The Incredible Challenge of Maintaining Focus on the Most Existential Issues

I am reminded again and again of  how challenging it is for us as people to keep our eye focused on what, in truth, we know to be our most existential issues. 

 

We have a habit of “kicking the can down the road” on issues that, mistakenly, seem distant and remote. Or issues that while recognizing their importance,  we see as overwhelming and beyond our ability to resolve or even improve. 

 

I was reminded of this sobering reality the other morning as I read a New York Times article disclosing a recent Sienna poll which revealed that only 1% of U.S. voters regarded the environment as their top priority concern; and even those under the age of 30, the number only increased to 3%.  Like  many others, the commitment to confront the environment  has been diluted by concerns about inflation, crime,  COVID, abortion, gun violence and the revealings of the January 6th Congressional Commission.

 

It has ever been thus.  Our memories are short; our focus inevitably shifts to the short term, the immediate. To call the issues such as those I have cited "distractions" would be a disservice to their importance. But if they take our eye off the continued aggressive pursuit of the most existential issues, the world we all live in is going to be in deep trouble.

 

What are the most important existential issues?  Each of us will have our own views.  Mine include the environment, nuclear proliferation, systemic racism, enabling every child to grow up with the education and health they deserve and having the courage and wisdom to engage in creating win-win relationships  and agreements with countries and individuals with whom we do not agree.  Prominent in the last category today is creating a sustainable, peaceful, geo-political relationship between the U.S./West and China.

 

As we face up to the challenge of maintaining focus and consistent action against the most existential issues, we must at all cost not throw up our hands or engage in unrelenting lamenting.  

 

We need to recognize that the most important existential issues have always required consistent, long-term action by people who believed in change and who were willing to persist and even risk their lives to pursue it.  Take the existential issue of slavery. Abolitionists fought that not for months or years but for decades to eradicate it. They did not give up. Don't forget. In the late 18th Century, slavery was a legal institution in every country of the Americas. 

A century later is was outlawed in very country except Brazil

 

 Yet, even now, despite all the progress, vestiges of slavery remain. Discrimination based on race and color and systemic racism remains. We cannot give up of the fight for racial equality of opportunity. This is why I and my wife and countless others have been committed to the Mission of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center for 25 years.

 

The existential issues of women's rights (including the right to vote), of recognizing the rights of LGBTQ women and men, and of recognizing the dignity of all  people, regardless of  their race, gender, education, social class or religion are all ones on which we have made progress-- thanks to brave leadership and to no small amount of good will. 

 

However, they remain with us. We have much more to do.

 

In truth, most of the existential issues I’ve cited don't lend themselves to a permanent solution.  There won’t be any end to the need to address climate change as best we understand it and learn how to best confront it.  There won’t be a permanent solution to giving everyone the not only the right to vote but easy access to it.  Many issues won’t only not be resolved in our lifetime, they won’t be solved for generations to come.  But we cannot allow that to depress us or dilute our efforts to do better. It doesn’t mean we can’t make significant improvements. People have proved they can. Nor does it relieve us of the obligation to do all we can, in our space, and in our time,  to advance that improvement in whatever way we can. 

 

I keep coming back to the words of the Talmud:  “We are not required to complete the task, but nor are we allowed to desist from pursuing it.” We must continue to do what we believe is right, conscious of the need to keep our minds and hearts open to one another and to new learning. 

 

 

Relationships to Treasure.--Relationship Giving Us a Sense of Being Alive

I am recalling a deeply meaningful, mind-opening, exciting conversation I had with my daughter many years ago. I  will never fail to be lifted by it. We talked about relationships, reciprocal relationships, relationships that mean the most to us, relationships that give us a sense of being alive.

We talked about relationships in which we feel able, indeed are moved to share ourselves, our fondest hopes and dreams, our deepest concerns, without fear of being judged.  Relationships in which we talk about raw ideas still half formed, directions still tentative without concern of embarrassment.

