Tag: Trump

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This is Not the Worst Year Ever

Time magazine declared 2020 “the worst year ever.”  That’s obviously not true.  In the 1850’s, millions were held in slavery.  In the 1860’s, over 600,000 Americans died in the war that freed those slaves.  One hundred years ago, the Spanish flu killed 675,000 Americans, while women struggled to gain the right to vote.  Our current troubles are minor in comparison.   

Time magazine’s hyperbolic headline can be forgiven as a ploy to sell magazines.  But people succumb to hyperbole.  We tend to magnify present suffering.  And that can impede critical thinking.   

History is not one story, it is many.  When historians look back on 2020, they will see failure that caused unnecessary suffering.  But they will also witness ingenuity that mitigated harm.  We should learn from our successes—and from our failures. 

Some of what we suffered in 2020 was the result of human greed, ignorance, and pride.  The Covid-19 death toll was made worse by selfishness, ignorance, and lack of leadership.  The fires in California were the terrifying result of human-caused climate change.  The social divisions and racial tensions of 2020 are the result of systematic stupidity and political polarization. 

But human intelligence prevented things from being even worse.  Health care systems evolved.  A vaccine was developed.  There were government bailouts.  School teachers invented online learning.  Firefighters demonstrated heroism.  And Americans educated themselves about racism and the American Constitution. 

Life includes both tragedy and triumph.  We fail.  We suffer.  We learn.  And we grow.

Resilience is a process of growth and development.  Resilient people generally avoid absolutism and hyperbole, which cause despair.  Defeatism undermines the spirit of invention, discovery, and growth. 

Consider a recent essay by Chris Hedges on cultural despair.  Hedges warns that despair can fuel the wish for magical solutions that can turn into fascism.  I’m sympathetic to his critique.  But Hedges’ assessment is itself dispiriting.  Hedges gives voice to despair.  And this leads him to conclude that reform is impossible.  He concludes that we are faced with a choice between tyranny and revolution. 

Hedges’ dilemma is typical of despair.  We tend to dwell on the darkness without noticing the light.  But history is more complicated than a stark choice between tyranny and revolution.  And there is no such thing as “the worst year ever.” 

Evaluation is relative and evolving.  Some people fell in love in 2020.  Others died.  Some families had children.  Some experienced divorce.  Some people began new careers.  Others lost jobs.  Art was created and scientific discoveries were made.  But businesses failed and crimes were committee.  For some people, 2020 was a great year.  For others, it was miserable. 

And yes, there was Donald Trump.  But there were also movements of social protest.  The Constitution was tested.  But the system worked.  Polarization increased.  But decent people sought common ground.

We must resist oversimplifying when we judge.  These are not the best of times.  Nor are they the worst of times.

Some new age advocates of mindfulness celebrate “non-judgmental awareness.”  There is value in this.  But non-judgmental presence is only a tool and a mood.  We need to judge things.  Judging helps us learn, invent, and improve.  But we need to be judicious in judging—moderate and prudent. 

We can learn a lot from acceptance and gratitude.  The mind can be sharpened by quietness and presence.  Thinking and learning require judgment and discrimination.  If we practice pure acceptance, we will never learn anything. 

If we are overly judgmental and hyperbolic in our judgments, we will also fail to learn.  We have to see what works—and what doesn’t.  We must also remain open to the new and the different.  We must be creative and inventive in our response to the world.

To say that this was the worst year ever is a kind of cop out.  It is a shoulder shrug and a sigh.  Shrugs and sighs are OK—for a moment.  Then it’s time to roll up our sleeves and get back to work.  Instead of dwelling on what went wrong, let’s learn from our mistakes.  We can also learn from our successes.  And with some luck and a lot of labor, the next year may be better than the last.

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Horseshit and the Human Condition

Why do snake-oil salesmen and con men succeed?

Because human beings have a great appetite for horseshit. 

Horseshit is a term that I learned from my grandfather, who was one of the world’s great artists of profanity.  My grandfather taught me a lot of interesting things, for example, that H. was Jesus’s middle name.  Like other men of his generation, grandpa distinguished horseshit from ordinary bullshit.

Kurt Vonnegut said that we prefer useful and comforting horseshit.  Hemingway defined horseshit as abstract, metaphysical nonsense.  Jack Kerouac warned that the world was trying to drown us in horseshit.

The philosopher Harry Frankfurt described bullshit as speech divorced from truth.  Horseshit is like bullshit.  But while bullshit entertains, horseshit seduces. 

A story about the fish that got away is bullshit.  A conspiracy theory is horseshit. 

