doing the exact opposite? Does anything in Jesus’ life say “God, guns, and glory”?

Love God and love people. That’s it. Loving doesn’t mean always agreeing with or approving, but it means respecting and treating with kindness—not excluding or vilifying and not making laws which deprive others of their right to pursue happiness.

Which party better represents Christian values? Well, neither of them completely; but I’ll say those who call themselves the “Christian party” should examine their definition of Christianity. And if some of their examples are what it means to be a Christian, stop the bus and let me off!

 

Categories
Education

Every Classroom Should Be a Safe Space

The latest news from the academic world is all about trigger warnings and safe spaces, and these discussions have at times convinced me that I chose the right time to retire. When I first read the now well-known letter from University of Chicago’s dean of students, John Ellison, to incoming students, I applauded him. Having since read some of the firestorm of rebuttal sparked by his letter, I still agree with Dr. Ellison; but I think there are bigger questions that need to be considered.

Here’s the most controversial statement from Dr. Ellison’s letter:

Our commitment to academic freedom means that we do not support so-called trigger warnings, we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial and we do not condone the creation of intellectual safe spaces where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own.

Having spent six decades of my life in school, as a student and an educator, I can say that the classroom was my safe space as a student, and I attempted to make my own classroom a safe space as an educator. Oh, I confess I was pretty clueless about such things in the earliest years; but as I worked with people and listened to their stories, I gained understanding and empathy for the experiences that might make them feel threatened or vulnerable.

I devoted a whole section of my opening-day lecture to making the classroom a place where everyone would be free to express their thoughts without judgment or ridicule. I warned them, and enforced the warnings during each class session, that no disparaging remarks about another student, no eye rolls, no long sighs, no laughs or even snorts or snickers would be tolerated. I encouraged disagreement and debate but taught students that the appropriate way to respond to someone with whom one disagrees is a respectful verbal rebuttal or questioning of the other person’s ideas, not ridicule or contempt. People who are made to feel foolish or embarrassed will stop participating, and that is counterproductive to the goal of stretching their minds and inspiring them to think and learn.

I loved my “alternative” students. I found them to be the brightest, most thoughtful people in the room. I went out of my way to make them feel safe and included, always speaking to them, not reacting to whatever it was that made them stand out visually.

I recall a student from long ago who first showed up in my classroom with more metal in his face than I’ve ever seen on one person. Everything was pierced. I don’t even know how on earth he got all of that metal to stay in his skin, but I do know that I never reacted to it in any way. M was a brilliant young man who added immensely to class discussions, was a wonderful writer, and was a general delight to be around. I spoke to him, not the metal. Eventually, I believe in the second class he took with me, he showed up metal free. I continued speaking to him, not his accessory choices; then finally one day, when only he could hear, I said, “M, have I told you yet how handsome you look without the metal?” He smiled shyly, and I had a friend. I used to see him fairly often at the local Barnes and Noble, and I always got a warm greeting and a hug.

Safe classrooms, sensitive teachers and professors, and an excellent counseling staff are, in my opinion, more effective means to avoid pushing students’ buttons than are rules or words on a syllabus. During my second year of teaching, a clueless 20-something, I encountered my first such situation: a student had a flashback in my classroom; I don’t think it was related to anything we were discussing, but she was clearly distraught. I’m embarrassed to say that I handled the situation badly, and it’s one of the things I’d like a chance to go back as my older self and redo.

Knowledge, awareness, and sensitivity are essential assets for everyone entrusted with the gift of educating. These assets, however, are not acquired as a result of hard fast rules handed down by administrators who often have limited interaction with students; and they don’t happen because the professor added a few words to the syllabus. They happen through training and experience. Every faculty, from elementary through post-graduate school, has meetings. Oh, we have meeeeeetings! We have workshops, in-house training days, seminars, guest speakers.

Sensitivity to students’ trigger points should be placed high on the list of topics for training and educating educators. There are speakers who are willing to share their own experiences in order to help teachers gain understanding. The counseling staff should also participate and offer guidelines for handling vulnerable students. Every school should give the faculty instruction on when and how to refer students to counselors and should employ counselors equipped to help students who feel threatened and know when and how to seek additional help from other resources.

