Apocalypse may not be a field of study but it would seem that the chaos of modernity has produced a perspective related to values. Citizens of various philosophical persuasions are reflecting increased disrespect for fellow citizens and thus for modern day democratic governance.
Much of the problem may flow from the fast-changing nature of our society which has so many de-stabilizing elements. But part falls at the feet of politicians and their supporters who use inflammatory rhetoric to divide the country.
Candidates may prevail in elections by tearing down rather than uplifting, but if elected, they cannot then unite an angered citizenry. Negativity raises the temperature level of legislatures just as it dispirits the soul of society.
The words above are from James Leach, the new Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) from his speech Bridging Cultures. For those unfamiliar with the NEH, it is described this way: “Because democracy demands wisdom, the National Endowment for the Humanities serves and strengthens our Republic by promoting excellence in the humanities and conveying the lessons of history to all Americans.”
We’ve heard much on the lack of civility in our nation’s political discourse: the Teabagger Movement, the rancorous town halls of last summer, intra-party fighting amongst blue-dog (centrist) and far-left Democrats over the health care bill, the continued questions over the Wall Street bailout, the continued blaming of President Obama by both sides, and the media that thrives on “gotcha” – politics as blood sport for your viewing pleasure.
In A Decade of Dueling Realities, Judith Gayle beautifully addressed the origin and status of the habits we formed during the Pluto in Sagittarius era leading to our present state. Ideas became ideologies, evolved to the point that we can find no room to discuss anything but our extremes in view. The country’s two-party system is now a single rope, pulled tightly on either side by the extreme left and right. All seem determined to keep the nation’s political pulse in a medical red zone, and us from finding amicable solutions.
We’re beginning to recognize how we got there, but still struggling to wake from that fever dream of extremism. That will take much longer than four years of a new Presidential administration, let alone the one year we are just concluding. Where do we go from here? How do we get there?
As head of the agency charged with informing our educational system which includes our scholarship in language, history and law, Leach has an interesting challenge in this present day: Our weaponry has potential to set off global annihilation, and the wrong words spoken in today’s advanced global communication network has the possibility of setting off outrage across continents. How do we improve our abrasive, sometimes racist and violent national dialogue with each other to one of respectful discourse? How do we improve our dialogue with the rest of the world?
In Leach’s speech “Bridging Cultures” there is a reminder that we need to fully educate ourselves in history and culture not just from our perspective but from all views of the world. Near the conclusion of the speech Leach says:
Unlike natural physics where Sir Isaac Newton pointed out that action equals reaction, in social chemistry reaction can be greater than action. Name calling in the kindergarten of life can lead to a hardening of attitudes and sometimes physical responses. Hence civil discourse is about more than good manners. To label someone a “communist” may spark unspeakable acts; to call a country “evil” may cause a surprisingly dangerous counter-reaction.
How we lead or fail to lead in an interdependent world will be directly related to how we comprehend our own history, values and diversity of experience, and how deeply we come to understand and respect other peoples and societies. Citizenship is hard. It takes a willingness to listen, watch, read and think in ways that allow the imagination to put one person in the shoes of another.
Jim Leach is not a professor in philosophy or a priest. He was formerly a Republican congressman from Iowa. Personally, I don’t care where he’s from or what party he belongs to. He belongs to a whole other school of thought, mostly unheard of and forgotten in the loud diatribe between the country’s warring extremes. This school is not concerned with the rightness of one’s party or position, but in actual historical and fact-based information helpful in understanding differences.
There are many of us here filling up the center who want answers, not enmity, and common sense and civility back in the national conversation. To accomplish this, there is much work to do on every front, from the classroom to the television. Leach plans to bring a “Civility Tour” with a speech like “Bridging Cultures” to the 50 states. That seems a bit antiquated – a single speech is a small unobtrusive step compared to the bombastic pundits and provocative and titillating nightly news commentary or opinion shows crowding our head space.
Yet, the quiet way is often the most penetrating. Like seeds dropped in a land needing this new fruit, good ideas that link us together instead of the noise that divides us is something we can use. We need to solve the problems facing us with intelligence, creativity and without rancor. We cannot do this alone. We need each other to succeed, and all the help we can get to do so.
Yours & truly,
Fe Bongolan
San Francisco
This is from Leach’s speech: “Bridging Cultures”:
Political Science 101 begins with the observation that, with episodic swings, the country over the past generation has been approximately one-third Democratic, one-third Republican, and one-third independent. Grade school math tells us that one-half of one-third is one-sixth. So 16 2/3% of the voters nominally control candidate selection in a typical election, but because only one in four (often a fraction of this figure) participate in primaries where legislative candidates are chosen, it is 1/4th x 1/6th, that is 1/24th that is often the maximum percentage of the electorate which controls the electoral choices offered by each of the parties. This 4% is socially quite conservative on the Republican side and vigorously liberal on the Democratic. Hence, legislative bodies intended to represent that vast cross-section of the American public increasingly reflect principally the philosophical edges. America is a pragmatic, centrist-oriented society. For virtually all of our history citizens have had an aversion to the extremes. Yet, compounded by recent patterns of redistricting, the majoritarian center is vastly under-represented in Congress today and in state legislative bodies as well. It hardly has a seat at the legislative table.
