Here's a curiosity. When Republican politicians end a major speech, they say, "God bless America." The Democratic form is "God bless the United States of America." That difference has been stable for many years now. You can check it for yourself.
Of course, both terms mean the same thing, but the flavor is different. We'll never hear a song, "The United States the Beautiful." "America" is the heartland, the fatherland/motherland. The United States is a more governmental designation. "The United States" is a member of the United Nations. "America" knows better.
Today's New York Times led with a story about the controversy swirling around a proposed Islamic center and mosque two blocks north of ground zero (Ground Zero?) in Lower Manhattan. If American politics interests you at all, there's a lot to like here.
Right in the crosshairs of this decision is the Anti-Defamation League. (Let's hear it for people who are in favor of defamation!) The League has been denouncing "bigoted attacks" on plans for the Muslim center. Finally, Abraham Foxman, national director of the ADL, had to say, "It's the wrong place. Find another place."
I see two interesting questions being labored over here. The first is, "Who attacked the United States by flying passenger planes into the Twin Towers?" Here is a set of correct answers. Al Qaeda. Osama bin Laden. Middle Easterners. Dark-skinned people. Muslims. Religious fanatics. Only the answer "Muslims" is relevant to the controversy in New York. On the other hand, "Christians" fire-bombed Dresden.
There is a politics that gathers itself around this issue. Some of it represents the highest values of Americans. I'm going to collect them around the next question. I want to look at the others here. Sarah Palin has urged "peace-seeking Muslims" to reject the center. C. Lee Hanson, whose son Peter was killed in the attacks, said, "When I look over there and see a mosque, it's going to hurt. Build it somewhere else." Mr. Hanson, it's going to hurt wherever they put it. There needs to be a better reason to say no.
The second question is, "Who are we?" The question is asked of "us" New Yorkers and of "us" Americans. Mayor Bloomberg said, "What is great about America, and particularly New York, is we welcome everybody, and if we are so afraid of something like this, what does that say about us?" Rabbi Irwin Kula, president of the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, said, "Here, we ask the moderate leaders of the Muslim community to step forward, and when one of them does (he has Feisal Abdul Rauf, the imam behind the proposed center in mind), he is treated with suspicion."
These two questions have liberal and conservative overtones, but it really isn't a liberal v. conservative question. It's an identity question. Are Muslims really Americans? Oz Sultan, the programming director for the center, said the complex was based on Jewish community centers in Manhattan. It is supposed to have a board of directors composed of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish leaders and is supposed to be a model representing moderate Islam. Those are the "peace-seeking Muslims" Ms. Palin is asking to reject this. This is the outstretched hand we have just bitten.
Another question is, "How shall we treat the feelings of the victims' families?" That's the question that finally stumped the Anti-defamation League. The fact is that the families of the victims don't all have the same feelings. Public references to "the feelings of the families" are always about the angriest of the families. Should we "honor" those feelings? Should we "pander to" those feelings? Should we comfort those families and help them move on? Should we try to focus those feelings on Al Qaeda and not on "Muslims?"
Abraham Foxman of the ADL is a Holocaust survivor. Here's where he came out. "Survivors of the Holocaust are entitled to feelings that are irrational. Their anguish entitles them to positions that others would categorize as irrational or bigoted." This same entitlement belongs to the victims' families. The proposed location is "offensive to the families of the victims of 9/11;" they should look for a site a mile away.
I'm sympathetic to the Anti-defamation League. I'm sympathetic to their organization's dilemma. I'm sympathetic to their cause. But I think what Rabbi Kula said is better, "the ADL should be ashamed of itself." As long as we are going to have feelings, we are going to have irrational feelings. There's nothing wrong with having irrational feelings. But as persons and as citizens we have a duty not to act on our irrational feelings. We need to know that they are there and to do something useful with them. That's what politics if for.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
It's All About Me
Some years ago, I read a scathing review of Mitch Albom’s book, The Five People You Meet in Heaven. The devastating lesson we learn in “Heaven,” said this reviewer, is that heaven is just like earth: “It’s all about me.”
That would be a truly awful thing to learn about heaven, I think; it’s bad enough as a focus here on earth. It is, nevertheless, the cast of mind and heart with which we are born and one of the first and most difficult developmental steps is to learn that it is not true. It is, actually, not “all about me.”
Russell Hoban’s A Birthday for Frances is a story about that. It is about transcending the self-centeredness with which we are all born. At a certain age, a child learns that others see things differently, know different things, and feel differently about them. Frances may even have learned this lesson as a general matter, but sometimes when the going gets really tough, we forget the lessons we learned as a general matter.
In this story, the tough going is provided by Gloria’s birthday. Gloria is Frances’s younger sister and the two haven’t been getting along. We know that not so much by learning that the sisters have had conflicts (hello! reality check!) as by how long the grievances have lasted.
Here is an exchange between Frances and her mother. There are three important elements here.
Frances: Gloria is mean. She hid my sand pail and my shovel and I never got them back.
Mother: That was last year.
Frances: When Gloria is mean, it was always last year[1]
The first element is that the grievance is long-standing. Or that it comes back quickly when times are hard. It’s hard to say which one applies to this story.
The second is that Frances’s defense against Mother does not take a personal form. That’s odd for a child. We would expect something like, “You always take Gloria’s side.” But there is no “You…” in Frances’s response. There is, instead, the description of a “system” which is fundamentally unfair.
The third is that defending your behavior by claiming that the system isn’t fair is like climbing on a horse you won’t be able to control. If “the system” is messing with reality, what behavior of Frances would not be justified? What path to reconciliation is left open? Those are two sides of the same question, I think.
Frances is just a little girl having a hard day, but the “unfair system” critique can take on a life of its own and when you are on a horse that big and it takes off, you go with it. If this remark were a lifestyle rather than the petulance of an unhappy little girl, I would say that paranoia would be right around the corner.
The next step is this drama is easy to pass by, so I would like to pull over and park there for a little while. That will give us a chance to see it better. And since it is something that does not happen, it isn’t easy to see.
This question is the beginning of Frances’s way back into the family. It is the beginning of her ultimately successful participation in Gloria’s birthday. In this scene, we see that there is still "something going on." It is something Frances will be able to join. Frances’s nose is out of joint, but the birthday preparation continues nonetheless.
And what does not happen? These four things. Frances’s unhappiness does not become the new focus. There is no notion that the party might be postponed until Frances is more favorable. No one asks Frances to feel differently than she does feel. No one even asks her to behave differently.
This party is going to happen. Frances gets to choose how to respond to that. In the context of this story, that is the gift of wise parents. The practice of “not responding,” of ignoring children who have grievances or emotional needs, has never been uncommon. Some parents are so caught up in their own lives that their children’s needs seem more a casual irritant than a crucial task. Parents who would do better if they could, but who are working three jobs, also wind up ignoring the emotional needs of their children. As I say, it isn’t at all uncommon.
But it isn’t what is going on at the Badger house. Mother continues to relate to Frances as she works on the party. In the process, she takes some lip from Frances that she really shouldn’t have to take. Mother continues to support the reality that, hard as it is for Frances today, the way we do it here is that Gloria is celebrated on her birthday and Frances on hers.
As a result, a tradition that the adults believe to be fair and appropriate is affirmed and defended. This gives Frances something to stand on. The party is not pre-empted by her pique. So her complaint turns out to be no more than the last gasp of the natural self-centeredness of a child. It is one of the first and hardest deaths of “it’s all about me.”
Frances joins the birthday event to the extent of buying Gloria a Chompo Bar. She is not reconciled to Gloria and does not want to be, but “Gloria’s Birthday” is the family project on this day and her choice is to be a part or not. Her father helps her to move forward although she is clearly wavering.
There are three little exchanges with Father; three ways to get out of actually giving the
Chompo Bar to Gloria. Father heads off each one. He doesn’t have to absorb Frances’ petulance as Mother did, but his job, like his wife’s, is to cap off Frances’s attempt to rescue “it’s all about me.”
Frances: Are you sure it is all right for Gloria to have a whole Chompo Bar?
Father: Not every day. But today, for her birthday, it will be fine.
Frances: Probably Gloria could not eat more than half of one.
Father: Gloria loves sweets. I am sure she can eat a whole Chompo Bar.
Father: You would not eat Gloria’s Chompo Bar, would you?
Frances: It is not Gloria’s yet.
Father: Maybe I should take care of the Chompo Bar until you are ready to give it to Gloria.
Now the party has started and Frances is there and has bought Gloria a present. There is one step left. It’s huge. Frances needs to patch up the relationship with Gloria and she needs to give wholeheartedly the present she has so far been prepared to give only grudgingly. This is not something she is going to be able to do by herself, but she gets help from Gloria.
Gloria’s birthday wish is that Frances would be nice and not mad because of the sand pail and the shovel last year. She concludes, “And I am sorry, and I will be nice.”[2] Frances has had all the room she needed to express her displeasure. Mother gave her that. Every avenue of escape has been blocked by Father. Through it all, the event proceeds and finally, Frances has to fish or cut bait. Gloria has acted on her own to move the relationship back toward reconciliation. A lot of good things have happened for Frances. Then finally, this.
Frances finally gives it up. “It’s all about me” loses again. “Here,” she says after one final squeeze of the Chompo Bar, “You can eat it all, because you are the birthday girl.”
[1] This is not the only instance of what I am calling “the system defense.” When Frances is singing “Happy Thursday” to her invisible friend Alice, Mother points out that it is Friday. Frances says that it is Thursday for Alice—a “reality” only Frances controls. When Mother says that Frances’s birthday is only two months away and that she will be celebrated then, Frances says, “That’s how it is, Alice. Your birthday (i.e., Frances’s birthday) is always the one that is not now.”
[2] If anyone from BP is reading this, that’s how it’s done.
That would be a truly awful thing to learn about heaven, I think; it’s bad enough as a focus here on earth. It is, nevertheless, the cast of mind and heart with which we are born and one of the first and most difficult developmental steps is to learn that it is not true. It is, actually, not “all about me.”
Russell Hoban’s A Birthday for Frances is a story about that. It is about transcending the self-centeredness with which we are all born. At a certain age, a child learns that others see things differently, know different things, and feel differently about them. Frances may even have learned this lesson as a general matter, but sometimes when the going gets really tough, we forget the lessons we learned as a general matter.
In this story, the tough going is provided by Gloria’s birthday. Gloria is Frances’s younger sister and the two haven’t been getting along. We know that not so much by learning that the sisters have had conflicts (hello! reality check!) as by how long the grievances have lasted.
Here is an exchange between Frances and her mother. There are three important elements here.
