Three Articles I Read Yesterday and How They are Connected

As often happens, I went down a rabbit hole the past day. Bari Weiss is a journalist who writes online and edits Common Sense which is part of Substack. She gave a speech at the new University of Austin which she then published. While it’s a plug for this new, non-conformist university, she writes about cancel culture and gives examples. She resigned from The NY Times a year ago or so for getting crosswise with younger colleagues and is a poster child for being cancelled not for being mean or lying or a crime but for disagreeing intellectually. The New Founders America Needs   What I get out of this is the extent of cancel culture present in elite academia and those who are products of the environment. Since I am not part of academia nor a product of an Ivy League school, I found it instructional. One thing I will say is that maybe the reason much of America rejects the Progressive and Democratic agenda is because of the assumptions that group makes that can result in cancel culture. A reasoning/values/tone that just don’t sit well with middle America. In fact, resulting in them saying, “What are they thinking?” and then ignoring their gobbledygook. 

Now onto the next thing. I follow Ms. Weiss on Twitter and she retweeted the announcement of an upcoming book release by William Deresiewicz, Googling him, I find he’s a former English teacher at Yale who became disenchanted with the way education is offered at that type of university. He left academia in 2008 to write full time. In 2014 he wrote a book, Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life. So, now I understood why Bari Weiss follows him.  Oh, by the way, he lives in Portland, Oregon now. I read the following article from The Atlantic The Death of the Artist and the Birth of the Creative Entrepreneur  It is not a radical idea that he is proposing at all but is more a survey of the artist and how the role has changed in history.  It helped me make some sense of this profession in the 21st century. 

The last thing I read yesterday was the news that Apple and its long-time head of design, Jony Ive, were parting ways for good.  He and his team basically did all the design work at Apple since Steve Jobs came back to lead the company to dominance including the iMac, Power Mac, iPod, iPhone, iPad, MacBook and the Apple watch.  He left in 2019 to form his own design firm with Marc Newson but they kept doing work for Apple.  I didn’t know anything about Marc Newson but I learned that he’s a really big deal, too, and has designed all sorts of thins from chairs to airline cabins to bikes to appliances.  I found this online Interview with Jony Ive and Marc Newson where the two of them are talking about Newson’s workshop and their mutual love of tools and their concern that a lot of these skills will not be passed on to future generations.  This brought me back to the essay above which has the theme that artists are makers.  Obviously, Jony Ive and Marc Newson are makers and artists, as well.  And, pretty good ones at that.

Network of Mutuality

We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

Martin Luther King, Jr. from Letter from a Birmingham Jail,  4/16/63

Nobody's right if everybody's wrong

There's battle lines bing drawn and nobody's right if everybody's wrong.

Paranoia strikes deep.

Into your life it will creep.

It starts when you're always afraid.

Step out of line, the man come and takes you away.

     Stephen Stills  From What It's Worth

Cover by Billy Porter with Stephen Stills

Look out for each other. You don't have to be right.

Bill Maher was Right: Trump was never going to go of his own accord

 

If you recall my post on this blog from Oct 13, I referred to Bill Maher's often repeated statements over the course of the Trump presidency that he would never leave voluntarily.  Bill was right.  The ongoing drama of the past 3 months since the election proves this true.  After the tragedy of last week's riot and deaths in the Capitol, the Constitution has worked though creaky and even Republicans congressmen and senators are starting to abandon him. His staff are vacating the west wing of the White House. No one tries to defend him not even his press secretary.  

What did we learn from this?

• The people who work on actually administering elections at the local and state level do a great job. They are diligent, work very long tedious hours and persevere through harassment at a local level (examples in Detroit and Philadelphia) and even hold up at the state level as we saw in Georgia after the President pressured and threatened the governor and the secretary of state who are fellow Republicans.
• The courts work. In lawsuit after lawsuit challenging the election results, the state and federal courts did their duty. It didn't matter if they were Republican judges or even judges appointed by Trump himself. They followed the process and the law.
• The Congress did its duty as a whole. A majority of legislators followed the Constitution.  
• Of course, we had some standouts who were craven opportunists, Cruz and Hawley stand out. But, they are just trying to appeal to the Trump base in hopes for running in 2024.
• We learned that there are a large amount of people who supported Trump. They are populists and believers in conspiracy theories. They don't know history and our laws and government. They are aggrieved and believe in a demagogue. We learned they can be violent and when in a mob, lose their minds 
• Trump is a failed man and a disaster as President. Now that Twitter has abandoned him, he is the bully who has been defanged and is fading from the public consciousness.

Conspiracies

I've thought about conspiracies a great deal. I know people from my hometown who were friends, graduated from college, and hold responsible positions in their communities. I cannot explain the belief in lies. I think that regarding conspiracies, many people including me have considered their possibility. I first became aware when I was a teenager and read the novel Captains and the Kings by Taylor Caldwell. In the novel an Irish immigrant builds a fortune and becomes part of a group of wealthy industrialists and financiers who control affairs of the country.  This particular story has the protagonist trying to make his son President of the US which was so similar to the story of the Kennedys and the plotting of Joseph Kennedy for his sons. Then there is the current television series the Blacklist on NBC featuring shadowy and powerful figures running the Cabal which controls the governments of the great powers. 

Perhaps it comes from the realization we all have at some point that we don't understand what is going on in the world and how things come about. I think we realize there are people who are probably smarter that we are, people who have more money, and people who have better connections.  All this is true.  Yes, people who know each other and who have resources do have opportunities most people don't have. Yes, we are aware of the power of cliques starting in junior high school. Yes, monopolists like to keep their secrets, pricing arrangements and control intact. When you are disadvantaged or even manipulated by the system, you resent that system and justifiably so. You look for explanations but some stories are just that, stories.

