Creating an Empowering Narrative for Our Natipn

 The Great Disorder:  National Myth and the Battle for America, by Richard Slotkin 

 

This is an important book that builds on beliefs of mine and have held for decades.

 

I have long called and hoped for a new narrative that can unite our nation as it has only rarely been united, usually in times of crisis.  Slotkin’s book shows what we know:  Our personal lives and our understanding of our nation’s life is built around narratives.  Just as we as individual will tell each other only parts of our stories, so also do we tell those parts of our national stories that seem most relevant, compelling, useful, or consoling, at the same time.  Most people do not particularly care about the “whole story” but, rather, those parts of the story that relate to our current culture and what we need to remember now. 

 

This, while clearly not all inclusive, is also not intentionally deceiving.  We hope other people will respond affirmatively to “our vision” and story about the United States.  Equally important, we hope to inspire each other and our children with “our story” to give them hope for the future.

 

To have a well-functioning democracy, we need to have “our story” one that while never uniting all people, we unite a majority of people.

 

It is competing “myths” that explain much of the culture wars of our time.

 

Slotkin’s book makes it clear that our national culture and belief in ourselves has been founded on a variety of myths:  “the frontier,” “the Civil War as a just war for liberation of Black peoples” or, conversely, as the “lost cause.”  There is a “cowboy/gunfighter” myth that took its form importantly in westerns. 

 

Again, whether there are some who try to manipulate these myths in order to sew discord in events for their own political, social and economic goals, most of us find ourselves caught up in competing myths about ourselves that combine elements of hard truth and historical facts with wishful thinking or wishful dis-remembering. 

 

Slotkin’s book reminds me of the power and the variety of myth.  Of course, they apply to other countries:  the founding of Israel; the plight of Palestinians.  Putin’s view of the history of Ukraine is a lot different than the Ukrainians. 

 

Slotkin makes it clear that the MAGA movement is based on a combination of at least the “frontier myths” and the “lost cause myth” which focuses on grievance and little justice to the minority.

 

The importance of those myths in the MAGA movement could not be clearer.

 

The bigger challenge is how do we frame a line of thinking, vision, “myth,” if you will, that would the majority of people behind an agenda that both recognizes the thoughts of the nation and its strengths and which points to a brighter future.  I have always returned to the Declaration of Independence, which is its own myth in a way.  A call for equality of opportunity, recognition of the dignity of every single person, and the rule of law.

 

We need a narrative that faces up to the ugliness of our past (slavery, treatment of the indigenous people, sequestering the Japanese, “not so good” wars, but also the aspiration and the good which American people have done across the world.

 

I think a narrative along these lines can be put together credibly and with powerful resonance.  It will point to a better future. 

 

I happen to be reading a book right now on a totally different subject, while it is not totally different.  It is written by Father Nouwen.  The title:  Life of the Beloved.  My reading this followed the reading of the new biography of John Lewis by Raymond Arsenault.  In it, Arsenault develops clear and passionately Lewis’s pursuit of the beloved community.

 

I believe we can formulate and should try to, and follow, a narrative, a myth, that would see us at our best:  recognizing truth as best we know it, the good and the bad, while seeking to meet our highest ideals, as framed in the Declaration of Independence and other documents.  It might be titled “The Reformation of America” or, perhaps, something more sexy than that. 

 

I believe there would be substantial appeal in this if it were well-packaged. But the key will be to have it well led.  It requires a spokesperson with great credibility, charisma and personal power.  Without that, I do not believe it will happen. 

 

I believe the moment for such a revised “myth” or narrative is ripe.  There is so much disarray, so much polarization, so much meanness and cruelty in the world, a majority of people, I am convinced, are looking for something better, real, that can bring us together. 

 

I would love to see some legitimate approaches taken in framing such a narrative.  I may circulate this to a few people with the hope they will be able to bring their imaginations and insights to this.

 

As Slotkin says at the end of his book, “the making of national myths has proved to be essential to the creation of nation states to the maintenance of that sense of historically continuous community that allows them to function.  The danger of mythological thinking is that it attempts to reify our nostalgia for a falsely idealized past, and to sacrifice our future to that illusion.  But we are not bound to live in a fixed scenario bequeathed to us by tradition.”

 

No, we can create a new myth and new narrative.

Turning Our Backs on Hate and Cruelty

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  Turning our back on hate and cruelty.

   

  Sunday night’s hours long Trump rally in Madison Square Garden really should be described as a “rally of hate.”  Hate for immigrants, hate for Democrats, hate for everyone not beholden to Trump’s message. 

   

  I have felt for a long time that, in the end, the majority of the American public will turn its back on Trump’s hate and cruelty.  I turned this morning to the close of one of my favorite books of all time, Jon Meacham’s The Soul of America:  The Battle for our Better Angels.  In the conclusion, tagged by Meacham as “keep history in mind,” he takes us back to Joe McCarthy and words that Richard Rovere wrote in 1959, five years after McCarthy’s fall.  He was reflecting on the meaning of McCarthy:  “I cannot easily conceive of circumstances in which McCarthy, either faulted as he was or freed of his displayed disabling weaknesses, could have become President of the United States or could have seized the reins of power on any terms.  To visualize him in the White House, one has I think to imagine a radical change in the national character and will and taste.”  There was, though, no guarantee against such a radical  change, ,Rovere observed. “But if I am right in thinking we had been, by and large lucky “there is no assurance that our luck will hold.” 

