#304 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Monday March 21)
Good morning,
DELEGITIMIZATION AND CANCELATION
The hostility of our current political moment is fever-pitched. While there have been periods of discord throughout our history, we seem to have moved away from the debate of ideas and instead seek to demonstrate the illegitimacy of those with whom we disagree. f you want to win the argument, don’t argue facts…instead seek to discredit and neutralize your adversary. Disagreements on policy need not be met with engagement, exploration of opposing views, and legislation. Instead, the goal, in even the most benign of settings, seems to be to immobilize and discredit your enemy.
We often are told that the events of the past reverberate in the present. Today, the reverse seems true. The political and social agendas of the present are “reverberating” into how we view the past. History and literature—and their study—are being weaponized to serve a particular world view. It always has been true that history can be interpreted many ways and often conflicting lessons can be derived from the same event. But such differing analyses of the past generally rely upon the a generally accepted series of facts (e.g., “this actually happened on this date,” or “this person uttered these words,” or “these statistics or this scientific conclusion have been verified”). There was a time when facts mattered.
Similarly, I would argue that context matters. One cannot judge someone outside of the times in which they lived and the mores of the society which they inhabited. Is it possible to enjoy Wagner, while acknowledging his antisemitism? Can we conscience the fact that some of our founders were slaveholders at a time when the anti-slavery movement was in its infancy? Just as it is possible to take measure of our own personal attributes and faults, so it also is true that people from prior times possessed a mix of attributes and shortcomings at the same time.
CAN’T HUMANS BE BOTH SAINTS AND SINNERS?
It is possible that George Washington was both the father of our country, while at the same time a beneficiary of the vile institution of slavery. Was he that different than his fellow Virginians? Should we view him in a someone better lens because he manumitted his slaves upon his death? And if participation in the institution of slavery is an absolute “deal killer,” then what are we to make of the much of humanity’s sordid past? What to make of Native American tribes who captured and enslaved each other, or African tribes that practiced the slave trade—even before European influence, or much of the history of Europe? Are we to ignore the contributions of the Ancient Greeks and Romans to Western civilization? And what of societies that engaged in the effective enslavement of others through indentured servitude, the result of which often was the impossibility of satisfying the indenture? Perhaps a better measure of someone within their historic era is whether, when faced with a new, more enlightened, notion, adopted or rejected such notion. Was Washington manumitting his slaves a step in the right direction in response to a realization of the sin of slavery? Samuel P. Chase, Lincoln’s Secretary of the Treasury and one of the “Team of Rivals” early in his career did not condemn slavery, only later reaching that conclusion and becoming an ardent abolitionist. Do we praise his transition and active engagement against slavery, or parse the early words of his speeches and forever condemn him?
The cancel culture in history and literature today is angry and extreme. There seems to be political currency and/or personal satisfaction in discrediting anybody from the past who might have touched in any way an idea or an institution with which we take exception today. It establishes a narrative that there is little positive to be gained from the enlightenment or Western civilization. If I can discredit all of your past and all that you believe in, what remains is slavish adherence to the new orthodoxy I might propound. Even when history doesn’t justify the exclusion and even if your facts are wrong, you shouldn’t slow down in your condemnation of the shoulders upon which our society sits.
SAN FRANCISCO GOES THE EXTRA YARD
Witness the absurd effort by the San Francisco School Board to rename over 40 schools for reasons legitimate and not—even choosing to reach conclusions regarding historic events that did not in fact occur. To wit, the school board attempted to strike Paul Revere’s name because of the “Penobscot Raid,” which the School Board wrongly concluded was a raid on Penobscot Indians. In fact, it was a raid on the British in the area. A school board should be expected to have some historical knowledge (or at least look it up). This sorry group certainly is not setting a good example for the students in their charge. They did this all in the midst of COVID and remote learning, when their attentions should have been singularly devoted to the delivery of the best educational product and dealing with mental health and social challenges of the moment. The good news is that three of the protagonists of this witch hunt to ferret out names from American history have been soundly rejected in a recall effort. Perhaps school boards might learn from this and focus more on educational pedagogy, improving the quality of teachers and educational methods, and more efficiently deploying their funds. In the process, I’m guessing that San Francisco schools share with Los Angeles schools the excess school properties resulting from a decline in demographics—maybe that should be a place to redirect their focus.