Instead of intruding on educators’ academic freedom by telling them what they can discuss and how they have to discuss it and what they have to add to their syllabi, we should teach them to listen. I’ve shed many tears in my office as I listened to students’ stories. As my clueless 20-something self advanced through the decades, I took on an increasing awareness of the burdens and experiences represented in my classroom; and that awareness made my opening-day lecture about tolerance and respect more fervent each time I delivered it. Rules can’t do that; only love, respect, and training can. Words on a syllabus can’t do that; only listening and caring can.

During all of the decades I spent in school, there was always, both in school and in the larger society, a dichotomy between academia and “the real world.” That was not always spoken of as a good thing; but in terms of creating a safe atmosphere, it can be a very good thing. Ideally, every classroom should be a safe space where anything can be discussed from an intellectual, academic point of view, far removed from “the real world” where violence, addiction, and discrimination are real and their effects are devastating. And ideally, things learned in the atmosphere of the safe classroom can help people return to the real world better equipped to deal with past and present violence, discrimination, or crippling addiction.

I taught Shakespeare’s Othello. Othello becomes so consumed with jealousy that he murders the wife he adores and then takes his own life when he realizes he’s been duped and played by the villain Iago. I taught Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn and numerous other works which made liberal use of the N word. I taught Langston Hughes’s “What Happens to a Dream Deferred,” a short poem about the hopelessness of those whose lives are limited by poverty and racial injustice. I taught Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet with its forbidden love and the double suicide of young people caught in a struggle between two warring families who find peace and unity only over their children’s dead bodies. I taught Stephen Crane’s Maggie a Girl of the Streets, about a young girl for whom there is no safe space; poverty and violence prevail on the streets and follow her into her home. A grown-up Maggie finds her only safe space through suicide. I even taught the Old Testament Book of Job, about the battle between good and evil in the life of a man who chose to hold onto the good even in the depths of physical and psychic pain. I taught works that deal with war, domestic violence, human greed, racial prejudice, and just about any other topic you can name.

I often prefaced the study of a work with comments about what students could expect to encounter. “You’re going to find the N word used often in this book. Let’s talk about that. Is it going to be a problem for you?” “I know it’s unusual to study a book from the Bible in a college class, but there’s a lot to be learned from the Book of Job that has nothing to do with religion. You all have different views on the Bible and religion, and we’re not here to discuss those; we’re just going to look at this exemplary piece of literature called Job.” I suppose one would call those trigger warnings, but they never appeared on my syllabus, and no administrative edict required me to say those things. I said them because I had learned that the people sitting in front of me were often vulnerable and needed to feel safe before I could expect them to engage.

Writers have raised many questions regarding this issue, and I have a few more to add to the list.

One problem I see with issues such as this one was recently articulated by a TV news person, who said something like this: We’re all so quick to suit up in our team jerseys whenever we begin social dialogues. We’re so prone to see everything in black and white, either-or, this way or that way that many people are incapable of nuanced opinions.

One team responds to John Ellison’s U of Chicago letter: “Good! ‘Bout time someone stood up to those coddled, helicopter-parented brats and gave them a dose of the real world!” The team wearing the other jerseys responds: “The U of Chicago has no sensitivity to students’ inner struggles. They’re ignoring students’ needs and turning a blind eye to the hostility which many students feel on campus.”  Both responses are simply the party line that goes with the speaker’s team jersey. What hope is there for students if even educators think on such a black-white level? What we need are some shades of gray.

Spokespeople for the U of Chicago have since attempted to clarify their position. They are not at all insensitive to people’s trigger points nor do they wish to further traumatize anyone, and they do in fact have programs to facilitate a more tolerant and inclusive campus environment. These spokespeople have expressed the shades of gray in their policies.

I also wonder what the expected outcome is for students who express discomfort with assigned readings, classroom discussions, or speakers’ topics. Will those students be allowed to opt out? Will they be given an alternate assignment? If so, will they miss some of the most valuable parts of their education? And what will happen to those students when they leave the safe cocoon of academia and return to “the real world”? Will they expect their spouses, employers, friends, and everyone else in their network to make the same accommodations? I would argue that school is the safe space, if it’s done right. Properly prepared professors and counselors can gently guide students through their trigger points, help them to engage rather than retreat, and send them back to the real world better prepared adults who can find their own safe spaces and manage their own lives, with all of the challenges that entails.