Frances: Gloria is mean. She hid my sand pail and my shovel and I never got them back.
Mother: That was last year.
Frances: When Gloria is mean, it was always last year[1]
The first element is that the grievance is long-standing. Or that it comes back quickly when times are hard. It’s hard to say which one applies to this story.
The second is that Frances’s defense against Mother does not take a personal form. That’s odd for a child. We would expect something like, “You always take Gloria’s side.” But there is no “You…” in Frances’s response. There is, instead, the description of a “system” which is fundamentally unfair.
The third is that defending your behavior by claiming that the system isn’t fair is like climbing on a horse you won’t be able to control. If “the system” is messing with reality, what behavior of Frances would not be justified? What path to reconciliation is left open? Those are two sides of the same question, I think.
Frances is just a little girl having a hard day, but the “unfair system” critique can take on a life of its own and when you are on a horse that big and it takes off, you go with it. If this remark were a lifestyle rather than the petulance of an unhappy little girl, I would say that paranoia would be right around the corner.
The next step is this drama is easy to pass by, so I would like to pull over and park there for a little while. That will give us a chance to see it better. And since it is something that does not happen, it isn’t easy to see.
Frances climbed up on one of the porch rocking chairs and looked through the
window at the boxes Mother was wrapping. “What is Gloria getting from you and
from Father for her birthday?” asked Frances.
This question is the beginning of Frances’s way back into the family. It is the beginning of her ultimately successful participation in Gloria’s birthday. In this scene, we see that there is still "something going on." It is something Frances will be able to join. Frances’s nose is out of joint, but the birthday preparation continues nonetheless.
And what does not happen? These four things. Frances’s unhappiness does not become the new focus. There is no notion that the party might be postponed until Frances is more favorable. No one asks Frances to feel differently than she does feel. No one even asks her to behave differently.
This party is going to happen. Frances gets to choose how to respond to that. In the context of this story, that is the gift of wise parents. The practice of “not responding,” of ignoring children who have grievances or emotional needs, has never been uncommon. Some parents are so caught up in their own lives that their children’s needs seem more a casual irritant than a crucial task. Parents who would do better if they could, but who are working three jobs, also wind up ignoring the emotional needs of their children. As I say, it isn’t at all uncommon.
But it isn’t what is going on at the Badger house. Mother continues to relate to Frances as she works on the party. In the process, she takes some lip from Frances that she really shouldn’t have to take. Mother continues to support the reality that, hard as it is for Frances today, the way we do it here is that Gloria is celebrated on her birthday and Frances on hers.
As a result, a tradition that the adults believe to be fair and appropriate is affirmed and defended. This gives Frances something to stand on. The party is not pre-empted by her pique. So her complaint turns out to be no more than the last gasp of the natural self-centeredness of a child. It is one of the first and hardest deaths of “it’s all about me.”
Frances joins the birthday event to the extent of buying Gloria a Chompo Bar. She is not reconciled to Gloria and does not want to be, but “Gloria’s Birthday” is the family project on this day and her choice is to be a part or not. Her father helps her to move forward although she is clearly wavering.
There are three little exchanges with Father; three ways to get out of actually giving the
Chompo Bar to Gloria. Father heads off each one. He doesn’t have to absorb Frances’ petulance as Mother did, but his job, like his wife’s, is to cap off Frances’s attempt to rescue “it’s all about me.”
Frances: Are you sure it is all right for Gloria to have a whole Chompo Bar?
Father: Not every day. But today, for her birthday, it will be fine.
Frances: Probably Gloria could not eat more than half of one.
Father: Gloria loves sweets. I am sure she can eat a whole Chompo Bar.
Father: You would not eat Gloria’s Chompo Bar, would you?
Frances: It is not Gloria’s yet.
Father: Maybe I should take care of the Chompo Bar until you are ready to give it to Gloria.
Now the party has started and Frances is there and has bought Gloria a present. There is one step left. It’s huge. Frances needs to patch up the relationship with Gloria and she needs to give wholeheartedly the present she has so far been prepared to give only grudgingly. This is not something she is going to be able to do by herself, but she gets help from Gloria.
Gloria’s birthday wish is that Frances would be nice and not mad because of the sand pail and the shovel last year. She concludes, “And I am sorry, and I will be nice.”[2] Frances has had all the room she needed to express her displeasure. Mother gave her that. Every avenue of escape has been blocked by Father. Through it all, the event proceeds and finally, Frances has to fish or cut bait. Gloria has acted on her own to move the relationship back toward reconciliation. A lot of good things have happened for Frances. Then finally, this.
Frances finally gives it up. “It’s all about me” loses again. “Here,” she says after one final squeeze of the Chompo Bar, “You can eat it all, because you are the birthday girl.”
[1] This is not the only instance of what I am calling “the system defense.” When Frances is singing “Happy Thursday” to her invisible friend Alice, Mother points out that it is Friday. Frances says that it is Thursday for Alice—a “reality” only Frances controls. When Mother says that Frances’s birthday is only two months away and that she will be celebrated then, Frances says, “That’s how it is, Alice. Your birthday (i.e., Frances’s birthday) is always the one that is not now.”
[2] If anyone from BP is reading this, that’s how it’s done.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Old and Smart
First a small complaint. I use the phrase "getting old" in the label for this post. The more recent usage as been "getting older." Or, sometimes, "aging." Aging is what happens to the patients in the neonatal ward just as much as in the Alzheimer's ward. Ditto for getting older. Getting old, on the other hand, is reserved for the veterans of many campaigns, during some of which we acquired wounds. It's not a word I want to give away. I also don't want to use it apologetically or to avoid it.
I've puzzled for some years how many of the increasing debilities of old age make me feel savvy and competent. It doesn't seem that they should. I began thinking about this in the 1970s when I noticed that my head got cold in cold weather if I didn't wear something on it. As I experienced it, this is a sequence of three steps. One, I am young and hotblooded and my head doesn't get cold when I expose it to cold weather. Or I don't care that much. Two, I don't cover my head in cold weather and I get cold and something bad happens to me. Three, I know I am going out into cold weather so I am careful to wear something--usually a ballcap--and nothing bad happens. It might happen to other old guys who don't have the understanding and foresight I do, but it doesn't happen to me.
It's that sequence of steps that caught my eye. If we went directly from one to three, it would probably feel like a loss. But moving from two to three feels like I figured something out and now I'm making it work. It's not that my head is vulnerable; it's that I'm so smart about adapting to it. It's all sleight of mind, really.
Nearly all the physical ailments I have acquired--these are like the campaign ribbons I alluded to above--follow this pattern. I'd rather not have them (stage one compared to stage two) but I have mastered some aspect of the effects (stage two compared to stage three). And so on through a list of ailments any old man (I speak from my own experience) can produce and that will make nearly any younger man (I speak from my own experience) roll his eyes and wait for the deep mine of complaints finally to peter out.
So as I acquire new debilities, I acquire new knowledge of how to manage them better than I did when they were new. The constraints surrounding the way I live my life increase, but I don't notice the constraints as much as I notice the high quality adaptation to them. It's amazing.
On the other hand, think of it this way. If you had a new car, you would get in and turn it on and drive away. It's effective but it's largely unconscious. But if you had an old car, a car you had owned for a long time and which you knew well, it wouldn't look like that. You would get in (kicking the door once, at the front edge, usually frees up the latch in the door); you would turn it on (crank it twice, then hold the accelerator pedal down for about five seconds, then crank it the final time); and drive away (the elastic band which you have passed through the steering wheel and attached to the lever below the driver's seat will keep the car from drifting persistently to the left).
Now see there? You really aren't unconscious about the old car. You can't afford to be. Each liability is something you have learned to overcome, something you take pleasure in overcoming. Getting in this car and driving it away is an exercise in sophistication and mastery. What's not to like about that?
All this came back to me in the last few days as I remembered an old Arnie Palmer Pennzoil ad. Arnie had been an old golfer for quite a while by the time of this ad. He still had Arnie's Army around him and was a very popular athlete. The ad showed him tooling around the golf course he designed in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, sitting in a very old tractor. He explained that the tractor still worked so well because he had always taken care of it with Pennzoil. He closed with a rueful laugh, and the line. "...and I believe in taking care of the old equipment."
I thought it was funny because he was the "old equipment" he was actually referring to and everyone knew it. The fact that there was a tractor in the picture made misunderstanding possible and therefore made understanding more fun.
I've puzzled for some years how many of the increasing debilities of old age make me feel savvy and competent. It doesn't seem that they should. I began thinking about this in the 1970s when I noticed that my head got cold in cold weather if I didn't wear something on it. As I experienced it, this is a sequence of three steps. One, I am young and hotblooded and my head doesn't get cold when I expose it to cold weather. Or I don't care that much. Two, I don't cover my head in cold weather and I get cold and something bad happens to me. Three, I know I am going out into cold weather so I am careful to wear something--usually a ballcap--and nothing bad happens. It might happen to other old guys who don't have the understanding and foresight I do, but it doesn't happen to me.
It's that sequence of steps that caught my eye. If we went directly from one to three, it would probably feel like a loss. But moving from two to three feels like I figured something out and now I'm making it work. It's not that my head is vulnerable; it's that I'm so smart about adapting to it. It's all sleight of mind, really.
Nearly all the physical ailments I have acquired--these are like the campaign ribbons I alluded to above--follow this pattern. I'd rather not have them (stage one compared to stage two) but I have mastered some aspect of the effects (stage two compared to stage three). And so on through a list of ailments any old man (I speak from my own experience) can produce and that will make nearly any younger man (I speak from my own experience) roll his eyes and wait for the deep mine of complaints finally to peter out.
So as I acquire new debilities, I acquire new knowledge of how to manage them better than I did when they were new. The constraints surrounding the way I live my life increase, but I don't notice the constraints as much as I notice the high quality adaptation to them. It's amazing.
On the other hand, think of it this way. If you had a new car, you would get in and turn it on and drive away. It's effective but it's largely unconscious. But if you had an old car, a car you had owned for a long time and which you knew well, it wouldn't look like that. You would get in (kicking the door once, at the front edge, usually frees up the latch in the door); you would turn it on (crank it twice, then hold the accelerator pedal down for about five seconds, then crank it the final time); and drive away (the elastic band which you have passed through the steering wheel and attached to the lever below the driver's seat will keep the car from drifting persistently to the left).
Now see there? You really aren't unconscious about the old car. You can't afford to be. Each liability is something you have learned to overcome, something you take pleasure in overcoming. Getting in this car and driving it away is an exercise in sophistication and mastery. What's not to like about that?
