Monthly Archives: May 2018

The Anti-Mensch

When I read that Trump had abrogated the Iran deal, I felt a familiar pain in the pit of my stomach. These bouts of indigestion and nausea have increased since November of 2016, as have my concerns over the world my grandchildren will inherit, and the role models they will choose to emulate.

Trump’s Presidency has been a consistent perversion of a value structure to which most Americans have long given lip service (if not always fidelity). Even if the country and the world emerge more or less intact from this dangerous, surreal period, how much permanent damage will have been done to our concept of civilized, moral, adult behavior?

When my children were very young, I used to tell them I wanted them each to grow up to be a mensch. Mensch is a yiddish word meaning “a real human being–a person of integrity and honor.”

What are the sorts of behaviors that characterize a mensch?

  • There’s civility, of course. Respect for other people. Courteous behavior in even trying situations. An absence of name-calling or other efforts to demean people with whom one  disagrees.
  • A rejection of bigotries both overt and latent. Refusing to judge one’s fellow human beings on the basis of such things as skin color, religion, gender or sexual orientation. A recognition that other people are entitled to the same rights and respect we claim for ourselves.
  • A healthy modesty–by which I mean recognition that none of us has all the answers, that other perspectives deserve consideration, that there is always more to learn, that it is always possible that one may turn out to be wrong.  A healthy modesty also implies respect for expertise, for the counsel of those with specialized or superior knowledge. A mensch has sufficient self-worth and self-confidence to give credit where it is due, and will instinctively recoil from bragging or grandstanding.
  • Maturity. Adults have a capacity for self-restraint, an ability to defer gratification when necessary to the pursuit of longterm goals. A mensch demonstrates maturity by admitting when he is wrong, and apologizing when something he has said or done makes such an apology appropriate. A mensch doesn’t engage in childish tantrums or schoolyard bullying conduct like publicly berating or humiliating others.
  • Respect for authority–as distinct from obsequiousness. A mensch balances his obligations to the rules and to those in charge against his duty to confront injustice, even when such confrontation entails a personal cost.
  • Personal Integrity. A mensch keeps his word, honors his commitments, pays his bills.  (As my father used to say, he “walks the talk.”) His behaviors are consistent with his pronouncements. Persons of integrity do not knowingly lie or mislead.
  • A good heart. A mensch genuinely cares about others in his family, his community and his country. He supports efforts to ameliorate poverty and injustice. He participates in activities intended to make the world a better place.

None of these ideal behaviors require riches or even intelligence, although like most parents I hoped my children would do well financially and would have the self-awareness that is one of the many benefits of an inquiring and lively intellect.

When I compare the behaviors and values that most parents try to instill in their children to Donald Trump’s daily, embarrassing eruptions, I cringe. President Obama was–and remains– a mensch; post-Presidency, even George W. Bush has been one.

Trump is the anti-mensch.

How do parents raise thoughtful, compassionate, responsible children when the media constantly reports the activities of a President who violates and scorns–on a daily basis– every behavioral norm they are trying to inculcate?

I’m keeping Tums in business.

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The Dangers Of Know-Nothingness

I don’t know which is more maddening–the ignorance of the voters who were willing to turn the country over to a man who had no concept of domestic policy or world affairs and a clear disinclination to learn–or the hubris of an aggrieved con artist who fancies himself immensely more able than he is.

Trump is a walking manifestation of the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

The New Yorker has published an article detailing the reactions of experts–aka people who actually know what they are talking about–to Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran accord. The article begins by confirming that Iran is in full compliance with the terms of that agreement, and that the other signatories–including countries we consider close allies–all counseled against Trump’s action.

Critics were scathing about the U.S. withdrawal. James Dobbins, a former U.S. Ambassador to the E.U., who negotiated with Iran after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and now works at the RANDCorporation, said that the decision “isolates the United States, frees Iran, reneges on an American commitment, adds to the risk of a trade war with America’s allies and to a hot war with Iran and diminishes the prospects of a durable and truly verifiable agreement to eliminate the North Korean nuclear and missile threat.”