Hopefully, relationships like this exist within a marriage, within a family, certainly with one’s spouse (as it does for me), and with children as they grow up (as they do with me).

Hopefully, too, we form a few relationships like this with people outside our family.  If others are like me, there will be very few.  But no matter who we have them with, we must learn to treasure them for they bring so much with them.

A relationship like this brings so much with it.

It brings a feeling of relief and comfort – to be able to share one’s deepest and genuine thoughts and to know another has enough confidence in you to share them.

It brings a feeling of connection and being valued by another person who we respect.

It brings new insights, both from hearing the deepest feelings and the ideas of another, but also by revealing to ourselves convictions and insights that may not have surfaced before.

A relationship like this rests on mutual respect and trust.  It rests, too, on a degree of mutuality; i.e., there has to be some degree of shared need and shared learning, even if the balance is uneven.

And a relationship like this does something even more.  It gives us a sense of being “alive.”

Many, indeed most of the connections we have with others are formalized, they have their expected roles, and their prescribed boundaries.  And that’s all right.  Life would probably be too chaotic, perhaps even unbearable, if we were revealing our deepest feelings and receiving those of others all over the place.  But how much of life do we lose because we fail to be open and transparent in ways that we may not even understand, and that only conversation and dialogue can reveal?  How much risk are we prepared to take?  How much risk is it appropriate to take, not just for ourselves but for others?

Personally, I am lifted, sometimes even thrilled by the reflection on these types of relationships which I’ve had – relationships within my family, of course, and with those who have come outside it.

I think of those individuals with whom I’ve been able to share my deepest thoughts, stories from the past, hopes for the future, largely (even if not totally) unconstrained by fear of embarrassment or crossing a line that perhaps another person would not want to see crossed.  These relationships have been very productive.  We’ve been able to cut through and get to the essence of issues, share ideas (some of which we know will be good and some not).  Perhaps most of all, truth be told, these relationships have been important to me because they have made me feel connected to another person whom I respect; and who respects me; they made me feel “alive.”

"I Want More Than to Return to 'Life as Normal'"

I originally posted this passionate personal statement from my daughter, Susan, over two years ago. The call out Susan makes here is more urgent than ever. I felt compelled to share it again. 

John Pepper 

"I Want More Than To Return to 'Life as Normal'"—by Susan Pepper

MAY 13, 2020

(This essay by my daughter, Susan, is so meaningful I decided to share it on my blog. It ran on-line in today's Cincinnati's Enquirer)

Two important lessons for me through COVID-19: life is indeed fragile AND we are not powerless to make big sweeping change as a culture – one person and one household at a time. These lessons are changing the way I think about the enormous challenges we face with climate change.

The world has “shut down” in a way many of us have never before experienced. Of course, front-line medical workers and others performing essential jobs have probably never felt so stretched or overworked. And while we have just completed about six weeks of staying at home (I’ve lost track), my mind returns to a problem I’ve thought about, worried about and grieved for over half of my life – the incompatibility of our culture and way of life here in America with the viability of the ecosystem and the natural world that is the root of our very existence.

While the government is trying to prepare to get our economy back up and running, I realize that I don’t want to go back to life as usual. I want something more – something better for humanity and something better for our ecosystem.

I’ve harbored a vision for a long time, and that vision is pretty – to stay grounded in my home and community and develop bonds with the people and spaces around me. I see our current economy as being akin to a bulldozer clear-cutting a forest. When we should be devising new modes of public transportation, highways for cars are widened. When we should be finding new ways to harness the sun’s power and other sustainable innovations, we’ve seen pipelines being dug – and more pollution in the air and groundwater.

I’ve often dismissed the concerns that I felt before I ever heard the words “climate change.” I couldn’t explain the nagging worry I felt around sustainability because it seemed so foreign to the drive for prosperity and seeming invincibility in the culture around me. After all, our leaders constantly remind us that we are America, second to none. And now, this pandemic has reminded me that life is fragile and that we are not invincible. Mostly, I have honestly been afraid to really examine the predictions of scientists around climate change.