And what of the professors who dutifully insert the required warnings into their syllabi? Can we assume that they are prepared to follow through and guide students with love and empathy, or will many of them assume they’ve fulfilled their duty by providing the warnings?

I think trigger warnings and establishing safe spaces grossly oversimplifies some very complex issues. Putting words on a syllabus and giving people safe spaces to which they can escape are not necessarily bad; but in this educator’s opinion, they miss the real point, have limited effectiveness, and raise more questions than they answer.

Presidents of two other colleges weighed in on the discussion, without mentioning the U of Chicago letter and without criticizing the practice of trigger warnings and safe spaces.

Bowdoin College president Clayton Rose encouraged students:

Don’t avoid being uncomfortable, embrace it. Tomorrow, a week from now, a year from now, when you are in a discussion in class, listening to a speaker — in the dining hall, dorms, wherever — and you hear something that really pushes your buttons, that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up, you should run to it, embrace it, figure out why you are uncomfortable, unsettled, offended, and then engage with it. Engage with it in a thoughtful, objective, and respectful way. This is how you learn. This is how you become intellectually fearless. And this is how you change the world. Remind yourself that this is exactly why you are here.

Yale’s president Peter Salovey spoke to freshmen about “false narratives”: views of the world which people believe for years but which later prove unreliable.

Dr. Salovey encourages students to avoid such false narratives:

People naturally construct narratives to make sense of their world. I have been concerned to point out that in times of great stress, false narratives may dominate the public mind and public discourse, inflaming negative emotions and fanning discord. In our times especially, a wide array of instantaneous transmissions rapidly amplify such narratives. As a result, we sometimes find that anger, fear, or disgust can blind us to the complexity of the world and the responsibility to seek deeper understandings of important issues. Yale is a place for you to learn how and why to gravitate toward people who view things differently than you do, who will test your most strongly held assumptions. It is also a place to learn why it takes extraordinary discipline, courage, and persistence — often over a lifetime — to construct new foundations for tackling the most intractable and challenging questions of our time. You have come to a place where civil disagreements and deep rethinking are the heart and soul of the enterprise, where we prize exceptional diversity of views alongside the greatest possible freedom of expression.

I believe these two educators have delved far below the surface issue of trigger warnings and safe spaces and have confronted the real foundation of any system of education. They haven’t ignored the existence of trigger points, but they’ve moved to a deeper level of understanding and commitment.

Students should leave their learning environment different than they entered it. They should have confronted new ideas, dissected them, and extracted the best parts of them. They should have stretched and grown as a result of exchanging ideas with people who see the world very differently than they do. They should be prepared to live as informed, participating citizens of an increasingly global culture. I believe those things can happen only by helping students to find their own safety while they enthusiastically engage with new ideas. They’re going to need guidance, yes; but I don’t think they’re going to be helped much by simplistic rules.

 

Quotations are from https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/08/29/u-chicago-letter-new-students-safe-spaces-sets-intense-debate

 

 

 

 

Categories
Musings

Did You Just Call Me a Senior Citizen?!

Now don’t get me wrong. I think growing old is a beautiful thing. It means I’ve been blessed with many years of life and experience, it means I’m a survivor, it means I’ve endured whatever life has thrown at me, it means I’ve dodged a few bullets, and it generally means I’ve been very lucky. It also means I’ve reached a point where I no longer have to give a s*%t about a lot of things. It means I can sit at my computer half the day in my pajamas writing blog posts and not feel I owe anyone an explanation or apology. It means having the freedom to say what I really think and getting a pass from a lot of people because, you know, “She’s a little senile these days.”

Growing old, or as I like to call it growing up, also means I’ve had the inexpressible privilege of meeting the adults who have grown from the children I raised and knowing what beautiful people they are. It means I’ve had the greatest of all life’s gifts: meeting my children’s children, being part of their lives, and holding the exalted title of “Mimi.”