  
  

  
  

  And it didn’t.

   

  Meacham writes that the past and the present tell us that demagogues can only thrive when a substantial portion of the people want them to.

  
  

  
  

  In the American commonwealth, James Bryce warned of the dangers of a renegade president.  Quoting Meacham, “Bryce’s view is not that the individual himself, from the White House, could overthrow the Constitution.  Disaster would come, Bryce believed, at the hands of a demagogic president with an enthusiastic public base.  “A bold president who knew himself to be supported by a majority in the country might be tempted to override the law, and the private minority of the population which the law affords,” Bryce wrote.  “He might be a tyrant, not against the masses, but with the masses.” 

  
  

  
  

  Again, Meacham:  “The cheery news is that hope is not lost.

  
  

  
  

  “ The people have often made mistakes,” Harry Truman said, “but given time and the facts, they will make the correction.”

   

  I hope and I believe now is the time when  the people have had enough of the facts that they will make the correction by rejecting the hate and venom embodied in this man, Donald J. Trump. 

   

  I embrace the paragraph with which Meacham concludes this great book:  “For all of our darker impulses, for all of our shortcomings, and for all of the dreams denied and deferred, the experiment begun so long ago, carried out so imperfectly, is worth the fight.  There is in fact no struggle more important, and none nobler, than the one we wage in the service of those better angels who, however, besieged, are always ready for battle.”

   

  As Kamala Harris is saying in her closing words to the American people:  “We will go forward; we will not turn back; we will win.”

  
  

  
  

  May we make it so. 

   

   

 

"How Can It Be"

 How

Walter Russell Meade on Hamiltonian State Craft

Walter Russell Mead has written an excellent essay in the most recent Foreign Affairs.  Its title:  " Return of Hamiltonian State Craft:  A Grand Strategy for a Turbulent World". 

 

This essay challenges some of my most fundamental ideas, particularly the drive for global governance.  Walter Russell Mead feels this is an illusory dream, other than limited governance agreements on specific issues that the participating nations see in their own self-interest.  

 

Hamiltonian State Craft rests on three beliefs according to Mead:

 

1.     The first business of government is to ensure the conditions that allow private business to flourish.  A solid currency, a stable financial system and deep capital markets, together with the rule of law, are key parts of the infrastructure that sustains American life. 

 

2.     The second big Hamiltonian idea is the critical role of the nation in national feeling.  Americans must embrace a duty of care toward one another.  Nationalism or patriotism is a moral necessity, not a moral failing.  Americans are not just citizens of the world, but also citizens of the American republic.  I believe my service in the Navy has built a deep commitment to this idea.  I also agree that we have obligations to our fellow citizens that do not extend in the same way to all of humankind.

 

Patriotism lends American business a legitimacy without which its future is insecure.  Companies like Procter & Gamble can certainly view themselves as a global company but it would be a mistake not to understand a commitment to our nation as a preeminent goal. 

 

3.     The third idea Mead draws from Hamilton’s legacy is the concept of realism in foreign policy.  Here, Mead gets to the nub of the matter.  Hamilton “did not believe that humanity was naturally good or naturally disposed to settle down in democratic and egalitarian societies, all harmoniously at peace with one another.  Short of divine intervention he did not expect the arrival of a perfectly just society, a perfectly honest government or a perfectly (constructed) national order".  Hamilton believed that people were naturally flawed.  They were “selfish, greedy, jealous, petty, vindictive and sometimes extraordinarily brutal and cruel.  Elites were arrogant and grasping; mobs were ignorant and emotional.”

 

All true, all this will be always true.  But it does not negate the need for imagination and discipline to change the order of things, even if we know it won’t be perfect.  How otherwise could the Common Market have come together?  How otherwise could we finally come to recognize the legitimacy and rightness of marriage between two races?

 

My saying this is in line with what Mead ascribes to Hamilton.  He “was not a determinist.”  He didn’t think there were any social science laws that governed everything. 

 

He believes that Hamiltonian policymakers can act ruthlessly in support of national interest and, at the same time, be models of enlightened state craft in bringing together the world on issues where the world must work together like nuclear proliferation and climate change.

 

 

There is great wisdom in what Mead writes.  My one caution, my one warning, is that this “ultimately realistic view of the world and people” not constrain us from trying to do what more we can in our own way whether that’s in our family, community, nation or world, to provide circumstances that not only ensure the safety and prosperity of the American people but also the people of the world, knowing that to the extent we can do it, it will be limited and knowing we will be advancing our own national cause as well.

  

Donald Trump--Unfit to be Our President

 I write this reluctantly, but with conviction and love for our country.