Political Science 102: To the degree parties are controlled or defined by their party apparatus—i.e., city, county, state, and national party organizations—it is impressive that the number of participants in party organizations is a “de minimus” part of one percent. Participants are to be respected for giving of their time and energy but it is a mistake to assume that either of the party organizations is reflective of society as a whole and sometimes not even of the majority who vote for candidates in a general election.
Political Science 103 is that in primaries for President, Republican candidates lean to the right and then if nominated, scoot to the center in the general election; Democrats, vice-versa. But in Congress the scoot is seldom evident. Approximately 380 of 435 House seats are designed or gerrymandered in such a way as to be safe for one of the parties. About half of these safe seats are held by Republicans and half by Democrats. With few exceptions, safe-seat members must lean to the philosophical edges to prevail in primaries and, if nominated and elected, have every incentive to remain firmly positioned far from the center because the only serious challenge to their career choice is likely to come from within the party’s attentive, uncompromising base. Institutional polarization is the inevitable result.
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I’m not saying this is justified, but that has been the political trend for the last thirty years. — fb
“to think that making government more civil will cure this problem is, to put it nicely, hopeful thinking … and i think dangerous because it trains us to ignore the real problems”
fluidity:
I never said making government more civil will cure the problem.
I said the dialogue between the extremes on either sides needs to be more civil in order for the real problems to get worked out.
“sorry, but i don’t think the extreme left gets anyone elected in the US, maybe a bit of noise, but when you factor in the media system, to compare the extreme left and right as equals is a bit laughable”
When you factor in the media system, the extreme right have no peer, but the noise in the blogosphere of the extreme left makes someone like me, from the left, feel left out.
“i think the getting shot shows how effective both people were at actually creating change, and creating the conditions for change, and i chose them because the change they were creating was truly revolutionary and progressive, and that’s why they were targetted (cause they were effective)”
This is from wiki:
In a 1965 conversation with Gordon Parks, two days before his assassination, Malcolm said:
Listening to leaders like Nasser, Ben Bella, and Nkrumah awakened me to the dangers of racism. I realized racism isn’t just a black and white problem. It’s brought bloodbaths to about every nation on earth at one time or another.
Brother, remember the time that white college girl came into the restaurant—the one who wanted to help the [Black] Muslims and the whites get together—and I told her there wasn’t a ghost of a chance and she went away crying? Well, I’ve lived to regret that incident. In many parts of the African continent I saw white students helping black people. Something like this kills a lot of argument. I did many things as a [Black] Muslim that I’m sorry for now. I was a zombie then—like all [Black] Muslims—I was hypnotized, pointed in a certain direction and told to march. Well, I guess a man’s entitled to make a fool of himself if he’s ready to pay the cost. It cost me 12 years.
That was a bad scene, brother. The sickness and madness of those days—I’m glad to be free of them.”
If I may, even deeper than change is deeper change and that happens without us ever lifting a finger or a thumb. Try *being* around some “elites”. The point is, who wants to ride a fence when there are so many more pleasant things to er, um… or… hmmm… mahogany…
i think the getting shot shows how effective both people were at actually creating change, and creating the conditions for change, and i chose them because the change they were creating was truly revolutionary and progressive, and that’s why they were targetted (cause they were effective)
sorry, but i don’t think the extreme left gets anyone elected in the US, maybe a bit of noise, but when you factor in the media system, to compare the extreme left and right as equals is a bit laughable
i think the whole political spectacle is put on to make us think that we have a say in the government. we don’t, at least nowhere near close to vested interests like corporations, the ruling elite, etc. yes, we elect them, but what other choice do we have?
to think that making government more civil will cure this problem is, to put it nicely, hopeful thinking … and i think dangerous because it trains us to ignore the real problems
i think that the cloaking use of words to describe the current system as ‘democratic’ helps to breed this ‘ignorance’ … when there are only two choices, there’s a lot left out. i think a better term to describe the current system of government is a cross between plutarchy and oligopoly
i don’t think people having disrespect for the country’s government system is necessarily a bad thing. consider what it’s doing (and i’m not talking about surface-level bickering, i’m talking about deep-level injustice that the state perpetrates)
again, i think it comes from where people are coming from and what perspectives they’ve been exposed to. much of our ‘raising’/indoctrination makes it out to be the best system in the world, maybe it doesn’t work perfectly, but that’s life. … but then if your perspective includes that context of history and culture that was being proposed in this article, you might look at things differently.
a good place to get a different view of the US’s history and culture is A People’s History of the United States, by Howard Zinn
shanna:
Got the message, and love the prose. And I will pick it up. Looks like a great read.
Thanks, fe. It’s an inspiring read and I recommend the book to all here.
Just want to make sure you noted the quotation marks. 🙂 The greater poetry is within the punctuation! Nafisi only inspired my comment on top.
To add:
This is in no means a way to cancel out what the extremes are doing, particularly in regards to the changes in government and corporations. You need the constant pressure to make government, a slow-moving creature, responsive – but when the noise outdoes the good its trying to create, how do you propose resolving?