Now with all of that having been said, let’s talk about the other parts of getting old. I have now reached that “certain age” at which it’s no longer possible to pass as just one of the people in the group. I’m now the old person in the group. I recall being a very young teacher and asking my students about a folk hero of my youth, Davy Crockett. I said, “You know Davy Crockett . . .” As I continued setting up the brilliant point I was about to make, I saw a roomful of blank stares. I was shaken. Come on! Everyone in the world has heard of Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier! Then the startling realization washed over me: I am so much older than these people (only about ten years at that time) that we have not shared the same cultural experiences.

That was a pivotal moment. As time went on, I realized it was actually possible for someone to be old enough to be a college student without having been alive when President Kennedy was assassinated. They knew only what they had read in their history books, whereas I still remember where I was and how I heard the news on November 22, 1963. Then there was the time when I was teaching Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” to a college class. I was discussing the section where Dr. King talks about the Jim Crow era racial signs, all of which I saw when they were hanging and being enforced. One student excitedly waved his hand and announced, “Oh, oh, oh, I saw some of those once in a museum!” Just shut-up.

Okay, I’ve sort of come to terms with all of those things. Being older than a lot of people just means I have wisdom and perspective, right? These are good things, right?

But then there are a few other reminders of aging which I am still struggling with. Except when I look in the mirror, I feel like the same person I was at 18 or 20, mostly. Then things happen, like a couple of interactions this week.

During a phone conversation with a young man (I never met him in person, but these days everyone is young) from my bank, I mentioned that I could handle the thing we were discussing through the online banking site. Pleasantly surprised, the nice young man responded, “Oh, great. Yes, you can do that. Most of our senior citizens are not that familiar with technology.” WHAT did you just call me? Did you call me a senior citizen? Several more times in the course of the next few minutes, he again called me a senior citizen, in each case making comparisons that were favorable to me. But senior citizen? I know you have my age right there in front of you and that I am forced to repeat it each time we begin a conversation to confirm my identity, but how dare you call me a senior citizen?

Then just yesterday I reported for my first day of volunteer duty for the Florida Democratic Party, and I met two lovely young men—who couldn’t possibly be old enough to vote—who represent the state party and who gave me my instructions. As I was preparing to return to my car and drive to my assigned spot, one of our Florida afternoon monsoons began. Real Floridians take these things in stride, knowing they’ll pass within a short time. However, I didn’t want to get soaked, especially since I’d just done my hair; and all four of my umbrellas were in the car. Brilliant. I know! So I asked if there were an umbrella I could borrow to retrieve my own and then return the borrowed one. There wasn’t, but one of the nice young men leapt to his feet and offered to retrieve mine from my car for me. I hesitated (very briefly), so he said, “Oh, it’s no problem at all! We’re young!” Dammit, they noticed that I’m not young! My pride wanted to say, “I can do it myself! I’m just as spry as you are, you little smart ass!” But my hair said, “Oh, thank you soooooo much!”

But back to the subject of what to call people of that certain age, we have to do better than senior citizen! I know, I know, this was the politically correct term that replaced old fart, old codger, etc. But seriously? Could it be any more generic? It sounds like day-old bread, things past their expiration date, the class next in line to graduate.

I’d rather be called an old broad. Yes, that is indelicate and doesn’t sound very flattering and is certainly not something you want to teach your children to call older folks. But it has per-son-al-i-ty! It suggests this is not just someone who’s advanced to the last stage before the big chill. This is someone who has lived and is still living: someone who might actually surprise some young folks with her stories.

Or how about an old biddy? I know, these keep departing further from the line of non-discriminatory language and would not have been approved in the lecture my young self gave on that subject, but this one too has some spunk. “Biddy,” according to my trusty online dictionary, means “a woman, usually an elderly one, regarded as annoying or interfering.” Yes! This lady is no milk toast, hair-in-a-bun, sweetly smiling, softly speaking pushover. This is a real woman, not afraid to use her years and authority to push other people around. She has guts, gumption! She is not a generic out-of-date article relegated to the back of the shelf.

Old bag and old bat fit the same description as old biddy: women of spunk and boldness, not afraid to throw their weight around with those foolish enough to mess with them. They have authority, and they’re not afraid to use it!

“Crone” is an interesting word, defined as “a withered witch-like old woman.” Now bear with me on this one. Don’t just reject it without giving it a fair hearing. I know the “witch-like” part is a little off putting, but think about it. A witch is someone with power, magical power. She, too, is no milk-toast, cookie-baking grandma. She has character! She’s interesting! And she’s a little intimidating, just enough to keep those young know-it-alls in line.