All this came back to me in the last few days as I remembered an old Arnie Palmer Pennzoil ad. Arnie had been an old golfer for quite a while by the time of this ad. He still had Arnie's Army around him and was a very popular athlete. The ad showed him tooling around the golf course he designed in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, sitting in a very old tractor. He explained that the tractor still worked so well because he had always taken care of it with Pennzoil. He closed with a rueful laugh, and the line. "...and I believe in taking care of the old equipment."
I thought it was funny because he was the "old equipment" he was actually referring to and everyone knew it. The fact that there was a tractor in the picture made misunderstanding possible and therefore made understanding more fun.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Preparing the Voters
Every now and then, I drift into sounding scholarly on this blog. I try to block it out, but it occasionally insinuates itself and I need to take just a moment to set the record straight.
I begin this political lament with a quotation from the British statesman, Edmund Burke. It is taken from a speech he made on November 3, 1774 to his consituents, who are referred to as “the electors of Bristol." (If you want to google it, that's what to enter). Here is the only line of that speech I have ever heard quoted.
Here are the values to be aligned. Contrast the representative’s “industry,” or hard work v. the representative’s “judgment,” or his own well-informed convictions. He “betrays” instead of “serving” when he does what they want him to do, rather than what he thinks is best to do. And “his judgment” v. “your opinion.”
This is a resounding defense of what political scientists call the “trustee model” over the “delegate model” of a political representative’s job. The most recent polling data I have seen shows that the overwhelming majority of voters prefer the “delegate model” in which they instruct their representative and he carries out their wishes. Legislators overwhelmingly prefer the “trustee model” in which the voters send him or her to the capitol to study, attend hearings, reflect, and cast a vote informed by all those activities. So, oddly, everyone wants to be in charge. Is this a great system or what?
Earlier this week, Matt Bai of the New York Times wrote a very perceptive piece on how the Democrats and Republicans are approaching the midterm elections this November (236 years and a day since Burke’s speech). Bai’s article contrasts the Democratic approach to the election--make it a choice between the two parties' approaches--with the Republican approach--make it a referendum on the Obama administration. The political logic is unassailable. "The people" are implacable (that means, literally, that there is no way to please them) so the only real question is where to place the blame. If the election is a "referendum" on Obama, all that anger goes to defeat Democrats. If the election is a "choice of ideologies," the Republicans can be blamed for getting us into the mess that Obama is laboring diligently to get us out of.
My own view is that the most important role of an election is to prepare the voters to understand, support, and critique the policies of the leaders they have chosen. Daniel Yankelovich calls it, in a book I feature every time I teach American government, "coming to public judgment." Matt Bai is more specific. The Democrats, he says, campaigned on "change."
The Democrats, in giving in to political expediency (and gaining the White House and House and Senate majorities) failed to prepare the voters for the support of their agenda. They did not follow a process that would have allowed the voters to "come to public judgment," as Yankelovich would have it. The Democrats in failing to prepare the voters, handed to the Republicans the club with which they are now being beaten on the head by the likes of John Boehner of Ohio and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
The Republicans, when in office, do the same thing for the same reasons. Demonizing the opposition party and playing on the people's implacability is the surest way to prevent an election from being a referendum on how well you have handled the responsibilities of power and choice. And that's why everyone does it.
Neither party has been willing to take the electoral risk of preparing the voters for the sacrifices that will be necessary to extract us from the partisan deadlock and the fiscal profligacy which define our current dilemma. It is always seductive to imagine that Job One is to get "the good guys" into office. Once in office, they will do as many "good things" as they can. Telling the voters that the actions that are now clearly needed are going to hurt a good deal is thought to run the risk of turning office over to the bad guys. And, of course, it might.
But the alternative--THE alternative--to running that risk is to do what we are doing now: for one party and one administration after another to take office, preying upon an unprepared and uninformed electorate and guaranteeing that once in office, they themselves will be able to make only minor policy adjustments and grand symbolic gestures. As a nation, we are well past the time when those two responses will do the job that needs to be done.
I begin this political lament with a quotation from the British statesman, Edmund Burke. It is taken from a speech he made on November 3, 1774 to his consituents, who are referred to as “the electors of Bristol." (If you want to google it, that's what to enter). Here is the only line of that speech I have ever heard quoted.
Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.Since this event belongs squarely in my own discipline, it ought to be familiar to me in the context of contituent relationships. In fact, it is nothing so scholarly. I know it because it shows up in 1776, the musical about the Declaration of Independence, which I watch every July 2 just to keep the event fresh in my mind. This quote is given in full by the single member of the Georgia delegation as his reason for voting for the Declaration, although he is aware that his constituents might not have chosen that. In the movie, it takes place in the middle of a very bad night and the drama of it is allowed free rein.
Here are the values to be aligned. Contrast the representative’s “industry,” or hard work v. the representative’s “judgment,” or his own well-informed convictions. He “betrays” instead of “serving” when he does what they want him to do, rather than what he thinks is best to do. And “his judgment” v. “your opinion.”
This is a resounding defense of what political scientists call the “trustee model” over the “delegate model” of a political representative’s job. The most recent polling data I have seen shows that the overwhelming majority of voters prefer the “delegate model” in which they instruct their representative and he carries out their wishes. Legislators overwhelmingly prefer the “trustee model” in which the voters send him or her to the capitol to study, attend hearings, reflect, and cast a vote informed by all those activities. So, oddly, everyone wants to be in charge. Is this a great system or what?
Earlier this week, Matt Bai of the New York Times wrote a very perceptive piece on how the Democrats and Republicans are approaching the midterm elections this November (236 years and a day since Burke’s speech). Bai’s article contrasts the Democratic approach to the election--make it a choice between the two parties' approaches--with the Republican approach--make it a referendum on the Obama administration. The political logic is unassailable. "The people" are implacable (that means, literally, that there is no way to please them) so the only real question is where to place the blame. If the election is a "referendum" on Obama, all that anger goes to defeat Democrats. If the election is a "choice of ideologies," the Republicans can be blamed for getting us into the mess that Obama is laboring diligently to get us out of.
My own view is that the most important role of an election is to prepare the voters to understand, support, and critique the policies of the leaders they have chosen. Daniel Yankelovich calls it, in a book I feature every time I teach American government, "coming to public judgment." Matt Bai is more specific. The Democrats, he says, campaigned on "change."
The problem with this strategy was that "change" meant wildly different things to different people, and neither of these elections amounted to a mandate for any discernable set of choices. The stimulus bill (sic) and the health care law may or may not have been good policy, but the sheer scope and cost of those agenda items seemed to jolt a lot of the independent voters who had conditionally supported Mr. Obama. Having failed to establish a rationale for such expansive measures during the campaign, Democrats were easily caricatured by their adversaries as a bunch of 1970s liberals who would spend money wherever they could.
The Democrats, in giving in to political expediency (and gaining the White House and House and Senate majorities) failed to prepare the voters for the support of their agenda. They did not follow a process that would have allowed the voters to "come to public judgment," as Yankelovich would have it. The Democrats in failing to prepare the voters, handed to the Republicans the club with which they are now being beaten on the head by the likes of John Boehner of Ohio and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
The Republicans, when in office, do the same thing for the same reasons. Demonizing the opposition party and playing on the people's implacability is the surest way to prevent an election from being a referendum on how well you have handled the responsibilities of power and choice. And that's why everyone does it.
Neither party has been willing to take the electoral risk of preparing the voters for the sacrifices that will be necessary to extract us from the partisan deadlock and the fiscal profligacy which define our current dilemma. It is always seductive to imagine that Job One is to get "the good guys" into office. Once in office, they will do as many "good things" as they can. Telling the voters that the actions that are now clearly needed are going to hurt a good deal is thought to run the risk of turning office over to the bad guys. And, of course, it might.
But the alternative--THE alternative--to running that risk is to do what we are doing now: for one party and one administration after another to take office, preying upon an unprepared and uninformed electorate and guaranteeing that once in office, they themselves will be able to make only minor policy adjustments and grand symbolic gestures. As a nation, we are well past the time when those two responses will do the job that needs to be done.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Marriage Guarantors 1
Bette and I were married in December, 2005. We met in January and were ready to be married in June, but it took as long to assemble the family as to decide to choose each other as lovers and partners. The people we asked to attend the wedding received a letter addressed to "guarantors." I'm thinking of lines 4--33 for this essay. The rest of the letter is made up of short statements of the four principles and I'd like to take them one at a time over the next few months.
The theory was that no one would be invited who did not agree to be a guarantor of the marriage, but it struck quite a few of the invitees as an odd notion and we didn't push it. This post is about why I think it was a good notion, however odd it seemed.
Bette and I agreed early on the kind of marriage we wanted to pursue. There are four essential principles to this notion and by the time I met Bette, I had thought about them for so many years that I could actually say what I meant by them. We both knew that the specific form our pursuit of these goals would take would be defined by who we were for each other and who we could become for each other. So nothing about these principles is a formula that you can fit over two people who want to become a couple and direct their growth. On the other hand, it was clear to me that we wouldn't become that kind of couple if we didn't pursue the goals.
The implications of that pursuit were pretty clear to us, which is good because we were the ones doing the pursuing. It was the question of how it applied to the gurarantors that wasn't so clear. Here are two of the difficulties, as presented by the people who were asked.
1. You want to what? Come on, people don't just do that. What a weird way to make a commitment! Why don't you just start with loving each other and see what happens?
2. You want me to what? Let's see if I get this. You want me to "get" the kind of marriage you two want and to agree to give you the feedback on it that will help your pursuit. You want my active appreciation of the things you do that will help your pursuit and my cogent criticism of the things you do that will lead you in another direction. Right so far? And you want me to agree to do these things entirely apart from the question of whether I, myself, agree with them; based only on the fact that the two of you agree with them?
You can see now why we didn't comb through the list of potential invitees, weeding out those who couldn't come to grips with 1 or 2 above. But maybe you can see, too, why we wanted guarantors and why we needed them.
I've put the objections the way the potential guarantors saw them. Now I'd like to put our desire for guarantors the way we saw them. We wanted a kind of marriage that out culture allows, but doesn't really support. We knew that if only the two of us wanted it and knew what we wanted, we would be working at it alone. It's hard to work at it alone, even when it's all going well; it's really nasty to have to do that work when it's not all going well.
We didn't want to have to choose between "supporters," i.e., people who would help us have the kind of marriage they wanted us to have and "fans," i.e., people who would agree to like whatever Bette and I wound up doing. We wanted people who understood what we were after and who would agree, as friends of the marriage, to say what they thought was helping our efforts and what was hurting them.
