Category Archives: Random Blogging

Fear Itself…

Al Jazeera recently had a thought-provoking interview with a Polish political philosopher I’d never previously come across: Zygmunt Bauman. The subject-matter was the growing civic unrest that is by no means limited to the United States.

In Western Europe it has been a summer of great change and discontent.

The European Union is facing major upheaval as the United Kingdom gets ready to withdraw its membership, in the process possibly jeopardising the composition of the country itself.

In fact, under the surface, people across Europe seem to be on edge. As European nations deal with migration and various economic uncertainties, the political landscape is changing, and a feeling that old social structures are being replaced or challenged is widespread.

It’s the same for the United States, where the race for the White House is anything but ordinary. Political rhetoric this year is tougher and there’s a feeling the country is seriously divided on race and economic prosperity.

What has brought us to this situation? And what are the possible scenarios going forward?

Bauman thinks our problems are the consequence of what he has dubbed “liquid fear,” and what I would call “fear of random and unforeseeable dangers.”

“Liquid fear,” Bauman explains, “means fear flowing on our own court, not staying in one place but diffuse. And the trouble with liquid fear, unlike the concrete specific danger which you know and are familiar with, is that you don’t know where from it will strike.

“We are walking, that’s my favourite metaphor, as if on a minefield. We are aware that the field is full of explosives, but we can’t tell where there will be an explosion and when. There are no solid structures around us all on which we can rely, in which we can invest our hopes and expectations. Even the most powerful governments, very often, cannot deliver on their promise. They don’t have enough power to do so.”

Bauman says we live in a state of “continuous uncertainty, which makes us afraid.” This fear, this uncertainty, increases the desire for security, the appeal of politicians who say “If you give me power, I’ll take responsibility for your future. I can keep you safe.” He also notes that people’s memories of totalitarian governments and their dangers have faded, making “strongman” promises attractive.

Bauman’s minefield metaphor is so powerful because it accurately describes human reaction to unknown and unpredictable danger. We humans are pretty good at coping with the known: a hurricane, an automobile accident, a disease. These threats are comprehensible; there are experts who can predict their occurrence and deal with them if they appear. Terrorism, economic downturns, pandemics–dangers over which individuals have no control–generate more fear precisely because we feel helpless to either predict or avoid them.

So we look for reassurance, for someone who can convince us that he (and let’s be honest, it’s always been a he) can avert tragedy. We may have to suspend disbelief, close our eyes to the inconsistencies and facts that cast doubt on the assurances, but at least someone is telling us what we want to hear. It’s only later that we remember why listening to siren songs is never a good idea.

It’s because of our very human, very predictable reaction to our anxieties that FDR’s admonition was so important: what we should really fear is “fear itself.”

Comments

The War on Elites

Anti-elitism has become a conventional explanation for what is motivating the electorate in 2016 .

Let’s think about that.

An online dictionary defines “elite” as “something prestigious or the best of the best. An example of elite is an Olympic athlete. Another definition is “The group or part of a group selected or regarded as the finest, best, most distinguished, most powerful, etc.”

The use of Olympic athletes as an example is particularly ironic; right now, millions of Americans are glued to televised Olympic competitions, and I’d bet a considerable amount of money that none of them is rooting for our teams to demonstrate less “elitism.”

In fact, I think there are two pervasive–and very different– American attitudes that get lumped–improperly– into the “anti-elitist” category.

Americans are increasingly critical of the misuse of money and power to the detriment of democratic processes that might otherwise ameliorate or solve our social problems. This attitude powered Bernie Sanders’ campaign; it explains the large following that Elizabeth Warren has amassed. It is not anti-elite, however; it is anti-corporatist, anti-oligarchy. It offers a critique of the current power structure that is likely to grow and eventually trigger policy changes that will improve the life prospects for poor and middle-class Americans.

The second attitude that is routinely lumped into the anti-elitist narrative is anti-intellectualism–an attitude that has long been America’s Achilles heel. Suspicion of “pointy-headed” intellectuals has ebbed and flowed through our country’s history; that attitude is responsible for a widespread rejection of science, the arts, and the humanities, among other negative consequences.

