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I sincerely hope you will find time to read Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope. It helps articulate a better future for our nation because it is based on a remarkably candid and fair reading of our past and a remarkably balanced and inclusive engagement with our present. It not only points us to our better possibilities; it reconnects US. I'm serious about my above statement, but even in death George Carlin says things we need to consider. RIP Now, there's one thing you might have noticed I don't complain about: politicians. Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain't going to do any good; you're just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it's not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here, like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks. There's a nice campaign slogan for somebody: 'The Public Sucks. Fuck Hope.'"
Just Consider This - * the national debt (now nearly ten trillion dollars - that's a 1 followed by 13 zeros) has nearly doubled during the last eight years; *before the economic crisis, next year's federal budget is projected to have a half-trillion dollar deficit - a precipitous fall from the 700 billion dollar surplus projected when Clinton left office; *private sector job creation has been 1/6 of what it was under Clinton; * 5,000,000 more Americans have moved into poverty during the Bush era; *the number of Americans without health insurance has increased by 7,000,000 during the Bush years; * the average health insurance premium cost has nearly doubled; * the Bush tax cut has, on average, saved the wealthiest 1% about $1000 a week, whereas for the poorest 20% it has saved $1.50 per week; * forgetting the manipulation, bullying, and lying, the direct costs of the war in Iraq have been 600 billion dollars, the loss of more than 4000 American lives, the physical wounding of more than 30,000 Americans, the deaths of at least tens of thousands of Iraqis, the displacement of 4.5 million men, women, and children, and a protracted war that is now a year longer than American fighting in WWII. NEED MORE?!
A Palinoscopy This past weekend, in a burst of desperate and irresponsible misrepresentation, Sarah Palin questioned Barack Obama’s patriotism citing his “friendship” with “terrorists” and his failure to embrace “American Exceptionalism.” This latter claim deserves a bit more attention. American Exceptionalism is a theory initially developed in 1831 by the Frenchman, Alex de Tocqueville, in the course of his study of democracy in America. It has been a central conceptual reference point ever since for generations of American scholars and historians. In its most generic form, it is a theory of explanation about America built around the idea that America cannot be adequately explained by familiar norms or conventional patterns of development and behavior; that is, it is an exception, a unique case built on some exceptional qualities or characteristics. In any case, Palin’s use of this concept leads me to three observations. 1. Why has the media not asked her to explain it? Why does she have the liberty to draw on a scholarly concept that is not a part of vernacular discourse without being expected to engage it? Why is she exempt from discussing how she came to incorporate it into her political understanding? Why is she not expected to discuss the reasons her understanding of American Exceptionalism, as reflected in her attacks on Obama, seem to be at odds with de Tocqueville’s original understanding of American Exceptionalism? 2. Over the years, American Exceptionalism has been understood in a variety of ways. So, for the moment, let her mean anything she wants by it. That still leaves us with the question of why? Why does a candidate of a political movement and a political party that is aggressively anti-intellectual and unrelenting in its disdain for American academics (i.e., “liberals”) reach into her back pocket and pull out “American Exceptionalism” rather than a Marlboro? Perhaps conversations on Main Street, at hockey games, and on moose hunts in Alaska are different. You betcha they are! Yes, thank God, they are! Up here, Joe Six-Pack and Maverick Jane have heartwarming chats about – you got it – American Exceptionalism! This is a fraud. 3. In any case, Palin got it wrong. There have been various understandings of the specific content of American Exceptionalism, but its positive manifestation refers to something that is remarkable, not ordinary; something that differentiates, not something that is routine; something that sets a uniquely elevated standard, not something that is habitual and jingoistic; something that inspires transforming possibilities; not something satisfied with things as they are. De Tocqueville saw it as the unique blend of values centered in the formation of America’s democratic republic (liberty, equality, individualism, community). Others have identified it with the “work ethic” of Puritan settlers and the patterns of life they instituted in America, or with the notion of America’s special calling to be “a city upon a hill.” In all cases, it is understood as a unique source of strength that makes it possible for America to transcend the habitually expected and an “it’s-US (yeh!)-so-it-much-be-good-enough” attitude. Instead, it expects us to be more demanding of ourselves and to stretch out for nobler possibilities. This is what Sarah Palin, John McCain, and a disproportionate segment of their supports don’t get. They want a self-satisfied “Unexceptional America”; not “American Exceptionalism.” They like the old song, “Just As I Am.” I like the song of promise and hope from my youth, “We Shall Overcome.” Nothing would be sweeter than to give Governor Palin a first hand taste of American Exceptionalism this November. October 6, 2008
When So Much is in Disarray, What Do We Need Most – A Leader or A Manager? In an earlier blog entry, I argued that Clinton would provide a vast improvement over the Bush/McCain team because she was competent, effective, and better attuned to the challenges of our time. Further, I argued that Obama would provide a significant improvement over Clinton because he was a leader who had the capacity to see new possibilities and to inspire others to support the realization of those possibilities. The choice between McCain and Obama, for me, is about the choice between a manager who operates within existing assumptions, structures, and procedures, and a leader who gives momentum and direction to transforming possibilities. I want to consider the alternatives provided by a President who would be managerial, McCain, and one who would be a leader, Obama. But before I get to that I briefly want to note that even within managerial criteria, Obama is much the better option. He has shown himself to be steady, balanced, well-informed, and guided by sensible policy principles and understandings. The benefits of his approaches to public problems are broadly distributed. McCain represents a party and leadership group that has diminished America life. They have demonstrated no leadership and through an unparalleled record of incompetence, corruption, and disingenuousness have earned a designation of unworthiness even as managers. Obama’s candidacy asks us to support a leader; McCain offers us a presidential manager. The difference is real and significant. Too often, we confuse leadership with authority. We label people “leaders” not because they exercise leadership but because they occupy positions of authority. These people, with their slick support apparatus, are skilled at capturing authority, but then do not lead. Managers rely on authority; leaders may or may not have authority, but they rely on legitimacy. Obama spoke naked in Berlin; that is, he had no relevant authority to clothe him for that occasion. He also spoke well-dressed in Berlin, having inspired a moving sense of legitimacy from hundreds of thousands of people. Paradoxically, it is managers who most need us to be followers, not leaders. Managers need a following – people who support and live within their authority and jurisdiction. Rush Limbaugh’s term for his followers illustrates this well. He calls them “Ditto Heads” which is probably the most honest thing ever to come out of his mouth. Leadership operates most effectively without imposing a sense of “following,” but by inspiring a sense of purpose and participation. It mobilizes a more responsible citizenship, it even includes people actively opposed to the direction of change, and it inspires public deliberation and debate about the goals toward which leadership energy is being directed. Managers operate within the context of structured, formal authority; leaders operate within the context of cultural problems and challenges. When everything is humming along smoothly, running fairly and effectively, there is little need for the contributions of leaders especially if competent and honest managers are at hand. Leadership is necessary when things are not performing well, when there is gross incompetence, when balance and fairness cannot be trusted, when the many are manipulated to protect the privileges of the few; when corruption is unprecedented; and when, for example, one manager (Clinton) hands over authority to another manager (Bush) and with it an annual budget carrying a significant surplus only to see eight years later the replacement manager (Bush) transfer an annual budget carrying a $500,000,000,000 deficit! It seems almost ingenuine to ask if we now most need a manager or a leader. Mobilizing citizens to contest fundamental challenges to their interests, to the integrity of their values, to the fairness of their public life, to the honor of their traditions, and to the urgency of core issues is the heart of leadership. By bringing people to engagements of immediate challenges, leadership develops a community and nation’s adaptive capacities. When and why do we need to adapt? What might we consider as we decide whether we most need a good manager who will help us maintain or remain anchored within our current circumstances, or a good leader who will help us adapt to new possibilities? We need adaptation when we face problems and situations for which solutions lie outside the current way of operating. Managerial challenges present gaps between aspirations and realities that can be closed or narrowed within existing frameworks by applying existing assumptions, understandings, and techniques. Challenges requiring leadership present gaps between aspirations and realities that cannot be closed or narrowed within existing parameters. In the latter case, progress requires more than the contributions of current expertise, authoritative decision-making, standard operating procedures, or the continuation of existing policies and policy managers. We need adaptation when learning or re-learning is required. In one sense, this happens when we have become a significant piece of the problem. Our understandings and habits no longer serve us as well as they once did. We need to retool our ways of thinking and living. We need to learn new perspectives and possibilities. Of course, if we don’t face collapse or impasse, if we are maintaining a pace of progress and public well-being within current understandings, and if there aren’t emerging challenges unanticipated by the status quo, we’d be better served by working within what we already presume to know. But if this is not the case, it’s time to adapt – to learn. We need adaptation when the situation requires a shift in responsibility from the shoulders of authority figures and authoritative structures to citizens themselves. Managerial expertise is just what the doctor ordered when things are working well and competent, fair, and honest managers are in ample supply. Too often we make the tragic error of treating adaptive challenges as if they were managerial ones. We wait for persons in authority, managers, to figure out what to do. Tragically, they can’t and they don’t. The challenges require exactly what managers will never be able to provide – a different form of deliberation and a different way of taking responsibility. We need adaptation when we no longer distinguish between what is most precious, honorable, and essential and what is most expendable, dishonorable, and corrosive within our culture. Adaptation leads us to cherish the best from our history, leave behind what damages us most, and learn innovations informed by the best that will help us thrive in new circumstances. In this sense, the need for adaptation is both authentically conservative and progressive. The purpose of innovation is to conserve what is best in our traditions and experiences and to use them to move our communities and nation to a better future. Obviously, this process generates resistance in people because certain elements of our past need to be let go and transcended. In this context, leadership has two overarching tasks: it must deal with the various forms of anticipated and realized losses than accompany transformative work, and it must wisely identify that which is most worthy to be conserved. We need adaptation when the way forward requires an experimental spirit. Managers will do fine if we are confident in the answers we know and if the answers we accept give us the results we need and want. If we don’t know the answers or if we are not getting desired results from the answers we accept, we need to give something else a try. In short, we need to be experimental. Under these circumstances, the need for an improvisational leader far out-distances the need for an efficient manager trapped within failed assumptions and results that extend the distance away from our goals. We need adaptation when focused attention and accountability have been lost. Managers, especially in times of disintegration, are masters at displacing accountability and diverting attention. And both tactics work well in the short term, even if the consequences are disastrous in the long term. Their special talents are scapegoating, blaming, externalizing and demonizing the enemy, killing the messenger, fake remedies, committees and surges of one kind or another, code messages designed to fan hatred and prejudice, and outright denial. Leaders draw attention and call us to share in an expanded realm of purpose and accountability. We need adaptation when coping is a disservice because there is a general failure to thrive. Managers are well suited to the work of coping. If we are well, coping is the work most needed. If we are not well, coping only accelerates our further demise. Then we need leadership that can contribute to a vital and thriving national life. Thriving for a democratic society must mean more than the survival and success of one’s own kind. In extraordinary times, it may even mean that we will consider trading off our own survival for values such as liberty, justice, and principled purposes. The adaptive work of leadership is needed to clarify values and to assess the realities that most fundamentally challenge the realization of those values. Barack Obama will be no more immune to failures than John McCain. His human capacities are no more immune to error and misjudgment than McCain’s. However, he does offer a more fair and insightful engagement of most issues. He does offer a break from personnel, policies, and privileges that have demonstrated damaging service to the well-being of the American people. And most of all, he does offer a vision of the presidency that is rooted in leadership rather than a managerial administration. He understands, and he relentlessly seeks to bring us to an understanding, that the central challenge facing the American people today is to recognize the difference between managerial technique and adaptive leadership so that we are strong enough to support public officials who will tell us the truth rather than pander to us or manipulate us with fear and deception when no easy answers are at hand. We need Barack Obama. Barack Obama needs us. August 1, 2008 NOTE: This blog is informed by and based on the analysis of Ronald A. Heifetz in his article, “Adaptive Work”, Demos, 2003.