As science offers real resources during this crisis, I am asking myself what lessons there might be here for climate change. When scientists in the CDC quietly but visibly communicated on their website in February that the spread of this disease was inevitable, I acted. I began to prepare my mind. I began to prepare our home and stock up our pantry with some essentials to help us get by some weeks without going to the store.

Maybe it’s finally time I have the courage to listen to, understand and act on the alarm bells scientists have been sounding for my entire 42 years of life.

I want to stay home, not for COVID-19 but for other reasons. I want to keep getting to know my neighbors. Getting to know the land and this place where I live – for my sake and for my children’s. I’m so scared to admit it, but that’s exactly what I want us all to do, all the while building a healthier economy, a healthier environment and healthier ways of life than previously known. This will take some doing, of course, but we know “business as usual” will likely result in the undoing of us all, so the first option seems like the more sensible of the two.

I’ve often dismissed my vision – my dream – not thinking it possible. But, now I’ve seen how fast sweeping change can happen (and I’m at home) – so I see that possibilities for collective action for the good (and the bad) are possible.

We have learned through COVID-19 that we are more interconnected than we knew. A breath of air with a lethal pathogen has managed to be shared and passed person-to-person in a matter of months across the globe. If we are so connected with each other, then we must, too, be interconnected to the spaces between us. Our water, our air, our land – it is not “the environment.” It is who I am; it is who we all are.

I pray we find a way to collectively harness our wisdom, creativity and intelligence to do this together in a humane and sustainable way.

Susan Pepper lives near Sylva, North Carolina, with her husband and two children and is a singer/songwriter in the old traditions of the mountains and movie producer. 

The Incredible Challenge of Maintaining Focus on the Most Existential Issues

 THE INCREDIBLE CHALLENGE OF MAINTAINING FOCUS ON THE MOST EXISTENTIAL ISSUES

 

I am reminded again and again of  how challenging it is for us as people to keep our eye focused on what, in truth, we know to be our most existential issues. 

 

We have a habit of “kicking the can down the road” on issues that, mistakenly, seem distant and remote. Or issues that while recognizing their importance,  we see as overwhelming and beyond our ability to resolve or even improve. 

 

I was reminded of this sobering reality the other morning as I read a New York Times article disclosing a recent Sienna poll which revealed that only 1% of U.S. voters regarded the environment as their top priority concern; and even those under the age of 30, the number only increased to 3%.  Like  many others, the commitment to confront the environment  has been diluted by concerns about inflation, crime,  COVID, abortion, gun violence and the revealings of the January 6th Congressional Commission.

 

It has ever been thus.  Our memories are short; our focus inevitably shifts to the short term, the immediate. To call the issues such as those I have cited "distractions" would be a disservice to their importance. But if they take our eye off the continued aggressive pursuit of the most existential issues, the world we all live in is going to be in deep trouble.

 

What are the most important existential issues?  Each of us will have our own views.  Mine include the environment, nuclear proliferation, systemic racism, enabling every child to grow up with the education and health they deserve and having the courage and wisdom to engage in creating win-win relationships  and agreements with countries and individuals with whom we do not agree.  Prominent in the last category today is creating a sustainable, peaceful, geo-political relationship between the U.S./West and China.

 

As we face up to the challenge of maintaining focus and consistent action against the most existential issues, we must at all cost not throw up our hands or engage in unrelenting lamenting.  

We need to recognize that the most important existential issues have always required consistent, long-term action by people who believed in change and who were willing to persist and even risk their lives to pursue it.  Take the existential issue of slavery. Abolitionists fought that not for months or years but for decades to eradicate it. They did not give up. Don't forget. In the late 18th Century, slavery was a legal institution if every country of the Americas. A century later is was outlawed in every country except Brazil

 Yet, even now, despite all the progress, vestiges of slavery remain. Discrimination based on race and color and systemic racism remains. We cannot give up of the fight for racial equality of opportunity. This is why I and my wife and countless others have been committed to the Mission of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center for 25 years.