An article in Psychology Today addressed Americans’shaky grasp of basic geography, science and history; and the fusion of anti-rationalism with anti-intellectualism.

There has been a long tradition of anti-intellectualism in America, unlike most other Western countries. Richard Hofstadter, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1964 for his book, Anti-Intellectualism In American Life, describes how the vast underlying foundations of anti-elite, anti-reason and anti-science have been infused into America’s political and social fabric. Famous science fiction writer Isaac Asimov once said: “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”…

Journalist Charles Pierce, author of Idiot America, adds another perspective: “The rise of idiot America today represents–for profit mainly, but also and more cynically, for political advantage in the pursuit of power–the breakdown of a consensus that the pursuit of knowledge is a good. It also represents the ascendancy of the notion that the people whom we should trust the least are the people who best know what they are talking about. In the new media age, everybody is an expert.”

When a society elevates anger over understanding, shows contempt for knowledge, dismisses the importance of competence, and prefers entertainment to substantive discussion, we wind up with political candidates like Donald Trump–and a government that no longer functions in the public interest.

Comments

About Those Conspiracy Theories…

Maybe it’s the Internet, and the ubiquity of social media, but it sometimes seems as if we are living in the age of conspiracy theories. Most of these contemporary versions aren’t just new twists on old standbys–aliens landing Roswell, UFO sightings, people who really killed JFK.  In this age of hyper-partisanship, they tend to focus on political figures.

We saw an explosion of wild accusations when we elected our first African-American President. Obama wasn’t “really” American; he was born in a foreign country (Kenya, or for the more geographically-challenged, Hawaii). He wasn’t really Christian, but Muslim (which in their “minds” evidently equates with being a fellow-traveler of some sort). He was going to confiscate all the guns, eliminate the election and seize continuing power…

Usually, the people susceptible to conspiracy theories are those who find the real world baffling or uncongenial or both. I suppose it is bafflement that may explain a recent theory about Donald Trump’s inexplicable campaign for President.

This theory, which has been making the rounds on social media, rejects the premise that Trump’s self-immolation is due to his significant intellectual, moral and emotional deficits. Reasoning that no one could be as un-self-aware and self-destructive as Trump appears to be, they speculate that it is all part of a nefarious Clinton plot: he is really running to ensure Hillary Clinton’s victory in November.

After all, as one person considering this thesis asked, how would his behavior be any different if he were trying to elect her?

The posts I’ve seen point to Trump’s previous statements complimenting Hillary, his prior campaign contributions to her, and–especially suspicious–reports that he actually talked to the Clintons at some gathering a few months before entering the race. Ergo, they put him up to running a campaign so disastrous that even people who strongly dislike Hillary would vote for her.

What seems to distinguish this particular conspiracy theory from, say, the aliens at Roswell, is that it is offered by people who are generally logical. They are desperately trying to make sense of farce. No sane person, they reason, could possibly behave the way Trump has behaved. It’s one thing to fashion an appeal to white supremacists–that may be reprehensible, but it’s comprehensible. It’s another to constantly lie about matters that are easily fact-checked, to insult individuals and constituencies whose support you desperately need, to display a breathtaking ignorance of the world and the rules governing the country you propose to lead.

It must be an act, part of a clever, if convoluted, plot.

I’m sympathetic to the desire to explain the otherwise inexplicable, but let’s face it; this conspiracy is pretty implausible.

Freud famously said that “sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar.” Sometimes, a narcissistic buffoon is just a narcissistic buffoon.

Comments

A Conundrum and a Mea Culpa

A couple of commenters to yesterday’s blog leveled a criticism of my post that I think is valid.

My statement that many of Trump’s supporters are bigots came far too close to the same sort of name-calling that distresses so many of us when Trump engages in it. Although I did say “many” (in an effort to acknowledge that the epithet doesn’t apply to everyone who is supporting him) that statement was both too broad-brush and too dismissive. Flat assertions of that sort do not encourage mutually respectful communication, to put it mildly.

So, mea culpa.