Years ago, when the professor-rating websites began, the first rating I ever received ended with the words “She’s a classy dame.” Yeah! You can keep your senior citizen; I’ll take “classy dame”! Back to the ole online dictionary, a dame is defined as an official title of certain women of royalty; also, “(formerly) a form of address to any woman of rank or authority; a matronly woman of advanced age; matron.” This description evokes images of a well-heeled, well-coifed, elegant woman in full command of herself and her life; and she’s probably also in command of all those young people around her, so smug about their limber, cellulite-free bodies! Yes, I want to be a dame!

One of my all-time favorite movies is Fried Green Tomatoes, and one of my all-time favorite movie scenes is one from this film in which Kathy Bates’s character has been driving around a crowded parking lot for ten minutes or more and finally spots someone leaving their parking space. Elated, Evelyn (Kathy Bates) starts to pull into the space when a small car carrying two young women zips into it ahead of her. The girls exit their car and giddily brush off Evelyn’s rage with “Face it, lady! We’re just younger and faster!” Irate at their impudence, Evelyn pauses for a moment, then backs up, gleefully shouts “Towanda!” and rams the girls’ car. Intoxicated with her freedom and power, she backs up again and again and rams the car five more times. When the girls hear the crash and return in disbelief, Evelyn smugly announces, “Face it, girls! I’m older and have more insurance!” Towanda is my hero!

When reporting her rampage to her friend Mrs. Threadgoode at the nursing home, Evelyn says:

I never get mad, Mrs. Threadgoode. Never. The way I was raised it was bad manners. Well, I got mad and it felt terrific. I felt like I could beat the shit out of all those punks. Excuse my language; just beat them to a pulp. Beat them until they begged for mercy. Towanda, the Avenger! And after I wipe out all the punks of this world I’ll take on the wife beaters, like Frank Bennett, and machine gun their genitals. Towanda on the rampage! I’ll put tiny little bombs in Penthouse and Playboy, so they’ll explode when you open them. And I’ll ban all fashion models who weigh less than 130 pounds. I’ll give half the military budget to people over 65 and declare wrinkles sexually desirable. Towanda: Righter of Wrongs, Queen Beyond Compare!

Now there’s a dame! There’s a woman I can respect. No one’s going to call Towanda a senior citizen. She has personality; she has character! She’s going to make wrinkles sexually desirable. I’m with her! Queen beyond compare! Towanda rules!

 

In case you’ve never seen the parking lot scene, here’s the YouTube link:

Categories
Politics

We Don’t Need No Stinking Pivot!

Photo: James Devaney

Pivot, schmivot! Donald Trump is once again on the clock to prove that his latest pivot can last more than 36 hours and that he is now ready to be President of the United States. In the past, when people spoke of a candidate’s pivot, they were referring to the shift which must occur between the primary—where the goal is to win over the party’s base—to the general election—where the goal is to retain that base while also appealing to a broader audience of undecided voters, voters who are not affiliated with either major party, and voters from the opposing party who are lukewarm about their own party’s candidate.

“Pivot” has never meant growing up from a toddler to an adult, ceasing to hurl insults at everyone who has offended the thin-skinned candidate, or simply showing any small sign of having a temperament suitable for the office the candidate seeks. Pivoting, in political terms, has traditionally meant tailoring and focusing the message for the new audience, not trying to figure out what the message is going to be, especially with a mere 77 days left before election day.

Even in basketball, the pivot is used by the player in possession of the ball to better position himself or herself to make a play. It’s not used for gaining possession of the ball; one has to be in control of the ball before the pivot becomes necessary.

The pivot which politicians, RNC bigwigs, and many voters have been calling for from Donald Trump fits neither of these descriptions. He can’t tailor his message from the primaries to fit the larger general electorate because he had no message then, and he has no message now; and he’s not currently in possession of the ball, given his sliding poll numbers. So what is this “pivot” of which everyone has been speaking?

Donald Trump has said one thing in the last fourteen months with which I wholeheartedly agree: “I am who I am.” And that, fellow voters, is all we need to know!