Horseshit tantalizes.  It promises false nourishment.  It’s dangerous because it’s trying to sell you something.

I used to hike with my dogs on a horse trail.  They couldn’t resist the stench of fresh manure.  They would gobble it up by the mouthful.  And then they would vomit.

Human beings are similar.  We swarm to warm piles of nonsense and gorge on garbage. We humans are not typically interested in truth.  We prefer ideas that flatter and gratify.  We want to be titillated and entertained.  Truth is boring.  We prefer strong and spicy narratives.   

Malicious agents know how to manipulate this.  They spread horseshit.  And we buy it.

As my grandfather used to say, there are more horse’s asses than horses.

All of this helps explain the ordure oozing out of the White House.  Courts and election officials have repeatedly confirmed the validity of the 2020 election.  But Presidential power burnishes bullshit with the sheen of authority.  Prominent Republicans refuse to point out that the emperor’s new clothes are stained with runny hair dye. 

My grandfather would have asked a simple question about all of this.  Which is more likely—that there is a vast secret conspiracy to steal an election in “the U.S. of A.” (I can hear him adding “for chrissake”…) or that Trump is spreading horseshit?    

Horseshit is not unique to the Trump Era.  In 2004, Ralph Keyes published a book called “The Post-Truth Era.” Keyes pointed out that George W. Bush lied and manipulated the truth about the Iraq war.  But before Bush, Clinton lied, as did Nixon.  And so on—back to Caesar and Pericles.

In a recent op-ed, Nicholas Goldberg reminds us that lying is part of the arsenal of authoritarianism.  He cites George Orwell and Hannah Arendt to make his point.  But horseshit is as old as Plato. 

Plato did not like the bullshit stories of Greek religion.  He thought those myths taught the wrong lessons to the gullible masses.  Plato suggested that the philosopher-king should create new myths to manipulate the masses into buying his utopian scheme.  Thus Plato suggested replacing ordinary bullshit with tyrannical horseshit. 

Bullshit and horseshit have existed since human beings began talking.  Hunter-gatherers told bullshit stories around the campfire.  That is how art and religion were born.  Bullshit became horseshit when the shamans began profiting off those stories. 

Horseshit is meant to manipulate.  The bullshit artist is a lightweight in comparison to the horseshit hawker.  The bullshit artist is a good-natured raconteur.  But the horseshit vendor takes advantage.  Bullshit is playful and light.  But horseshit is denser and tastier.  It often even seduces those who sell it into believing that the manure they are spreading is true.

At some point reality bites back.  But often it is too late.  When your dog gorges on manure, he’ll eventually vomit.  But it is better to avoid the binge and the purge. 

The cure for all of this is fresh air and a good shovel. 

To see beyond the horseshit, Kerouac climbed a mountain. There is wisdom in taking a moment to rise above the stench. 

But you don’t need a mountain top to climb above the horseshit.  You only need self-control and a skeptical spirit, critical thinking and the scientific method.  Political checks and balances also help.

Stay focused on what is true.  Attune your nose to reality.  Feed your soul on nourishing ideas.  And don’t let anyone sell you a load of manure.

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God, Guns, and the Gospel

Is God pro-gun?  President Trump seems to think so.  This week Trump attacked Joe Biden, saying that Biden is going to “take away your guns, destroy your Second Amendment, no religion, no anything. Hurt the bible, hurt God. He’s against God, he’s against guns.”

Trump gives voice to a prototypical American myth of a land that loves God, guns, and the gospel.  You can see this mythic complex in cowboy movies and elsewhere.  WWII gave us a song with the lyrics, “Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition and we’ll all stay free.”  In 2009, Lynyrd Skynyrd released an album called “God & Guns.”  The title track (covered recently by Hank Williams, Jr.) says, “God and guns keep us strong.  That’s what this country was founded on.”  The song seems to respond to something Barack Obama said about “bitter” and “frustrated” Americans who “cling to guns or religion.”

Of course, religious liberty and gun ownership are protected by the First and Second Amendments.  But the subsequent case law is complicated and contentious.  These complex Constitutional questions are not easily reduced to the simplistic idea that to be an American is to praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.  The First Amendment gives you the right to worship God in your own way.  It protects pacifists, atheists, and militant Christians  The Second Amendment affirms the right to have a well-regulated militia and bear arms.  It does not, however, help us interpret the Bible.

We live in a country where over a quarter of Americans (28%) believe that the Bible should take precedence over the will of the people, according the Pew Center.  So, it is important to note that the Constitution allows Americans to disagree about the Bible.