Donald Trump is UNFIIT for our Presidency. I judged that true 8 years ago. Now it is proven true. 

Proven lack of character. Lies non-stop. Utterly lacking in integrity.

Proven gross cruelty. To opponents, to friends, to everyone. We have had "mean" presidents before. Never one cruel like Trump. Utterly devoid of kindness. 

Declared "unfit"by 44 of 49 people who worked for him.

Increasingly losing it. Rambling, forgetful. I understand. I am old too. 

We cannot allow him to be our President.

We Are On A Slippery Slope to a Bigger and Bigger War

 

Wed, Oct 2 at 3:31 AM

We are on a slippery and dangerous slope in the Middle East. Iran launches an attack against Israel in response to the Israeli attack on Hezbollah. Israel promises a strong response to Iran’s  attack. We have been on a slippery slope for years and the speed of our descent is accelerating. 

There are many roots that brought us to where we are. But the fundamental and most proximate one I believe is Israel’s enduring apartheid subjugation of the Palestinians and the inability and unwillingness  of the Arab world and Israel and  world leaders to put their minds to achieve lasting peace, which, of course can only occur by granting self-determination and safety to both Israel and Palestine. Even to this moment, Netanyahu and his cabinet  are refusing to recognize and support the path to a two states solution.

The United States has lost any semblance of leverage to cure the situation.

In my opinion, a collection of world leaders from Israel, Palestine, the Arab world, the United States, and Europe , India, and ideally, China need to come together to demand and help fashion a road to peace. Even if not permanent, we need to put a solution in place that will stop the risk of this escalating to a  major war involving Iran, Israel, and the west. I fear we are on a potential path to that now. And the use of some form of nuclear weapons dare not be excluded.

"The Plague of the Other"

 

“The Plague of the Other”

 

 Ecstatic Nation by Brenda Wineapple is one of the finest histories I have ever read.  Numerous passages in this fine book bring to life “the plague of the other” which is at the root of so much evil and such an embedded part, sadly, of human nature.  It is a demonstration of that all-too-present human tendency to elevate ourselves by comparing ourselves invidiously with “another” different from us, perhaps even threatening us, with whom we compare ourselves, ever so positively, and whom, because of this feeling, we come to the belief that we have every right to exploit them.

 

The first of these examples lies in the mind and words of Alexander Stephens, who became Vice-President of the Confederacy, having served in Congress for many years.

 

The “cornerstone” of the Confederate States, he said, “rests upon the great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal condition.”  Speaking impromptu in Savannah, GA a few weeks after the inauguration of the Confederate government, he enthusiastically called the new Confederate government “the first in the history of the world, based upon this great philosophical, and moral truth.”  Its constitution has “put at rest forever all agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution—African slavery as it exists among us—the proper status of the Negro in our form of civilization.”  

 

Roll the clock forward and we come to our treatment of the Native Americans. General Sherman, the same general that had waged war so effectively against the Confederacy in his march to Atlanta and the sea, declared, as Brenda Wineapple says so acutely “with typical amoral clarity” the following:  “The country is so large and the advantage of the Indian so great, that we cannot make a single war and end it.  From the nature of things we must take chances and clear out Indians as we encounter them.”  (General Sheridan, a Union General who fought the Confederacy, mirrored Sherman’s attitude as he remarked:  “The only good Indians I know are dead.”) 

 

The justification for this was deeply embedded in the warped minds of many people who, looked at today, we would say should have known better.  Take Francis Amasa Walker.  Walker served as Commissioner in the government’s Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1871-72.  He was a well-known economist and Eugenicist and, if that wasn’t enough of a pedigree, he later was the President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  

 

This well-educated and well-positioned man had this to say about the Indian:  “The Indian is unfortunately disposed to submit himself to the lower and baser elements of civilized society and to acquire the vices and not the virtues of the whites.”  

 

One journalist had this to say:  “To talk of the rights of the Indian today requires the same nerve and moral courage and conscientiousness it did 20 years ago to talk of the rights of the slave and the man who has searched them is considered just as mad, foolish and visionary as were the Abolitionists of 1840 or 1850.”

 

The New York Herald had this contentious comment to make about Wendell Phillips, the long-suffering, courageous leader for freedom of all sorts, including the African-American and Native American:  “Wendell Phillips’ new nigger is the ‘noble Redman’.”

 

Wendell Phillips had it right as he said:  “All the great points of the epoch have arisen out of this hatred between the races.”  To which Brenda Wineapple reprises:  “Race was, had been and would continue to be the issue dividing the United States.”  

 

The plague of “the other.”  On and on it goes.  Throughout all time.  To be resisted in each of our lives.  We see it today with Sunni vs. Shiite, right-wingers vs. left-wingers, rich vs. poor.  “We should never be able to be just to other races (or I’d add, any people who are different from ourselves), or will reap the full benefit of their neighborhood, till we unlearn contempt,” Wendell Phillips said.  

 

More positively, I would say:  “Let us never fail to strive to see the other person in ourselves and ourselves in others.”