It's a lot to ask of a friend. Friends who are perfectly willing to share their opinions, based as they are on their own preferences, are not always willing to share their judgments, based in this case on our preferences. But we couldn't think of a way to ask for less, so that's what we asked for.
Surely it is rare for a couple to go into a marriage--this was a third marriage for each of us--hoping to have just the kind of marriage the culture presupposes and will thoughtlessly support. I hope it is rare. We knew going in that some of the practices--treating compromise as a last resort, for instance--would not be supported by a culture that treats compromises as "the way to resolve differences." But we wanted to do it our way anyway and we wanted friends to help us. To me, it doesn't seem so odd when I put it that way.
The theory was that no one would be invited who did not agree to be a guarantor of the marriage, but it struck quite a few of the invitees as an odd notion and we didn't push it. This post is about why I think it was a good notion, however odd it seemed.
Bette and I agreed early on the kind of marriage we wanted to pursue. There are four essential principles to this notion and by the time I met Bette, I had thought about them for so many years that I could actually say what I meant by them. We both knew that the specific form our pursuit of these goals would take would be defined by who we were for each other and who we could become for each other. So nothing about these principles is a formula that you can fit over two people who want to become a couple and direct their growth. On the other hand, it was clear to me that we wouldn't become that kind of couple if we didn't pursue the goals.
The implications of that pursuit were pretty clear to us, which is good because we were the ones doing the pursuing. It was the question of how it applied to the gurarantors that wasn't so clear. Here are two of the difficulties, as presented by the people who were asked.
1. You want to what? Come on, people don't just do that. What a weird way to make a commitment! Why don't you just start with loving each other and see what happens?
2. You want me to what? Let's see if I get this. You want me to "get" the kind of marriage you two want and to agree to give you the feedback on it that will help your pursuit. You want my active appreciation of the things you do that will help your pursuit and my cogent criticism of the things you do that will lead you in another direction. Right so far? And you want me to agree to do these things entirely apart from the question of whether I, myself, agree with them; based only on the fact that the two of you agree with them?
You can see now why we didn't comb through the list of potential invitees, weeding out those who couldn't come to grips with 1 or 2 above. But maybe you can see, too, why we wanted guarantors and why we needed them.
I've put the objections the way the potential guarantors saw them. Now I'd like to put our desire for guarantors the way we saw them. We wanted a kind of marriage that out culture allows, but doesn't really support. We knew that if only the two of us wanted it and knew what we wanted, we would be working at it alone. It's hard to work at it alone, even when it's all going well; it's really nasty to have to do that work when it's not all going well.
We didn't want to have to choose between "supporters," i.e., people who would help us have the kind of marriage they wanted us to have and "fans," i.e., people who would agree to like whatever Bette and I wound up doing. We wanted people who understood what we were after and who would agree, as friends of the marriage, to say what they thought was helping our efforts and what was hurting them.
It's a lot to ask of a friend. Friends who are perfectly willing to share their opinions, based as they are on their own preferences, are not always willing to share their judgments, based in this case on our preferences. But we couldn't think of a way to ask for less, so that's what we asked for.
Surely it is rare for a couple to go into a marriage--this was a third marriage for each of us--hoping to have just the kind of marriage the culture presupposes and will thoughtlessly support. I hope it is rare. We knew going in that some of the practices--treating compromise as a last resort, for instance--would not be supported by a culture that treats compromises as "the way to resolve differences." But we wanted to do it our way anyway and we wanted friends to help us. To me, it doesn't seem so odd when I put it that way.
Friday, July 16, 2010
WOHAA
Today I want to think about "only." Only is the O is WOHAA, an acronym I treasure because it was the first one Bette and I shared. We both knew what SNAFU meant, so we "shared" it in a sense, but WOHAA we invented ourselves and it had an important role to play in helping us get to know each other.
WOHAA means "We're only human, after all." It is within easy reach when you have failed at something. It is especially handy when your failure, the discrepancy between your intention and the outcome of your choices, is going to get the bulk of the blame. In this latter use, the meaning of WOHAA is, essentially, "You really ought not to have intended that outcome (committed to that goal, maintained the importance of that value, etc.).
I want now to introduce a second acronym--a potential acronym, really, since it is likely that no one has ever used it. It is WFHAA. The F stands for "fully." We’re fully human, after all.
I grew up at a time when "only human" was something anyone could say, but "fully human" was something said only by aging transcendentalists and fans of the new humanistic psychology. "Fully human" is the name that belongs beside 10 at the top of the scale. From 9 on down is "less than fully human" and, depending on how you wanted to twist the graph you could get to "bestial" or "inert" at the lowest numbers.
“Only human,” by contrast identifies “human” not as a goal, but as a limiting condition. “What do you expect, he’s only human?” we ask about a public official of our own party who has been caught in an extramarital tangle. That’s the kind of behavior your expect from people in his condition and the name of the condition is “human.” The most generous way to characterize this liability is “fallible.” “Broken” is more fundamental. “Sinful” isn’t any worse than “broken;” it just provides a religious context for it.
So which is it? Is “full humanity” our blessing or our curse? This is the place where we ask what the definition of is is. If I had a good solution to this dilemma, I wouldn’t be writing it here. You knew that, right? I do have an approach, however.
I agree that “less than fully human” is a phrase with meaning. We have all chosen the lesser good or the easier way at times when we know we could have done otherwise. We know what “more fully human” meant for us, particularly, at that time particularly and we know we didn’t measure up. We remember times when we did measure up. For me, “less than fully human” and “not my best self” or even “didn’t bring my A game” all mean the same thing. If we have friends who use similar standards—and we do because that is a big part of how we choose our friends—these norms can be made into “what people generally ought to do” or ought to want to do or ought to pay the price of failing at.
“Only human” has another context in mind. It imagines that “not bringing your A game” is pretty much what happens. It tries to manage the discrepancy between intentions and outcomes by lowering the intentions. Sometimes that’s the only humane thing to do. At other times, is expresses only your own unwillingness to expect more of the person in question or your own unwillingness to pay the price of recurring disappointment, which, after all, does hurt. It isn’t an unreasonable thing to do and sometimes, it is the best thing to do.
But there is another way to take “only human.” It’s probably theological, in essence, regardless of the language used. In this way of thinking of it, you don’t have to postulate a God/god or some gods to talk theologically. You just have to recognize that there is something which, as Martin Luther said, stands in that “ultimate place,” a place beyond which no appeal can be made.
In this context, “human” is just WYSIWYG, today’s final acronym. What you see is what you get. Actual human beings do is good sometimes and bad sometimes. It is the process by which we intend good or intend evil or don’t really care to choose between them that is broken. The point is that humans are broken. We are broken in the way that nearly everyone is broken in The Matrix, one of my favorite religious films. People think they are choosing to be cops or social workers or hackers or whores. In fact, they are none of those things. They are batteries. Their actual job, the only job that means anything in the real world, is to provide an energy source for their captors.
You want “only human?” There it is. In this larger context, you will never make a real choice, never do anything more than ephemerally good or bad as long as you are “plugged in” to a life of appearance and sensation. Getting rescued from the Matrix, which is something you can’t do yourself, would present your first opportunity to make an actual moral/immoral choice. “Only human” is what people tell each other, in this larger context for that phrase, as long as they are plugged into the Matrix and are only deluded puppets. Being rescued from the Matrix will bring you your first chance to begin trying to be fully human.
It’s hard to grasp. When you have grasped it, it’s hard to like it. But, you know, WOHAA.
WOHAA means "We're only human, after all." It is within easy reach when you have failed at something. It is especially handy when your failure, the discrepancy between your intention and the outcome of your choices, is going to get the bulk of the blame. In this latter use, the meaning of WOHAA is, essentially, "You really ought not to have intended that outcome (committed to that goal, maintained the importance of that value, etc.).
I want now to introduce a second acronym--a potential acronym, really, since it is likely that no one has ever used it. It is WFHAA. The F stands for "fully." We’re fully human, after all.
I grew up at a time when "only human" was something anyone could say, but "fully human" was something said only by aging transcendentalists and fans of the new humanistic psychology. "Fully human" is the name that belongs beside 10 at the top of the scale. From 9 on down is "less than fully human" and, depending on how you wanted to twist the graph you could get to "bestial" or "inert" at the lowest numbers.
“Only human,” by contrast identifies “human” not as a goal, but as a limiting condition. “What do you expect, he’s only human?” we ask about a public official of our own party who has been caught in an extramarital tangle. That’s the kind of behavior your expect from people in his condition and the name of the condition is “human.” The most generous way to characterize this liability is “fallible.” “Broken” is more fundamental. “Sinful” isn’t any worse than “broken;” it just provides a religious context for it.
So which is it? Is “full humanity” our blessing or our curse? This is the place where we ask what the definition of is is. If I had a good solution to this dilemma, I wouldn’t be writing it here. You knew that, right? I do have an approach, however.
I agree that “less than fully human” is a phrase with meaning. We have all chosen the lesser good or the easier way at times when we know we could have done otherwise. We know what “more fully human” meant for us, particularly, at that time particularly and we know we didn’t measure up. We remember times when we did measure up. For me, “less than fully human” and “not my best self” or even “didn’t bring my A game” all mean the same thing. If we have friends who use similar standards—and we do because that is a big part of how we choose our friends—these norms can be made into “what people generally ought to do” or ought to want to do or ought to pay the price of failing at.
“Only human” has another context in mind. It imagines that “not bringing your A game” is pretty much what happens. It tries to manage the discrepancy between intentions and outcomes by lowering the intentions. Sometimes that’s the only humane thing to do. At other times, is expresses only your own unwillingness to expect more of the person in question or your own unwillingness to pay the price of recurring disappointment, which, after all, does hurt. It isn’t an unreasonable thing to do and sometimes, it is the best thing to do.
But there is another way to take “only human.” It’s probably theological, in essence, regardless of the language used. In this way of thinking of it, you don’t have to postulate a God/god or some gods to talk theologically. You just have to recognize that there is something which, as Martin Luther said, stands in that “ultimate place,” a place beyond which no appeal can be made.
In this context, “human” is just WYSIWYG, today’s final acronym. What you see is what you get. Actual human beings do is good sometimes and bad sometimes. It is the process by which we intend good or intend evil or don’t really care to choose between them that is broken. The point is that humans are broken. We are broken in the way that nearly everyone is broken in The Matrix, one of my favorite religious films. People think they are choosing to be cops or social workers or hackers or whores. In fact, they are none of those things. They are batteries. Their actual job, the only job that means anything in the real world, is to provide an energy source for their captors.