The Bible is not a useful guide on the question of guns anyway. There is nothing in the Good Book about guns, which didn’t exist back then.  The Bible talks a lot about swords.  But to say that the Bible is pro-sword ignores those passages that suggest turning swords into plowshares (Isaiah 2:4).  I’ve pointed out in my book on the Bible that for many issues, ancient Biblical texts are indeterminate and uninformative.

Of course, guns and swords are part of a larger question of self-defense.  But the Bible is not a useful guide here either.  Some texts show the Jewish people fighting for their survival.  Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans that the political authorities use the sword to execute justice.  But Jesus told Peter to put away his sword.  And Christian martyrs often followed Jesus’s model and submitted to execution.

Some Christians are pacifists.  Others are not.  And the Bible is ambiguous.

A recent book by Michael Austin, God and Guns in America, reminds us of the diversity of Christian belief about guns.  Austin suggest that some Christians hate guns and love God.  But others love guns and love God.  I would add that even atheists disagree: some hate guns others don’t.

That’s why we ought to keep these issues separated, just as the First and Second Amendments are distinct.  On the one hand, religious liberty permits us to interpret the Bible any way we want.  On the other hand, there is the question of self-defense and the “well-regulated militia.”  The issues of legal self-defense and justified violence are complicated enough on their own, without conflating them with unanswerable questions about the Bible. 

But most public argument about this stuff lacks subtlety.  Political slogans, popular music, and prophetic preaching are typically not bastions of critical thinking.  Art and politics pull emotional levers by using affective language and making vague gestures.  Religion does that too, much of the time.  But critical thinking asks us to analyze arguments and carefully excavate the historical sources. 

Smart people continue to debate the Bible and the Constitution while reaching divergent conclusions.  That’s why it is hard to take Trump seriously when he says Biden will hurt God and the Bible.  The Constitution prevents any President—whether Trump or Biden—from taking unilateral action on any of these issues.  And if there is a God, He can probably take care of Himself. 

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Oppose Fascism, Affirm Nonviolence

Defeat Fascism

This week the President falsely claimed that a 75-year-old peace activist who was shoved to the ground by cops “could be an ANTIFA provocateur.”  The man, Martin Gugino, hit his head on the pavement, drawing blood.  “Antifa,” in case you don’t know, is short for “anti-fascist.”

Even if he was a member of Antifa (he was not), such treatment by police is not deserved.  In the United States, people have the right to belong to political groups and to protest.  Membership in a group does not give the police permission to assault you. 

In fact, fascism occurs when there is a systematic use of the police to abuse members of certain groups.  This is wrong.  And in the United States it is illegal.  The cops who shoved Gugino have been charged with assault.  This shows that the U.S. is not a fascist country.  We prevent fascism by containing police brutality.

The fascists of the 20th Century like Mussolini and Hitler unleashed the police and para-military thugs on the people.  They used violence to consolidate power under a mythology of racial nationalism.

There have been warnings from mainstream thinkers such as former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright about the looming threat of fascism.  But so far, the United States is not fascist.  And I doubt that many Americans long for fascism to come to America.   

I’m not saying it couldn’t happen here.  But Americans are typically anti-fascist.  Americans fought against fascism in World War Two. We are generally outraged by racism. And police brutality is prosecuted. Witness the near universal condemnation of the police killing of George Floyd and the arrest of the cops involved.

Anti-fascism is woven into our traditions and culture.  Our founding myth tells a story of rebellion against tyranny in the name of liberty.  The Constitution prevents authoritarian consolidation of power.  And the Bill of Rights creates strong safeguards against fascism.  The First Amendment guarantees religious liberty, freedom of speech, the free press, and the right to assemble and petition the government.  Other Amendments limit the government’s ability to set up a police state.

It is true that there is a counter-narrative to the American myth.  Native Americans were slaughtered and dispossessed.  Africans were enslaved.  Minority groups were excluded and oppressed.  Thugs lynched Black Americans during the Jim Crow era.  Japanese Americans were rounded up and put in concentration camps during World War Two.  Discrimination and racism continue.

But we have made progress.  The slaves were freed.  Women were given the vote.  Jim Crow was dismantled.  And people continue to take to the streets to demand an end to racism, injustice, and police brutality.

One way to continue to make progress is to oppose fascism.  Americans ought to be anti-fascist.  This means we should be opposed to police brutality, racism, and ethnic nationalism.  To be anti-fascist is to be in favor of liberty and the right to speak, protest, and assemble.