The existential issues of women's rights (including the right to vote), of recognizing the rights of LGBTQ women and men, and of recognizing the dignity of all  people, regardless of  their race, gender, education, social class or religion are all ones on which we have made progress-- thanks to brave leadership and to no small amount of good will. 

However, they remain with us. We have much more to do.

 

In truth, most of the existential issues I’ve cited don't lend themselves to a permanent solution.  There won’t be any end to the need to address climate change as best we understand it and learn how to best confront it.  There won’t be a permanent solution to giving everyone not only the right to vote but easy access to it.  Many issues won’t only not be resolved in our lifetime, they won’t be solved for generations to come.  But we cannot allow that to depress us or dilute our efforts to do better. It doesn’t mean we can’t make significant improvements. People have proved they can. Nor does it relieve us of the obligation to do all we can, in our space, and in our time,  to advance that improvement in whatever way we can. 

 

I keep coming back to the words of the Talmud:  “We are not required to complete the task, but nor are we allowed to desist from pursuing it.” We must continue to do what we believe is right, conscious of the need to keep our minds and hearts open to one another and to new learning. 

 

Changing Lives. Saving Lives. Making The World a Better Place

Decades ago, I recorded a story whose message I will never forget.  I had lunch with two inspirational young women who, in a period of only two years, took Cincinnati's Taft High School women’s basketball team--which had disintegrated in mid-season the prior year--and turned it into the champion in its league. 

 More than  achieving a winning record, their story conveys the good that caring, determined leader and strong relationships can produce. 

 The names of the two young women are Angela and Rhonda. Both are  graduates of Taft High School which is located in and serves one of the poorest parts of Cincinnati.

 

Angela was one of nine children, four of whom were born out of wedlock.  She respected her mother but acknowledged she had to “work the system.” Her mother was murdered and Angela raised her two youngest siblings.  A  teacher convinced her that she could go to college. She became a coach at Taft. 

Rhonda also went to college after graduation and returned, desiring to give something back to Taft.  She loved athletics and was a good basketball player.  She went to the Athletic Director of Cincinnati Public Schools.  She told him she wanted to bring back the Taft women’s basketball team.  The Director said it was hopeless.  “The girls have changed since you have been at Taft,” he said.  “They’ll never come to practice. They wouldn’t stay with it.” 

 

Rhonda pushed back.  Eventually, the Director said, “OK, give it a try.”  And she did. 

 Now, Rhonda and Angela have the only freshman basketball team in the City of Cincinnati, a JV squad of ten players and a varsity squad also numbering ten.

 

Taft came out first in its league this year.  They lost to its competitor, Withrow, by 30 points in the first game. By the time they came back to play the second game, they won by 3 points.

 

As Rhonda and Angela say, they don't do this so much to win as to give these girls a life. 

 

It wasn’t easy at first when Angela and Rhonda went through the lunchroom spotting young ladies who they thought should be on the team.  The girls tended to “blow them off. "They said they would come but then not show up".   The sequence was repeated.  Finally, the young ladies saw that Rhonda and Angela meant business.  They weren’t about to give up.  It was the same thing if they were late for practice.  “If you’re late, you’re going to do a lot of running drills.”  The girls started to arrive on time.  To me, it sounded like the Marines.

  

For Rhonda and Angela, it was all about “giving back."  In their words, “We want to be able to look back years from now and see how we may have been able to prevent a teenage pregnancy or help a girl go on to college.” 

 

These life histories bring forth the reality that everything is about relationships.  High expectations, high standards, hope, a sense of possibility, powered by persistence.  People like Rhonda and Angela make the world a better place.  Never have we needed more people like Rhonda and Angela than we do today. 

 

 

  

 

Revisiting the Debate About "Originialism"

I revisit this debate on the validity of what is described as "Originalism" I wrote about almost four years ago in light of the recent carelessly drawn Supreme Court Decisions on abortion, administrative agency authority, and guns.