You want “only human?” There it is. In this larger context, you will never make a real choice, never do anything more than ephemerally good or bad as long as you are “plugged in” to a life of appearance and sensation. Getting rescued from the Matrix, which is something you can’t do yourself, would present your first opportunity to make an actual moral/immoral choice. “Only human” is what people tell each other, in this larger context for that phrase, as long as they are plugged into the Matrix and are only deluded puppets. Being rescued from the Matrix will bring you your first chance to begin trying to be fully human.
It’s hard to grasp. When you have grasped it, it’s hard to like it. But, you know, WOHAA.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Mars and Venus I
To the best of my own knowledge, I have no friends at all who are fans of John Gray's Mars and Venus industry. Standing in their shoes, I'd have to say they have a point.
Gray doesn't have any training relevant to the kind of advice he offers--although you must admit that being the head trainer at hundreds of seminars probably amounts to a real education for the trainer. His gender schema is so simplistic, you wonder whether to laugh at it or cry. Kvetching is, I believe, the accepted middle way.
He applies his arguments so very broadly that he ends up saying "this is what (all) men are like," a claim so aggressive that not even he could have much confidence in it. And he has constructed a system in which nothing, absolutely nothing, can be counted as evidence against the truth and usefulness of what he is saying.
But I am not standing in my friends' shoes. I am standing in my own shoes and I am a fan of Mars and Venus. It's really awkward for me, as you'd imagine.
I don't have any rebuttals to make against the criticisms my friends make, nor of the legion of well-credentialed counselors and researchers who make even nastier and better grounded criticisms. And I don't want to make any rebuttals. Here is the single claim that grounds and "justifies" my commitment to John Gray's work. When I do what he says to do, it always turns out better than if I did what I would otherwise have done. Or, more briefly: it works.
My friends don't argue against that. Nor, I am happy to say, does my wife.
Let me give you an example. This is the first one that grabbed my attention. The chart to which I am referring can be found on pp. 119--120 of Mars and Venus on a Date. The section is headed "Explanations Don't Work on Venus."
He Says: I’m sorry that I was late. There was a huge accident on the bridge. The traffic was terrible. It was so hot and it took so long, I was stuck behind this huge truck…
She Hears: I have a good reason for being late, so you shouldn't be so upset about this. You should be happy that I made it here at all.
Now I am the kind of guy who really hates to be at fault. I am not the only man in my acquaintance who has that particular difficulty. All my inclinations, before I read this chapter, would be to say exactly what his schmuck said. If I were told that "she" would hear what I said as this woman has heard it, I would have argued that she doesn't have any right to hear it that way and that she really ought, in the spirit of fairness, to be more generous than that. You can see what this chart would have meant to me. It was a slap in the face.
So to the best of my ability, I say whatever it takes to enable her to hear that I am sorry to have inconvenienced her. That is really the only point worth making first. Later on, maybe, there will be time for an explanation, but by that time it will not be heard as a reason why she really should feel differently than she does feel.
So here's my John Gray dilemma. I don't like his views. I don't like his system. When I do what he says to do, it works. The cost to me, so far as this topic is concerned--you noticed, I trust, that the title of this post is M & V I--is giving up my attempts to justify myself; to show that, contrary to appearances, I am not really in the wrong. The benefit is that I say to my wife what will meet her objections and open her to hear my explanation when the time is right and open her to me right away. Those sound like pretty good outcomes, especially given that the cost is so small by comparison.
So I'm a fan. Some smaller, less noble part of me wishes that I could say about the Bible what I have said about the Mars and Venus "tracts," but in fact, the Bible is not a tract--thank God--and the behavioral implications are not always straightforward. (See Frances 1, Jesus 0).
Gray doesn't have any training relevant to the kind of advice he offers--although you must admit that being the head trainer at hundreds of seminars probably amounts to a real education for the trainer. His gender schema is so simplistic, you wonder whether to laugh at it or cry. Kvetching is, I believe, the accepted middle way.
He applies his arguments so very broadly that he ends up saying "this is what (all) men are like," a claim so aggressive that not even he could have much confidence in it. And he has constructed a system in which nothing, absolutely nothing, can be counted as evidence against the truth and usefulness of what he is saying.
But I am not standing in my friends' shoes. I am standing in my own shoes and I am a fan of Mars and Venus. It's really awkward for me, as you'd imagine.
I don't have any rebuttals to make against the criticisms my friends make, nor of the legion of well-credentialed counselors and researchers who make even nastier and better grounded criticisms. And I don't want to make any rebuttals. Here is the single claim that grounds and "justifies" my commitment to John Gray's work. When I do what he says to do, it always turns out better than if I did what I would otherwise have done. Or, more briefly: it works.
My friends don't argue against that. Nor, I am happy to say, does my wife.
Let me give you an example. This is the first one that grabbed my attention. The chart to which I am referring can be found on pp. 119--120 of Mars and Venus on a Date. The section is headed "Explanations Don't Work on Venus."
He Says: I’m sorry that I was late. There was a huge accident on the bridge. The traffic was terrible. It was so hot and it took so long, I was stuck behind this huge truck…
She Hears: I have a good reason for being late, so you shouldn't be so upset about this. You should be happy that I made it here at all.
Now I am the kind of guy who really hates to be at fault. I am not the only man in my acquaintance who has that particular difficulty. All my inclinations, before I read this chapter, would be to say exactly what his schmuck said. If I were told that "she" would hear what I said as this woman has heard it, I would have argued that she doesn't have any right to hear it that way and that she really ought, in the spirit of fairness, to be more generous than that. You can see what this chart would have meant to me. It was a slap in the face.
So to the best of my ability, I say whatever it takes to enable her to hear that I am sorry to have inconvenienced her. That is really the only point worth making first. Later on, maybe, there will be time for an explanation, but by that time it will not be heard as a reason why she really should feel differently than she does feel.
So here's my John Gray dilemma. I don't like his views. I don't like his system. When I do what he says to do, it works. The cost to me, so far as this topic is concerned--you noticed, I trust, that the title of this post is M & V I--is giving up my attempts to justify myself; to show that, contrary to appearances, I am not really in the wrong. The benefit is that I say to my wife what will meet her objections and open her to hear my explanation when the time is right and open her to me right away. Those sound like pretty good outcomes, especially given that the cost is so small by comparison.
So I'm a fan. Some smaller, less noble part of me wishes that I could say about the Bible what I have said about the Mars and Venus "tracts," but in fact, the Bible is not a tract--thank God--and the behavioral implications are not always straightforward. (See Frances 1, Jesus 0).
Monday, July 12, 2010
A Life Sentence
There’s an odd collection of boys out roaming the streets at night. They are looking for something exciting to do and they come upon an old man lying in a subway station. The leader of the boys starts kicking him. It’s more an entertainment for him than anything. One of the other boys objects. We shouldn’t be doing this,” he says. The leader replies, “He’s a bum,” and goes back to kicking him.
When I saw this movie, probably Between Strangers, I was struck by what a complete answer the leader of that pack of boys gave. It does away with motive entirely. There doesn’t need to be a reason to keep kicking this old man. The old man’s right not to be murdered has been waived, apparently, because he is a bum. So there’s really not reason not to kill him. Several questions that would seem prominent in other settings, such as why this boy might take pleasure in killing him and what right he has to do it, simply do not come up. It is, as I said, a “complete” answer.
This scene has been coming back to my mind for a couple of days now, since seeing The Secret in their Eyes, a Spanish-language thriller set in Argentina. It is a very well-made movie. I would recommend it as widely as I have recommended Invictus if it were not so violent. I’m going to end with Invictus; I will set it as the place where the solution to an unsolved dilemma in Secret is proposed.
First a little plot and two quick confessions. Confession 1: I didn’t see the whole movie. I spent some time staring at my shoes in the dark so I wouldn’t have to see what was going on on the screen. I heard it all, though. Confession 2: I really don’t mind knowing how stories turn out. When I know how they turn out, I can watch how they get there, which I find much more enjoyable and, as in this movie, much less horrible. Still, I’m just about to tell you what the crucial plot twist is, so if you don’t like knowing and think you might see the movie, stop here.
PLOT SPOILER: Gomez rapes and kills Liliana, the beautiful young wife of Ricardo Morales. We see that in the first 10 minutes with, I regret to say, flashbacks throughout the movie. Benjamin Esposito, the investigator of this crime, figures out that Gomez did it and sees to it that he is captured, convicted, and sentenced. Life in prison. A political rival of Esposito’s gets Gomez out of jail and hires him as a hit man. He comes after Esposito almost immediately, but kills Esposito’s partner instead. Esposito has been dogged in pursuit of Gomez and a life-giving support to Liliana’s distraught husband, Morales. And now a merciless killer is coming after Esposito.
That’s all back story. We actually meet Esposito 25 years later. He hasn’t done much with his life since his partner was murdered and he was shipped to the countryside for safety. Finally, he realizes he will have to go back, at whatever cost, and close the Gomez case. But Gomez has disappeared. That happened to a lot of people in Argentina in this period. Esposito goes to see Morales, also hiding out in the countryside. He said his bank transferred him to a rural branch. Esposito tries to engage Morales in remembering the case; the horrible Gomez who raped and murdered Morales’s wife, beat a life sentence somehow, and killed a few more people, and then disappeared. Morales refuses to go back. He gets angry. “That was 25 years ago,” he says several times, louder each time. “Let it go. Move on.”
Esposito leaves, but he comes back that night and hides in the garden. That is when he sees Morales taking a meal out to a shed in the back yard, where he has imprisoned the “disappeared” Gomez for most of the last 25 years. Morales’s life is threadbare. It is desolate and unproductive. But he felt strongly that Gomez deserved life in prison and that is what he is getting. Not death. Too easy, said the much younger Morales. He deserves, instead, an unending life of hopelessness and despair. And that is what Gomez is getting in the prison in Morales’s back yard. “Let it go. Move on.” That was his advice to himself as much as to Esposito, but Esposito takes the advice and Morales does not.
Gomez is getting his life sentence. Of course, that is what Morales is getting, too. The way things are in Argentina, the only way for Morales to make sure Gomez is in prison for life requires that he, too, be in prison for life. Gomez is in prison for the rape and murder of Liliana. Morales is in prison for the satisfaction of making sure Gomez gets what he deserves. But it turns out not to be all that satisfying. His wife is still gone. He is still consumed by his hatred for Gomez. His life is still bleak almost beyond his endurance.
Is that really the best we can do? No. It isn’t. It’s all most of us would be willing to ask of Morales, but it is not the best he can do. It is the best he is willing to do.
