Two Cups of Tea

With just a couple of days remaining before the midterm elections many people, including me, are bemoaning what appears to be a new low in political discourse that suggests a complete abandonment of America’s position as the standard-bearer of liberal democracy. If the evidence of yelling, screaming, head stomping, and complete disregard for the truth is any indication, on Wednesday, November 3, we could be facing a new Congress that is likely to turn the rotunda of the Capitol into a cage-fighting ring to settle petty political scores. And to be fair, neither party is innocent here. There are nasty people on all sides. It bears remembering, however, that American democracy has always been a messy and chaotic business and extremism is nothing new. Furthermore, extremism, like that which marks much of today’s Tea Party rhetoric, has a way of becoming diluted over time while offering new leaders a springboard to interpret underlying principles in more attractive ways.

Princeton historian, Sean Wilentz provides evidence of this phenomenon in his recent article “Confounding Fathers” (The New Yorker, October 18, 2010). He details an historical review of the John Birch Society and its tight parallels with today’s Tea Party. Wilentz argues that the extreme rhetoric of Beck, Palin, Limbaugh, and their many followers/imitators, is simply an update of the 1960s incendiary fodder produced by Robert Welch (founder of the John Birch Society) and Willard Cleon Skousen (founder of the All-American Society and philosophical mentor of Glenn Beck). In essence, today’s tea is Birch Tea. As the 60s moved forward, the Birchers experienced a straightening and redirecting of their principles by cooler and more astute minds like that of William F. Buckley, Jr. As Wilentz points out, Buckley’s biographer John J. Judis, observed, “Buckley was beginning to worry that with the John Birch Society growing so rapidly, the right-wing upsurge in the country would take an ugly, even Fascist turn rather than leading toward the kind of conservatism [his] National Review had promoted.”

Buckley and other more practical conservatives asserted the principles of right-wing extremism sans the bombastic bravado. I can still hear Buckley intoning his arguments on Public Television with sharp wit and rhythmic cadence without bludgeoning his political adversaries. He had a sense of decorum absent in the practices of Beck, et al. In time, he also had a candidate for president in the governor of California, Ronald Reagan. Reagan’s brilliance resided in his profound interpersonal intelligence. Historians have roundly criticized him for his lack of analytical skills and interests, but one thing he knew was how to connect with people. He used soaring rhetoric to be sure, but it was always a shade or two less hot than the Birchers. He also knew the difference between rhetoric and policy. He invited the support of social conservatives by embracing their passion against abortion and for school prayer, but knew better than to use his power as president to assert government control over what he viewed as personal liberties. He was a rhetorical conservative and a pragmatic libertarian.

In a recent interview I completed with Reagan’s son, Ron, he suggested his father would be a poor fit in the Republican party of 2010. Ron believes his father would be barely conservative enough on today’s scale to make “center-right.”   What is also clear, however, given this reading of history, is that our concerns of the day shall pass. Brighter and more reasonable minds will prevail. The rough and garish will realize that enduring power, like that which Reagan enjoyed, is won not just through coercion and fear, but also optimism and yes, hope. Reagan believed in American exceptionalism more than any politician in contemporary history. While it did not always serve him well, it did allow him to favor inclusion over division, and optimism over fear. He was a compassionate exceptionalist, able to condemn communism as an “evil empire” while befriending its leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. Together, they set the stage for the end of the Cold War and an unprecedented period of economic prosperity.

Birch Tea won’t last, but it will provide elements to cull from its leftover leaves, which, when combined with more mild herbs, will offer a less bitter cup of tea. Perhaps it will be called Reagan Tea.

By |2017-05-25T18:32:05+00:00October 31st, 2010|American Identity, General|0 Comments
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The Age of Apate´

In the last fifty years, the American experience has hurtled forward from Kennedy’s Age of Camelot, to the Age of Aquarius, and now the Age of Apaté (a-pat’-ay), named for the Greek goddess of deceit whose evil spirit was released once Pandora opened her box. The lid on Pandora’s mythical box (actually a jar) was loosened by the alchemy of Ronald Reagan and the ambition of Mikhail Gorbachev that ended the Cold War. When Gorbachev’s glasnost and perestroika-styled reforms slipped perilously toward revolution the Soviet model imploded. However, what was once widely considered a great victory over godless communism—the collapse of the Soviet Union—quickly became affected, or perhaps more accurately infected, by the spirit of Apaté. Hubris and deceit were easier and, let’s face it, more fun than humility and honesty. With the Soviets out of the way, we Americans were free to assume a wide berth of exceptionalism to expand our reach and reign. And, we did it on the wings of Apaté.