 

A Perspective on the Debate about "Originalism"

SEPTEMBER 22, 2018

COMPARING THE U.S. CONSTITUTION (1788) TO THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION (1781) – THE PERSPECTIVE IT OFFERS ON THE DEBATE ABOUT “ORIGINALISM”

We are reading a lot of discussion, triggered by the nomination of Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, about the merits of “originalism”—that is, a doctrine which calls for rulings based on the literal reading of the Constitution and the best understanding of what the Framers meant by that reading.

Walter Williams’ column of 9/16/18 raises a fundamental question, as it cites two different sections of the Constitution which can lead to different conclusions on which responsibilities should be assumed by the Federal Government and which by the States.

The first cites James Madison and Federalist Paper 45:  “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government are few and defined” (dealing with external objects, such as war, peace, negotiation and foreign commerce), “the powers (delegated) to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties and properties of the people.”

The other section comes from the Constitution’s Article 1, Section 8 with the phrase calling for the Federal Government to “provide for the common Defense and General Welfare of the United States.”  

The question?  What constitutes General Welfare?

Williams notes that in 1817, Thomas Jefferson wrote “Congress had unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but were restrained to those specifically innumerated.”

Since then there have, of course, been Constitutional Amendments (e.g., securing the vote for all; banning slavery) which resulted in the Federal Government’s assuming roles previously conferred to the states with inhumane consequences.

In addition to the Amendments, there has been legislation (often controversial) which has seen the Federal Government undertake programs for the general welfarenot specifically innumerated in the Constitution (e.g., Social Security, workers’ safety).

I don’t believe it would have been at all surprising to the Framers to see that learning experience have led to the adoption of Amendments and Federal legislation, conferring Federal authority on issues previously in the province of the states because they bear vitally on the general welfare.  

Why do I say they wouldn’t be surprised?  Importantly, they were vividly aware of the number of significant changes that had needed to be made in the Articles of Confederation in the seven short years between their adoption and the adoption of a new set of standards in our Constitution.

Here are just a few examples of the changes that occurred in that seven-year period.

1.    Establishment of new states.  Articles:  required agreement of nine states.  The Constitution required agreement of Congress.

2.    Congressional pay.  Articles:  paid by the states:  Constitution: paid by the federal government.

3.    Appointment of Members.  Articles:  all appointed by state legislatures, in the manner each legislature directed. Constitution: representatives elected by popular votes in the states, senators appointed by state legislators.

4.    Executive. Articles:  none.  Constitution:  president.

5.    Amendments to the Constitution.  Articles:  when agreed upon by all states.  Constitution: when agreed upon by ¾ of all states.

6.    Navy. Articles:  Congress authorized to build a navy; states authorized to equip war ships to counter piracy.  Constitution:  Congress authorized to build a Navy; states not allowed to keep ships of war.

7.    Power to mint money.  Articles: United States and the states. Constitution:  United States only.

My purpose in citing these differences is not to suggest that the Constitution isn’t the foundation document which must be greatly respected.  It is to suggest that recognizing that in seven short years the founders had changed their minds on what constituted the correct role between the states and the federal government, it should not be surprising that over the course of the following 230 years, there would be changes in what constitutes the proper role of federal and state governments to achieve a condition of general welfarefor the citizens of the United States that is most desirable.

It can be (and will be) argued that such changes should be embodied in amendments as they have in many cases. However, it is also appropriate that such changes be embodied in legislation.  The Supreme Court has the responsibility to review the correctness of this legislation in light of the Constitution but it should bear in mind that—just as was the case between the Articles of Confederation and the U.S. Constitution—we should be open, based on experience, where responsibility should be allocated between the federal government and state government. 

“Originalism,” if taken to the point that we can only do what Thomas Jefferson would have viewed as correct in 1817, would be a position that I feel certain Thomas Jefferson would have declared to be wrong.