Final stop: Invictus. Please see this movie. Take what you learn from it into every deadlocked and suboptimal organization or cause you belong to. Nelson Mandela, after 27 years in prison, becomes President of the Republic of South Africa. He campaigns for his dream of a “Rainbow Nation.” In practice, that means whites, blacks, and coloreds: not really much of a rainbow.[1] He is faced, from his first day in office, with the task of creating a government appropriate to a “Rainbow Nation.”
The first man to be hit squarely in the face with the implications of this commitment is Jason Tshabalala, the head of President Mandela’s presidential protection unit. Jason knows he needs more men to adequately protect the president, but he isn’t prepared for the four really big white guys from the previous administration’s (white administration’s) presidential protection unit. They have an order signed by President Mandela. Jason is furious and bursts into Mandela’s office, his anger visible on his face. Here’s what happens then.
Mandela: You look agitated, Jason.
Jason: That is because there are four Special Branch cops in my office...
Mandela: When people see me in public, they see my bodyguards. You represent me directly. The “Rainbow Nation” starts here. Reconciliation starts here.
Jason: Comrade President. Not long ago, these guys tried to kill us. Maybe even these four guys in my office tried and often succeeded.
Mandela: Yes, I know. Forgiveness starts here too. Forgiveness liberates the soul. It removes fear. That is why it is such a powerful weapon. Please, Jason. Try.
Jason: Sorry to disturb you, sir.
Of course, forgiveness is Morales’s other option. It is the way he can liberate his soul.[2] It is the only way his own sentence can be commuted. Gomez was sprung through dirty politics by a direct order from the President. No one will spring Morales if he will not. Neither dirty politics nor clean will help him. He had hoped his imprisonment of Gomez would be satisfying. He knows now it is not. He had hoped it would somehow establish forever his love for his wife and his grief for her death. He knows now that it will not. There is no instrumental rationale for what he is doing. If he continues, nothing will be better and everything will be worse.
That is the price of withholding his forgiveness. And it may be the best he can do.
[1] I am reminded, however, of God’s promise to put His “bow” in the sky so Noah will know God will never again destroy the earth by water. This is a bow like a “bow and arrow” bow. God is going to put his six shooter on the table so we can all see that it is not in his holster any longer. Invictus is a story that supports the six gun notion of bow much better than it does the rainbow notion of bow, but that’s the way it goes, sometimes.
[2] In the context of The Secret in Their Eyes, there are additional reasons why Morales can not let Gomez go. One is that if he did that, Gomez would immediately hunt down Esposito and kill him. Another is that there is no way to make sure the government will keep Gomez in prison even if there were a way to return him to the authorities after all this time. In this post, I am considering only the effects of Morales’s decision on his own life. I know it’s more complicated.
When I saw this movie, probably Between Strangers, I was struck by what a complete answer the leader of that pack of boys gave. It does away with motive entirely. There doesn’t need to be a reason to keep kicking this old man. The old man’s right not to be murdered has been waived, apparently, because he is a bum. So there’s really not reason not to kill him. Several questions that would seem prominent in other settings, such as why this boy might take pleasure in killing him and what right he has to do it, simply do not come up. It is, as I said, a “complete” answer.
This scene has been coming back to my mind for a couple of days now, since seeing The Secret in their Eyes, a Spanish-language thriller set in Argentina. It is a very well-made movie. I would recommend it as widely as I have recommended Invictus if it were not so violent. I’m going to end with Invictus; I will set it as the place where the solution to an unsolved dilemma in Secret is proposed.
First a little plot and two quick confessions. Confession 1: I didn’t see the whole movie. I spent some time staring at my shoes in the dark so I wouldn’t have to see what was going on on the screen. I heard it all, though. Confession 2: I really don’t mind knowing how stories turn out. When I know how they turn out, I can watch how they get there, which I find much more enjoyable and, as in this movie, much less horrible. Still, I’m just about to tell you what the crucial plot twist is, so if you don’t like knowing and think you might see the movie, stop here.
PLOT SPOILER: Gomez rapes and kills Liliana, the beautiful young wife of Ricardo Morales. We see that in the first 10 minutes with, I regret to say, flashbacks throughout the movie. Benjamin Esposito, the investigator of this crime, figures out that Gomez did it and sees to it that he is captured, convicted, and sentenced. Life in prison. A political rival of Esposito’s gets Gomez out of jail and hires him as a hit man. He comes after Esposito almost immediately, but kills Esposito’s partner instead. Esposito has been dogged in pursuit of Gomez and a life-giving support to Liliana’s distraught husband, Morales. And now a merciless killer is coming after Esposito.
That’s all back story. We actually meet Esposito 25 years later. He hasn’t done much with his life since his partner was murdered and he was shipped to the countryside for safety. Finally, he realizes he will have to go back, at whatever cost, and close the Gomez case. But Gomez has disappeared. That happened to a lot of people in Argentina in this period. Esposito goes to see Morales, also hiding out in the countryside. He said his bank transferred him to a rural branch. Esposito tries to engage Morales in remembering the case; the horrible Gomez who raped and murdered Morales’s wife, beat a life sentence somehow, and killed a few more people, and then disappeared. Morales refuses to go back. He gets angry. “That was 25 years ago,” he says several times, louder each time. “Let it go. Move on.”
Esposito leaves, but he comes back that night and hides in the garden. That is when he sees Morales taking a meal out to a shed in the back yard, where he has imprisoned the “disappeared” Gomez for most of the last 25 years. Morales’s life is threadbare. It is desolate and unproductive. But he felt strongly that Gomez deserved life in prison and that is what he is getting. Not death. Too easy, said the much younger Morales. He deserves, instead, an unending life of hopelessness and despair. And that is what Gomez is getting in the prison in Morales’s back yard. “Let it go. Move on.” That was his advice to himself as much as to Esposito, but Esposito takes the advice and Morales does not.
Gomez is getting his life sentence. Of course, that is what Morales is getting, too. The way things are in Argentina, the only way for Morales to make sure Gomez is in prison for life requires that he, too, be in prison for life. Gomez is in prison for the rape and murder of Liliana. Morales is in prison for the satisfaction of making sure Gomez gets what he deserves. But it turns out not to be all that satisfying. His wife is still gone. He is still consumed by his hatred for Gomez. His life is still bleak almost beyond his endurance.
Is that really the best we can do? No. It isn’t. It’s all most of us would be willing to ask of Morales, but it is not the best he can do. It is the best he is willing to do.
Final stop: Invictus. Please see this movie. Take what you learn from it into every deadlocked and suboptimal organization or cause you belong to. Nelson Mandela, after 27 years in prison, becomes President of the Republic of South Africa. He campaigns for his dream of a “Rainbow Nation.” In practice, that means whites, blacks, and coloreds: not really much of a rainbow.[1] He is faced, from his first day in office, with the task of creating a government appropriate to a “Rainbow Nation.”
The first man to be hit squarely in the face with the implications of this commitment is Jason Tshabalala, the head of President Mandela’s presidential protection unit. Jason knows he needs more men to adequately protect the president, but he isn’t prepared for the four really big white guys from the previous administration’s (white administration’s) presidential protection unit. They have an order signed by President Mandela. Jason is furious and bursts into Mandela’s office, his anger visible on his face. Here’s what happens then.
Mandela: You look agitated, Jason.
Jason: That is because there are four Special Branch cops in my office...
Mandela: When people see me in public, they see my bodyguards. You represent me directly. The “Rainbow Nation” starts here. Reconciliation starts here.
Jason: Comrade President. Not long ago, these guys tried to kill us. Maybe even these four guys in my office tried and often succeeded.
Mandela: Yes, I know. Forgiveness starts here too. Forgiveness liberates the soul. It removes fear. That is why it is such a powerful weapon. Please, Jason. Try.
Jason: Sorry to disturb you, sir.
Of course, forgiveness is Morales’s other option. It is the way he can liberate his soul.[2] It is the only way his own sentence can be commuted. Gomez was sprung through dirty politics by a direct order from the President. No one will spring Morales if he will not. Neither dirty politics nor clean will help him. He had hoped his imprisonment of Gomez would be satisfying. He knows now it is not. He had hoped it would somehow establish forever his love for his wife and his grief for her death. He knows now that it will not. There is no instrumental rationale for what he is doing. If he continues, nothing will be better and everything will be worse.
That is the price of withholding his forgiveness. And it may be the best he can do.
[1] I am reminded, however, of God’s promise to put His “bow” in the sky so Noah will know God will never again destroy the earth by water. This is a bow like a “bow and arrow” bow. God is going to put his six shooter on the table so we can all see that it is not in his holster any longer. Invictus is a story that supports the six gun notion of bow much better than it does the rainbow notion of bow, but that’s the way it goes, sometimes.
[2] In the context of The Secret in Their Eyes, there are additional reasons why Morales can not let Gomez go. One is that if he did that, Gomez would immediately hunt down Esposito and kill him. Another is that there is no way to make sure the government will keep Gomez in prison even if there were a way to return him to the authorities after all this time. In this post, I am considering only the effects of Morales’s decision on his own life. I know it’s more complicated.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Frances 1, Jesus 0 (7th inning)
At least it is a close game. A pitchers' duel obviously.
The pitches I want to look at in this consideration of Russell Hoban's Bargain For Frances and Matthew's construction of the Sermon on the Mount. I am just teasing about the score. If I do this right, I will be explaining how I came to believe that Matthew and Hoban were really after the same point.
The pitches I want to look at in this consideration of Russell Hoban's Bargain For Frances and Matthew's construction of the Sermon on the Mount. I am just teasing about the score. If I do this right, I will be explaining how I came to believe that Matthew and Hoban were really after the same point.
This pictures shows Frances, probably facing away in this picture although it's hard to tell for badgers, having a tea party with her "friend" Thelma. They are friends because they have played together for a long time, but it is an odd friendship. Frances serves as Thelma's javelin catcher. Mother reminds Frances as she heads out that she always gets the worst of it when she plays with Thelma and that she should be careful. Wise words.
Very simply, Thelma is the predator of the "relationship" and Frances the prey. I think now and then of Woody Allen's skepticism about the lion lying down with the lamb. (See Isaiah 11 for details). He says it's nice that the lion and the lamb lie down together, but only the lion gets back up. That's the way it is with Thelma and Frances. You can't deny it's a "relationship" but the name of the relationship is predation. This story is about how that changes.
The story, like all of Hoban's stories, is simple. Like most of them, it has some pop to it if you look at it with certain categories in mind. Thelma tells a series of lies to Frances, the result of which is that Frances buys Thelma's ugly plastic tea set for enough money to allow Thelma to go to the store and buy the set Frances had her heart set on. Thelma cheats Frances. When Frances realizes it, she cheats Thelma--a good deal more imaginatively and without actually lying--and gets her tea set back. Frances put a penny in the tea pot and called Thelma to ask if the "no backsies" agreement Thelma had insisted on should be honored in light of "the money" Thelma had left in the pot.