Today, many debate today whether we have entered another Great Depression, or just a Great Recession, but it may be more accurately considered a Great Deception. From WMD, to credit default swaps, to non-reform reforms and unreal reality shows, we Americans have elevated the art of deception from a hapless wizard deceiving a dream-addled girl from Kansas, to a metastasized algorithmic ethos denominated in fraud. We face unimaginable deficits while we continue to ignore their obvious causes lest a noisy constituency or moneyed lobbyist objects. We wage war without a clear objective and no exit strategy to, among other things, protect our access to a source of energy that compromises our health and security while slowly but surely killing the planet on which we live. We are re-writing our history books to expunge our liberal heritage in favor of Christian nationalism—a crown of thorns to replace Uncle Sam’s top hat—as we elbow both reason and tolerance out of the public square. Bigger lies and more hate are essential ingredients in contemporary narrative.

Jonathan Franzen’s new book, Freedom, may indeed be the defining period piece of the era. As Charles Baxter aptly points out in his review of Freedom in The New York Review of Books (9/30/10), “the noble lie serves as the pivot point around which almost everything in Freedom turns.” Alas, at least all elements of American culture, including politics, economics, religion, literature, and entertainment are aligned—albeit around an axis of deceit.

Fear not, we will find our way out of this sticky web of deception; or perhaps more likely hurled into the stubborn certainty of a reality based in truth. The fanciful altered state of the last twenty years is coming to a painful end. As with most empires that vanquish their enemies, the last and greatest challenge is in facing itself. This too is America’s final imperial test. Our future rises or falls on our capacity to see things as they are under the blinding light of truth. We may or may not be different than the fallen empires that preceded us, but we will most certainly fail if we continue to indulge Apaté’s nefarious ways.

By |2017-05-25T18:38:13+00:00October 10th, 2010|American Identity, General|0 Comments
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Out of Crisis, a New US

Every seventy-five years or so America endures a period of crisis that lasts from twelve to seventeen years.  They include both profound economic and security effects that put the country at leviathan levels of risk.  The founding of our country was itself a period of crisis; later was the Civil War and Reconstruction, and in the twentieth century the Great Depression and World War II.  The current period of crisis in now three years old—marked by the date our capital markets began to realize they were standing in the quicksand of credit default swaps secured by vapor and hubris.  I would argue we are far from seeing the depth of the current crisis, nor are we even near a midpoint.  It would be ahistorical to predict otherwise.  We have yet to even seen the axe of conflict fall.  No, 9/11, Iraq, and Afghanistan don’t count – at least not yet, although they probably provide the framework for much wider conflict—a wider War on Terror— with many more actors involved.  I remain convinced that our capacity to start and perpetuate war far exceeds our ability to end it.  The preposterous realization that we are unable to even define what a win is, is all the evidence anyone needs to defend that claim.  Be that as it may, my intent here is not to debate the dilemmas that face policymakers and provide fuel for Gadarene punditry today; rather to explore what historians will later observe with the crisis behind them, as they write the inevitable story of how American identity was changed forever (or at least until the next crisis in around 2095).  If we are smart, we will write a different future than historians might expect.  But we better wise-up soon.

As we stumble our way by fit and spasm toward the future, we have choices about how we reckon with a world that, in the words of columnist Thomas L. Friedman is “really unusually uncertain.”[1]  Those choices are largely formed based on our cognetic disposition: a combination of intellectual capital and cognitive traits, which allow us to simplify the world and make decisions.  Our cognetic dispositions are formed through the processes of education, experience, socialization, and indoctrination.  We also forge relationships with those similarly disposed—of similar cognetic disposition—and wage confrontation with those who differ.  In America today, four major groups have formed that dominate socio-political discourse. They are: the Angry Patriots, the Faithful Followers, the Elite Globalists, and the Transcendent Epistemists.[2]  Each group competes with and between the others in elections, boardrooms, classrooms, media, and the streets.  Besides wrestling over resources, rights, power, and wealth, the larger and more important long-term battle will be over American identity.  This battle will determine the answer to “What does it mean to be an American?”