For the past fourteen months, we’ve all been watching the hottest reality TV show in history. This show beats 19 Kids and Counting, Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo, and all of the others combined. Our favorite show, Donald Trump Live!, is broadcast seven days a week on cable, network news, and the Internet, with new episodes every day—often multiple episodes in one day. And we keep tuning in because we’re so morbidly fascinated by the bizarre things we see and hear that we just can’t help ourselves. We don’t want to miss a single episode, because we have to see what he can possibly do today that will top yesterday’s or last week’s stunt.

After every episode, the TV news hosts gather their pundits around the tables to parse the latest word vomit and always to speculate about when the “pivot” will come. And after the episodes during which Trump has made some slight nod toward behaving like an adult, many assume that he has made the long-awaited “pivot” and then proceed to speculate on how long it will last this time.

Here’s the thing: There is no pivot. This “candidate” has had fourteen months in which to articulate a message, but he has squandered that time on picking fights, inciting violence, insulting every person and every group of people who have crossed his path, inciting hatred and intolerance against whole ethnic and religious communities, and in no way demonstrating the temperament necessary for being the leader of the free world.

There is no pivot because he has had fourteen months in which to gain possession of the ball against a flawed, vulnerable opponent; but he has squandered that time attacking talk show hosts, media outlets, and everyone else except his opponent.

There is no pivot because he doesn’t know the rules of the game he’s trying to play. On January 20, 2017, either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton will place his or her hand on a Bible and repeat the words, “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” For Donald Trump to honestly make that pledge, he would first have to study the Constitution, since until now he has shown no signs of ever having read it.

There is no pivot because one does not undo fourteen months of bizarre reality TV behavior and become a responsible leader in 77 days. No one could make that dramatic a change in that length of time. Tonight on Anderson Cooper’s AC360, Ana Navarro–speaking for Latino voters–said, “We’re not going to get election day amnesia.” Everyone recalls that Trump’s earliest comments in this campaign were about illegal Mexican immigrants. Maria Cardona followed up with the comment, “We’re not going to un-see or un-hear what he has done and said in the last 428 days.” In other words, he is who he is.

Change is hard for everyone; trust me, I’ve tried it. I’ve never smoked, but I’ve known many who’ve tried to quit that habit, and very few have succeeded on the first try. A habit which I’ve long needed to break is sitting on the sofa to eat dinner, on the nights when no family or friends are here, while watching the news, only to wake up around 11:00-12:00 remembering that the last face I saw was Anderson Cooper’s sometime during AC360. By the time I’ve turned off the TV, carried my dishes to the kitchen and rinsed them, checked the doors and set the alarm, washed my face, and brushed my teeth, I’m wide awake again. This is not smart; this is dumb. But I’ll be damned if I can break the habit, and it’s been years. I also need to change the consistency of my exercise habits, but we’ll talk about that another time.

The point is that what’s needed here for the star of our favorite show is not just a tweaking or tailoring of the message or better positioning himself to make his final play. What is needed for this person is a change of character, a change in his intellect, a change in his heart, a change in his morals, and a lot more; and those kinds of things don’t happen in 77 days, especially when the person has 70 years behind him.

Trump has said it repeatedly: “I am who I am.” Amen, Brother! During these last fourteen months, Trump has shown himself to be a loud-mouthed, arrogant bigot with no capacity for empathy or compassion. He has made fun of his opponents, of people with disabilities, of media personalities, of Gold Star families, of military heroes. He has promised to deport 11 million people (though that changes in each new episode), to ban a whole religious group from entering the country, to build a wall along an entire border, and all the other things you’ve heard as often as I have.

The things he has said in rallies are the same sorts of things he’s said his whole life, and the attitudes are the same ones he’s always had. In other words, he is who he is, and 77 days won’t change that.

He’s always demeaned women and boasted of his sexual conquests, he’s advanced conspiracy theories, he’s been accused of and sued for fraud and rape, he’s been guilty of dishonest business practices including according to recent reports a practice called greenmailing, he’s filed four bankruptcies, he’s been ranked the biggest liar ever rated by fact-checking organizations, and you know the rest. His adamant refusal to release his tax returns speaks volumes about his dishonesty. One who has nothing to hide does not so steadfastly resist demands for transparency.