Have I Been Too Generous to American Conservatism? I never imagined it was possible for me to be too generous to contemporary American conservatism. For me, contemporary American conservatism (CAC) is dangerous to the well-being of a healthy democratic society because it denigrates the public life of a civic-minded people and weds itself to the protection of the narrow interests of a privileged few. In addition, it is a betrayal of the powerful and valuable insights of 18th and 19th Century philosophical conservatives who discerned the difference between habits that limit and debase human possibilities and noble traditions that uplift us to higher accomplishments; who believed that liberty was a life giving force that made us stronger, not more vulnerable; and who understood that change was an essential ingredient in the conservation of history’s most precious human accomplishments. Those are, of course, some of CAC’s “macro” failings. Even within the tangential complexities of “micro” settings, it exhibits fundamental flaws. First, it has abandoned fiscal responsibility for the sake of lowering taxes. Fiscal responsibility reflects admirable prudence; formulaic tax cutting slides quickly into idiocy. Second, it has mastered the techniques of politics without sufficient commitment and attention to the hard work of legitimate governance. If political success in gaining electoral power is not tied to positive and responsible governance, justice is abandoned and politics is reduced to a power grab. Third, it has transformed morality from a committed engagement of matters of substance and purpose into a technique for manipulation and partisan control. Fourth, it claims an identity that is radically contrary to the realities it is responsible for creating. Best example: CAC lives by the mantra of “limiting or reducing the size of government” even though the size of government has expanded substantially on their clock as a direct consequence of their choices. Nevertheless, I actually assumed that CAC was built around a set of principles and purposes. I quarreled, often profoundly, with my understanding of those principles and purposes, but granted them a place at the core of the conservative movement in America during the last half century. A recent article by George Packer, “The Fall of Conservatism,” has led me to doubt my generosity. CAC, as a political movement, seems to be most remarkable in that its shape and momentum have little grounding in positive principles and substantive purposes. From Nixon thru Bush/Cheney/Rove, Parker argues, those who have lead and given form to CAC have limited themselves to the negative characteristics of an insurgency movement. The crucible for CAC is a broad and deep set of shared resentments. It has mobilized those resentments through a politics of blame that uses angers, stirs anxieties, camouflages bigotry, exploits hate, deepens divisions, wets passions, and manufactures a polarized society amenable to its successful manipulations. No wonder the legacy of governance created by CAC is one of poor stewardship. Its thirst for power is fueled by control and revenge; not responsibility and accomplishment. It offers a consistent record of inattentiveness (long before Katrina), incompetence (even though it advocates a meritocracy), a lack of accountability (that’s reserved for single parent women, illegal aliens, and kindergarten teachers), corruption and cronyism (Scott McClellan’s account reconnects us to a lineage too long to remember), purposeful disregard for our government’s oversight safeguards (consider Bush’s latest response to political prisoner rulings from a Supreme Court reshaped by CAC), and notorious attempts to expand executive power outside the Constitutional framework (what do Watergate, the Iran-Contra Affair, and Iraq have in common – CAC!). What a legacy! I think there is a reasonable way to examine the core character of contemporary American conservatism to assess whether it is balanced toward a negative agenda fueled by resentments or toward an agenda of positive purposes and principles. The approach I propose is to use a criterion that is routinely used by conservatives to represent their movement and then measure the evidence of their behavior by their criterion. One of the most common and widely used representations of CAC is the claim that is a “realist” political movement. Rich Lowry, editor of National Review, reflected on the conservative tradition from Buckley, Goldwater, Nixon, Buchanan, Agnew, Kirk, Reagan through Gingrich, Rumsfeld, Podhoretz, Cheney, Rove, and Bush. What he highlighted from that tradition is this: “One thing I’ve loved about conservatism is its keen sense of reality.” Recently, “realism” was the defining characteristic celebrated by conservative dignities at a forum to honor the life and contributions of William F. Buckley Jr. held at the Princeton Club in New York City. It’s odd for a movement that trumpets absolute principles and truths to measure itself by a standard of “realism” – an inherently relativistic criterion. Realism is unavoidably relativistic because its content is necessarily dependent on the contingencies of changing contexts and because it begs the question of the criteria by which reality is defined either by ignoring that question or by imposing arbitrary answers. Personally, I never accused CAC of being realistic. But if that’s what its luminaries think they are, let’s take a look at the evidence. You may see it differently than I, but this is how it looks to me. I can’t see what’s “realistic” about imposing a war of catastrophic human and fiscal costs based on lies and deceptions. I can’t see what’s “realistic” about ignoring the advice of a consummate realist – Machiavelli – who insisted that conquest is always the easy part, consolidating stable and secure control is the difficult part. I can’t see what’s “realistic” about an educational policy limited to one-dimensional assessments of outcomes without any investment in or commitment to the ingredients from which those outcomes are formed. I can’t see what’s “realistic” about a health care policy that expects emergency room services to handle the medical needs of the uninsured. I can’t see what’s “realistic” about abstinence-based birth control programs that consistently lead to higher numbers of unwanted pregnancies and significant increases in sexually transmitted diseases. I can’t see what’s “realistic” about defending and honoring freedom by erecting barriers to its use and by arguing that to live within liberty’s principles and procedures is to jeopardize the nation’s security. I can’t see what’s “realistic” about trying to lead the world by imposing unilateral policies that express contempt and indifference to anyone who’s not already in our back pocket. I can’t see what’s “realistic” about being unwilling to talk to adversaries. I can’t see what’s “realistic” about opening up off-shore drilling to solve current supply/cost pressures when even the American Petroleum Institute says none of that oil will get to the American market in less than ten years. I can’t see what’s “realistic” about being unable to acknowledge some of the central issues of our times – wage stagnation, inequity, health care, racism, global warming, the national debt, for example. Recently, Roger Kimball, speaking at the previously mentioned Buckley forum in the name of conservative “realism”, mocked the idealism reflected by “the audacity of hope”. Perhaps my problem is that I actually find a demanding realism in audacious hope that I don’t find in “tickle down economics,” “magic of the marketplace,” or “compassionate conservatism” just to pick a few terms arbitrarily. Where can I see a kind of “realism” in contemporary American conservatism? I see a certain ruthless realism at work in conservatism’s manipulative mastery of fear, of the media, of elections, of vulnerabilities. Just two examples illustrate, for me, conservative “realism”. 1. It is a bitter pill to swallow knowing that the American people did elect Al Gore and may have elected John Kerry only to be left with eight years of incompetent, corrupt, and divisive “leadership.” 2. When “realism” makes evasive service in the Alabama National Guard appear to be more honorable than decorated leadership in Vietnam, there can be little doubt that something fundamentally unprincipled is at work. Although improbable, it seems possible that I have been too generous about contemporary American conservatism. In spite of my deep dissatisfactions with its direction and consequences, I assumed that a set of positive commitments and purposeful objectives gave it form and direction. No person and certainly no collective movement is ever unalloyed. But it is reasonable to inquire where the center of gravity is located. Using conservatism’s own criterion – “realism” – that core is less purposeful than its rhetoric implies. It is fueled more by negative energy than positive purposes. And the reality that seems to satisfy it most is the struggle for and the exercise of power. The greatest offense of conservatism in America today, is not against independents, liberals, and Democrats. Its greatest offense is its distortion and betrayal of honorable voices from the conservative tradition. George Will knows it. He just won’t say it. Inside Out During the past week, three people at the core of my life were the center of my thoughts and emotions. Each case was unique, but in each one I felt haunted, inert, and ineffectual. I was unable to ease Bird’s tormenting self-doubts about her medical boards. I couldn’t access credible words of comfort for the painful mourning that overwhelmed Shoshana because of the tragic death of her remarkable friend Marilyn. And I was unable to find or create a more enduring affirmation and voice for Ryan’s extraordinary art show that closed last Saturday. Perhaps I can talk most effectively about each one if I talk about them together. The resonances they have for each other may be the best I can offer to any of them individually. Bird has created a life of remarkable accomplishments as a student and person. She has absorbed correspondingly demanding expectations for herself in her studies, in her roles as wife and daughter and sister, in her friendships, in her professional responsibilities, and in maintaining the integrity of her own life. In her case, this has not led to a foundation of confidence but a recurring pattern of anxious self-doubt; she readily projects herself coming up short as she faces the next round of responsibilities and obstacles. I want Bird to know that I respect the significance of the challenges she faces; that I admire her for taking them seriously; and that I am proud of her accomplishments in meeting them so well, so consistently. I also want Bird to be freed of their burdensome weight. In part, I want this for purely instrumental reasons – she simply does better when she is not crippled with doubt and insecurity. But most of all, I want this for reasons that I believe connect her and all of us to our greatest strength, our greatest health, and the most honorable expressions of our humanity. We must be diligent and steadfast in building our lives as much as possible from the inside out. We live in a world that has been captured by the opposite practices and perspectives. Everywhere we turn the expectations are for us to form our lives from the outside in; from the “not-me” to the “me.” It is the most profound loss of meaningful autonomy any person can suffer. We soon become who we were not and never intended to be. I don’t want to be misleading. There is no “inside” separate from the “outside.” But there is a unique inside for each of us that reflects the way we have incorporated our engagements with the world to form a sense of identity and self-knowing – what we stand for, what we enjoy, what we do well, what gives us meaning and satisfaction, what has priority, what expresses our commitments, and who we are and want to be. That is the “inside” to which we must be grounded as we reengage the world around us. Bird’s commitment to be a fine doctor means that there is no way around the boards, but Bird’s commitment to be a fine doctor will never be achieved simply by doing well on the boards. It will be fulfilled by who she is and how she uses that to create a world of competent, dedicated service. That’s what I mean by building from the inside out. That’s where we need to be centered, even as we take on the daunting challenges presented to us externally, whether we do well or not as well in meeting them. Sometimes the externalities that impact our lives pose not only high stake challenges; they overwhelm us with the agony of arbitrary, permanent loss and bring crippling pain. This has been the suffering thrust upon Shoshana this past week due to the loss of her college friend, Marilyn. Bird, Maureen, and I really don’t know Marilyn intimately, but her death is an enormous loss for us because of who she was for Shoshana. She was the friend who really knew Sho, loved Sho for who she is, knew what it meant to stand by her friend for her friend’s sake more than for her own, and who had an exquisite touch – the ability to hold her friend accountable for her shit while unconditionally loving her as she is. Why do we lose someone so special, so vibrant, so life-affirming, just days after she has given birth to a precious baby girl and on a day that glowed with warmth and happiness for her family? How can you balance your life from the inside out when the “outside” seems to exert such a cruel and unyielding dominance? Is the notion of building your life focusing from the inside out a dangerous illusion that ultimately knocks our legs out from under us? I think not. Here’s why. The “outsides” of our lives – tests, fads, salaries, popularity, BMWs, physical health, status, lovely homes, personal attractiveness, death – have considerable impacts on our lives. But they do not define the meaning and value of our lives. We do. There is no meaning out there. There is no value out there. We determine value and the role our values will play in forming our lives. We define their meaning in our lives. That is why, I believe, it is so essential when significant elements of our world create challenging blocks to our aspirations or when precious parts of our world have been taken from us that we remember what remains in our hands is the opportunity and responsibility to determine the meaning of these conditions. We must acknowledge external realities, but we determine their value and meaning. Marilyn has died. That’s a reality we can’t deny or undo. But we are the ones who will give value to her life and memory. We are the ones who will give continuing meaning to her life through memories that will make her meaningful and alive in our lives today and tomorrow. What happened to Marilyn is embedded in the natural possibilities of this world. What it means is up to us, not nature. Similarly, to put the meaning of Marilyn’s death in God’s hands is to make God cruel, arbitrary, or both. What it means is up to us, not God. What we value in life and what life means to us is the “inside” of our lives that we manifest in how we live our lives. On one side, it is who we show the world we are, and on the other side, it is what we understand the world to be. Taken together it is why we live and what we live for. Perhaps this is the difference between genuine art and aesthetic pandering or decoration. Genuine art is built from the inside out to create value and to express meaning. Aesthetic pandering and décor build from the outside in to satisfy established tastes and standards. There is nothing more sterile and transient than “art” that was “in” during the 80’s or 50s or 90s or whenever. And there is nothing more vital and enduring than art that gives us a unique vocabulary and voice to engage the continuing flow of our lives. Ryan’s work has the qualities of genuine art. Yes, he IS my son (in-law), but I refuse to let that silence my own best judgment about his talent. He could be a remarkable young man and a fabulous husband for my daughter, but a crappy artist nonetheless. That’s just not the case, however. He is a wonderful person and an inspiring artist. What do I find in his work that leads me to see it this way? His art comes from the inside out. Its immediacy triggers curiosity about value and meaning. You know it has been formed by intimate, autonomous intentions that grab your attention. Exactly what it is saying is elusive, but you know it’s not a repetition on already familiar, patterned themes. It doesn’t presume to determine value and meaning for you; it arouses interest and nourishes reflection in you. But most of all, Ryan’s images are complex, subtle, and riddled with the tensions of paradox and irony. Are those horses ultimately one or two? How do we make sense of the relationships between human contrivance and organic nature – an apartment building that grows grass (or is it hair?)? Why does melancholy touch a child’s nostalgia for a tire swing? What’s the interplay between pure abstraction and suggestive representations? Are those larger monochromatic spaces foreground or background for those smaller explosions of color and dynamic energy? How does the most radical unit of fragmentation and separateness, a dot, provide the only basis for creating solidarity and a monumental sense of mass uniformity? How does the most radical unit of uniformity and connectedness, a single line, provide the only basis for creating differentiations and an elaborate sense of intricate complexity? Ryan’s art invites us to engage in the most essential and honorable work of human life – to articulate value and to clarify meaning. He doesn’t make that work easy for us, but he does make it worthwhile. He doesn’t let us off the hook with simplistic images readily incorporated into conventional idioms. He offers compelling riddles that are at the heart of human existence’s most profound mysteries. Thank you Bird. Thank you Sho. Thank you Ryan. What I couldn’t find a way to express to you individually; you gave me a way to express to you together. May 12, 2008 Bitter Pills The bitterest pills I’ve been asked to swallow recently are those offered up by John McCain and Hillary Clinton. I have no idea whether or not small-town Pennsylvanians would choose to call themselves bitter. But I do know that it is not elitism, arrogance, or disrespect for Barack Obama to communicate their circumstances as ones that could legitimately generate bitterness and anger. Nothing is more out of touch, arrogant, and disrespectful than to pretend that everything is going well for people who are paying disproportionately high costs. They disproportionately have suffered the loss of sons and daughters for a war based on lies and conducted with arrogant incompetence. They have seen their jobs disappear or move out of their home town and country. They carry the strains of limited availability, if any, of essential medical services. Their pensions have been lost or are in jeopardy. If they had modest savings, they have less or none today. They have witnessed the diminishing vitality of communities to which they have deep roots and admirable loyalty. They struggle to make monthly payments on credit card debts and mortgages sold to them under exploitative conditions. They know that “accountability” is for them, and “bail outs” are for someone else. And as they struggle with under-employment and unemployment, they have the opportunity to watch Fox television cover the oil industry defend record profits while they pay over $4 per gallon of gas to drive wherever necessary just to find a job. It is shameless for McCain, Clinton, or Obama not to acknowledge their privileged positions. They, like virtually every leadership option offered to the American people, bring with them some form of elitism. They have been the disproportionate beneficiaries of American opportunities. The real issue is this - do you use the advantages of your position to give voice to the real challenges faced by a broad cross section of the people you seek to serve, or do you use your advantages to convince people they should accept their deformed and limiting circumstances. Call it what you will, but I know that there is nothing more profoundly disrespectful than to manipulate people against the truth of their own circumstances – to tell them that they are just fine and all is well, when the heavy burdens they carry go unaddressed, even denied. Barack Obama is right. It is time for change, and that change can’t come soon enough! It will be sweet, but only because there was one privileged person who knew, who said, and who did something about a world gone sour for far too many decent people. April 12, 2008 |
A Mortal’s Immortality
On Monday I drove to Sterling, Colorado. I’m sure there must be some core deficiency in my being, but I can’t relate to the desolation of the high plains in the dead of winter. More than once during that 100 mile journey, I asked “why?” It’s good I had a compelling answer. I want to see Keith’s show. That kept me going. The drive home was easier, not because I was moving closer to my comfort zone, but because Keith’s images and concerns were racing through my mind. I didn’t see the drabness of the Pawnee Grasslands; only the brilliant colors and dynamic forms of Keith’s work.
I arrived in a lonely town, parked in an old-fashioned lot in which everything is paved, found the uninspired French building on the Northeastern Community College campus, and stumbled onto the Youngers Fine Art Gallery. The incongruity of the art within the gallery and the immediate and extended settings annoyed me at first. In a bit, I convinced myself that the incongruity enhanced the art. It’s hard to see something new and fresh if everything blends together in complementary and undifferentiated ways. That certainly wasn’t happening here. So, for those who have eyes to see, there was much to learn.
I appreciate Patrice’s work, but on this day I came to connect with Keith. I believe Keith has 14 paintings in the show. Each piece engaged me, but I held onto the six Vogue inspired “femme fatales”, “This is What Democracy Looks Like,” and “Interior Internal” the most. Questions abound – why is the hand of God so prevalent; is that Keith in the center of “The Readymade of Bill’s Arm”; what’s the interaction between Scarecrow and Smiley Face; how do I work through the adjacencies of bold, definitive images with tentative, shadowy sketches; and can I resolve the enigmas Keith brings to life – e.g., he honors the “demos” even as he portrays its contemptible degradation?
I felt a mild disappointment by the presentation of the show in the written word. Patrice’s work is labeled “private.” Keith’s work is labeled “public.” This is benign for Patrice. Patrice’s work is private in the vernacular sense of the intimate and personal. Keith’s work reveals the foundation of a truly political purpose, but there is no genuinely public world where there is no genuinely private world. In fact, the most challenging and defining political act is to create a just differentiation between the public and the private, and to chart their most appropriate and effective interactions. A genuinely political statement must always intimate the parameters of its appropriateness and the limits of its application. This is precisely what Keith’s art does. It is never just “public,” leaving someone else to do the “private” stuff. It speaks directly to the keystone political task: differentiating the public and the private. It respects both. It expects much from both. And it protects the implications of the distinction.
Although it is a genuine and intensely held understanding, I am hesitant to express my strongest sentiment about Keith’s work. My hesitancy has two sources. First, we are living during a time in which language has been emptied and violated – justice means torture; freedom means surveillance; morality means majoritarian habits; less government means an expanded military and preemptive war; fiscal responsibility means cutting taxes coupled with undisciplined spending; “no child left behind” means “every child held back.” But what I want to put into words is not a linguistic twist or spin. I mean precisely what I want to say. I am serious, and I want to be taken seriously. But even if I’m taken seriously, I’m still likely to be misunderstood. That becomes another form of not being taken seriously. My hesitancy stated and now set aside, I am serious in thanking Keith for creating works of art that immortalize him. Here’s how I approach the possibility of a mortal’s immortality.
I’m not sure what the greatest sin against “god” is. I do have a sense of the greatest sin against human life – rebellion against human existence as it has been give (“a free gift from nowhere” says Hannah Arendt) to us on earth. Life on earth is the essence of the human condition. There are many ways to sin against the human condition, but the most persistent and damaging is the tyranny of “eternity” – the idea of something that transcends this world’s time and space, and is understood to be the genuine or authentic reality. There is no more fundamental violation of our human condition than to rebel against the reality and primacy of human existence as its limits and possibilities are manifested by living on earth. Life on earth within the realities of the earth is the essence of the human condition. How we form and honor that human condition is the quintessential political question.