Thelma returns Frances's money and looks in the pot. She sees that a very unlikely thing has happened. Frances, the perpetual victim, has cheated her. "That is not a very nice trick to play on a friend," said Thelma.
"No," said Frances, it is not. And that was not a nice trick you played on me when you sold me your tea set." (Note the "and" there. That is where Frances prepares to pivot and move in a new direction.)
"Well," said Thelma, from now on I will have to be careful when I play with you."
"Being careful is not as much fun as being friends," said Frances. "Do you want to be careful or do you want to be friends?" This is a very substantial little badger.
Let's start now with Matthew. Jesus says, "Forget the old practice of an eye for an eye (or a fraud for a fraud). Instead, offer no resistance to the wicked. Turn the other cheek; give the other garment; walk the extra mile." I struggled with this two years ago in an essay called The Six Antitheses. If you don't want to wade through it all (and it does take wading), you can look at lines 220--247. I added line numbers to cut down your workload.
The case is easier to make with Frances's help.
Frances does not "offer no resistance to the wicked." That's what she had been doing all along. That's what fastened Thelma into her role as perpetrator and Thelma into her role as victim. It is very hard to stop being a predator if the other party in the relationship continually presents herself as prey. As Frances's friend, I urge her to stop doing this awful thing to Thelma. Of course, if I were Thelma's friend, I would urge her to stop doing this awful thing to Frances, but I think changing Frances's behavior is going to be easier.
I think Frances did what Jesus wanted her to do. She stopped the old practices of exploitation and offered, in their place, a friendship. It's the friendship she wanted. The tea party fraud was just a way to get there. Frances is looking down the road, past non-resistance to evil, and all the way down to reconciliation with an enemy.
There's no way Frances can make a friend without resisting the predator. Thelma couldn't be a friend even if she wanted to with Frances acting the way she always has and there is not indication Thelma wants to. Ending the predation is step one. But if it is the only step, it is only a defense of herself. Not that the defense of herself is bad. But going beyond the defense to a wholly gracious offer of friendship is much better.
Frankly, I think (and made my best case in the hyperlinked essay) that Jesus was more interested in reconciliation than in extending victimhood. It may be that the people in the three examples he gave could only be victims. Certainly the guy who lost his tunic in court is a victim as is the bystander who becomes a mule for the occupying army of Rome. We don't know enough about the cheek-slapper.
But Frances is in a position where she can do better. She can take the line of thought Jesus was pursuing and follow it further. And she does.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
After the second thought
I've been thinking about the expression "on second thought" or sometimes, "on sober second thought." And I've been thinking, what is it about second thoughts that merits this kind of confidence? There is an analogy, I suppose, by which you shift easily from one gear to another; presumably from one that used to be the best gear to the one that is the best gear now. But reverse is another gear, too, and that shift is frowned upon in the operator's manual.
You don't have to be a Marxist to be a dialectician. Really, all you have to do is to remember the last time you discovered that you have been seriously and embarrassingly wrong about something. Your next step is not likely to be edging toward the center of whatever discourse you have offended. It is more likely to be a sharp rejection of your earlier views and an unthinking affirmation of "the other side." (This imagines there is one "other side.") This rash and ill-considered embrace of "the other side" is often the change we have in mind when we say "on second thought."
Marx's notion of the way a major premise generates an opposing premise and his commitment to the idea that history moves in this three step way (thesis, antithesis, synthesis) is breathtakingly broad. My own tendency to "correct" my mistakes by jumping wholeheartedly to "the other side" is embarrassingly narrow, but I think is the same kind of motion (up to the synthesis).
I have, as Tom Lehrer says, "a modest example here." I'm studying Matthew's gospel under the teaching of people (Mostly Davies and Allison, Matthew) who think the best way to understand Matthew is to see how he diverges from Mark. I come from a background where "exegesis" meant mostly taking what Matthew says at face value and by presuming that the words mean pretty much the same to us as they meant to Matthew. I have been wallowing for several years now in how wrong that exegetical tradition is.
I want very much to embrace the teaching I am getting now. What I am reading now is "true" and what I learned (assumed, really) when I was young is "false." The judgment I really want to make is that what I am reading and the way I am understanding what I am reading, is correct. How likely is that, really? Does the fervor of my rejection of the exegesis of my misspent youth really incline me to hear clearly what Davies and Allison are trying to tell me? Not likely. Am I likely to buffer myself against the over-reaction which has catapulted me from my first understanding and landed me in my second (current) understanding? Not really.
There is no point in pursuing examples beyond the one I've already used, but I was also raised with a certain political attitudes and assumptions; some about what really worthwhile education looks like; some about the best kinds of sex roles; some about what kind of music is most worth listening to. I could multiply examples, but you have your own and you know what I am talking about.
When I continue, on "second thought," to affirm these views, I am likely to refine them and adapt them to the new things I have learned. When my second thought inclines me to radically reject these views, my second thoughts really ought to be as suspect as my first ones. That's what I think. It's not how I feel. I feel that I am now seeing the truth, at last, and am justified in rejecting the errors foisted on me when I was too young to defend myself.
So "on third thought" really isn't a punch line for me. On these questions, like whether I really need to read Matthew in a way that separates him maximally from Mark, third thought is going to be my first chance to retain the values of my early training and the values of my later training, even though they are, in the minds of my first teachers and my second teachers, entirely contradictory.
Third thought ought to be my synthetic phase. That's not what I want, immersed in my second thoughts, but I think I ought to try and, if all goes well, I may come to really want the new insights I get from my sober third thoughts. I know I won't benefit from these third thoughts as I should until I really want to and, captive as I now am of my second thoughts, I don't really want to right now. But I hope for better things.
You don't have to be a Marxist to be a dialectician. Really, all you have to do is to remember the last time you discovered that you have been seriously and embarrassingly wrong about something. Your next step is not likely to be edging toward the center of whatever discourse you have offended. It is more likely to be a sharp rejection of your earlier views and an unthinking affirmation of "the other side." (This imagines there is one "other side.") This rash and ill-considered embrace of "the other side" is often the change we have in mind when we say "on second thought."
Marx's notion of the way a major premise generates an opposing premise and his commitment to the idea that history moves in this three step way (thesis, antithesis, synthesis) is breathtakingly broad. My own tendency to "correct" my mistakes by jumping wholeheartedly to "the other side" is embarrassingly narrow, but I think is the same kind of motion (up to the synthesis).
I have, as Tom Lehrer says, "a modest example here." I'm studying Matthew's gospel under the teaching of people (Mostly Davies and Allison, Matthew) who think the best way to understand Matthew is to see how he diverges from Mark. I come from a background where "exegesis" meant mostly taking what Matthew says at face value and by presuming that the words mean pretty much the same to us as they meant to Matthew. I have been wallowing for several years now in how wrong that exegetical tradition is.
I want very much to embrace the teaching I am getting now. What I am reading now is "true" and what I learned (assumed, really) when I was young is "false." The judgment I really want to make is that what I am reading and the way I am understanding what I am reading, is correct. How likely is that, really? Does the fervor of my rejection of the exegesis of my misspent youth really incline me to hear clearly what Davies and Allison are trying to tell me? Not likely. Am I likely to buffer myself against the over-reaction which has catapulted me from my first understanding and landed me in my second (current) understanding? Not really.
There is no point in pursuing examples beyond the one I've already used, but I was also raised with a certain political attitudes and assumptions; some about what really worthwhile education looks like; some about the best kinds of sex roles; some about what kind of music is most worth listening to. I could multiply examples, but you have your own and you know what I am talking about.
When I continue, on "second thought," to affirm these views, I am likely to refine them and adapt them to the new things I have learned. When my second thought inclines me to radically reject these views, my second thoughts really ought to be as suspect as my first ones. That's what I think. It's not how I feel. I feel that I am now seeing the truth, at last, and am justified in rejecting the errors foisted on me when I was too young to defend myself.
So "on third thought" really isn't a punch line for me. On these questions, like whether I really need to read Matthew in a way that separates him maximally from Mark, third thought is going to be my first chance to retain the values of my early training and the values of my later training, even though they are, in the minds of my first teachers and my second teachers, entirely contradictory.
Third thought ought to be my synthetic phase. That's not what I want, immersed in my second thoughts, but I think I ought to try and, if all goes well, I may come to really want the new insights I get from my sober third thoughts. I know I won't benefit from these third thoughts as I should until I really want to and, captive as I now am of my second thoughts, I don't really want to right now. But I hope for better things.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Religion and the App wars
The New York Times this morning, July 3, has a piece by Paul Vitello called “A War of Apps for and Against Belief.” The “war” for and against “belief” is not news, of course. A “war of apps” is another thing entirely.
As the U. S. has gotten more viciously partisan, more books have come out advising conservatives how to “talk to” liberals, and vice versa. These several settings for “talk to” are not likely to add up to civil discourse. They are occasions for opponent-bashing and the books are supposed to help the bashers do the job better.
For people who want something a little more current than the books and/or who are connected to a party or movement that values uniformity, there are the “talking points.” Talking points are the group’s device for assuring that everyone in the group--not just everyone “representing” the group, but every member of the group--is emphasizing the same things and using the same words. This practice, also, is not likely to contribute to civil discourse.
Now transfer this structured incivility to religion and put the resources for making war onto your iPhone. For people Vitello calls “religious skeptics,” there is an app called “Bible Thumper.” I love the title. This app in right in your pocket, “always ready to confront fundamentalist Christians or have a little fun among friends.” For Christians, there is a much less imaginatively titled "Fast Facts, Challenges & Tactics” by LifeWay Christian Resources. From this app, you can learn that the vast diverse collection [of biblical books] has “a unified story line and no contradictions.”
When I finished reading the piece, I was hesitating between mirth and disgust. And while I hesitated, I remembered an old cartoon. In the first picture, a classroom of students dutifully took notes as they listened to the tape recorder the professor had thoughtfully sent to class rather than coming himself. In the second picture, there were no students, but a tape recorder was sitting on every desktop. This is the picture of the kind of civic discourse we are moving toward.
How would one have to imagine the essential nature of the discourse between “believers” and “skeptics?” Would each say, “This is how I can show you how fundamentally misguided your arguments are.”? Does anyone think minds are changed that way?