There are those on the right who believe books with difficult themes should be eliminated from curricula. Recall the firestorm to include books in the reading canon where there were same-sex parents. Witness, as well, the school board in Tennessee deeming a graphic novel depicting the Holocaust to eight graders as being too troubling and explicit. Meanwhile, people on the left believe books that do not adequately comport with their view of American failures (or which use words and ideas now found abhorant) should be eliminated. Then there is the constant drumbeat of one political, corporate or academic leader being singled out for attack, humiliation, firing and/or relegation to the “penalty zone” of irrelevance. Any foot-fault that fails to meet the narrowly circumscribed world view of the self-designated prosecutor is to be called out and the person is to be punished. And while I do not dispute that there are circumstances of real sexual predation and harassment, I am increasingly coming to believe that any attempt at a polite social compliment or a person otherwise engaging in ordinary human conduct can be weaponized to destroy a reputation or a career.
Heretofore, we view these public acts of performative art as “cancel culture.” I think a better way to think about it is the establishment of clear membership requirements to participate with a group and a means of establishing “other-ness” with political adversaries.
NEITHER PARTY IS DELIVERING THE GOODS
Those who know me or have been reading the Musings know that I love books on history, politics, and the occasional political biography. Among the greatest in my view is All the Truth is Out, by Matt Bai. Bai, a political writer for the New York Times and now the Washington Post, wrote one of the most entertaining of political stories, about the first election that delved into the realm of political tabloid journalism. That election was the ill-fated campaign 1988 presidential campaign of Gary Hart. Mr. Bai wrote a compelling, readable, novel-like accounting of the convergence of politics, the emerging cancel culture, and attack journalism. The facts at the time seem almost laughably innocuous by today’s standards. But the “cancelation” of Gary Hart, an otherwise worthy, intelligent public servant, presaged the current political environment.
Mr. Bai published an op-ed in the Washington Post last week, discussing the current political, journalistic and social environment. One of his many conclusions is that neither party represents his political “home.” He longs for a moderate middle candidate who can galvanize the people toward a vision of a shared future. Here’s the article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/02/15/both-parties-extreme-ideas-repel-center-matt-bai/
BAI ON THE PARTIES
His thoughts on the Republican party:
“It seems self-evident that the Republican Party — more a celebrity fan club than a political organization at this point — would, if left to its own devices, destroy the foundation of the republic. I never thought I’d write those words about any U.S. political party, but here we are.
It’s not just that Donald Trump and his imitators would blow up the integrity of our elections, or that they have expressly countenanced a violent insurrection against the federal government, or that they basically admit to having no governing agenda beyond the reclamation of some mythical White heritage.
It’s also that the Trumpist GOP advances the notion, in all kinds of ways, that citizenship alone doesn’t mean you belong here — that your race or ethnicity, the language that you speak, or the identity you choose can somehow make you less American than your neighbor.”
His thoughts on the Democratic Party:
“Rather than focus on traditional American ideals of citizenship over race or origin, the left is in thrall to its own misguided cultural revolution (yes, I use the term deliberately), embracing a vision of the United States that lays waste to the 20th-century liberalism of its greatest icons…
For all of [Biden’s] successes, though, there’s a fire raging in his party that Biden hasn’t even tried to control — and probably couldn’t extinguish if he did. For me (and probably a lot of suburbanites voting this fall), this is more than a backdrop to his presidency. It’s a dealbreaker.
In their zeal to beat back Trumpism, the loudest Democratic groups have transformed into its Bizarro World imitators. Tossing aside ideals of equal opportunity and free expression, the new leftists obsess on identity as much as their adversaries do — but instead of trying to restore some obsolete notion of a White-dominated society, they seek vengeance under the guise of virtue.
One of the bibles of this movement is a book called How to Be an Antiracist, in which Ibram X. Kendi declares: ‘The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.’ This is not — as the celebrated author claims — an expression of support for Lyndon B. Johnson-style affirmative action, which still makes sense to me. It is a case for the kind of social upheaval that occurred when foreign empires relinquished their colonies. It does not end well.
Liberals used to believe in civil debate about such ideas. But now, the arbiters of language are constantly issuing Soviet-style edicts about which terms are acceptable and which aren’t (“woke” was okay, now it’s not) — a tactic used for controlling the debate and delegitimizing critics.”
DO WE DELEGITIMIZE OR ENGAGE?
If the goal is to neutralize our perceived “enemies,” then on a terrible course that will lead us further into the abyss. If the goal is that we try to understand each other better, give the benefit of the doubt to others, acknowledge and celebrate that “others” can be both different and yet share similar values, and seek better decisions for the challenges before us, we need to rethink how we engage.
Have a great day,
Glenn
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