Eternity wars against human life on earth. Immortality celebrates the highest accomplishments of mortal life on earth. Eternity challenges human authenticity and purpose. Immortality affirms remarkable human achievements. Eternity invites the Great Escape. Immortality requires the Great Engagement. Immortality simply means endurance in time; to penetrate life on this earth beyond our human mortality. It reveals the potential greatness of mortals: their ability to produce things – art, works, deeds, and words – that deserve to endure and, in some measure, do endure beyond their creators. Through these things, mortals create a world on earth that endures even as they pass away.
Keith has produced such things. He has created work that endures beyond his mortality. I mean much more than the stretched canvases and dried paint that remain. I mean the insights and images and possibilities and hopes and fears and anger and love and joy that continue to live with rich vibrancy in a world now denied his vitality. Keith did that for us. In his own words, he said he wanted to offer “…images that provoke and cajole, rather than be.” He took on the work of creating beyond himself; the work of an enduring vitality, not just existence. We are doubly blessed – we continue to learn and to grow through his work, and through the immortality of his work the mortal Keith is, if not with us, still accessible to us. Thanks be to the human condition.
February 28, 2008
Respect Life
In colorful Colorado we have a multitude of license plate options. They give us a variety of ways to identify ourselves – “Pioneers”; to express affiliations or loyalties – “Colorado State University”; or to communicate beliefs – “Respect Life”. Initially, I interpreted “Respect Life” plates as code for the so-called “Right to Life” position on abortion. More recently, it occurred to me that it may reflect more diverse and comprehensive perspectives.
So, I set out to conduct some high quality social science research. Last Thursday, on a day when love was in the air, I waited in the parking lot of Whole Foods on South College Avenue in Fort Collins. I had identified three vehicles with “Respect Life” plates. I also had prepared five standard questions. I would ask to talk to the drivers of these vehicles, but only if I did not know them.
The three drivers turned out to be total strangers to me. I approached each saying, “Hello. I am Bob Hoffert. I am doing a small random study of individual attitudes. I have five brief questions. Do you mind taking a few minutes to answer them for me? It will be quick and a great help for me.” All three agreed, even though the man was hesitant and somewhat reluctant.
The five questions were: 1. Do you support the elimination of capital punishment? 2. Do you describe yourself as a pacifist? 3. Do you support abortion rights within the framework of Roe v. Wade? 4. Do you oppose the use of torture in dealing with terrorists? 5. Do you support some form of universal health care for American children or do you oppose it as a form of socialized medicine?
The three interviewees were: subject A – a man who drove a dark blue, Saturn, 4 door sedan (I guessed that he was between 45 and 55); subject B – a woman (seemed to be in her 50s) who drove a new Honda CRV; and subject C – a woman (in her 30s) who drove a red Toyota Corolla. As I mentioned before, each person was driving a vehicle with “Respect Life” plates. Here are their responses to my five questions.
Do you support the elimination of capital punishment?
A] No.
B] No. People need to pay for what they do to others.
C] Well, I don’t like it but we need it.
Do you describe yourself as a pacifist?
A] I’m not a coward.
B] War is unavoidable.
C] I don’t like war but sometimes you have to fight.
Do you support abortion rights within the framework of Roe v. Wade?
A] No.
B] Roe v. Wade is immoral.
C] No. I respect human life.
Do you oppose the use of torture in dealing with terrorists?
A] We need to use the only language they understand.
B] We need to do whatever is necessary to protect our freedom.
C] It’s hard to say what torture is but we can’t let the terrorists destroy us.
Do you support some form of universal health care for American children or do you oppose it as a form of socialized medicine?
A] I don’t want socialized medicine in America.
B] I am opposed to socialized medicine.
C] Kids need health care, but it seems to me we’re doing a good job without
socialized medicine.
The questions I did not ask were these: given all the different choices available to you, why did you choose “Respect Life” as the message you carry on your car? What does it mean for you? Is its meaning broad or particular? Is it conceptually comprehensive or a code for something specific? Is it a principle that clarifies options or a sentiment that makes you feel good? I still don’t know for sure. The preliminary indications from this study suggest a narrow, selective band of meaning, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself. Future studies are necessary to give us data from which we can extend our understanding of this complex and hard to decipher message.
“Respect Life” seems to have such a clear and compelling appeal. I was tempted to take it in almost literally. But obviously, these people have not lost faith in the power of an ambiguous metaphor.
February 17, 2008
Gory Meditations
I remember the skeptical disorientation I felt when, as a graduate student, I first read D. H. Lawrence’s claim that the purpose of art is moral. Fortunately, rather than reject his claim out of hand, I paused to consider, “what in the world does he mean?” I don’t presume to know precisely what he meant, but having taken his assertion seriously I now know what I mean when I embrace it.
The purpose of art is moral. Art engages matters of value, matters of choice, matters of purpose, matters of relationships, matters of meaning. It engages the world because the world matters. When “art” doesn’t engage the world as if it matters, its status as “art” quickly doesn’t matter and it’s easily trivialized into irrelevancy or mere decor. Art’s engagement, to use Lawrence’s language, is brought to life most powerfully in our blood, not our mind; in implicit, subtle insights, not explicit, analytical rigor; in unconscious yearnings, not rational conclusions; in symbols, metaphors, and intimations, not knowing controlled by precision and replicability. It is suggestive of possibilities.
Art’s special significance is that it gives us the opportunity to engage what matters in a unique way and to learn what may not be accessible to us in any other way. I respect science and I ground myself in philosophy, but I need art in my life as well. What art teaches me about the building of my life I am unlikely to learn as clearly, if at all, from philosophy and science. Art offers me a unique way to see what matters and to grow from what I’ve been shown.
Recently, art – in the form of two powerful films – has had a gripping impact on my life. I claim no special insight about the intentions of the Coen brothers or Paul Thomas Anderson. My apologies if what they brought to life in me is discordant for them. I only know that through the artistry of their films, “No Country for Old Men” and “There Will Be Blood,” I have been led to a moral meditation about my times, my country, and myself. And further, I know that moral meditation has penetrated my being more profoundly and has generated more urgent concerns than anything I have accessed through disciplined, rational analysis.
These films have plots. They choke us with suspense. They are visually exquisite. They use sound creatively, especially “There Will Be Blood.” Anton Chigurth, Llewellyn Moss, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, Eli Sunday, and Daniel Plainview are vivid, compelling characters. Yet, beyond the many remarkable paths of engagement offer by these films I felt the presence of a haunting specter: the preeminence of a soulless America.
What happens when those who are deeply committed to justice lose all hope and feel they have no place? What kind of world is created by foolish, greedy men; heartless killers; and doomed innocents? How do we retain a sense of mercy, compassion, and forgiveness when the only permitted exceptions depend on the flip of a coin? What prevents a descent into the abyss of human depravity if greed is unfettered, if personal power is absolute, if ambition is insatiable and squelches the few remaining embers of conscience, if competitive victories require that no one else succeed, if egoistic mastery is the God we actually trust?
Unexpectedly, “Charlie Wilson’s War” turns out to be the hopeful film of this season. Sure, we made bad choices and failed to learn from those mistakes. Drifting back into the same short-sighted patterns is demoralizing and dangerous. Yet, there is always the hope of a directly available remedy – make better choices. Hope, however, moves off-stage when the pathology is our core being, our “soul”; not just our choices.
Violence of the flesh and the spirit have been a bedrock for much that we have built in America and for much that we have become as Americans. God and Mammon marching together has become axiomatic. Specifically, the marriage of Christianity and capitalism has given us individually and socially a dynamic cultural engine, but it has been a corrupting dynamism. It has left us without restraints that can save us from the implications of unbridled lust and presumption. It is bitter irony that Daniel Plainview’s last words speak a cultural truth as well as a personal one. “I’m finished,” he says. Are we as well?
Perhaps it cannot be raised from the politician’s podium, the preacher’s pulpit, or the professor’s lectern, but embedded in the artistry of these two films I found a compelling, moral meditation on what we are becoming, if we have not already become, as a people. Don’t reject these films for their gory dehumanization without considering the dehumanization that is infecting our world and that we tolerate and embrace. These films don’t have to preach; they carry in their bones the virus of what we are becoming. They don’t contrive tension and suspense; they force us to look into the abyss of our own making. Can it be true – are we no longer a country for anyone, never mind old men?
February 12, 2008
My dear friend, Keith Foskin, died last weekend at the age of 51 while skiing. This afternoon friends gathered to celebrate the inspiring life of this remarkable man. I had the honor of being invited to say a few words. In memory of Keith, they follow...
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There are two presences of Keith that remain vividly alive for me – who I know Keith to be as an artist, and who I know Keith to be as a man. I love and admire both and would like to share a few thoughts about both with you today.
D. H. Lawrence says that the purpose of art is moral. I can’t think of Keith’s art outside of that perspective. Keith’s art is a testimony to the hard work of creating a moral life. Let’s not be confused, he doesn’t have a lot of room or patience for “easy” morality – the kind that’s into imposing codes of conduct, judging and condemning based on “right” and “wrong” legalisms, blaming others to puff up yourself, or prim and proper behavior filled with pretense and self-righteousness.
That stuff is inherently inauthentic, precisely because it is easy, superficial, and presumptuous. It’s about how things appear to be; not how they actually are.
Keith’s art encourages us to take on much more demanding moral work. First, it anchors us where all real moral work needs to be done – within the realities of this world. And more specifically, it respects the mystery, the incompleteness, and the incongruities of forming our lives in this world. His art reminds us of the profound paradox at the center of all human life – that at the most intimate, private places of our existence we are never alone; we find the presence of others there: sometimes tormenting us, sometimes soothing us, sometimes helping us grow, sometimes sapping our vitality, but always with us.
This is the “hard” work of creating a moral life – to stay anchored in this world, to own the limitations of our mortality not as excuses but as challenges, and to honor the social and political relationships that are inseparable from our health and happiness as individuals.
This is the “hard” moral work Keith’s art always calls us to acknowledge and engage. It calls us to moral life not first by engaging our mind, but by energizing our blood; not first by explicit, analytical rigor, but by inherent, subtle insights; not first by rational conclusions, but through the vitality of unconscious yearnings; not first by precision, but by the uncanny possibilities stirred to life through symbols, metaphors, and intimations.
In this, Keith’s art is moral in the most demanding sense. It offers a birthplace for personal and political transformations by insisting that we exercise our capacity for dissent. Keith’s art always reminds us that our most valid “yes” will often be a “no”.
I believe that this is not only true of Keith’s art; this is true of Keith. He had exceptional integrity. He lived as he created. Every encounter with Keith was breathtaking – not only because he was so candid, so reckless, so irreverent, and so unconventional, but equally because he was so whole, so integrated, and so fundamentally decent.
Keith knew that neither drinking nor not drinking would make him a decent man (so he chose to drink). He knew that neither smoking nor not smoking could make him a decent man (so he chose to smoke). Although he had mastered technologies to earn an income, he lived within the decency that never confused his tools with his purposes. He knew that it was a great indecency to give passive acquiescence to the dominant, one-dimensional character of contemporary society and its institutional forms – such as CSU. He knew there was no decency in despising this world in favor of another world of imaginary authenticity. He had the decency to protect possibilities for beauty and kindness even as he was smothered with ugliness and cruelty. He had the decency to love BMWs but never allowed them to become a prison for his life.
Keith’s decency never allowed him to dishonor the primordial reality of his being – that he was two and one; that protecting his “self” always required protecting another. He had the decency to take life seriously even as he laughed at its silliness. And he had the decency to laugh at himself even as he passionately cared.
Right now, I have two over-arching regrets. First, that Keith is not here so I could pick on him and, hopefully, intimate to him how much I admire and appreciate him.
And second, although I am glad I never took the College’s money with him to Reno to solve its financial problems as he often proposed, I do regret that I never got him that loft apartment in LoDo he always wanted as a studio. His life-affirming spirit deserved to be released from the immediacy of the bureaucratic morass that surrounded him.
Keith’s death is an uninvited, radical change to our lives. Nothing would be a better way to create a bit of balance in this world and to honor a remarkably decent man of moral purpose and courage than if in the year of his death we did our part to create purposeful, radical changes that would transform us, our nation, and our world to more clearly reflect Keith’s inspired vision and his inspiring life.
February 9, 2008
The Choice – Obama or Clinton
The January 28th issue of The New Yorker has a provocative, although disjointed, discussion of the choice between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.* For me, it offered a helpful way to think of the alternatives provided by these two presidential candidates, but, also, of the alternative either one of them offers compared with any Republican candidate. Specifically, it helps to clarify why I prefer Obama over Clinton, as well as why either Obama or Clinton would be preferable as President to any Republican alternative.
George Packer argues that the most significant difference between Obama and Clinton is not related to policies – they occupy fundamentally similar policy terrain; not related to personal attributes – they are both intelligent, hard-working, and purposeful; not related to their uniqueness – they both offer “firsts” for the Presidency as a woman and as an African American; not related to their political alliances – they draw strength from a remarkably common core constituency. Their most significant difference is their rival conceptions of the Presidency.
Packer describes Clinton’s conception of the Presidency as “executive” and Obama’s as “visionary.” Obama offers a centering voice around which disenchanted Americans can rally to overcome nearly three decades of vicious partisanship, to reenergize the nobler aspirations of American democracy, and to restore faith in government and civic life. Clinton is the quintessential practitioner of the “art of the possible” in which political change comes incrementally through good governance – steady, competent, and committed leadership.
You’d have to be a Rip Van Winkle not to appreciate how America could be well-served by either of these approaches to the presidency. Both contribute to essential dimensions of the political life of a healthy democratic society. Both respond to gapping deficiencies in American political life today. There is a time, a season, for both. But which one is the greater need in our time, today? I believe it is the vision of Barack Obama.
The prior question – prior to the choice of any candidate – is the question of what’s wrong with American public life today; the question of what does American politics most fundamentally need in 2008. Is the most fundamental challenge the legacy of the George W. Bush presidency? If so, is that challenge centered in its unique blending of corruption and incompetence or is it centered in its degrading of American public life? Or is the most fundamental challenge something that includes but precedes the Bush years; something that includes politics but has seeped into the fabric of everyday American life and consciousness?
Clinton’s diagnosis, consistent with her conception of the kind of Presidency she wants to offer to the American people, is that what most needs to be corrected are the errors, distortions, manipulations, and inadequacies of a failed Presidency. Obama’s diagnosis is more fundamental. The current Bush administration is the painfully unpleasant fruition of an era of American politics that has discarded civic virtue and responsibility, and has mastered the art of manipulating our fears and differences to divide us, to control us, and, most damagingly, to enfeeble us. Obama inspires us to see beyond what is most immediately obvious in order to understand the greater task we face and to trust our capacity to meet the challenges of that hard work.
I believe Obama has it right. “W” did not come to us out of thin air. He was drawn from poisoned wells. Either Hillary or Barack will lead us to a better place than any continuation of the new Republican legacy. No Republican candidate, regardless of personal characteristics and perspectives, can cure the ills diagnosed by either Clinton or Obama. No President is an individual that stands alone. All Presidents are persons embedded in organizations, defining traditions, and a continuing core of allies with their own autonomous purposes.
Even if the key challenge is to move beyond a failed Presidency, it is fools’ gold to believe we can accomplish that in 2008 through the election of any Republican candidate. Hillary would take American politics to a more competent and responsible place. But I believe Obama’s more comprehensive analysis is not only right, but critically urgent for our times. America has needed renewal at other times in its history, but never more than today. It will not happen through leadership that doesn’t understand the need and is not designed to meet the need. Obama has a penetrating vision and a moving effect on others.
Obama recently reached back to a time when a Republican alternative was essential for our national health. He quotes Lincoln – “As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.”
January 28, 2008
* “The Choice,” by George Packer, starts out as an analytical comparison of the choice between Clinton and Obama then drifts into a critical reflection of the Clinton candidacy with little or no explicit reference to Obama.