Would they say, “This is how I can defend myself against the unfair attacks of my opponents.”? But if these are defenses you read off the screen (if you can find them fast enough) will you really feel safe from the attacks? Will you remember that if for any reason you lose the signal to your iPhone, you will have no idea what to say?
Two considerations are worth keeping in mind. The first is what I call, in my public policy courses (where it is the first major topic) the question of salience. Leaving pro and con aside, is this the topic you want to be spending your time on? Is the question of whether the Bible is good science the question you really want to spend your time on? Even if you are a skeptic and the Bible is bad science and you can show that it is (using your killer app), why do you want to spend your time that way? If you push your view effectively, two things will happen: 1) your position will triumph over your opponent’s position, and 2) the salience of the topic as a whole will be strengthened. “Salience” here refers to the likelihood that the subject will come up again and again and that people will be willing to spend more and more resources on it. This point applies in the same way to “believers,” of course. That’s good news for the app developers. I don’t know who else will benefit.
What would it look like if we were doing it right? I’m closing my eyes and imagining, at this point, because I am not sure I have ever seen it done right. I think the participants would have to begin with their own views. If the views are not their own, it would be nice to hear “I don’t really understand this, but my pastor says...” or “I don’t really understand this, but my biology professor used to say...” The skeptic has the advantage here. He can say “I don’t really remember” instead of “I don’t really understand.”
The support each would adduce in support of the “convictions” would be connected in ways each understands. This is the same as the case for convictions, extended to evidence. And each would point to the “flaws” in the argument of the other that either can not be derived from the premises or that fail at the point where evidence is adduced.
If, bizarre as it may seem, the two were colleagues in the pursuit of truth, rather than opponents lusting for an easy win, they could clarify each other’s arguments, making each one more available to the logic and the evidence they, themselves, bring to the pursuit. This has, also, the salience effect. Whatever the outcome of this particular discussion, further such discussions would be more likely to occur and to be enjoyed.
If they had an app for that, I would already have an iPhone.
As the U. S. has gotten more viciously partisan, more books have come out advising conservatives how to “talk to” liberals, and vice versa. These several settings for “talk to” are not likely to add up to civil discourse. They are occasions for opponent-bashing and the books are supposed to help the bashers do the job better.
For people who want something a little more current than the books and/or who are connected to a party or movement that values uniformity, there are the “talking points.” Talking points are the group’s device for assuring that everyone in the group--not just everyone “representing” the group, but every member of the group--is emphasizing the same things and using the same words. This practice, also, is not likely to contribute to civil discourse.
Now transfer this structured incivility to religion and put the resources for making war onto your iPhone. For people Vitello calls “religious skeptics,” there is an app called “Bible Thumper.” I love the title. This app in right in your pocket, “always ready to confront fundamentalist Christians or have a little fun among friends.” For Christians, there is a much less imaginatively titled "Fast Facts, Challenges & Tactics” by LifeWay Christian Resources. From this app, you can learn that the vast diverse collection [of biblical books] has “a unified story line and no contradictions.”
When I finished reading the piece, I was hesitating between mirth and disgust. And while I hesitated, I remembered an old cartoon. In the first picture, a classroom of students dutifully took notes as they listened to the tape recorder the professor had thoughtfully sent to class rather than coming himself. In the second picture, there were no students, but a tape recorder was sitting on every desktop. This is the picture of the kind of civic discourse we are moving toward.
How would one have to imagine the essential nature of the discourse between “believers” and “skeptics?” Would each say, “This is how I can show you how fundamentally misguided your arguments are.”? Does anyone think minds are changed that way?
Would they say, “This is how I can defend myself against the unfair attacks of my opponents.”? But if these are defenses you read off the screen (if you can find them fast enough) will you really feel safe from the attacks? Will you remember that if for any reason you lose the signal to your iPhone, you will have no idea what to say?
Two considerations are worth keeping in mind. The first is what I call, in my public policy courses (where it is the first major topic) the question of salience. Leaving pro and con aside, is this the topic you want to be spending your time on? Is the question of whether the Bible is good science the question you really want to spend your time on? Even if you are a skeptic and the Bible is bad science and you can show that it is (using your killer app), why do you want to spend your time that way? If you push your view effectively, two things will happen: 1) your position will triumph over your opponent’s position, and 2) the salience of the topic as a whole will be strengthened. “Salience” here refers to the likelihood that the subject will come up again and again and that people will be willing to spend more and more resources on it. This point applies in the same way to “believers,” of course. That’s good news for the app developers. I don’t know who else will benefit.
What would it look like if we were doing it right? I’m closing my eyes and imagining, at this point, because I am not sure I have ever seen it done right. I think the participants would have to begin with their own views. If the views are not their own, it would be nice to hear “I don’t really understand this, but my pastor says...” or “I don’t really understand this, but my biology professor used to say...” The skeptic has the advantage here. He can say “I don’t really remember” instead of “I don’t really understand.”
The support each would adduce in support of the “convictions” would be connected in ways each understands. This is the same as the case for convictions, extended to evidence. And each would point to the “flaws” in the argument of the other that either can not be derived from the premises or that fail at the point where evidence is adduced.
If, bizarre as it may seem, the two were colleagues in the pursuit of truth, rather than opponents lusting for an easy win, they could clarify each other’s arguments, making each one more available to the logic and the evidence they, themselves, bring to the pursuit. This has, also, the salience effect. Whatever the outcome of this particular discussion, further such discussions would be more likely to occur and to be enjoyed.
If they had an app for that, I would already have an iPhone.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Bedtime for Frances
Frances wakes her father from a sound sleep. Father is not happy. You can see that, right?
The picture is there just to give you an idea who Frances is. She is a little girl badger invented by Russell Hoban and drawn by Garth Williams.
I love the Frances books. Each one of them is actually about something and each story is so simple. For years now, I’ve enjoyed understanding these simple episodes in needlessly complex ways or putting them into categories that were likely not in the mind of the author.
This is Bedtime for Frances. It is about what you think it is about. Frances can’t get to sleep. In the picture above, she is relating her tribulations to her father for the last time. It is the last time because this legendarily patient father has said he will spank her if she comes back.
The piece of this little story that has been catching my attention is this: just what is it that is different about Frances’s last little distrubance; the one that causes her to decide not to go bother her father with it? Hint: It’s not the promised spanking.
Father and Mother are wonderful parents. Hoban wants to leave no doubt about it and documents it lavishly. He needs to do that because later Father is going to threaten Frances with a spanking and Hoban wants to be sure we keep focused on Frances. I referred to the “last little disturbance.” It is the last one because after it, Frances goes to sleep. And she goes to sleep because her father has given her two really valuable gifts: a firm limit and a useful attribution.
If these is really any point to this reflection on Frances, this is probably it.
Here’s a brief synopsis of the prior disturbances. One: Frances says there is a tiger in her room. After making sure that the tiger has not bitten or scratched Frances, and after denying her request to stay up because of the tiger, Father sends Frances back to bed. Two: Frances says there is a giant in her room. After saying yes to Frances’ request for cake and no to her request for some TV time, Father sends Frances back to bed with instructions to ask the giant what it wants. The giant is the bathrobe on her chair. Three: Frances sees a crack in the ceiling and starts to think about scary things that come out of cracks. Father checks it out and says the crack is too small for anything bad to come out of. That’s the last of the preparation events. Now we come to the crisis.
Frances sees the curtains in her room moving and wonders if Something is moving them. Something must want to GET her. She goes to her parents’ bedroom and wakes her father. Father explains that there is an order of things, both natural and social. The wind’s job is to go around and blow all the curtains. His job is to go to work tomorrow, which is why he has to sleep tonight. Frances’s job is to go back to her room and go to sleep (I think he means go back and stay in bed) and promises her a spanking if she gets up again.
Ah. Now we get to cash in Hoban’s care with Father’s character. Frances goes back to bed and there’s a noise at the window. She jumps out of bed and heads back to her parents’ bedroom. When she got to door, she stopped and thought about it and decided not to bother them. Score one. Back in bed, she heard the sound again. This time, she wonders what it is. What a significant advance: she wonders. Before, she only feared. Score two.
And here comes score three. “If it is something very bad,” Frances muses, “Father will have to come and chase it away.” At that point, she goes to the window and finds out it is a moth bumping against the window. So she went to sleep. Score six. End of story.
But…what happened to scores four and five? Oh yes. Them.
Score four is the inversion of Frances’s choices. Always before, finding the parents and proposing some reason to stay awake have been her first choice; finding out what is going on has been second. That’s not good for Frances. Actually, it’s not good for any child, but let’s stay with Frances. Her father has changed the priorities by threatening a spanking and by being the kind of father who will come and take care of things if that’s what is really needed. Frances knew very well that if the disturbance at the window turned out to be an actual danger, and not just an excuse for getting up, that Father would come and take care of it and comfort her afterwards.
This changes every disturbance from an occasion for getting up into an occasion for finding out what is going on. The relationship is shifted from Frances-and-Father to Frances and “what is going on.” That is a substantial gain, certainly, but it is made possible because Frances knows that if she finds out what is going on and it really needs the intervention of a caring adult, that she has two of them right next door. She is given, to say it briefly, a reason to find out and the security to dare to find out. Invaluable gifts for a child to be given.
And score five? We call ‘em “causal attributions” in my line of work. These are explanations for why things are happening the way they are. I can argue that Frances got out of bed those earlier times because she would rather be with her parents than alone in bed and I think that is true. But if we are looking at the causal attributions, we see that two kinds of worlds are created.
In the first world, there is a tiger in her room because she was afraid there might be. And a giant who probably wants to get her. And a crack in the ceiling that something might come out of. And curtains that are moving for no reason Frances knows. Those events belong in the world created by the first kind of causal attribution. Each event is given meaning by “something that might hurt me.”
In the world created by the second causal attribution, things have their own natural place. The wind’s job is to blow the curtains. Question: What does that mean for me? Answer: Nothing. The moth’s job is to thump and bump on the window. Question: What does that mean for me? Answer: Nothing. Things are happening the way they do. Things are happening the way they should. The world that is created by these causal attributions is not a world that impinges on Frances. It is safe and orderly (the attributions) and she has investigated it herself to be sure (her new behavioral priority).
So, it’s an insignificant little children’s story. And I have liked it very much for years and don’t plan to stop now.
We can add an example from the social world which will certainly seem part of “the natural world” to Frances. Father’s job is to go to work and provide for the family. Question: What does that mean for me? Answer: Nothing. For Frances, Father’s working and the wind’s blowing are part of “the way the world is.” As I write this, unemployment in the U. S. is around 10%. It makes me think about what is happening to all the assumptions of all the Franceses which will now, much too early, have to be examined.
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