Wendy Chamberlin, a former career diplomat who is now the president of the Middle East Institute in Washington, warned that by forfeiting American leadership in the one successful multilateral deal in the volatile Middle East, Trump risks making a bad situation worse.

The withdrawal from the agreement comes days before the U.S. moves its Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, another controversial decision that has inflamed anti-American passions. “Trump is pouring gasoline on a Middle East in flames already, with his Iran and Jerusalem decisions,” Bruce Riedel, a former C.I.A., White House, and Pentagon staffer who is now at the Brookings Institution, told me.

Trump’s decision also undermines the transatlantic alliance, crafted after the Second World War, between the United States and Europe. The President defied a determined last-ditch pitch by America’s three most important European allies, made during visits by French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and the British Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson.

Daniel Kurtzer, a former Ambassador to Israel and Egypt now at Princeton University, said Trump has reneged on America’s word and undermined American credibility.

“The United States used to be the leader, the convener, and the engine of international diplomacy. Trump’s actions have turned us into an untrustworthy and erratic diplomatic outlier.”

Re-imposing sanctions on Iran will create the greatest division between Europe and the U.S. since the Iraq War, Mark Fitzpatrick, the executive director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies office in Washington, told me. “Only this time it will be worse, since not a single European state sides with the U.S. on this matter.” Beyond Europe, American credibility worldwide “will go down the tubes,” he said. “Who will ever want to strike a deal with a country that, without cause, pulls out of a deal that everyone else knows has been working well? America will be seen as stupid, arrogant, and bullying. Pity the poor U.S. diplomats who have to explain this illogical decision to their host countries.”

And then–once again–there’s Russia. As several foreign policy experts have pointed out, Trump’s decision benefits Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin.  It strengthens Russia’s hand and diminishes that of the United States. On CNN, Michael McFaul, a former U.S. Ambassador to Russia, was blunt. “We’re playing into Putin’s hand.”

Is that collusion? Or just Trump’s trademark incompetence?

The Know-Nothings–Trump and his base–don’t care. They are incapable of distinguishing between bluster and substance.

Meanwhile, the rest of us are watching an un-self-aware ignoramus lay waste to America’s global influence and good name.

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That Infamous Memo

For years, I’ve seen references to the memorandum written by former Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell, well before he joined the court, to the Education Committee of the national Chamber of Commerce. I was always curious about its contents, (but obviously not curious enough to google or otherwise research it).

Fortunately, Vernon Turner reproduced it in his new book, Why Angels Weep: America and Donald Trump.

It is important to recognize that this memo was written in 1971–when the country was still in the chaos of the tumultuous events we lump together as “the Sixties.” Powell was hardly the only privileged white guy who experienced the events of that era as a wholesale assault on everything America stood for. Nor was he entirely wrong: there were certainly people in the streets at that time who would have cheerfully brought the whole system down. They weren’t into nuance or careful distinctions.

That said, it is fascinating to see the panic in Powell’s analysis and the obvious long-term effects of his recommendations.

Powell is less concerned with the “sources” of what he perceives as a broad scale attack on (an undefined) “free enterprise” than with the fact that elements of society he considers “respectable” seem to agree with many of the criticisms leveled by the “Communists, New Leftists and other revolutionaries.”  He is especially critical of “the campuses”–and seems particularly aggrieved  that institutions receiving tax dollars and support from the business community are harboring people critical of capitalism.

Pardon the aside, but I’m really getting tired of this particular trope. For one thing, it isn’t accurate. It may be true  that faculty in elite institutions tend to be liberal, but most colleges in the U.S. are not Yale, Stanford, Harvard or the University of Chicago. This country has 629 public universities, 1,845 private four-year institutions (a significant number of which are affiliated with conservative religious denominations), and 1070 public and 596 private two-year colleges. They defy uniformity in everything from the quality of instruction to the political orientation of their faculties.