Learning from American Muslims
Last week, NPR presented a feature story that was done with great sensitivity and insight. It considered the tensions American Muslims face between their cultural/political identity as Americans and their faith identity as Muslims. It is not that their two identities cannot be reconciled, but that they are inherently different and have no easy or necessary reconciliation. To embrace and honor both is a demanding challenge filled with doubts and insecurities.
I have been haunted by this broadcast, even as I listened to it. It reminds me that even as we are most sensitive and respond to others with compassion and delicacy, we can manifest profound insensitivity and demonstrate crude limitations. What do I mean?
Both the statement of the issue and the exploration of it imply that the tensions faced by American Muslims are somehow unique to them. Descriptively, this clearly is the case. American Christians rarely struggle with the possibility of tensions between their identities of cultural and faith. This is their profound insensitivity. However, there are tensions between being an American and being a Christian that are every bit as fundamental as between being an American and being a Muslim. It is not that an American and a Christian identity cannot be reconciled, but that they are inherently different and have no easy or necessary reconciliation. To embrace and honor both is a demanding challenge filled with doubts and insecurities.
This is not a matter of secularism pushing faith aside. Secular institutions have long demonstrated that they can exist and function quite compatibly with individuals of faith. Capitalism, constitutional democracies, and technocratic bureaucracies, for example, do not require that individuals who operate within their systems be devoid of religious beliefs or insist that they deny their religious beliefs. They only require that people of faith use market principles, representative processes, and standards of impersonal efficiency in conducting their economic, political, and socio-cultural lives. They only require that people of faith keep their faith in its proper place – in that private, intimate space between a believer and her or his god.
Paradoxically, secular life is quite comfortable with the notion that being an American and being a Christian (or any other brand of faith) is compatible. The discomfort should come from the perspectives of faith. For Christians, it is from the context of their faith that they should most compellingly feel the tensions with their identity as Americans.
America as a place or as a way of life has NO Biblical existence. It’s incomprehensible to me that American Christians who are the most Bible-centered (and in the most mindlessly literal forms), are also the most resistant to honoring distinctions between their faith and their patriotism. Not only is there no Biblical basis for American claims, the one Biblical claim for a people’s special status, Israel’s, presents a constant call for redemption from waywardness, betrayal, and sin that undercuts any cozy comfort we might want to claim between our cultural and religious identities.
It is hard to imagine anything that is more antithetical to New Testament Christianity than capitalism. Nothing is more remote from New Testament priorities and criteria than the Constitution of the United States. Competition, self-interest, individualism, realism, process over content, profit, checks and balances, majority rule, popular sovereignty, the notions that you can be anything you want to be or that you can be self-made or that freedom is a prerogative of personal choice – the list goes on and on. These are not the fundamental teachings of the New Testament. This is not how Paul describes the basis for political authority. These are not the Gospel images of the life of faith. These do not capture the spirit of Jesus’ teachings in Matthew's Sermon on the Mount. This is not the picture of resource distribution endorsed by the Gospels. All of a sudden the Bible does not mean what it actually says.
My claim is not that American Christians cannot find paths of reconciliation between their identities as Americans and as Christians. But that like their Muslim neighbors, it is an arduous undertaking requiring sincere humility, constant circumspection, and an unwavering awareness of the tensions. Americans of any faith face analogous challenges. Perhaps these challenges may be a bit more demanding for most Christian Americans because they’ve lost the capacity to see what is most obvious about their own unique circumstances.
January 25, 2008
A Tale of Two Books
Whenever we tell our story we reveal ourselves – not only through the narratives we recapture or create, but in the way we tell the story and from the understandings we draw from it. There are two recent stories that are as remarkable for their similarities as for their differences. They share memories of African-American genealogy and race in 20th Century United States. Although presented to us in English, they are virtually written in foreign languages. Clarence Thomas’ “My Grandfather’s Son,” consciously or not, echoes Barack Obama’s “Dreams From My Father.”
I don’t assume that one is a “pure” account and that the other has an “agenda.” In fact, I assume that both tell us the story they want us to believe and both have probably convinced themselves to believe the story they tell regardless of its “objective” veracity. Yet, apart from the details and drama, they give us a picture of two significantly different personal responses to similar contexts and life-forming challenges.
Read them. Compare them. Draw your own conclusions. Where do you find self-pity and unreconstructed racial bitterness? Where are these perspectives transcended? Who reflects on his life and finds noble possibilities for his future and for the future of his society? Who is trapped in his past, casting himself as a lynching victim while detesting the remedies that have most effectively addressed those violations?
It is not that one is telling us a true story about himself and that the other is not. Both Thomas and Obama offer us tales that reveal truths about themselves and that validate grounds for us to bind ourselves to their story or to separate ourselves from their story. Read their tales carefully and thoughtfully – then decide. They offer us more than two different personal accounts. They sketch out alternatives for us – in our personal lives and in the life of our people. As they reconstruct their pasts, they invite us to construct our future.
October 9, 2007
Quote --
"George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden appear to share the belief that the United States is chronically afflicted with a cut-and-run syndrome, but they are both wrong: the most striking aspect of American democracy during the catastrophe in Iraq today is not the public's inconsistancy but, rather, its capacity to absorb thousands of casualties on behalf of a war that is widely understood as a mistake and has no foreseeable end."
Steve Coll in September 24, 2007 issue of The New Yorker
The somewhat elusive, mid-length version of the purpose of this site: to fulfill the desperate hope that Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ quip about everyday “miseries” is not a comprehensive truth, even if it is hauntingly recognizable in the world around us and within ourselves. In "Love in the Time of Cholera," Marquez observes that if Dr. Juvenal Urbino and his wife, Fermina Daza, had learned anything together “…it was that wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good.”
Now, the really wordy version of what this site is all about. I make no commitment to limit the subject matter of my comments on this site. And I will not intentionally limit the perspectives from which its subject matter will be considered. In only two respects will I offer anything that can pass for a kind of coherence – the wholeness of my own being and my commitment to strengthen self-conscious reflections about everyday life.
The American cultural paradigm may contain much that is wise and much that is foolish, but either way it is saddled with an over-arching misunderstanding. In times of broad and deep cohesion this misunderstanding is functionally harmless, but in times of division and fragmentation it blocks health and deepens pathology. Our addiction to realism, practicality, pragmatism, efficiency, and immediacy has contributed to this misunderstanding. We often assume these characteristics operate uncomplicated by theories, ideas and ideals, and presuppositions – the stuff of philosophical engagement and seriously thoughtful reflection, sometimes disparagingly called “ideology.” Nothing could be further from the truth.
Rather than the absence of philosophical ingredients, “practical realism” is only possible in framing a culture’s everyday life when there is a significant philosophical consensus. It is only when ideas, ideals, theories, and assumptions form a substantial common ground that a people can afford the luxurious assumption, actually an ignoble lie, that they don’t exist or don’t matter – are “irrelevant.” In fact, a philosophical common ground is the most essential factor in making cultural practicality possible.
But we’ve hit a rough spot. Our common ground has been shrinking; our consensus has been splintering. Yet, we remain stuck in the tacit notion that American beliefs, understandings, and purposes are somehow settled and shared – “given.” We just need ingenuity and persistence, or, if you want to take the less demanding route, apathy seasoned with trust in those who have demonstrated colossal untrustworthiness will do. It is a mess. Even worse, it is dangerous. It threatens the principles and purposes we assume we most cherish and most want to protect.
Nothing, for example, convinces Americans more quickly or firmly to abandon their liberties than to argue that it is necessary to protect their freedom! Gag on that one. Although we are often strengthened when we grow into fuller understandings of life’s persistent paradoxes and tensions, we can’t afford to swallow every contradiction thrown at us especially if the clearest consequence of taking it in is to make us smaller, weaker, and more dependent. That is manipulation; not an insight.
The momentum of a collective schizophrenia seems about to capture America. The President and his administration, our most aggressive religious leaders and media “ditto-heads”, and, sadly, a host of our neighbors and friends have shattered a basis for wholeness in our national life. Absolute truths and moral principles and Christian “fundamentals” are trumpeted by the same people, in the same breath, who have created and who defend one of the most incompetent, corrupt, and unprincipled chapters of indifference, abuse, hypocrisy, and cronyism in our nation’s history.
Too many don’t even see it. Too many see it and are paralyzed. Few still can imagine the possibilities of a healthier America. Those who accept have been joined by those who are resigned to create a powerful, tyrannizing majority that dooms America, if not to destruction, to a legacy of shame.
I will not accept and I am not resigned. I also do not presume to know the answers or the methods and strategies by which better alternatives can be brought to life. I do have a sense of a precondition for the formation of a better way. We need to become more critically reflective, more analytically self-aware, and more autonomously self-conscious. This, in itself, will not create the “answers” or, even, agreement among us about next steps. But it can create a new dialogue among us that is not captured by the enthusiasms or futility of our current malaise. That in itself is hopeful.
This is the contribution I hope this site can make, even in a very small measure. Beware – my purpose is not to solicit your agreement with my views, but to make it difficult for you to avoid more self-generated, self-conscious engagements with the realities of your own everyday life. This small step is not sufficient, but it is necessary and significant; all the more because it is increasingly difficult for any of us to accomplish with candid persistence. The hard work needs to begin.
]]>5. Welsh Bread
Welsh bread: I don’t like it! I feel bad that I don’t, but I really don’t. This makes me struggle with my responsibilities as a grateful and gracious guest. Shouldn’t I learn to like it, or give it more time to like me? Even guilt doesn’t lessen my reaction. Worst of all, the nicest people we’ve met in Mumbles are Diana and Al, owners of the local bakery. They’re delightful and warmly greet me even as I walk past their shop, but their bread is still not good. Even friendliness doesn’t discipline my taste buds.
Welsh bread is seductive in the manner of attractions and desires you need to resist. It looks good, even wholesome, but beware. In Davies’, Diana and Al’s shop, it comes in a great variety of types. But after five tries I haven’t been able to fine any essential differences among them. They taste the same – not good. In terms of taste and texture, Welsh bread is a bad complement to an egg and consistently fails the “coffee test.” I know these claims sound like exaggerations, but they have a clear basis in repeated taste tests. Welsh eggs (they’re great) always taste better without Welsh bread than with it. And you can’t dunk Welsh bread in your coffee. Toasted or not, it collapses. It’s like eating a black hole – it’s there but you can’t tell it’s there.
The really bad thing about Welsh bread is that all bread made in Wales becomes Welsh bread. That’s when you really feel trapped. Maureen has made two of our favorite breads from home – honey wheat and onion, dill rye. There were faint echoes of the tastes embedded in my bank of fond memories, but mostly they seemed to taste Welsh. Even they have egg and coffee issues here although they were perfect companions at home. What’s going on here?
Bread’s a funny thing. Almost every human culture regards it as the staff of life. It has such a compelling role that the Christian Bible uses it to describe the gospel itself, the “bread of life.” It’s made from similar ingredients, simple ingredients – no truffles or Sichuan peppercorns needed – mostly just flour, oil or butter, milk or water, and salt, unless you try to get fancy. Given such a common base, why do the results vary so much? Why is there Welsh bread at all and not just good bread?
Is this another perspective problem? Are all things universal also particular? Do things we have in common separate us as well as bring us together? Whatever happened to the good guys versus “axis of evil” model? That was much easier to understand and seemed to make sense. This bread problem is enough to make you think.
This bread problem also is enough to make me remember. It’s all coming back to me now with great clarity. I was raised on Welsh bread and until now never realized it. You know, Sunbeam bread, the standard American marshmallow bread. I love my Grandma Barndt for many reasons (mostly because she gave her love so freely and with such joy), but until now I never realized that long ago, when I was a child, she was the one who rescued me from Welsh bread.
Note: After I wrote this I discovered “multi-grain” bread at the Davies’ bakery. I found it to be acceptable.
February 2006
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A Christian Basis for the Acceptance of Homosexuality
(A talk I presented at the Penn State College of Medicine on Monday, April 21, 2008)
I hope you will forgive me for reading my remarks. I want there be time for questions and discussion, and I have much I want to say. So, speaking from a text will allow me to say as much as possible and still protect time for some interactions with each other. By the way, the projected information is primarily to provide you with specific Biblical text references that relate to my remarks.
The point of my remarks is to suggest that there is within Christianity a basis for the acceptance of homosexuality that is consistent with a devout Christian faith and the teachings that inform and nourish that faith.
There are a number of clarifications I need to make –
First, I am not a Christian and have absolutely no intention or desire to become one. Especially in matters of personal faith, I try to respect and defend for others the same religious liberty I claim for myself. However, when Christians decide to insert their faith directly and aggressively into defining public policies that shape my life as a citizen, the situation changes. What I’m committed to protect in the context of personal faith, I am not willing to honor in the context of politics. In Christianity’s political role, it is irrelevant if a person is a believer or not. Its claims require critical scrutiny and, if appropriate, rejection and vigorous opposition.
Second, by “acceptance of homosexuality” in this discussion I am referring to a distinction that is consistent with the acceptance of heterosexuality in the Bible; that is, the distinction between a person’s sexual orientation and a person’s sexual behavior. I am speaking of the acceptance of sexual orientation, not necessarily sexual behavior. For example, the Bible accepts a heterosexual orientation even though it gives considerable attention to its disapproval of many forms of heterosexual behavior. My remarks are premised on a parallel structure for homosexuality.
Third, I can offer no “proof” for my position. I will not even insist that it is the “correct” Christian position on this issue. I will only offer perspectives that I believe have integrity within the context of Christian teachings and are worthy of a life guided by Christian faith.
Fourth, if you brought with you the belief that Christianity and homosexuality are fundamentally incompatible, my primary goal is not to change your belief as much as to impact the way you view and treat others, especially homosexuals and Christians who have come to alternative understandings of their faith.
Fifth, if we try to address this issue from the perspective of church history, or the actual practices and perspectives of people who claim to be Christians we run into an impasse. In practice, there are Christians who embrace homosexuality and Christians who vehemently reject it (and there have been both kinds of Christians for a long, long time). Based on practice alone we’re left to settle the matter on the basis of power, not truth; that is, which practice dominates. Some may be happy asserting the power of the majority, for example, but that is not a criterion for truth compatible with Christian teachings.
Therefore, my discussion of Christianity is Bible centered, especially in the gospels and the letters of Paul in the New Testament. I will use the “New English Bible”; the most rigorous and reliable English language translation
If we ground a consideration of Christianity and homosexuality on the Bible, there are several generalizations that I believe are fair summaries of what we initially find –
To move forward with our consideration of the topic, we first need to consider three broad issues: Biblical literalism, Biblical selectivity, and the Christian understanding of Law and Gospel.
Biblical Literalism
This refers to the claim that every word of the Bible is the Word of God – the literal truth directly articulating God’s voice and will. Thus, since there are passages in God’s Word that condemn homosexuality. Case closed.
I wish I could find an honest response that was more gentle, but this claim is foolishness and puts in jeopardy the sacred authority it most seeks to honor. Consider just two superficial examples. They pose no stumbling blocks in themselves unless you insist on the literal truth of every word in the Bible.
- Adam and Eve, the first human beings, had three children – Cain, Abel, and Seth. Then in Genesis 4:17 it says, “Cain lay with his wife…” Where did she come from? And for Seth it says in 4:25, “Seth too had a son…” How did he do that? Biblical literalism is foolish because it leaves you with the unhappy choice of absurdity or incest. Take your pick.
- Matthew and Luke provide us with genealogies of Jesus, but they are not the same. Two illustrations: in Matthew Joseph’s father is Jacob and in Luke his father is Heli; in Luke there are 42 generations from Jesus to David and in Matthew there are 28 generations from Jesus to David. And we’re asked to believe that both are literally true.