This is why we need to stop bullying in junior high school, offer opportunities to the disadvantaged, bring minorities into the mainstream, and go for diversity. We need to have antitrust laws and regulators. We need fair taxes and tax enforcement. We need to stop cheaters. Truly, everyone needs a fair shake. We need to trust the government and I think we can trust that the government ran fair elections based on my first two points at the beginning of this post. 

 I don't believe the Democratic party with all its divisions and inability to craft a good marketing message is capable of election fraud. Those yahoos cannot conspire to save their political lives; what makes anyone think they could pull off massive voter fraud in a voting system that is totally decentralized and not leave any evidence. No conspiracy, period.

Electoral College Reality

My sister Jean's birthday is December 14 which happens to be the same day the Electoral College's electors cast their votes for the President in 2020. FYI, I checked to see how many of her birthdays were concurrent with the Electoral College voting day and this is the third (1964, 1992 and 2020). The term I read is that the date of the Electoral College is usually a civics class afterthought. My sister never thought of December 14 as an afterthought I am sure. And, this year it certainly was not overlooked. In fact, it had some drama leading up to it with all the falsehoods about election fraud and spurious lawsuits. Thankfully, the judicial branch of government demonstrated some integrity and dismissed these fallacies of logic into the trash where they belong. Really, I think if a prospective law student wrote one of these briefs, they would never get an interview to law school. But, in the end the people who actually administer elections did their jobs and the the Electoral College had no drama whatsoever.

January 11, 1987  Cleveland Municipal Stadium

Perhaps things can start getting back to normal. And, the results of the Cleveland Browns football game last night make me think the universe is starting to get back in sync. You see, I am a Cleveland Browns fan and last night's last minute loss to Baltimore brought back that awful feeling I have had on similar Brown's losses, feelings of anger, betrayal, and then a deep despair that the world is not fair. The Browns have never been to a Super Bowl and they tend to lose heartbreaking games. For example, the 1986 AFC Championship loss to Denver culminated in "The Drive" was similar to last night's 4th quarter loss.  When you are a child you have fantasies of greatness realized vicariously through heroes. Of course, for most of us those visions do not get realized and we eventually become aware that such desperate hopes should not be wasted on a fantasy. So, last night made me painfully aware again of this lesson of adulthood. 

Similarly, the current occupant of the White house has had his childish fantasies squashed and he is having a difficult time. However, I doubt if he can ever let it go because he never has had the self-insight of why reality has not met his expectation. Undoubtedly, many of his diehard followers are feeling despair but hopefully most will move on and realize that their hero is just a failed man. They should quit hoping that their lives can be fixed by a man-child who has not realized his flaws or his fantasies. 

Whew! How's the Water?

 I am grateful that the US Presidential election turned out the way it did.  Nina and I were seriously disturbed by the Trump administration; we've been quite stressed, not sleeping well, and having fantasies of revolution and violence.  I know we're not alone. I am relieved but wish the Biden victory would have been greater, more decisive, in order to show Trump and his minions how much they were disliked.  However, over 71 million people, 47.7% of the voters, chose him. For the past four years I've attributed the 2016 election result of people voting for Trump to a significant group that didn't like Hillary and didn't understand how unqualified Trump was to be President. I assumed that many of those 2016 voters would now see the light. Joe Biden is likable by about everyone; he fits the stereotypical model of the older white male with a qualified resume; and Trump was now a known entity.  I was wrong and I really don't know why I am wrong.  Me and over 75 million other voters don't understand the 71 million Trump supporters and I bet they don't understand me.

David Foster Wallace gave a commencement speech at Kenyon College in 2005 that turned into a small book called This is Water. I'd read it a number of years ago and it came to mind when pondering these two bubbles of American citizens who don't understand each other at all. He uses some cryptic stories that illustrate our problem. He offers some explanations about individual's templates and beliefs. He posits that some of a person's world view comes because we're hardwired but that people are also "arrogant and certain of their own interpretations... Blind certainty, a close-mindedness that amounts to an imprisonment so total that the prisoner doesn't even know he's locked up." You can find the speech on YouTube or the whole transcription at  This is Water

David Foster Wallace goes on to say that we have control over how we think about things. "It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed." I think many of the people in both groups of voters in this election are caught up in their own world views, hardwiring based on how and where you were raised and the experiences we've had.  And, indeed you should admit to yourself that arrogance is a factor in your choices of what you choose to think about and believe.  

Dave Chappelle was on SNL last night and had a great monologue with some hard truths and advice. We have to recognize that both groups have had terrible feelings of anguish. Chappelle suggests we have to, "Find a way to live your life. Find a way to forgive each other. Find a way to find joy in your existence in spite of that feeling."  

Amen

We Are All in This Together

Whether we want to be or not

All humanity is one community and we all have one global sickness. We are all contagious and always have been, unconsciously infecting one another and yet caring for one another. There is really no division. Sometimes we need to be cared for and other times we do the caring. We must learn to stand in these two different places and then change places as life happens.

 

There are no perfect answers or absolute heroes. We must all wear a mask to protect the other from "me". Don't play the victim; it's a waste of time, yours and everyone else's. Just realize you and everyone else are in the circle of life. We will all have our time to suffer, to serve and to hopefully be, albeit slowly, enlightened.

Paraphrased from the letter Richard Rohr sent today.