Of course, when respect for science and evidence are enough to make people “liberals,” I guess most educated people must plead guilty…

What really struck me about Powell’s memo, however, wasn’t his somewhat paranoid tone. It was this passage:

“The day is long past when the chief executive officer of a major corporation discharges his responsibility by maintaining a satisfactory growth of profits, with due regard to the corporation’s public and social responsibilities.

Think about that last sentence. Powell’s memo was written at a time when it was accepted that corporations and other business enterprises had “public and social responsibilities.”

Back in “the day,” I served on a number of civic boards with local businesspeople (okay, local businessmen) who considered civic and social participation an integral part of their jobs–who believed that making their communities better places to live was an important aspect of their business responsibility–whether it added anything to the bottom line or not.

To say things have changed would be an understatement.

Later in the memo, Powell laments that “few elements of American society have as little influence on government as the American businessman, the corporation or even the millions of stockholders.” Today, this elicits an out-loud laugh (it probably wasn’t very accurate in 1971, either).

In the years since Powell authored his memo, the world has changed dramatically–and a good deal of that change was triggered by his memo. Today–in the wake of Supreme Court cases (in some of which Powell participated) that laid the groundwork for Citizens United– corporations pretty much dictate government policy. It is workers and consumers who are currently unrepresented in the halls of Congress.

The ancient Greeks were right to seek out the “mean between extremes.” Business interests certainly deserve a place a the policy table. So does labor. So do consumers. When no element of the economic universe has the power to dictate public policy to the detriment of the others–when there is a genuine balance of power and a recognition of the legitimacy of the claims of all elements of our economic system–then, and only then, will markets work.

Lewis Powell was a (somewhat blinkered) product of his time. That time is long gone.

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The Next Generation

Amidst the gloom and doom that is today’s political environment, there are rays of hope.

I often tell people that I would turn the country over to my students in a heartbeat. They are inclusive, community-oriented and passionate about fairness and civic equality. (Granted, they have enrolled in a School of Public and Environmental Affairs, so they are arguably a self-selected group.)

In my graduate law and policy class, I give a take-home final. (This is an effort to make up for a difficult in-class midterm, a demanding group project and a 20-page research paper.) The final consists of three questions; students are to choose one of the three and write an essay addressing it.

Unlike that midterm, there are no right or wrong answers. I’m looking for thoughtful responses–answers that tell me that they have considered the strengths and weaknesses of American governance and have formed defensible policy positions.

Two of the questions on this year’s final elicited particularly interesting responses. Here’s one of them:

It is 2020, and you have been elected President of the United States. You are following an administration that has made significant—even monumental—changes to American public policies. Which of those changes would you accept and follow? Which would you change? (I am not looking for exhaustive lists; choose one or two areas to discuss and justify your decision to accept or reject the current administration’s approach.) For each policy you would retain or reverse, explain why it is or is not supportive of the common good and/or consistent with America’s Constitutional values.

The students who chose this question were uniformly critical of the current administration, and very specific in their critiques. They all faulted Trump on environmental policy. Several pointed out that the “Muslim ban” violated the First Amendment. Economic policy and the tax “reform” bill came in for considerable scorn, as did efforts to destroy the Affordable Care Act and failures to enact meaningful gun control or improve immigration policy.

I was particularly struck by essays from students addressing this question:

Earth has been destroyed in World War III. You and a few thousand others—representing a cross-section of Earth’s races, cultures and religions—are the only survivors. You have escaped to an earthlike planet and are preparing to establish a new society. You want to avoid the errors of the Earth governments that preceded you. What institutional choices do you make and why? Your essay should address:The type/structure of government you would create; the powers it will have; the limits on its powers, and how those limits will be enforced; how government officials will be chosen and policies enacted;the social and political values you intend to privilege, and the reasons for your choices.