Biblical selectivity
This is the practice of engaging some Biblical texts in their literal form, while either reinterpreting or totally ignoring other Biblical texts without any Biblical principle of interpretation that guides such a distinction. Biblical selectivity makes it possible to pursue homosexuality aggressively with words of rigid condemnation, while interpreting away Jesus’ injunctions to “turn the other cheek” and “love your enemies” [Matthew and Luke], and ignoring his teaching that “it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” [Matthew, Mark, and Luke]. It simultaneously absolutizes Leviticus’ rejection of homosexuality while ignoring and rejecting Leviticus’ equally unambiguous prescriptions for marriage, food, and everyday life. Frankly, it annoys me that people who eat pork and shell fish, have tattoos, cook while they are menstruating, cut and dye their hair, and go to ball games on Sundays are ready to pounce on homosexuals armed with Leviticus’ words of condemnation.
Biblical selectivity uses Biblical literalism selectively. In doing so, it violates Biblical literalism, the golden rule, and any form of authentic fairness because it is just plain arbitrary and ultimately manifests habits and prejudices more than revelation.
Law and Gospel
The relationship between the Law and the Gospel is central to understanding the teachings of Jesus and the Christian life.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “Do not suppose that I have come to abolish the Law and the prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to complete.” [Matthew 5:17] It is easier to imagine what it would mean to abolish the Law than to complete it. What does it mean to “complete” the Law?
The answer is to accept and affirm the Gospel – faith in the “good news” of God in Christ. This gives us language to talk about the completion of the Law, but we still need a fuller appreciation of what are the meanings and implications of this language.
Let me suggest a few possibilities based on the examples from Jesus’ life and the teachings from Paul.
Ø The Gospel completes the Law by moving the focus from the exterior of our lives to the interior; from appearances created by our behavior to the essence of who we are in our heart and mind. Immediately after Jesus says he has come to complete the Law he offers this example based on the Law’s prohibitions of adultery: “If a man looks on a woman with a lustful eye, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” [Matthew 5:28] The Gospel completes the Law, in this example, by moving the issue of adultery from the evidence of behavior to the inner spirit that guides our behavior.
Ø The Gospel completes the Law by centering us in the purpose or the essential meaning of legal structures. Jesus continues by saying, “always treat others as you would like them to treat you: that is the Law and the prophets.” The Law prescribes specific behaviors; the Gospel penetrates those outer forms to identify their essential purposes and meaning. In light of the Gospel, what is the greatest commandment in the Law? Jesus says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind.” The second is like it: “Love your neighbor as yourself. Everything in the Law and the prophets hangs on these two commandments.” [Matthew 22:35ff and Mark 12:30ff]
Ø The Gospel completes the Law by diverting us from misunderstandings related to the role of the Law in our lives. What misunderstandings? Well, that we can justify ourselves, that we can earn our place with God, that we are the source of our own righteousness. Listen to Paul: “no human being can be justified in the sight of God for having kept the Law;” [Romans 3:20] “all are justified by God’s free grace alone;” [Romans 3:24] “a man is justified by faith quite apart from success in keeping the Law;” [Romans 3:28] “What the law could never do, because our lower nature robbed it of all potency, God has done for us;” [Romans 8:1ff] “we are discharged from the law, to serve God in a new way, the way of the spirit, in contrast to the old way, the way of a written code.” [Romans 7:6]
Ø The Gospel completes the Law by redirecting how we frame and live our lives. It repositions us. Our most fundamental task has shifted from “making a name for ourselves” through good works and righteousness defined by the Law to the obedience of faith in the Gospel through which God’s love rescues us from the consequences of our presumption and sin. This reflects the essential theological difference between Judaism and Christianity. The central theological concept in Judaism is redemption; the work of renewal guided by the Law. The central theological concept in Christianity is salvation; the Gospel message of God’s deliverance of us through his son, Jesus Christ, from death and damnation as a free gift of love in spite of our unworthiness.
Where does this leave us about our consideration of Christianity and homosexuality? My view is that it suggests that neither Biblical literalism nor Biblical selectivity can guide us to an appropriate understanding of this issue. And it suggests that the central guide to a Christian’s understanding of homosexuality should be built within the guidance of the Gospel not the specifications of the Law.
Now with your indulgence, I’d like to share a true account of one Christian’s life as he struggled to live within the guidance of the Gospel message of the Bible. Mine.
I was born and raised about 100 miles east of here in northern Bucks County. We were the people called “Pennsylvania Dutch”; but really we were Pennsylvania Germans, as my Dad insisted. My ancestors lived in Bucks County since the late 17th Century. My grandparents were Mennonites, Lutherans, and German Reformeds. My mother was Lutheran. My father and I were German Reformeds. We belonged to a union church that served both congregations.
From my earliest memories there were three reference points for my personal identity. I was a proud American. I was culturally German. And most fundamental of all, I was a devout Christian. These were not garments I wore to cover my nakedness. They were the essence of who I knew myself to be. How did my life as a German American committed to the Christian gospel take shape? Here are some specific examples.
- I attended Pennsylvania public schools for 12 years and every day we started with the reading of ten verses of the Bible, the pledge to the flag, and the Lord’s Prayer. I knew of no one who did not consider herself or himself to be a committed Christian, but the school ritual required by Pennsylvania state law created considerable distress for many of us. Reading the Bible, we believed, was to be an act of personal devotion not a requirement of the state. Prayer was not to be a public spectacle, but as Jesus said, “when you pray, go into a room by yourself, shut the door, and pray to your Father who is there in the secret place.” [Matthew 5ff]
- I remember when Congress changed the pledge to the flag during the passions of the McCarthy era, inserting just two words – “under God”. Oaths of any kind were not easy for us to absorb. We thought there was valid guidance in Jesus’ teaching that “plain ‘yes’ or ‘no’ is all you need to say; anything beyond that comes from the devil.” [Matthew 5:37]. And then, to unify God and state within an oath, caused us considerable consternation. We believed that separating church and state was essential for the protection of our Christian faith; not for the protection of atheists or secular humanists.
- We had strong, pacifistic tendencies – not because of any sympathy for Hitler and the Nazis, but because we thought Jesus’ teachings to “turn the other cheek”, to “love your enemies”, to “pray for your persecutors”, to have a “gentle spirit”, to “show mercy”, to “have pure hearts”, and to be “peacemakers” somehow were relevant to our lives and how we lived them.
- We struggled against worldliness within ourselves and within our community. I often describe the deprivation of the early years of my life: no TV, no cars, no movies, no dances, and worst of all, no make-up. We believed there was truth in the notion that we could not serve God and money, that we should not “store up for (ourselves) treasure on earth” [Matthew 6], that true discipleship required us to be willing to part with all of our possessions [Luke 14:33], and we were comforted by Jesus’ encouragement to “put away anxious thoughts”.
- We understood our stewardship of the land to be an expression of our devotion to God and our gratitude for the plenty of his creation. We reaped without waste, we gleaned the fields after harvest, and we tended the fence rows as nurturing acts of piety. Somehow we neglected the injunctions of Leviticus 19:9 that prohibit all of these agricultural practices under direct instructions from God to Moses.
- We were skeptical of doctors, restrained in seeking medical attention, and ready to use home cures that had evolved from long and intricate lines of informal communication (usually through “old wives”). Yet, I don’t remember a single occasion when we consulted or followed the medical instructions of the Torah. [i.e., Leviticus 13ff – leper, infections, blemishes]
- When Norm Slotter’s brother died unexpectedly leaving behind a childless widow, it never occurred to anyone in our community that Norm had to make her pregnant or marry her in spite of unambiguous Biblical texts that asserted it was the will of God that he should do so.
- I anchored many of my core beliefs in my Christian faith. For example,
- I assumed that slavery was antithetical to the Christian Gospel, failing to ponder why the Bible never condemns slavery and why Paul counsels slaves to obey their masters. [Ephesians 6:5]
... I committed myself to the civil and human rights of every person and to the need for a particular commitment to provide protection for people whose rights have been violated and denied even though, for example, I never met a person of African descent until I was in my mid-teens. I did not base this on secular or political principles, but on my Christian faith – my belief that we are all God’s children and that in Christ we are one. It never occurred to me that on Sunday mornings Christians were more divided, less whole than at any other time during the week, and yet supposedly closer to God in worship.
... I believed that democracy, based on the sovereignty of the people, captured the spirit of God’s universal love even though Paul insists that there is no political authority but by act of God and we are always subjects never sovereigns. [Romans 13:1]
... I expected to enter into a monogamous marriage and to have children within the guidance and blessings of my faith, never seriously considering that the Bible counsels me that celibacy is the best way for a man to live [I Corinthians 7:25]; that “it is a good thing for a man to have nothing to do with women” [I Corinthians 7:1]; that my marriage would be a concession to my weakness; and that as a weak man I may need several wives.
... I understood my faith as the foundation for my devotion to my family without considering the implications of Jesus’ teachings that “if anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, even his own life, he cannot be a disciple of mine” [Luke 14:26] or “there is no one who has given up home, or wife, brothers, parents, or children, for the sake of the Kingdom of God, who will not be repaid many times over.” [Luke 18:29]
... I thought that Mrs. Wycoff was the best Sunday school teacher I had ever had and I knew my Dad respected her leadership on the church consistory never realizing that Paul taught that “a woman must be a learner, listening quietly and with due submission. I do not permit a woman to be a teacher” [I Timothy 2:11] adding that “in all congregations of God’s people, women should never address the meeting.” [I Corinthians 14:34]
I could continue, but enough is enough. What’s my point? It is simple. In every circumstance previously mentioned I, and the community of faith of which I was a part, carried a profound commitment to embrace and affirm the Christian gospel as it was known to us through the New Testament. In some instances we tied ourselves tightly to the language of specific Biblical texts. In other instances we were oblivious to the challenges posed for our beliefs by specific Biblical texts. But in all instances, we were steadfast in the work of faith; the work of translating the implications of the Gospel for our relationship to God and for our relationship to each other.
This is where I hope Christians will place themselves when they consider homosexuality in America today. I hope they will ground themselves in the teachings and the spirit of the Gospel as reflected in the testimony of the New Testament. It will not give them “the answer”, but it will guide their spirit and it will make it possible for some of them to experience the meaning of the Gospel through their loving embrace of brothers and sisters they don’t fully understand but who they can include in the fellowship of faith.
Here are some of the teachings embedded in the spirit of the Gospel that I think can lead a Christian to embrace such a position:
- “no sin is beyond forgiveness for man” [Matthew 12; Mark 3]
- “The conclusion of the matter is this: there is no condemnation for those who are united with Christ Jesus in faith.” [Romans 8:1]
- “With us, therefore, worldly standards have ceased to count in our estimate of any man…” [II Corinthians 5:16]
- “Put no confidence in anything external.” [Philippians 3:3]
- “Christ brought us freedom from the curse of the law” [Galatians 3:13]
- “When you seek to be justified by way of law, your relation with Christ is completely severed; you have fallen out of the domain of God’s grace.” [Galatians 5:4]
- “Do not judge superficially, but be just in your judgments.” [John 7:24]
- “in judging your fellow-man you condemn yourself, since you, the judge, are equally guilty” [Romans 2:1]
- “in the rigid obstinacy of your heart you are laying up a store of retribution for the day of retribution.” [Romans 2:5]
- “always treat others as you would have them treat you” [Matthew 5; Luke 6 and 18]
- “Let us therefore cease judging one another, but rather make this simple judgment: that no obstacle or stumbling-block be placed in a brother’s way.” [Romans 14:13]
- Paul’s teaching on love in I Corinthians 13.
- “Be generous to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you.” [Ephesians 4:32]
- “pursue justice, integrity, love, and peace with all…” [II Timothy 2:22]
- “Put on the garments that suit God’s chosen people: compassion, humility, gentleness, patience. Be forbearing with one another, and forgiving. To crown all, there must be love, to bind all together and complete the whole.” [Colossians 3:12ff]
- “But you, man of God, must pursue justice, piety, fidelity, love, fortitude, and gentleness.” [I Timothy 6:11ff]
- “…pursue justice, integrity, love and peace with all who invoke the Lord…” “…the servant of the Lord must not be quarrelsome, but kindly towards all. He should be a good teacher, tolerant, and gentle when discipline is needed.” [II Timothy 2:22ff]
- “Let us then pursue the things that make for peace and build up the common life.” [Romans 14:19]
My personal view today stands outside of Christianity. The way it looks to me is that the most visible and vocal forms of American Christianity reflect a profound rejection of the Christian Gospel. They imply that to glorify God we should seek power. They are most attuned to satisfying the desires and perspectives of the most powerful, the most vindictive, and the most privileged among us, turning their backs on the most vulnerable, the least understood, and the most despised and rejected. The New Testament’s message is unambiguous in this regard. Power and wealth corrupt and separate us from God; nothing glorifies God more than to be present in love with those who are rejected and at risk. To far too great an extent, contemporary American Christianity has become the great engine of rejection and targets with especially poisonous contempt those who fall outside the domination and uniformity it aggressively seeks to impose. It is significantly easier for me to understand how a homosexual can be an authentic Christian based on Biblical teachings than for me to understand how significant portions of contemporary American Christianity can claim any authentic association with the teachings of the gospels and the letters of Paul.
In America today, it is too common to find Christians who wrap themselves in the protection of the Gospel’s cleansing love; while they war against their targeted enemies armed with the merciless weaponry of the Law. Yes, homosexuals suffer from their targeted contempt, but we all are being damaged and deformed. For all of their religious fervor, they embody a cynical betrayal of Christian charity and an undermining of the noblest possibilities for our life together as Americans. Thank you.
So Many Christians, So Little Christianity: The Great Dilemma of Our Times
(This was a "sermon" I gave at the Foothills Unitarian Church in June 2006.)
Reflecting on my talk, I was reminded of Kierkegaard’s observation that many times the best part of a book is its “preface.” He wanted to write a successful book, so he decided to write a book only of prefaces. My talk today, while not all prefaces, starts with quite a few.
Preface I There was a mistaken version of the title of my talk that said “too many Christians” instead of “so many Christians.” I don’t want to be associated with judgments about how many Christians there should be. For example, my life became richer and deeper when I left Christianity. My Mother’s life was richer and deeper within Christianity. I am unable and unwilling to decide when there are too many, too few, or just the right number of Christians. I only intend to observe the fact that there are many self-professed Christians in our society today.
Preface II I’m not trying to be cute or clever with this title. From where I stand the discontinuity between who people say they are and how they understand the meaning and implications of who they say they are is a real dilemma with considerable significance for all of us. It must be examined. By the way, I am not talking about hypocricy or the discontinuity between principles and behavior that haunts us all. I am talking about actually knowing, understanding, and embracing who you say you are.
Preface III Ordinarily I would not be willing to raise and discuss this topic in a public setting because I am not myself a Christian. Not only do I have different beliefs and understandings, there is much in Christianity that personally I do not respect and find offensive. Nevertheless, I’m not comfortable publicly critiquing the intimate commitments of other people’s faith and the meaning they derive from their faith especially when I do not share those commitments. But we are living in times when Christianity has been aggressively inserted into public life in ways that impact believers and nonbelievers alike. So, if some Christians chose to use Christianity to define the public life of which I am a legitimate part, it is both justifiable and necessary to examine the reality they have created for me ever bit as much as for themselves and for our society. If they want to define the public world I must live in according to their Christianity, than it becomes necessary for me to examine their Christianity and their representation of it.
Preface IV I do not want the title to imply that there is or should be a single, fixed, rigid notion of Christianity to which all Christians must comply. On the contrary, I believe there are many legitimate ways to understand Christianity and to pursue the building of a Christian life that has both authenticity and rigor. By analogy, there is not a single, fixed way to understand and pursue “democracy.” There are a variety of legitimate ways to understand and pursue a democratic life within a genuine commitment to democracy.
