Tales of the Times

When I settled down this morning with the Sunday New York Times, I couldn’t help but be struck by two totally unrelated stories that seemed–at least to me–to summarize the choice we face as a nation. These stories weren’t momentous public events by any means; they were more like indicator lights on your car’s dashboard.

The first was the front-page coverage of the (non-binding) Iowa straw vote. Michelle Bachmann (anti-gay, anti-immigrant, anti-choice, anti-evolution, anti-environment) came in first, with Ron Paul (“we don’t need no stinkin’ government”) a close second.

The second story was from “Vows,” the Times’ weekly wedding feature. It focused upon a wedding conducted just a few days after same-sex unions became legal in New York. In the large photo accompanying the story, two elderly men in wheelchairs are holding hands; the accompanying text explains that the two had been admitted to the hospital together–one with leukemia and the other with advanced Parkinson’s. “Faced with the prospect of their own mortality and separation after 39 years together, they asked the doctors to postpone Mr. Beaumont’s chemotherapy until–in a last grand gesture–they could get married.” The hospital staff provided white smocks, an Episcopal Priest performed the ceremony, the hospital’s chef baked a cake. Friends sang love songs.  I’ll admit it–the story brought tears to my eyes.

So–here are two vignettes of our  possible futures. We can express our fears and frustrations by flocking to the banner of people who deny complexity, reality and humanity, or we can act on our better natures, recognizing that the human family–just like our own families–is composed of many different kinds of people, all of whom are entitled to respect and affection.

We can live by slogans and ideologies, or we can try to understand the world we occupy. We can reject reality, wrap ourselves in self-righteousness and insist that others live by the rules of our particular gods, or we can admit (to ourselves as well as others) that we don’t have all the answers, that our common life is messy and times are tough, and that the only certainty is that human compassion and kindness will serve us better than denial and intolerance.

Yesterday, in Indianapolis, there was a terrible accident at a State Fair concert. A stage collapsed, pinning the front rows of the crowd under massive girders and equipment. Out of all the coverage, perhaps the most poignant picture was one showing how many of the other people in attendance rushed to help–a picture of dozens of hands trying to lift the debris so that the injured could be rescued. No one stopped to ask the politics, religion, race or sexual orientation of those who were pinned beneath the rubble. No one stopped to ask whether they “deserved” assistance. They were fellow humans who needed help.

What I want is a future and a country that nurtures that instinct.

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Climate and the Culture War

A recent profile of Michelle Bachmann included several past statements in which she explicitly rejects the Enlightenment, which explains a lot.

The Enlightenment (dubbed the “new learning” in the colonies) ushered in a new sensibility, a new way of seeing the world–it substituted empirical observation for biblical “truth,” and thus made science possible. I’ve often thought that what today’s culture warriors really want is to reverse the Enlightenment; if that’s true, it’s ironic, in view of their constant references to the Constitution, because the Constitution was a direct outgrowth of Enlightenment philosophy. (Think John Stuart Mill, Montesquieu, Hobbes, Voltaire, and–above all–John Locke.)

As historians explain the paradigm shift that accompanied the new way of understanding our world, before the Enlightenment, you began with biblical “truth” as that had been interpreted by religious leaders, and education was the process of fitting what you saw into that pre-existing framework. If something didn’t fit, you ignored it. After the Enlightenment, you began by observing your surroundings, and when you had sufficient data, you formulated a theory to explain it. If subsequent observations called elements of that theory into question, you modified the theory. Today, we call that the scientific method. (It is in this scientific sense that evolution is a theory–not in the sense the term is often used in casual conversation–i.e., a guess.)

As Edward McMahon, Senior Fellow at the Urban Institute, has recently written,

“Despite overwhelming scientific consensus and mounting evidence all around us, why are so many elected officials unwilling to accept that climate change is a serious threat that demands immediate attention? One theory is that climate change is now “part and parcel” of America’s “culture wars”. Similar to abortion, gay rights, school prayer and other social issues, climate change has become a partisan political issue.

This might explain why earlier this summer, House Republicans pushed legislation to overturn a 2007 law, signed by President George W. Bush, that would gradually phase out old-fashioned incandescent light bulbs in favor of new energy efficient bulbs. “Having to buy energy efficient bulbs is an affront to personal freedom”, they said; never mind the fact that the average homeowner would save almost $90 a year by switching to the energy saving bulbs, and also never mind that the law, once fully implemented, would eliminate the need for 33 large power plants, according to one estimate.