When I’ve included a similar question in the past, most students have dutifully constructed a government patterned after that of the U.S. This year, there were more creative efforts, some borrowing from European and Canadian models, others proposing “from scratch” governance concepts. Three or four proposed to outlaw political parties, and all of them suggested mechanisms intended to prevent gridlock. A couple included stringent qualifications for holding public office.

All the responses included universal healthcare and other elements of a robust social safety net–including, in one case, a Universal Basic Income. All of them included mechanisms meant to eliminate or vastly reduce the role of money in politics. All of them provided for a rigorous civic education. All of them emphasized and protected the right to vote  (some made Election Day  a holiday, some allowed vote-by-mail and a couple made voting mandatory. One made vote suppression a felony.) All had laws protecting civil liberties and the environment.

All of them described legal systems protective of civic equality, and most suggested policies promoting respect for diversity.

The proposals weren’t uniformly practical, and there wasn’t a lot of space for details in any event, but virtually all of them showed that the writers had genuinely grappled with the question and considered the essential elements of a just society.

Needless to say, all of them came across as more thoughtful and informed than Donald Trump and his swamp.

If this country manages to survive the current administration, we’ll be in good hands.

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Reconsidering “Cultural Appropriation”

Speaking of tribalism, as I was yesterday….

As the discussions on this blog amply reveal, the United States is currently experiencing wrenching–even existential–social and governance problems. Most of those problems can be seen as a result of the transformation of the GOP from a traditional political party to an extremist organization I’ve likened to a cult, but you will forgive me if I find some of the preoccupations of the left equally “unnuanced” (aka rabid) and unhelpful.

I recently read about a controversy in Utah over–wait for it–a prom dress.

The high-school student in question had posted a photo modeling her choice of a prom dress–a Chinese cheongsam– to social media. A storm of criticism erupted, with accusations of “cultural appropriation.”

Keziah Daum said she won’t give in to pressure and delete an April 22 Twitter post showing her posing with her prom date in the red cheongsam, or qipao.

“To everyone causing so much negativity,” she tweeted. “I mean no disrespect to the Chinese culture. I’m simply showing my appreciation to their culture. I’m not deleting my post because I’ve done nothing but show my love for the culture. It’s a f***ing dress. And it’s beautiful.”

Daum told the Washington Post she found the dress in a vintage store in Salt Lake City and found it “absolutely beautiful” adding it gave her a “sense of appreciation and admiration for other cultures and their beauty.”

The critics of her choice insisted that, not being Chinese, she should not wear a recognizably Chinese dress, that doing so would amount to “cultural appropriation.”

According to Wikipedia, cultural appropriation occurs when a dominant culture adopts elements of a minority culture. It is distinguished from equal cultural exchange when there is the presence of a “colonial element” and an imbalance of power–in other words, when the adoption is for purposes of denigrating or mocking the original culture.

As the Guardian pointed out, in an article about the blowup, donning a Chinese prom dress hardly meets that criterion.

The original complainant’s instinct– to draw a line at a time when Chinese people are under siege from Trump-inspired China-bashers – is understandable, but in this case, completely mistargeted. If anything, the qipao represents power and class, not race, and certainly not the culture of some exploited underclass.

Criticisms of “cultural appropriation” raise some fairly profound issues. Have our politics become so tribal that any “crossover” is viewed as an attack, rather than a sign of appreciation? When is the adoption of an element of minority culture by members of the majority culture a compliment, and when is it an insult? When does such adoption advance intergroup understanding, and under what circumstances does it diminish appreciation of and respect for the “appropriated” culture?

I’m sure the White supremacists (aka Nazi sympathizers) who have become increasingly vocal since Herr Trump’s election disapprove of any adoption of any aspect of minority culture; for them,  it’s “mongrelization.” How is their call for “racial purity” any different from the criticisms that attended this teenager’s choice of a prom dress?

I don’t get it.

What ever happened to the old axiom that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?

And what the hell happened to a sense of proportion?

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