Preface V Nevertheless, there are some clear and consistent elements – we might call them orientations, dispositions, frameworks, perspectives – that are essential to inform the work of constructing understandings of Christian faith and life. There may be many legitimate forms of Christianity, but they need to be constructed in relationship to a common core of Christian meaning and Christian orientations. Otherwise, Christianity simultaneously can mean anything and ends up meaning nothing. Again, the democracy analogy applies. Democracy has many possible forms, but their legitimacy is based on relationships to a defining set of core elements.
Preface VI The dilemma I want to discuss this morning is this: why is it at a time when so many people vigorously affirm their Christian faith and insist on inserting it into the definition of public life that some of the most distinctive and essential characteristics of Christianity have disappeared, have receded into irrelevance, or are, even, actively mocked and ridiculed by the very people who claim the mantle of Christianity? Why is it that the very people who place themselves within Christianity so often reflect such a limited and enfeebled, if not downright distorted, understanding of essential Christian teachings? Why is it that people who want to use Christianity to define my public life communicate so little attachment to what Christianity asks believers to consider and embrace in building our lives in this world?
[For example, at the 2004 Republican National Convention people who endorsed reconciliation, consultation, collaboration, and greater understanding of our enemies in the Middle East were ridiculed as “girlie men” to which Christian delegates wildly cheered their approval in a standing ovation. How are we supposed to understand this? What understanding of Christianity do they possess that suggests to them that ridicule of reconciliation, forgiveness, and understanding is an appropriate representation of Christianity?]
There’s more to consider here than we have time to cover. So, today I’ll presume nothing more than a first step – I’d like to take a stab at identifying some of the essential, distinctive teachings of Christianity. I cannot and will not tell Christians how to incorporate these teachings into their faith and life. But, I believe, they cannot just be set aside and ignored or denied for people who claim to build their lives within the framework of a Christian faith.
I will identify six tightly unified aspects of Christianity that I believe it is fair to expect every Christian will take into account in constructing her or his life as a private person, as a citizen of this world, and as a child of the God of their faith. These six interrelated perspectives, I believe, are essential framing perspectives for Christians in shaping understandings of their faith but seem to have, at best, slipped into enfeeblement or irrelevancy among too many Christians in America today.
“We are fools for Christ’s sake. We are weak; we live in disgrace. They curse us, they persecute us; they slander us. We are treated as the scum of the earth, the dregs of humanity.” [I Corinthians 4:10-13]
“do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth for where your treasure is there will your heart be. You cannot serve God and money.” [Matthew 6:19-21]
“render to Caesar that which is Caesar’s and unto God that which is God’s” [Matthew 22:21]
“seek God’s hidden wisdom that the powers that rule the world will never know. Things beyond our seeing, things beyond our hearing, things beyond our imagining, all prepared by God not men.” [I Corinthians 2:7-10]
“The wisdom of this world is folly in God’s sight. So never make mere men and their accomplishments a cause for pride.” [I Corinthians 3:19-20]
“live by the grace of God and not by worldly wisdom” [II Corinthians 1:12]
“with us worldly standards have ceased to count in our estimate of any man” [II Corinthians 5:16]
“we are justified by faith alone quite apart from any success in keeping the law and good works.” [Romans 3:28]
“you have learned ‘eye for eye, tooth for tooth’ but what I tell you is do not set yourself against the man who wrongs you. If someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn and offer him your left.” [Matthew 5:38-39]
“you were told ‘love your neighbor, hate your enemy.’ What I tell you is this, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. If you only love those who love you and if you greet only your brothers what is extraordinary about that? Even the heathen do as much.” [Matthew 5:43-46]
“when you do acts of charity for others, do not announce it with a flourish. Don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. And when you pray, don’t offend your neighbor. Go into a room by yourself, and shut the door.” [Matthew 6:2-6]
“Never pay back evil for evil” [Romans 12:17]
“Discharge your obligations to the authorities; pay your taxes and tolls, with reverence and respect to those to whom they are due.” [Romans 13:7]
“Care as much about each other as about yourselves.” [Romans 12:16]
blessed are those
“pursue the things that make for peace and that build up the common life.” [Romans 14:19]
“put on the garments that suit God’s people – compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, and crown it all with forgiveness and love.” [Colossians 3:12]
“in reaching for money and power men have wandered from the faith. They must shun this and pursue justice, integrity, piety, fidelity, love, fortitude, and gentleness.” [I Timothy 6:10-12]
The Christian messiah did not come as a king who ruled in Zion. He came as a baby born in a manger because there was no room in the inn. The Christian messiah was God who lived among us on earth as a carpenter’s son. The Christian messiah suffered a criminal’s death among common thieves even as he brought authentic truth into the world. The Christian messiah died to give us eternal life. The Christian messiah offers us a gift of salvation and life everlasting even though we are hopelessly unworthy. The Christian messiah calls us to a faith that frees by making us “slaves of Christ”.
There is a pattern here. It is going under to overcome. It is the majestic God presenting himself as a vulnerable baby. It is the sovereign God presenting himself as a suffering servant. It is the persecution of truth for the authentication of life. It is death creating life. It is loving and making precious those who are unworthy. It is the bondage that sets us free. It is not who is stronger, but who is deeper. It is not who wins; it is what is authentic.
This is why, even in a dangerous world, Christianity expects us to be peacemakers. This is why, even within the realities of our human limits, Christianity expects us to find ways to love our enemies. This is why, even amid the relentless self-interestedness of capitalism, Christianity expects us to care as much about each other as about ourselves. This is why, even as we feel our self-righteousness, Christianity expects us to do our good works out of the spotlight of glory and to affirm the commitments of our faith in the tranquility of our own personal space. This is why, even given our love of family and nation, Christianity asks us to set them aside in forming our relationship with God. Christianity does not offer a story of domination, but a story of appropriate submission – going under to overcome. Paul describes Christians as the victims who do not perish; those who through their death receive eternal life. Christians are those who go under to overcome.
A troubling passage that complicates “family values” ends with Matthew quoting Jesus saying, “By gaining his life a man will lose it; by losing his life for my sake, he will gain it.” [Matthew 10:39] It’s clear he was talking about how someone actually lives; not just what they say they believe.
If in fact, American Christians today are building their lives of faith in relationship to these essential dispositions and orientations, it is a profound tragedy that there is so little evidence of it, especially when our nation currently is led by someone who claims to be guided by the Christian faith. This should create a melancholy lament among believers because they are not being represented as they know themselves to be. And it should anger nonbelievers because we are being tyrannized by a self-righteous fraud.
June, 2006
Last Lecture - May, 2007
This is the last class I will teach in political philosophy as part of my professional responsibilities as a regular faculty member. To be honest, it fills me with considerable regret.
I hope you’re willing to be surrogates for prior students because I want to express my gratitude to you and to them. I want to thank all of you just for being yourselves. One of the most remarkable gifts of having a career as a university educator is the constant renewal that students have brought to my life through your energy, your curiosity, and your undaunted sense of future possibilities. Thanks for keeping me young beyond my years.
Probably none of you remember a man who worked here at CSU named Bill Hervey. Bill was a remarkable person who served many years as the College of Liberal Arts’ academic adviser and taught political philosophy in the political science department. Decades ago Bill and I took a seminar together on 19th Century political philosophy at Cornell University.
Our professor, a brilliant but eccentric and cranky fellow, had a cryptic exchange with Bill one day in class. I have carried a vivid memory of that moment with me for more than thirty years. It went something like this.
Bill asked a simple question, but as with many things that have an honest simplicity in their directness and purity they often lead to considerable complexity and ambiguity. Bill asked the professor why he enjoyed teaching and was so deeply committed to teaching.
The professor answered without hesitation saying, “Because teaching political philosophy gives me the unique opportunity to stimulate my students to think about and to understand better the three most significant issues that shape their lives.” And then he stopped. Fortunately, Bill did not.
Bill probed further, “What are those three significant issues.” Again, the professor answered unhesitatingly, “sex, death, and God,” he said and nothing more. Bill asked no more. The rest of us were similarly speechless. I will never be sure exactly what the professor meant, but after all he did say that he wanted to stimulate his students’ own thoughts and understandings. He certainly did mine.
So, I want to express why I still carry those three words with me and why they capture a sense of what I have valued most about my work related to studying and teaching political philosophy.
Why sex? Why not – no! It’s sad that the mere word “sex” so often is captured by its negative connotations – prurient interests, undisciplined and self-indulgent sensuality, or the superficial, misguided, and abusive. Typically, we’re somewhat uncomfortable reflecting on sex because we are captured by a sense of inappropriateness and personal delicacy. The sad part is not that sex can’t have any of these negative or sensitive dimensions, but that we lose sight of how sex is also essential to the most honorable characteristics of our humanity.
Quite simply, we are drawn to one another. We share with each other inexpressible intimacies. We find enrichment and delight in one another. We make significant commitments to honor and protect one another. We prevent the total extinction of the species in a single generation through each other. Through our children we live beyond ourselves. We create worlds of shared values, responsibilities, and opportunities. We save ourselves from empty narcissism by opening ourselves up to the fuller possibilities we inspire in each other. And we learn about the indispensable need for trust and vulnerability if we are ever to build beyond ourselves.
It’s a destructive deception to believe that love, interrelatedness, compassion, honoring our neighbor, collaboration, sharing, and nurturing are merely romantic and unrealistic ideals, noble but unachievable principles. They are the direct and concrete manifestations of the sexual consequences of our humanity. We are compelled to love one another; not, first, as a moral injunction, but as an impulse of our inherent sexuality. That honorable compulsion gives form and purpose to the nobler possibilities of our shared lives.
Why death? Until recently, it was assumed that we all faced two inevitabilities – death and taxes. It now appears that if the current administration has its way there soon only will be one inevitability – deadly debt. Seriously, just as we are sexual beings we are mortal beings. We will die. But why should we focus on the fatality of our death especially while we are so absorbed with living?
Death is our most profound limitation. Even though human beings have accomplished remarkable victories over many of the limiting conditions we face, it is more than a probability that we all will die.
We need to build our lives within a dynamic tension between our limits and our possibilities. Recognizing the limitation of our mortality is one of the most essential elements in putting our potentialities into a context that effectively realizes their most positive, creative, and ennobling possibilities. Nothing distorts us in more destructive ways than an unbridled sense of self-importance and self-sufficiency. When as creatures, mortals who will die, we presume to be unlimited creators we risk the dreadful consequences of living beyond our being. Humility grounded in the truth of our mortal limits, and the openness and tolerance it creates towards one another, is a necessary ingredient in the healthy expression of our power as human beings.
Also, it is not morbid for us from time to time to ask ourselves an essential but haunting question – what am I willing to die for? For what am I willing to offer up the precious lives of my children? Please remember, the question is not what am I willing to ask someone else or someone else’s children to die for, but what am I willing to die for and to offer up my own to protect.
The reason I believe these are not morbid questions is because our answers reveal the foundations and assumptions of our lives and how we live. Our answers to the questions of death reveal what we live for. What we are willing to sacrifice reveals what we cherish and hold most dear. There is no sacrifice when we displace costs onto others; only when we offer up what is most precious to our lives is it a sacrifice. That is difficult, but not morbid. It sheds light on who we are and how we are building our humanity.
And why God? As an atheist there may be a ring of falseness to my pressing the issue of God for your serious engagement. I hope you can believe that I intend nothing inauthentic.
We offer up all kinds of claims about God to one another. The universality of God has been both illustrated and tested in that God has served on every side of every war. Our representations of God vary widely. Our use of God reflects everything from unconsidered habits, to calculated manipulations, to commitments of exceptional integrity. But what there is in common, regardless of our claims and beliefs about God, is the profound need for all of us to engage the question of God in the building of our lives.
What is it that makes the question of God even more fundamental than our various answers about God? Why do we need to engage the question of God regardless of our personal response to God or beliefs about God?
Because the question of God demands us to consider what we regard to be most true, most beautiful, and most just in our lives. The question of God is the most fundamental question related to human purpose and meaning. It is the question of authenticity. It is the question that requires us to authenticate our lives and to develop the principles that most appropriately should shape our lives. It is the question that requires us to understand the authentic foundation upon which we intend to build our lives.
The good news is that sex, death, and God, and the perspectives and challenges they bring to human life, are as relevant to a guy moving onto Medicare as they are to young women and men ready to take on the world. You have my appreciation and my hopes for well-nourished and meaningful lives.
A Wedding Toast – June 22, 2007
[Recently, we celebrated my younger daughter’s marriage. Some who shared this occasion with us have asked for a copy of my toast. I’m pleased to make it my first piece in the “Recollections” section of my site.]
I apologize but I feel quite emotional tonight. Please bear with me because, at least, it’s emotions of pride and delight.
Maureen and I want to thank you so much for sharing Bird and Ryan’s marriage celebration with us. The support each of us receives from our families and friends makes us stronger and more confident in building the most intimate and fragile relationships of our lives. That’s why establishing a couple’s most personal bonds with each other needs a public affirmation and celebration.
Bird and Ryan remind me of at least two ways in which my life has grown deeper and better through them.
First, Bird’s addition to our family in 1978 helped me learn that the most remarkable quality of love is that it is expansive, not fixed. I honestly feared having a second child because I loved Shoshana so much. I thought my love had fixed limits and a finite capacity that already belonged to Sho. Bird taught me that our love grows. And in teaching me that about love, she helped me grow. Birdie, I love you.
Second, I knew I would embrace and nurture any child that came to Maureen and me, but my preference was to have daughters. And did I ever get them! It is deeply satisfying to grow into a time in my life when I genuinely want to have a son. I could go on for the rest of the evening about my admiration for Ryan but I will say it as simply and directly as I know how – Ryan is the son any father would cherish. Even as a dotted-line dad, he stretches my life and makes it feel more authentic. Ryan, I love you.
It may sound strange to say this, but my toast to them will be to wish them an imperfect marriage. A perfect marriage, or more accurately, the illusion of a perfect marriage is a lie, it creates unintended intolerance, and it has as much sparkle and vitality as a stagnant pond.
It’s through the affirmation of our imperfections that we open up paths for growth; that we invite transforming possibilities into our lives; that we reach out to others with tolerance and empathy; that we create a candid honesty about ourselves; that we learn to need each other; and, most of all, that we learn to love and to cherish being loved.
Although we are living through a time of religious zealotry, it is not a time framed by a generous loving spirit. We have lost an understanding that in building our world, our nation, our communities, our families, and our relationships of intimate commitment the truly remarkable possibilities of human love come to life in relationship to the acknowledgement of our imperfections, not the deceptions of perfection.
In the presence of our imperfections, love makes it possible for us to be honest with one another, to accept each other as we are, to enjoy each other’s foibles, and to create opportunities for new beginnings through understanding and forgiveness.
So, I invite you to join me in toasting Bird and Ryan tonight. May they be the beneficiaries of the unique challenges, the exhilarating adventures, and the profound gratifications of a loving, imperfect marriage. To Bird and Ryan.
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On Freedom – Illusion or Paradox
Recently, a dear friend and I shared an experience while on a bike ride in the Colorado Rockies. He is a remarkable man in many ways, but unique in the depth of his compassion and decency. So, it was more than a little disorienting when he rode by a man who had just taken a rather nasty spill without comment or hesitation.
We both saw the fall. The biker appeared to hit a rut on the edge of the trail. His bike went out from under him, fell on him, and he was narrowly spared from smashing his head onto the pavement. My friend continued our ride uninterrupted. I briefly stopped to check with the prone biker. Fortunately, he was okay – some scratches, torn pants, dented bike, and wounded pride, but nothing more serious.
When I caught up with my friend, I was not prepared for the extent of his concern about the accident we had witnessed. I had interpreted his response at the scene as one of indifference. Not so. There was considerable invested intensity in his comments. “Was it just stupidity or a stupid understanding of his freedom that led that him to get on his bike without a helmet,” he asked. These people who do whatever they want, when and how they want, and take no responsibility for their choices, assume that everyone else will be obligated in some way to meet their needs if something goes wrong. “I’m tired of it,” he said. It’s phony freedom.