A Gallup Poll conducted earlier this year found that a majority of Americans support the energy efficiency bulb law and that most Americans have already switched to more energy efficient bulbs. So what else explains why some politicians’ views on climate change are so out of sync with our scientific community — or for that matter, with the rest of the world? A cynic might say that fossil fuel interests, like coal companies, have used the tobacco industry’s playbook: disinformation, high priced lobbyists and their own so-called “experts” to confuse the public and delay action. However a new study published in the Spring 2011 issue of Sociological Quarterly suggests another reason. It finds that “conservatives’ failure to acknowledge the real threat of climate change, has more to do with its implications rather than skepticism of scientific facts.”

Conservatives believe in small government, reduced spending, and a go-it-alone foreign policy. But solving climate change will undoubtly require robust government, increased expenditures, and a great degree of international cooperation. People will go to great lengths to rationalize their deeply held beliefs. Science and logic are a lost cause in the face of ideological rigidity. To accept climate change is to question the wisdom of some people’s core beliefs.”

Questioning and testing the wisdom of our core beliefs was what the Enlightenment was all about. It was what the American Experiment was all about. And at the end of the day, that’s what our culture war is all about. Will we return to a time when the answers are handed down by a deity (and if so, whose?), or will we continue to question, learn and grow?

Through the Looking Glass

Politics in the US continues to take on aspects of unreality, if not mass insanity. The newest evidence is the probable entry of Texas Governor Rick Perry into the GOP Presidential primaries.

As Timothy Egan describes Perry, he wouldn’t seem to be a threat in any rational universe:

“Perry’s tendency to use prayer as public policy demonstrates, in the midst of a truly painful, wide-ranging and potentially catastrophic crisis in the nation’s second most-populous state, how he would govern if he became president.

“I think it’s time for us to just hand it over to God, and say, ‘God: You’re going to have to fix this,’” he said in a speech in May, explaining how some of the nation’s most serious problems could be solved. […]

Perry is supposed to be the savior. When he joins the campaign in the next few days, expect him to show off his boots; they are emblazoned with the slogan dating to the 1835 Texas Revolution: “Come and Take It.”  He once explained the logo this way:  “Come and take it — that’s what it’s all about.” This is not a man one would expect to show humility in prayer.

Perry revels in a muscular brand of ignorance (Rush Limbaugh is a personal hero), one that extends to the ever-fascinating history of the Lone Star State.  Twice in the last two years he’s broached the subject of Texas seceding from the union.”

So one more lunatic joins Michelle Bachmann, Herman Cain, et al. Does it really matter? Can’t we just take this latest candidacy as evidence that Obama will not have trouble being re-elected? Not if James Moore, author of Bush’s Brain, is correct.  He proposes the following, chilling scenario:

“His Saturday speech in South Carolina will make clear that he is entering the race for the White House and will spawn the ugliest and most expensive presidential race in U.S. history, and he will win. A C and D student, who hates to govern, loves to campaign, and barely has a sixth grader’s understanding of economics, will lead our nation into oblivion. […]

After he wins the nomination, protocol will require Perry to have discussions with Bachmann about the vice presidential slot, but he will, eventually, turn to Sarah Palin. The general election will force the Texan back toward the middle and he will stop talking about faith and abortion and gay marriage; Perry will campaign on jobs and the economy.”

Richard Hofstadter wrote two seminal books about the American electorate: Anti-Intellectualism in American Life and The Paranoid Style in American Politics. It was bad enough when paranoia and anti-intellectualism were undercurrents to be dealt with, but in our current fantasy environment, it is sanity that is the undercurrent and wonderland that threatens to overwhelm us.

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Let There Be Spin…

I see that both of our Mayoral candidates are planning to go up with television commercials within the next day or so. We will be inundated with political ads soon enough–not just from Melina Kennedy and Greg Ballard, but also from candidates for the legislature and council.

These ads do provide us with information, although not necessarily the information the candidates intend to provide. You can tell a lot about a candidate by analyzing the messages they are willing to air: how fair are their criticisms of their opponent(s)? How accurate and honest are their presentations of their own accomplishments? Do they have a vision for the City, and if so, how compelling is that vision?

Several years ago, Morton Marcus and I wrote a “he said/she said” series of columns for the IBJ called Letters to the Next Mayor. The candidates back then were Sue Ann Gilroy and a political unknown named Bart Peterson. I dug my first column for that series out of my files, and was bemused to note how much of what I wrote remains relevant.  Here is that column.

“This year, voters in Indianapolis will elect either Sue Ann Gilroy or Bart Peterson to lead our City into the new millenium.

Being Mayor in any year is a demanding job. A good chief executive must fill multiple job descriptions: manager, cheerleader, communicator, visionary. A Mayor, more than any other elected official, gives the community its identity, its sense of itself.

During the upcoming campaign, there will be discussion and debate about a number of  issues. But there is a danger in focussing too intently on the specific administrative tasks at hand, because the next Mayor must be much more than a manager/technocrat. The next Mayor must help us create an inclusive, civil and progressive community with a shared vision of its problems and possibilities.