Let me emphasize that I hew strongly to what would be described as a “conservative” (I’d prefer “liberal”) position on the importance of honoring State’s rights.  I do so for two reasons.  First, because states do differ in their history, experience and needs of their citizens.  Second, and in some ways more important, states have and can serve as laboratoriesfor new learning on how to resolve and best deliver services needed to advance the welfare of the nation’s citizens. To take only one example—allied closely to my own interests—it has been the experience of different states in advancing early childhood development and pre-school education that has shown not only their value but the best ways of achieving that value.

As other examples, while I believe access to affordable, quality health care is a right that should be available to all citizens (without good health, what chance does anyone have to achieve a fulfilling life?), I agree that giving states latitude in how to best achieve that objective makes great sense because we have much more to learn.  Interestingly (and rather ironically) on health care, it was the initiative of Republican Mitt Romney as Governor of Massachusetts which produced a template which was largely adopted by President Obama with the Affordable Care Act. (This, despite the fact that it has been vigorously attacked by Republicans.)

I believe the decision as to how much latitude states should have in enacting a federally mandated right will forever be a matter for legislative and judicial dispute.  Take voting.  The right of every person to vote is now constitutionally mandated through the 15 ^thand 19^thAmendments.  However, states still have significant latitude in how the right to vote is administered and enforced.  Some “methods of administration” amount to clear-cut “suppression”; for example, literacy tests, which are now banned.  Others are more subtle such as restricting the number of polling places or the days and hours of pre-election day voting.  They will undoubtedly be the subject of continued adjudication.  The guiding rule should be to take every reasonable step to allow every citizen to exercise his or her right to vote.

Chief Justice John Roberts Had It Right! If Only He Could Have Secured a Fifth Vote

  

Any prospect that the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision on Roe will remove the debate on abortion from the judiciary and courts will quickly go up in flames.  The legal suits are emerging as I write this on such pregnant issues as, can pills/medication inducing abortion be mailed to or taken in states banning abortion?; who is accountable for an abortion in a state banning it when a women decides to use medication to induce an abortion?; what takes precedence:  the FDA’s approval of a medication (which now exits) or a state’s outlawing an abortion that could be induced by such medication? What about local DA's who refuse to enforce bans in states banning abortion? What about a clinic located in a state authorizing abortion promoting its availability in that state to women in a state not permitting abortion? 

 

These and many other legal issues are already boiling to the surface.  They are going to be the subject for appeals, suits and judicial proceedings galore.

 

There really is no intellectual basis in my opinion for failing to establish a national standard defining what constitutes a legally permitted abortion.  Deciding the case before the Supreme Court as it was originally launched by Mississippi was the correct course.  This is what Chief Justice John Roberts advocated.  It would have substituted the hard-to-define parameter of viability (the basis for Roe) with a 15-week permissible threshold.  It is true, as Justice Alito asserted in his opinion, that doing this would result in continued litigation, with some states arguing that the limitation on abortion should be tighter, i.e., fewer weeks.  But the Court shouldn’t have flinched from that reality.  What it has brought on the country through its ruling will result in far more chaos and litigation than we even had before--not to mention the risk, uncertainty and harm brought to countless women's lives. 

 

Think of it this way.  What if we still had in this country the condition that existed before the Supreme Court provided a national ruling on the right for individuals of the same sex or of different races to be married?  We know what it would look like.  People would still be going from state-to-state to achieve the condition of living which they desired and were entitled to.  So it will be now with abortion, magnified because of the ability to easily secure abortion-inducing medication through the mail, across state lines.

 

It’s only a question of time before this issue will be back before the Supreme Court facing the need for the decision which the Court failed to make this time around, i.e., establishing a national standard.

 

Chief Justice Roberts had it right.  He worked for months to secure the fifth vote he needed to achieve the ruling which the State of Mississippi originally wanted.  Only later, as they saw an

opening produced by Trump's court appointments, did Mississippi  change its plea to call for the total elimination of Roe. That perversely is what the Court has decided. It will not stand.