Now let’s consider the question of Antifa, which has become a bogeyman for President Trump.  Antifa appears to be a loose collective of activists opposed to racists and neo-Nazis (see discussions here and here).  If Antifa is committed to violence, then its tactics should be rejected.  But a recent analysis from the Center for Strategic and International Studies concluded that there is no threat to American values posed by Antifa.  And Stanislav Vysotsky, the author of a new book about Antifa, concludes that Antifa is “a decentralized collection of individual activists who mostly use nonviolent methods to achieve their ends.”

This brings us back to Mr. Gugino, whom friends describe as a loving person committed to nonviolence.  Advocates of nonviolence have always been opposed to fascism.  Gandhi was a dedicated anti-fascist who described fascism as a doctrine of the “naked sword” that glorified war and violence. 

To be anti-fascist is be in favor of democracy and opposed to a cult of power, violence, and domination.  The best way to oppose fascism is to affirm nonviolence.  When nonviolent protesters such as Mr. Gugino are assaulted by police, the specter of fascism appears.  But when police brutality is prosecuted, this ghost is exorcised.

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Coronavirus Pandemic is Not a War

Wash Hands Stay Home

A pandemic is not a war.

To call the pandemic a war shows a failure of imagination. 

President Trump claimed he is a wartime president.  The Governor of North Carolina said, “This pandemic is a war, and we need the armor to fight it.”  Finance gurus want to issue coronavirus war bonds.  Foreign policy pundits are saying absurd things like, “We need to fight a holding action on the economic front.”  The Head of NATO said we are fighting “a common invisible enemy.”

This is nonsense.  Wars are intentional actions that deliberately kill human beings.  An enemy is a person serving a government.  War is a political act involving the conscious decisions of moral agents.

A virus is a force of nature.  It has no intentionality.  A pandemic has no political agenda.  There are no enemies here.  There is no one to negotiate with.  There will be no peace treaty. 

The war metaphor makes us think in nationalistic terms.  But a pandemic is a global problem.  Nationalism prevents cooperative action.  We don’t need a wartime president.  We need a global team of scientists and doctors.  

The war analogy creates a morbid fascination with body counts.  This leads to lame statistical analogies.  People have compared pandemic deaths to the numbers killed in wars.  The Surgeon General said this will be “our Pearl Harbor moment, our 9/11 moment.”

These comparisons are uninformative.  Better comparisons would consider those killed by other infectious diseases, say AIDS or Ebola. 

This fascination with body counts implies that that we “win” when the count goes down.  But each death represents an infinite loss.  Dead people are not tally marks on some perverse scorecard.  Instead of counting body bags, let’s talk more about grief, mourning, and resilience.

The Just War Myth
The Just War Myth

The myths of war, as I have argued elsewhere, make it seems that a soldier’s death is vindicated by victory and the justice of the cause.  But in a pandemic, there is no justification or vindication. 

The rhetoric of war also gets infused with patriot and religious language that becomes propagandistic. 

When President Trump sent the Navy ship, Comfort, to New York,, he published a patriotic video and tweeted: “With the courage of our doctors and nurses, with the skill of our scientists and innovators, with the determination of the American People, and with the grace of God, WE WILL WIN THIS WAR .”

Again, the idea of a war to be won is absurd.  Also absurd is the idea that the grace of God is involved in this, or in any battle.  Hurray for the doctors and scientists.  But the real work is about healing and mitigation, not about defeating an enemy.  This is an unglamorous effort, conducted one person at a time in sick beds and hospitals.  The American people don’t need to put on armor or steel themselves for battle.  We need to stay home, wash our hands, and wear masks in public.

Unfortunately, our imaginations are infected by militarism.  Patriotism is tightly woven around war.  We cheer on the war machine, despite morally problematic and endless wars.  If the “war” against coronavirus is like the war in Afghanistan, we are in trouble. 

Nor do we think enough about peace-building.  The pandemic calls for cooperative cosmopolitanism and creative community transformation.  Public health is not war.  It is peace-work. 

War rhetoric has led us astray before.  The “war on drugs” created a punitive system of mass incarceration, while thousands continue to die.  Drug overdoses killed 67,367 people in 2018.  The war on drugs failed because it should not have been a war. 

Instead of combat, we needed compassion.  People turn to drugs because of pain, depression, or a lack meaning and purpose.  The solution to the drug pandemic is a peaceful campaign of caring for those who suffer.

A similar rhetorical shift is needed for the coronavirus.  Let’s support the care-givers by giving them the equipment they need.  Let’s build inclusive infrastructure to support social-distancing in a time of economic turmoil.   Let’s provide compassionate care for those who suffer and grieve.  And let’s encourage the wartime president to stay out of the way of cosmopolitan science and the peaceful work of public health.