Here’s the conundrum: It has become increasingly obvious that Trump and his most ardent supporters present a “clear and present danger” to American constitutional and social values. As a country, we need to understand the dynamics of this phenomenon, and why a man so manifestly unfit for the Oval Office nevertheless appeals to so many voters.

Survey research suggests that a significant number of Trump supporters are responding to his message of racial grievance and white nationalism–and we can’t afford to ignore that reality. We need to consider what it implies and what to do about it, because even if–even when–Trump loses, those grievances will still be there, waiting to be inflamed by the next demagogue.

We cannot afford to shrug our shoulders and simply hope this ugly moment passes. We need to identify the fault lines and discuss them candidly.

That said, we need to acknowledge–I needed to acknowledge–that some people are supporting Trump because they are loyal Republicans, or because they haven’t followed the election news closely, or because they don’t trust reporting from what Sarah Palin dismisses as the “lame stream media,” or because they’re just “mad as hell and not going to take it [the status quo] any more,” and don’t recognize the likely (disastrous) consequences of electing this particular “disruptor” to the most powerful office on earth.

One of the most troubling aspects of the Trump campaign thus far has been the normalization of nasty, uncivil discourse. It should be possible to conduct even brutally honest analyses of troubling political behavior without sinking into”Trump-like” name-calling.

I intend to be more careful with my own language in the future.

Comments

Telling It Like It Is

One of the more puzzling aspects of this bizarre election has been the insistence of Trump supporters that he “tells it like it is.” Here is a candidate who  lies constantly about matters large and small, and is just as constantly publicly unmasked as a liar. (Think, for example, about his easily checked recent assertion that the NFL sent him a letter about the Presidential debate schedule. The NFL immediately denied doing so.)

Not only are his lies frequent and obvious, he routinely contradicts himself. So what accounts for the refrain that he “tells it like it is”?

I think New York Times columnist Charles Blow implied the answer to that question in a recent op-ed. The entire essay is well worth reading, but here are a few of his observations:

[Trump] appeals to something deeper, something baser: Fear. His whole campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again,” is in fact an inverted admission of loss — lost primacy, lost privilege, lost prestige.

And who feels that they have lost the most? White men.

As the New York Times’ Upshot pointed out in July, “According to our estimates, Mrs. Clinton is doing better among basically every group of voters except for white men without a degree.”

It is overwhelmingly these men who see Trump as a “truth teller”–not because he is making accurate statements of fact, but because he is speaking directly to their sense of displacement and loss. As Blow says,

These are the voters keeping Trump’s candidacy alive.

He appeals to a regressive, patriarchal American whiteness in which white men prospered, in part because racial and ethnic minorities, to say nothing of women as a whole, were undervalued and underpaid, if not excluded altogether….

Trump’s wall is not practical, but it is metaphor. Trump’s Muslim ban is not feasible, but it is metaphor. Trump’s huge deportation plan isn’t workable, but it is metaphor.

There is a portion of the population that feels threatened by unrelenting change — immigration, globalization, terrorism, multiculturalism — and those people want someone to, metaphorically at least, build a wall around their cultural heritage, which they conflate in equal measure with American heritage.

In their minds, whether explicitly or implicitly, America is white, Christian, straight and male-dominated. If you support Trump, you are on some level supporting his bigotry and racism. You don’t get to have a puppy and not pick up the poop.

What Trump supporters hear–what they believe constitutes “telling it like it is”–is that they have been unfairly deprived of the privileged status that straight white men once enjoyed by virtue of being straight white men, whatever their other accomplishments or lack thereof. They hear Trump saying that “those people”–Muslims, Jews, immigrants, blacks– have taken over the country they used to dominate, and  that he will put “those people” (along with those uppity women) back in their former places.

I keep thinking about a snarky Facebook comment someone posted following the conventions, to the effect that “no intelligent person could possibly vote for Trump–so it will be a close election.”

I don’t think Trump voters are stupid; I do think most of them are bigots. (Granted, there’s a good deal of overlap.)

On election day, we will see how many Americans agree with what Trump is really saying–how many of our fellow countrymen are responding to his not-very-veiled message of white nationalism–and that will tell us how far we have to go to make e pluribus unum a reality.

Comments