This incident, along with reflections on aspects of my own convoluted life, has led me to some thoughts about “freedom.” At this juncture, I’m not addressing “civil freedom,” our rights and liberties in civil society. Also, I’m not referencing “philosophical freedom,” the issue of determinism and free will in the fundamental composition of our being. Rather, I want to consider existential or “personal freedom,” the sense we have of ourselves making autonomous choices in the forming of our everyday lives. Personal freedom is the foundational for a sense of efficacy essential to any healthy democratic society and to every human being living within his or her fullest potentialities.
Even if the Bush administration persists in the corruption and erosion of my civil liberties and philosophical skeptics insist that my sense of freedom is illusory, I am unable to invest myself in day to day life apart from a sense of personal freedom and the role it plays in giving my life the specific forms and purposes I most honor and protect. By analogy, David Hume, at the completion of an analytical exercise that seems to suggest that there is no rational basis to support belief in the existence of an objective, material world, simply asserts that he intends, nevertheless, to exit via the door, not the window.
Freedom in this personal sense is essential in large part because so much of who we are is not a consequence of freedom in any sense. For example, within the past several weeks I learned that I have heart disease even though I have never smoked, am not overweight, eat well, exercise regularly, have low blood pressure, and cholesterol levels within acceptable limits. My two risk factors – age and family history – can’t be touched by any of my free choices. Nevertheless, even face to face with fate, it is imperative for me to use my personal freedom to chart my own course of responses to givens I cannot escape.
Occasionally, fortuna smiles on us in favorable ways. It can give us good health, even if we live in unhealthy ways. It can give us wealth, even if we are unproductive. It can give us opportunity, even if we are unworthy. It can give us position, even if we are incompetent. Even when I am the beneficiary of fortuna, I am grateful (perhaps relieved), but receive no meaning or satisfaction from it. Living according to fate regardless of whether it shields us or makes us vulnerable is just the old fashion way of living a meaningless life; just going along for the ride and taking what is given. For a few it is a pleasure trip, but for most of us, most often, it is a tormenting excursion. It’s even worse if we presume to claim privileges when we have been graced and to impose harsh judgments on those who have been denied the benefits of our gifts. This is the most fundamental reason why I will never be a contemporary Republican: I find the notion that privileges are grounds for prerogatives and disadvantages are grounds for contempt to be an utterly reprehensible one. It is based not only on a misreading of others, but on a profoundly mistaken reading of ourselves. It is based on the illusion that the blessings of fate are the accomplishments of freedom.
Fate can curse me or bless me, but it can never be the legitimate measure of my life. In my own case, there is neither credit nor blame for being born to Frances and Willard; for their love for me just for being me; for being a Caucasian, ethnic German-American; for being short and hairy; for being born without physical disabilities; for being a man; for having a warm, generous grandmother and a cold, judgmental one; for being related to Aunt Edith and Cousin Bud; for being raised in a quirky, isolated, semi-peasant village. The list goes on and on. Only the exercise of my personal freedom within these givens is a legitimate measure of my achievements and failures. My freedom to form the choices related to the things about which I have had no choice is the proper measure of my accountability and accomplishments.
We are never merely free and, too often, we operate with an impaired understanding of the freedom we do have. D. H. Lawrence said, “the shouting of freedom in America is often the rattling of chains.” What did he see; what led him to such a charge? Essentially, he believed Americans operate with an illusory understanding of their freedom. It is an illusion to imagine that you are only free and always free. We cannot be anything we want to be. We don’t start out as nothings who simply go about the business of making ourselves into some things. Our freedom exists and operates within limiting contexts. And exercising our freedom creates limiting contexts to which we are most intensely invested. In these ways, our personal freedom is profoundly paradoxical.
What does it mean to be free? What is the purpose of being free? What is the evidence of being free? Too often we perceive freedom to be mere options. We collect options. We don’t want to lose our options. The more options we retain the better. Don’t tell me what to do; I am the guardian of my options. I’ll wear a helmet if and when I want to. It’s my option. At some point, the priority of collecting and maintaining options enslaves us similarly to the way we are limited by fate – we become defined by what we have not chosen. It is all too common in America today for us to claim freedoms we never exercise – options without authentic choices.
We need to be able to appreciate and embrace the paradoxical character of freedom in our lives. Paradoxically, the purpose of freedom is not the collection of options, but the making of autonomous choices. Paradoxically, the result of being free is not to remain undefined, but to contribute to the formation of our own being. Paradoxically, the implications of being free are not unlimited possibilities, but the creation of limiting realities. Paradoxically, freedom is not embodied in the absence of commitment, but in making and living within commitments of our own choosing. Paradoxically, freedom does not leave us unaccountable, but defines us and creates the only dimension of our lives for which we are legitimately answerable to one another and to ourselves.
The illusion of freedom is that it permits us to do anything we want to do. The paradox of freedom is that in making autonomous choices we commit ourselves to something. What’s the goal of a free person – an illusion that gives us no more opportunity to give shape to our lives than we have as children of fate; or a paradox that binds us to relationships, purposes, and principles of our own choosing?
Fate defines me, for better or for worse, without consulting me. Freedom as mere options, for better or for worse, leaves me subject to fate. Personal freedom as autonomous choices, for better or for worse, defines me in relationship to my own beliefs and preferences. It makes it possible for me to be a moral being. It makes it possible for me to love. It makes it possible for you to make legitimate claims of blame and accountability against me and appropriate claims of praise and credit in my behalf. And it makes it possible for me to experience the challenges and satisfactions of a specific life of meaning and purpose that I can cherish as my own.
POSTSCRIPT –
A wise person once said (actually I have no idea if anyone ever said this, but a wise man should have said it!): “if your only priority is protecting your options, why would you imagine anyone would care about you.”
September 25, 2007
Roving on the Other Side
The departure of Karl Rove from the administration of Impeachable President Bush is especially interesting if viewed from Republican reactions and perspectives. Conservative commentary was surprisingly harsh and Republican pros were left to stare at glaring vulnerabilities directly tied to the guy who promised invincibility. For example:
- A popular conservative blogger, Michelle Malkin, mocked Mr. Rove and his interviewer, Paul Gigot, for ignoring "the Harriet Miers debacle, the botching of the Dubai ports battle, or the undeniable stumbles in post-Iraq invasion policies," not to mention "the spectacular disaster of the illegal alien shamnesty."
- A recent poll found that the percentage of young people who identify as Republicans, whether free-marketers or not, is down to 25, from a high of 37 at the end of the Reagan era. In addition to absolute numbers, Tony Fabrizio, a Republican pollster, found that self-identified GOP voters are trending older rapidly, with the percentage over age 55 jumping from 28 to 41 percent in the last decade.
- A survey conducted by The Journal (soon to be a part of Murdochland) in June reported GOP approval numbers lower than any in that poll's two decades of existence. Such is the political legacy for a party to which Mr. Rove sold a mess of porridge – a permanent Republican majority.
- Ryan Sager, a young conservative commentator, writing in The New York Sun, spoke to the recent Iowa straw poll: "The face of the Republican Party in Iowa is the face of a losing party, full of hatred toward immigrants, lust for government subsidies, and the demand that any Republican seeking the office of the presidency acknowledge that he's little more than Jesus Christ's running mate.”
That face, contemptuous, greedy and self-righteous, is Karl Rove's face. It is the face of what Republicans have become. It is the face that rightly defines American conservatism for the next generation.
ALSO, another Republican on Republican quote from the just published REAGAN DIARIES.
“A moment I've been dreading. George brought his ne're-do-well son around this morning and asked me to find the kid a job. Not the political one who lives in Florida. The one who hangs around here all the time looking shiftless. This so-called kid is already almost 40 and has never had a real job. Maybe I'll call Kinsley over at The New Republic and see if they'll hire him as a contributing editor or something. That looks like easy work.” [May 17, 1986]
August 20, 2007
Emergency Room Philosophy
[I live in a Congressional district that currently is misrepresented by Marilyn Musgrave. Her voice is aggressively "pro-life" and "family" - someone who can't get through a sentence without coating herself in the language of traditional values. However, when she silently votes in the House of Representatives, she votes to protect subsidies for insurance companies and against coverage for uninsured children. At its best, that's SICK!]
I filled my past weekend dabbling with medical services options – phone tag with my family clinic, rejection from a general services clinic (“you are too old to be seen”!), responsiveness from an urgent care clinic, duplicated services from a hospital emergency room, and admittance into The Hospital! So, when the man who currently holds the title of President of the United States says that access to medical care is no problem – “After all, you just go to an emergency room,” it caught my attention.
It turns out that this guy has really given substantial consideration to the medical services issue. Not only is the practical issue of access not a real problem thanks to the emergency room solution, but he opposes any governmental support for expansion of essential medical care coverage on “philosophical” grounds. He has positioned himself as a man of principle as well as one of practical savvy.
Consider a current specific case – the proposed expansion of Schip (State Children’s Health Insurance Program). Congressional Democrats, along with many Republicans, are trying to expand Schip. In their view it responds to an unmet need: to cover millions of additional children who otherwise lack any health insurance coverage.
It extends a program with a proven record of success. Paul Krugman in the “New York Times” cites some dramatic positive results. “For example, after asthmatic children are enrolled in Schip, the frequency of their attacks declines on average by 60%, and their likelihood of being hospitalized for the condition declines more than 70%.”
And it is cost effective. Initial services cost less than the titled President’s Emergency Room solution. It results in a significant reduction in required services over time. And the expanded plan with the most bipartisan support will cost less over the next five years than the President’s war czars will spend of taxpayers’ money in Iraq in the next four months.
Yet, W has declared that he will veto any expansion of Schip on “philosophical” grounds. What are his “philosophical” grounds? It turns out there are two – one is “philosophical” and the other is the trademark of his administration – crass cronyism – camouflaged as philosophy. Consider first the “philosophical” pretender.
The House expansion plan offsets new Schip costs by reducing government subsidies to Medicare Advantage – a privatization scheme that pays insurance companies to provide coverage that costs taxpayers 12% more per beneficiary than traditional Medicare. W is “philosophically” opposed to any expansion of children’s health care, and, simultaneously, opposed to any cuts in Medicare Advantage. This is a unique philosophical construct: it’s O.K. for taxpayers to subsidize insurance companies, but not to provide health care coverage for uninsured children. You just gotta love these traditional absolute moral principles and the “philosophical” commitment that stands steadfastly behind them!
Then there is a more conventionally “philosophical” reason for his veto. In the spirit of Ronald Reagan’s First Inaugural Address, W wants the American people to believe that the government is always the problem, never the solution. However, it’s hard to convince them of this when they see it doing good things effectively. Thus, we can understand his “philosophical” opposition to Schip. Government must be prevented from solving problems even if it can; the more good a government program would do, the more it must be opposed; and in a pinch go to the emergency room.
The man who currently holds the title of President needs to cover his back. Convincing Americans that government cannot solve problems may lead to ominous unintended consequences. More people may start to see more clearly that the government he leads is the problem, not the solution; that it corrupts virtually all it touches; that its relentlessness in opposing enhanced health care for children is matched only by its recklessness in risking the lives and health of young men and women in Iraq; that it has bankrupted us economically and morally; and that a man whose "philosophy" protects insurance companies over children while claiming to be guided by Christian charity, to “respect life,” and to want “no child left behind” needs to be rushed to the Emergency Room for trauma care.
August 8, 2007
Baseball, Not Tits, on the Radio
The radio has its limits. The Scissor Sisters’ in-your-face rip on Rudy Giuliani’s sterilization of New York campaign makes that clear. There are no “tits on the radio.” Some things just can’t be vicarious; we need to be in touch with them! They’re experiential. The radio will never be an acceptable vicarious substitute for the sensual energy of a dance floor.
But the radio has its possibilities too. Herbert Weissbach, a distinguished biochemist, who grew up in the shadows of Yankee Stadium during the 1930s and 40s, illustrates this potentiality of radio. He participated in the Police Athletic League which sponsored trips to ball games. But mostly, he “attended” Yankee games through his imagination by listening to radio broadcasts.
It gave him a double benefit. It daily tied him to the exploits of his Yankee heroes and made his future as a pitcher seem more compelling than preparing himself for a life in science. But there was a tacit benefit as well. Baseball on the radio contributed to the development of his thinking. In his mind he converted one-dimensional sounds into three-dimensional images. In some respects, these multi-dimensional constructs were a more complete picture of the game than what we “experience” while actually being in attendance at the ballpark in the bleachers. Ironically, at the game, there are too many distractions. Creating an integrated focus is elusive.
In this case, the radio was not a substitute for experiences, but a catalyst for thinking. It exercises the imagination; it creates complex mental images; it gives events a vivid comprehensiveness that is not always apparent in directly apprehending them. Here the value of the radio goes far beyond the requirements of a youthful baseball enthusiast. It fostered the development of autonomous capacities for thought, insight, and understanding that are even more valuable for mastering organic chemistry than for tracking the exploits of the Bronx Bombers.
In all of this there are a couple of useful insights worthy of our reflection and remembrance. Radio’s consequences, as with all human contrivances (i.e., tools), are inherently ambiguous. The radio can make us smaller, weaker, less autonomous, and contained by artificial barriers that erode the vitality and wholeness of our lives. In short, it can deform us and make us less than we should be. Yet, it also can stimulate us to become larger, stronger, more autonomous, and connected to possibilities that expand and deepen our lives. It can stimulate our growth.
Fortunately, although there is this ambiguity about the impacts of the radio, they are not fundamentally random or arbitrary. Whenever the tools of our life become substitutes for living, we are always put at risk. We find ourselves in positions of passive dependency. Living surrenders to technique. Mental autonomy is hammered into ditto-heads. We become the subjects of social science research – dependent variables defined and manipulated by externalities. Our lives become, at their best, reactive, defensive, and vicarious.
However, when tools remain tools we still might use them ineffectively, sometimes even with damaging consequences. There are risks, but not direct and fundamental attacks on the authenticating core of our lives. When the radio remains instrumental, a tool, it can help us build even richer dimensions of dynamic independence – it can help us strengthen ourselves as inscrutable independent variables formed by our own internalities. Our lives expand into the possibilities of the vivid and complex thoughts we create for ourselves. We give ourselves the opportunity to make real what first we were stimulated to imagine.
Perhaps this is why I love my Grandma Barndt so much. I cherish those Saturday evenings I spent with her as a child. We’d eat ice cream with pretzels, get ready for bed, “outen” the lights, turn on the radio, and, as I curled up in her lap, listen to “Your Hit Parade.” Sometimes the drama of which song would be number one seemed beyond my patience. Snooky Lanson and Gisele MacKenzie were more like metaphysical forms than real people who might be a neighbor or a friend. Grandma’s arms reminded me that I lived in a small, protected world. The radio hinted that I lived in a large world with realities and possibilities beyond my comprehension. And I learned that, being protected, I wanted to experience the unknown.
August 3, 2007
Retirement: Learning What I Should Have Known
I recently retired. Much of the practical wisdom about retirement is useful. It is a BIG adjustment; a reorienting of your whole life. While you are working, you strive to maintain a healthy balance to your life, refusing to allow your time or your interests to be reduced to the demands and flow of your job. But when you retire, you learn just how central and significant your work responsibilities and position were not only in structuring your time, efforts, and priorities, but in defining who you understood yourself to be.
Some retirement issues haven’t materialized for me. For example, I’ve had little or no trouble using my time and creating full and, mostly, fulfilling days. I’ve had a lot of help – my Mother’s illness and death, poison ivy, housing options for our daughters, quirky ailments, Wales, counseling my wife through HP drama, friends, the interminable need to protect the UCA from facilities, and a grand wedding celebration. I have no sense of wasted time. And tackling the challenges of reorienting my life has created a greater sense of new possibilities than of loss. It has energized me more than it has drained me.