I don’t think getting shot is a good example.
Fluidity:
Agreed on the stands for both sides, but when it starts to dictate the whole of political thinking and discourse, and when the extremes run the center, you again lose the center who may not feel either way, but want the way through and out.
Reading Leach’s writing, particularly his analysis of who elects who in the country and who makes the most noise–it is the extremes from the left and the right. According to Leach, they comprise a SMALL percent of the total electorate.
The extremes serve a purpose in guiding the political agenda but the point I’m making here is that maybe the “squishy” center, (which I think is an unfair judgement) still lives with what the extremes create.
In this day and age where we are denigrating the discourse down to name calling, race-baiting, and purity testing, it makes people like me, a progressive and what some may call “extreme”, to tune out.
It also makes us extremely petty, like people who complain about the temperature of the water the firemen are using to douse the conflagration in your living room.
watered down politics >
personally i don’t like the way this article demonizes the left and right ‘extremes’ and then tries to make a nice soft fuzzy ‘centre’
given the state of things i would be loath to fall in the ‘centre’ of american political consciousness
there is a neo-liberal/neo-conservative project going on in this country, in this world, that is in support of a ruling elite dominating the rest of the people and nature of the world
perhaps there is some value in ‘putting ourselves in the shoes’ of this ruling elite, and figuring out what makes them tick
but hopefully some people can stand strong in some meaningful values that won’t sway too much to whatever other perspectives may come along
martin luther king jr and malcolm x (especially in their final period of time on this planet) come to my mind as good role models for having these type of transformational values
they had principles that were important to them, and they stood for them, and acted on them … and yes they got shot for doing so, but i don’t think the lesson from that is to cave in to the opinions of the people who shot them
we do need a way to bridge the gap but i hope that is not to be found in ‘riding the fence’ in the centre
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6BJeoHilUI
ps i do think it is important to reflect on where people and their perspectives are coming from, cause i think where people come from has a big influence in their thinking
Shanna:
What a thing of beauty. You’ve really encapsulated the spirit of Leach and the vision of where we CAN go in the 21st century.
From your lips and finger tips to the ears of ALL.
Len:
If you see what’s out there calling itself news and political discussion, you’d be running to people like Jim Leach like a guppy needing water to breathe.
Its really starting to get old and tired and pointless. We need to be using our energy to think, not argue the minutiae we’ve been distracted by.
I heard a good interview with Leach on NPR a couple of weeks ago. Very heartening.
Just finished Reading Lolita In Tehran a couple of days ago, and this idea of imagination, and the supreme necessity of empathy to create a true democracy is woven throughout her memoir. Empathy makes us human; imagination carries our humanity to others.
“I have a recurring fantasy that one more article has been added to the Bill of Rights: the right to free access to imagination. I have come to believe that genuine democracy cannot exist without the freedom to imagine and the right to use imaginative works without any restrictions. To have a whole life, one must have the possibility of publicly shaping and expressing private worlds, dreams, thoughts, and desires, of constantly having access to a dialogue between the public and private worlds. How else do we know that we have existed, felt, desired, hated, feared?
We speak of facts, yet facts exist only partially to us if they are not repeated and re-created through emotions, thoughts and feelings. To me it seemed as if we had not really existed, or only half existed, because we could not imaginatively realize ourselves and communicate in the world, because we had used works of imagination to serve as handmaidens to some political ploy.”
Fe,
First of all, your blogs always manage to restore my faith in humanity and sanity. Thank you so much for expressing your firm grasp of those two things.
Second – Apocalypse is indeed a field of study. It’s called Eschatology. The foremost experts are Hollywood script writers.
Finally, Mr. Leach hit the nail on the head with the oft-used metaphor of being in another person’s shoes. What i do is close my eyes and actually imagine myself literally wearing the shoes i see on the other person – amazing what that brings up.
“It’s clear that Foggy Bottom can’t muster it. The whole State Department has been turned into a branch of the Defense Dpt for the last 50 years. Maybe NEH can give it a go.”
Myst and Linda:
I think Leach is working the change from the inside out. I see him as a catalytic element.
The most courageous thing anyone can do is be the one offering the olive branch while all the tribes are at each other’s throats. That he’s doing it at all is a true mark of courage.
Great article, Fe. Jim Leach was an excellent choice for lots of reasons, and I’ll keep an eye out for his Bridging Cultures initiative. His enthusiasm for Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet hints at an awareness that all is not peaches and cream, diplomacy and sashes in the process of intercultural dialogue.
The first job he tackled was “Bridging Cultures: NEH and the Muslim World” and reading through the keynote speech, it *looks* as though he might actually be shooting for cultural exchange. Now, wouldn’t that be a novelty?!
It’s clear that Foggy Bottom can’t muster it. The whole State Department has been turned into a branch of the Defense Dpt for the last 50 years. Maybe NEH can give it a go.
We’ll see. . .
M(plicit)
Thanks Fe. A breath of fresh, clean air in a stuffy room…….
As HH Dalai Lama summarises “Let the 21th century be a century of tolerance and dialogue.”
Heading nodding from steamy, humid Sydney,
Linda