With all of this as background—70 years and two months, 14 of those months as a candidate for POTUS—in a recent episode of our favorite reality show, he spoke these 63 words:

Sometimes, in the heat of debate and speaking on a multitude of issues, you don’t choose the right words or you say the wrong thing. I have done that. And believe it or not, I regret it. And I do regret it, particularly where it may have caused personal pain. Too much is at stake for us to be consumed with these issues.

You’d have thought we were at a tent revival and some people had just felt the spirit of God descend on them. Hallelujah, he’s pivoted! Now he’s presidential!

Even if there were a hint of sincerity in those 63 words, Donald Trump has spoken millions of words in his life; and those millions of words can’t be erased by a brief admission of having said some unspecified things about unspecified people which have done unspecified damage. This so-called apology does not suggest remorse or empathy and does not suggest a change in direction, aka “pivot.” One desperate comment does not absolve him for 14 months of irresponsible and dangerous rhetoric or 70 years of shady morals and ethics.

The real question is, with all of this evidence, why are we even still having this conversation? How on earth did our bar get set so low that a person without the slightest trace of presidential character can say 63 words and make people believe he’s qualified to be given the nuclear codes? How did our bar get set so low that we celebrate when a person running for president talks ever-so-slightly more like a grown-up for three days?

And why is Donald Trump the one person who receives this special treatment? S. E. Cupp, in a CNN article “Media Should Stop Indulging Trump Pivot Talk” (08/22/2016), says:

Yet this reality [facts cited in the previous paragraph] doesn’t seem to stop the media offering the Trump campaign the privilege of the pivot treatment. No one suggested, for example, that after Hillary Clinton admitted keeping a private server at her house was a bad idea that she was somehow pivoting toward becoming a more truthful person or accountable person. Yet, we are discussing on an almost daily basis whether Trump can pivot toward becoming a less extreme person.

What is the attraction of Donald Trump?

Trump is a morbid fascination, like the gruesome car accident that people crane their necks to see or the drunk stumbling around and falling down in the parking lot or the video that’s so stupidly amusing we watch it fifteen times while shaking our heads at how stupid it is. We can’t turn our heads from this reality show because we’re afraid we’ll miss the next outrageous performance.

Trump is also a celebrity. Even though I don’t watch reality TV or beauty pageants, I’ve long known his name as someone who built big buildings and plastered his name on them in giant letters; I recall standing in front of the Trump Towers bewildered by the sight. And I of course have heard his favorite lines from the TV shows. Even before he became a wannabe politician, he was a universally known name, a brand, someone who represented big business and the glittery New York social world. In our celebrity-obsessed culture, many people are starstruck over seeing someone famous in person. Feeling like part of his tribe and maybe even getting a chance for a selfie with him hold an irresistible appeal for lots of people.

Trump is bigger than life. Like the ridiculous letters on his buildings and his plane, he’s yuuuge. His reputation for success is evidence that he can turn anything he touches to the gaudy gold with which his whole house is gilded. If he’s built all of these companies, of course he can manage the country. How lucky would our country be to have a person of his professional caliber in the White House! And as long as he keeps those tax returns secret, the illusion of his being the consummate businessman can’t be disproved.

And finally, for the angry white men who comprise his base, Trump is a folk hero: he stands in front of audiences and brazenly speaks the forbidden words they have also said but for which they have been socially ostracized. They feel cheated, disenfranchised, and ignored by a system that has been unfair to them. Here, in this arena, however, they are the “in crowd,” their opinions are the majority opinions, and they get to make fun of all those idiots who are so politically correct and who have made them feel inferior. They get to sucker punch anyone who threatens the sanctity of their club, and their leader condones their violence and offers to pay their legal fees. They get to escort the intruders out of the club and bask in the approving smile of their esteemed leader. In the microcosm of the Trump rally, they are at the top of the social order, and that’s intoxicating.

We don’t need no stinkin’ pivot! What we need is a candidate with integrity, discipline, and knowledge. As the saying goes, the leopard can’t change its spots. A pivot is a shift, a positioning, an adjustment; it’s not a metamorphosis into a whole different being. What voters really want is for Donald Trump to grow up, to start talking and acting like an adult; and that’s just not humanly possible in 77 days. Forget the pivot. Look for another candidate.