There is one nagging aspect of my retirement from which I have not fully recovered, but hope I can set aside sooner than later. It relates to what it is we are retiring from. For example, I have retired from a faculty appointment, not from being an educator; I have retired from formal professional responsibilities, not from commitments to principles and purposes; I have retired from an externally structured schedule; not from direction or structure; I have retired from rank and title; not from worth.
I also have retired from a bureaucracy. I thought I knew a lot about bureaucracies and bureaucrats. My studies of political structures and processes and my faculty and administrative experiences seemed to provide a rather complete basis for a theoretical and practical understanding of what they are and how they operate. Candidly, I must confess that I took a certain pride in knowing them well. I credited myself with abilities to negotiate the bureaucratic leviathan – sometimes to confront it, sometimes to thwart it, sometimes to move it, sometimes to use it, sometimes to overcome it, but always to protect my personal position in it but not of it.
Retirement has shown me that I still have a lot to learn about bureaucracies. I knew they were impersonal, process dominated, ahistorical abstractions. I didn’t really know what that meant for me. Oh, I had some knowledge of what it meant for my work and for successfully pursuing my work. But I had little or no knowledge of what it meant for Bob Hoffert.
The greatest violation of all bureaucracies – public and private – is not the simple fact that they are impersonal machines that have a crippled or limited capacity to account for specific individuals, times, and places. The greatest violation of bureaucracies is that they actually come to life, they get their energy and power, only because they are populated by real people who make commitments of time and energy to a specific place, to real challenges and substantive goals, under concrete circumstances, to make a difference. When you retire from one of these bureaucracies, that inherent reality is not acknowledged.
Although there are scores of late afternoon receptions to bid adieu, their cumulative effect is to erode our unique identities, to make us interchangeable, and to process us. My University is one of these impersonal, process dominated, ahistorical abstractions. Bob Hoffert is not. I gave myself. I pursued substantive purposes. I have a concrete story. In my work at the University, this was the heart and soul of the reality I knew. In my retirement from the University, it has been vaporized.
This is not about how grand or mundane, how effective or ineffective, how innovative or pedestrian our contributions are judged to be. In my specific case, it is about being acknowledged as a unique person with a specific story of efforts and accomplishments offered as a commitment to build and serve a valued place of learning.
In retirement I have learned what I should have known. Bureaucracies don’t remember; they process (often with pleasant efficiency, I might add). We, however, can’t afford to forget. It’s not about flattery or self-importance; it’s about protecting the dignity of a purposeful life – not only after we have retired, but before we retired.
July 26, 2007
#1 The Welsh Edge
In a dense yet magically inspired portrait of Wales, Jan Morris says that to Englishmen “Wales often seemed on the edge of the earth, far from the sources of power or inspiration, away on civilization’s wet and windy bounds.” She goes on to contest vigorously this English bias against Wales. Although I’m unsuited to settle a dispute about the proper place of Wales in the world, I am compelled to use the English image with hopes of her indulgence.
I’m in Wales. I’m both settled in and unsettled in. It’s on the edges of my world. It is far removed from the sources of affection that give me life, from the tacit habits of life that give me form, from the symbols that reinforce me, from the places that give me comfort, and from the familiar understandings that give me direction. It is on the “edge of the earth” I know. This tells us nothing about the actual place of Wales in the world. It only reflects the parochial realities at the center of my world.
Perhaps I can use Wales without misusing it. I’d like to try. Perhaps there is something about the marginality of Wales in my life that can shed new, renewing, and transforming light on the core of my world. But this can only happen if I bring the edges of my life in Wales into an active engagement with the center of my life as I’ve known it beyond Wales. And I’d like to try that too.
The center of my world is the United States of America in the second half of the Twentieth Century and the beginning of the Twenty-First Century. It alternatively makes me feel pride and fills me with shame. But either way, it is the core of my world. It forms my habits, my satisfactions, my expectations, my standards; it even supplies the criteria I use to critique it most vigorously. I love it not because it is the best or the strongest or the absolute center of the earth, but simply because it is my center; it is mine, and it has made me who I am.
Recognizing this, I hunger for better self-knowledge which, paradoxically, is never just self-referencing. To see myself more fully and more richly, I need to stand not only within the heart of my life but at its edges as well. The questions and possibilities that can only be imagined on the edges of my world illuminate it and give clarity to new understandings of its limits and its potential. Some things we see best from within; some best from without; some best from the center; some best from the edges. That’s why a more complete self-knowledge requires both knowing from the core and knowing from the margins.
I’m hoping that my life here on the “edge of the earth” in Wales will help me see more fully, appreciate more deeply, and transform more creatively the core of my life as I’ve known it prior to living in Wales. If there is even a small measure of success in this process, Wales will not be peripheral at all, but, just as Jan Morris insists, plumb at the center of the world.
January 2006
#2. Perspectives on Perspectives
The whole notion that by viewing my life from the “edge of the earth” I will be able to access valuable insights about myself that otherwise I’d likely miss or distort raises the issue of “perspective.” Perspective suggests that our best understandings are built within various kinds of relationships; that is, understandings grow out of seeing one thing in relationship to a different thing. Consequently, knowing has an inescapably contingent quality to it.
These relationships can have a variety of forms; for example, they can be related to space, as in “edge” and “center”; related to time, as in “then” and “now”; related to knowledge, as in “wisdom” and “ignorance”; related to being, as in “you” and “me”; related to ethical choices, as in “good” and “bad”; related to religion, as in “righteousness” and “sin”; and related to eternity, as in “mortal” and “immortal”. In every case, these relational structures contribute to fuller understandings and, we assume, more reliable knowing to guide us along life’s way.
Unfortunately, we’re living during an era of perspective wars. In fact, conflicts about perspective are one of the most distinctive characteristics of our times. The enemies of perspective battle in the name of fixed truths, absolutes, entirely unfettered by circumstances and relational contingencies. Perspective, for them, creates relativistic understandings that are inherently inauthentic. They make claims about the absolute truth of things with insufficient consideration of how we know or embody them.
The champions of perspective, modern and post-modern alike, readily defend the equal value of any and every point of view entirely unfettered by a continuously enduring external world separate from individual perspectives. The lack of perspective, for them, creates absolutistic claims that are inherently inauthentic. They make claims about the contingency of all knowledge with insufficient consideration of the enduring realities of life that are independent of our processes of knowing.
I’m not prepared to make claims about the ultimate nature of things be they absolute or relative. My priority is to make sense of my life on earth as my inherent and educated understandings aid me in doing that work. In this setting, I know that perspective is important because of the inherent limits of my humanity. I am a contingent, evolving being not an absolute or fixed being. Both my knowledge and my existence are limited because, for example, I am not god. I am not perfect or perfectible on my own. But, as Aristotle reminds me, I’m also not a beast. I can be better or worse and I am responsible to engage that challenge as the highest purpose of my life. I believe that my best knowledge and my best living are inescapably contained and expressed within the limited horizons and possibilities of my life in this world.
It is incumbent upon me to build my life within the realities of the human condition. Even Socrates and Paul understood this. They had a confidence in ultimate conditions that I am unable to share. Even so, they had no doubt that the work of knowing and living on earth was unavoidably relational and contingent. Even as absolutist lovers of wisdom and of God in Christ, they knew that we never escape the limitations of ignorance, passions, opinions, self-righteousness, and sin in the course of our unaided earthly life. Even for them, our best in this world is always the best possible – the search for wisdom and the discipline of faith, respectively.
It’s a hard enough challenge for me to get my life on earth in its best possible order. For me, it makes the most sense to not cast my attention beyond that difficult work. And for that work I need perspectives – different perspectives; some from the center of my world and some from its edges.
January 2006
#3. Abertawe, Cymru: First Experiences and Impressions
Our first week in Swansea, Wales (Abertawe, Cymru) closes as I record these initial impressions lying in bed. The French doors to my left open onto a deck which also serves as the roof for our kitchen. We can't see the bay water from the bed but can see the city lights that ring the bay from Swansea to the Mumbles lighthouse. It's enough to make you want to skip sleep. Sleep, by the way, has been a bit puzzling. Either we can't or we can't stop!
It's clear to me that Maureen is more of a "natural" at this kind of transition than I. The adjustments, actually, are quite modest but she seems more comfortable with them than I have been so far. She reflects the exhilaration of new adventures whereas I am taking more deep breaths still a bit preoccupied by my patterns and ties back home. Putting this into words probably exaggerates the differences between us. They're subtle, but real.
The Welsh are both standoffish and warm. For example, there are few public exchanges as you walk the streets and paths, and the clerks in the shops are polite but restrained. Yet, if you ask for help, information, or guidance they are generous in their efforts to satisfy your needs. They look out for you in quiet and unexpected ways. I left my gloves on the bus Friday night. They were waiting for me at the central bus station Saturday afternoon...and this in a city of more than a quarter of a million.
Traveling here could not have been smoother. An on-time, non-stop flight, arrival in Swansea less than five hours after landing at Heathrow, fresh flowers and an open door at our home all contributed to the pleasant transition. Our cottage feels like home. We eat by a large bay window on the street side of the house. The kitchen has two glass walls looking out to the bay and our "finger garden" ends with one of Mumbles' more spectacular views. It is a very steep climb from the promenade and Mumbles Road with the shops and the bus and walking routes to the University up to our home, but we can use the exercise and claim to relish the challenge.
Our kitchen already has produced a number of wonderful meals thanks to remarkably fresh vegetables, fruits, and fish, and two reasonably good cooks. Daily shopping is quite time consuming, but there is something satisfying about shopping for specific needs and turning those fresh ingredients into something immediately enjoyable. Perhaps the greatest food shortcoming of Welsh markets is bread. There are several bakeries but they all offer only a slightly upgraded version of marshmallow bread.
We're hopeful that Maureen's computing and phoning needs will be worked out at the University tomorrow. This has been the only real hurdle we've faced. Phone and internet connections at our home will not be installed until January 25th and the University, not surprisingly, has its own inscrutable and slow bureaucracy. We'll both be a lot more comfortable when we know that Maureen can function reliably from her Welsh off-site.
There have been two mostly sunny days already. It was sunny on our arrival, Wednesday, and yesterday for our bus trip on the Gower with American exchange students. We had a great walk along the cliffs overlooking Rhosilli Bay and were able to see Cornwall to the south. It was a pleasant, relaxed time with no worry greater than the fate of a sheep seemingly stranded on an isolated, precarious ledge.
Later in the day the bus dropped us off in downtown Swansea. We shopped in the city market and in a warehouse-style grocery store all the while thankful that we're living in Mumbles rather than in the midst of "Welsh-Mart". We'll probably have to make occasional visits to "Welsh-Mart" for a few items we can't locate in the Mumbles, but they'll be "as needed" visits only.
Today was low-keyed but pleasant. Walking in "upper" Mumbles, cooking a beef vegetable soup for next week, exercising on the living room floor, reading a London newspaper, doing our first load of laundry, and finding absolutely NO place to dry anything added up to a calm but satisfying day. I still don't know whether the Broncos won or lost. In some ways, that's frustrating; it even has me a bit restless! In other ways, I laugh at how little it matters. If they lost, I'm probably the only one in Mumbles who'd be in a bit of a funk because of it, and if they won, the only one who'd have a pick-me-up because of it. In a strange way, it matters to me, even though it doesn't matter. (Found out they won this morning. I'm pleased, but it really doesn't matter.)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Believe it or not, we've gone 10 days without rain and the last two were sunny, cloudless days. We just finished lunch - our fourth meal out on the deck. Today's was, by far, the most pleasant. Even with low tide and the mud flats, it's a magnificent view; virtually one of a kind.
Yesterday was our third day trip with the American exchange students at Swansea. First there was the Gower trip. Last week we went to Bath where we did the Roman baths, got sweet on Jane Austen, took an audio bus tour around the city without any audio for me, and walked the streets. It was delightful even without my audio and with a bad back and aching feet. Yesterday we went to the Museum of Welsh Life in the a.m. and to Cardiff in the p.m. Both stops were preps for additional future visits. The museum is modeled on the Sturbridge Village/Williamsburg approaches. It has two parts -- village life, and the manor and gardens of a substantial estate.
Cardiff is a lively city. There are clear signs of the decline it suffered post-coal and steel, but even stronger indications of a new vitality. Didn't get to do the National Museum (but will), but did enjoy the castle tour - both the self-guided tour of the medieval keep and the guided tour of the interior (as remodeled in the last quarter of the 19th Century). We walked the streets packed with Saturday shoppers and walkers, did the market, and listened to a wonderful drum band made up of a totally random group whose only apparent commonality was their love for the beat of the drums. We also cheated! Just before we had to be back for the bus we got a Starbucks! And behold, Maureen and Bob said "it is good"! We had some Welsh cakes with us so eating them with the coffee made us feel less inauthentic.
I could go on and on, but we're off to a wildlife preserve and the Oystermouth Castle. Hope this gives you a small sense of our activities here. During the week we spend our time working, terrorizing our building by shutting down its power, and setting off alarms that plague the campus for almost an hour. In general, they like it best when we stay home for the weekends and forget to come in during the work weeks as well.
January 2006
#4. The "Cymru" Thing
Croeso Prifysgol Cymru Abertawe (obviously, that’s “Welcome to the University of Wales, Swansea). That’s where I work. That’s how they greet you in Welsh (Cymru). I know that because the Welsh almost always comes with the English. Bilingual signs are everywhere. Signs identifying places, giving directions, bus and train schedules, menus, public notices and explanatory bulletins, dual-sided brochures, virtually every graphic at the University, and instructions on the ATMs are in both English and Welsh.
Initially, this did not seem the slightest bit peculiar. It seemed routine and expected. In some respects, it was a bit more surprising that English was never out of sight than that Welsh was publicly prevalent. All of those vowel-less words, “ll”s, and “dd”s always had their English equivalents right at hand just like comfort food you crave at times of anxiety. As an English mono-linguist, I never was left hanging with the inexpressible or the unintelligible. They always gave me a language safety net. And I was happy.
In the course of just four weeks, bilingual Wales now seems more peculiar than I initially expected. I have yet to meet the first person who claims to be able to speak Welsh! Many can’t even help you with the pronunciation of Welsh words. I’ve never had a problem understanding someone speaking to me in Welsh because no one has. It’s only their English that at times I find to be unintelligible. Further, I have met no one who objects to the prominence of Welsh in public written communication or who is not totally committed to the current and future primacy of English in all communication. Overall, it’s a somewhat peculiar mix of realities.
It’s even more peculiar for me coming from “English only” Colorado (EoC). In EoC we actually have many people who speak languages other than English, even if, as in Wales, it is not Welsh. Take Spanish for example. A significant number of people in Colorado speak Spanish and sometimes they speak to me in Spanish. It’s Welsh to me! Many in EoC are offended by this use of “un-American” speech. So, they were convinced it was necessary to give English legal claims to exclusivity even though, as in Wales, almost no one contests the current and future primacy of English in all public communication.
Unraveling this maze of unexpected twists and turns seemed to be beyond me. And then I thought I found a clue that could be of some help. Bilingual Wales reflects the sentiments of the overwhelming majority whereas second languages in EoC and the USA are seen to be the interests of minorities that often offend the majority. Now, in both Wales and in EoC you could argue against the position of the majority. I have, quite ineffectively, in EoC.
I’m reminded that I grew up in a minority community that formed itself in America since the 1690s speaking almost exclusively, until my generation, a language other than English. Somehow, we learned to love and serve our country in another tongue, and, eventually, to embrace the primacy of English. I know it happens, not because of a theory or abstract principles, but because of the most powerful, intimate experiences of my life. I’m left to ask, if the power of a Welsh majority’s connection with its nurturing roots through an alternate language does not put English in jeopardy in Wales or make them un-British, why does the vulnerability of EoC’s minorities jeopardize English and the national life of America when they draw strength from their roots through an alternate language? Digwyddiadau! Is that Welsh for “beats me”? Beats me.
January 2006
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