Over the next months, Morton and I will highlight specific problems our next Mayor will inherit: a troubled police department, beleagured schools, racial tensions, environmental issues, runaway debt levels, and many others. People of good will hold dramatically different positions on these issues. If they are to be resolved, we will need political leadership of the highest order. The ability to provide that leadership must rank as the single most important issue of the campaign.

Indianapolis is part of the phenomenon some call, aptly, the “niching” of America.  Commercial enterprises deal in market segmentation; political institutions respond to special interests; even the daily newspaper prints different editions for different neighborhoods. We have lost sight of a central reality: we are all in this together. What happens in any part of our city affects the rest of us in a multitude of ways, tangible and intangible. When we retreat to our respective neighborhoods, churches, professional associations or social groups, we lose civic synergy. We lose pride of joint enterprise, the sense of belonging to a larger whole. There is a huge difference between a city and an accidental agglomeration of adjacent neighborhoods.

If we are to regain that communal identity and restore that sense of civic pride, the next Mayor must encourage the broadest possible participation in the civic enterprise; it is no longer possible—if it ever was—to administer a municipality from the top down.  Cities that work today are cities whose citizens truly own them, and ownership comes from meaningful involvement in the institutions that shape city life.  The next Mayor must encourage the participation, and value the contributions, of all our citizens.

Politics at its best is the art of building consensus, and that means recognizing the importance of process. How we get there is ultimately more important than where we go, because results achieved without consensus, without civility, without genuine citizen ownership, do not last.  Building consensus ultimately rests on trust. Trust is reciprocal; it is a byproduct of dialogue and collaboration To earn it, the next Mayor must preside over an open and forthcoming administration, recognizing that every question is not a criticism and every criticism is not an attack..

Indianapolis faces challenges, but we also have substantial assets.  We are a fundamentally sound city, with thoughtful and involved civic leadership, a robust nonprofit sector, impressive public institutions, and the fortunate habit—fostered by Unigov—of thinking of ourselves as an urban whole.  Whether we use those assets to rebuild our sense of community or allow our divisions to overwhelm us will depend in large measure on the leadership skills of the next Mayor.”

At the time that was written, Indianapolis was still a city on the move, and the major argument was over the direction of that movement. Today, I would characterize Indianapolis as a city in stasis, struggling to provide even basic services and floundering when it comes to the big issues. We have yet to make substantial improvements in most of the problems I identified 12 years ago (I would argue that we have actually lost ground on several during the past four years).  There has been a palpable absence of vision. Mayor Ballard is a very nice man, but he came into office with absolutely no background in city management, economic development, policing, education or other municipal policies. The question to ask as you look at his campaign ads is: what has he learned? Has he developed the knowledge and skills that would justify giving him another term? Or is he still over his head?

The questions we should ask when we look at Melina Kennedy’s ads are similar. Do they display a coherent vision for the city? A genuine grasp of the issues we face?

Deciding which candidate is most likely to provide the leadership we so desperately need requires that we look beyond the “spin cycle.”

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Rational Self-Interest

We are often told that it is human nature to act primarily in our own self-interest. I tend to think that’s true (although there is an argument to be made about the influence of  culture and socialization), and that efforts to construct altruistic or utopian societies that ignore human nature are doomed to go the way of the USSR.

That said, the old adage only takes us so far. We need to recognize that short and long-term self-interest aren’t necessarily the same; i.e., what policies and social structures are truly in our long-term self-interest? (It may be in my short-term interest to steal your money, but assuming a halfway decent police department, it probably is not in my long-term interest to do so, since a criminal record is rarely an asset.)

It may be that democracy just can’t work, since “long-term” in partisan politics generally means “the next election.” But leaving that particular argument for another day, recent events have reminded me of a conversation with a family member several years ago. This particular individual is wealthy; not only did he inherit quite a lot of money, but he himself has always done well. He has also always been a liberal Democrat and an advocate of a strong social safety net. During that conversation, I said something to him along the lines of “your politics seems contrary to your own self-interest,” and he immediately disagreed.

“Those who have a lot,” he said, “have an interest in keeping it–and security in one’s possessions depends upon the maintenance of a stable, law-abiding society. Stability, in turn, depends upon a general sense in society that everyone has opportunity, that the good fortune of the rich and powerful is a result of their efforts and abilities, and has not been achieved on the backs of the powerless. Resentment and too large a gap between the haves and have-nots more often than not leads to rioting and looting by those who have nothing to lose, and that is definitely not in my interest! Better to pay more taxes and work for a government that is concerned with social justice than to build high walls around my privileged neighborhood and hire personal security guards.”

As we watch the looting in London, as Washington continues to reward the rich with obscene amounts of corporate welfare while cutting services to the middle and working classes, it might be well to think about where self-interest really lies.

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