The Angry Patriots (APs) are perhaps the most familiar, given to the volume with which they assert themselves in the media.  They are a boisterous bunch – Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, et al.  The process of experience, as opposed to education, socialization, or indoctrination, dominate development of their cognetic disposition.  They claim they are a product of the school of hard knocks.  They are the torchbearers of American exceptionalism.  Fear is their currency of persuasion.  Mostly Republicans and Tea Partiers, they are publicly pious, although theologically shallow.  God is on their side by entitlement, but while they claim humble abidance to religious proscriptions and secular law, they often behave as if their pockets are filled with dispensations.  Their principal aim is to return America to the “good ol’ days” when they were on top of the socio-political pecking order in a world that (to them) is inherently hierarchical.  Knowledge is nice as long as it is rooted in common sense, but loyalty is more important.  Reason is often subjugated to muscularity; bigger bombs and bigger walls are more dependable than intelligence.  Signs or documents written in any language other than English are an attack on their sense of patriotic purity; language is symbolic – not about communication or understanding.  When challenged or threatened they favor isolation from the world.  Free trade or other theories of economic specialization can only cost Americans jobs.  Diplomacy is for sissies. For APs, the first clause of the Second Amendment to the Constitution, “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State” has no bearing on the second clause, “ the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”  Mosques are monuments to terrorism even while Christian churches are not so to the murderous Crusades, nor are Catholic churches to pedophilia.  APs employ a fair amount of libertarian rhetoric, as long as their entitlements remain—especially Medicare and Social Security.  Their mantras are “America first!” … “Not on my watch!”…  and “Not from my pockets!”

Faithful Followers (FFs) see the world through the lens of religion.  They find grace, solace, and power in their faith.  America is great, but God is supreme.  The Bible is the inerrant word of God, whose greatest witness was Jesus Christ.  Their cognetic disposition was predominantly formed through the process of indoctrination.  The Reverends Pat Robertson, Joel Osteen, and John Hagee are FFs’ speakers of truth.  Evangelism is not only good, it is a biblical duty.  A day of reckoning is coming; God is on your side as long as you remain fearful of his wrath.  Faith trumps reason in a world that is scary and dangerous.  Sin is everywhere and can only be ameliorated by sacrifice to affect redemption and salvation.  And, while FFs are certain of their faith, their own self-esteem requires the frequent condemnation of others.  Certitude and rectitude are their dominant modality—unknowns are obviated by faith. Proselytizing, judgment, and damnation are paradoxically both liberating and oppressive.  Zionists are their theological and political allies.  They share a common belief in Eretz Israel, occupied only by Jews, at least until Christ returns and then the Jews had better see the light—fast.  FFs have come and gone from the political sphere throughout history, but today they are firmly entrenched.  They believe America is a Christian nation and advocate a revisionist history that casts the Founding Fathers as devoted and pious Christians.  If they had their choice, there would be one political party: the Christian Nationalist Party, but they most often settle for Republican candidates who pledge allegiance to their family-values dictates.  “Thou shalt not kill” is a situational commandment, which does not apply to murdering homosexuals or doctors who perform legal abortions.  Nor does it apply to Muslims.  FFs don’t see the relevancy of the question “Should we bomb Iran?”  They wonder why we haven’t.  Men are the dominant gender among FFs; they run the world, while women are caretakers of the home.  Like the APs, fear is the prevailing currency of manipulation for FFs.  If they had a crossover candidate to share with the APs, it would be Sarah Palin.  Social order is non-hierarchical.  It is (mostly) flat. There is God, and then there is man.  While race, ethnicity, and heritage matters to many APs, religion is all that matters to FFs.  If one has (a Christian) God, they have everything.  They have one mantra: “Praise God!”

Elite Globalists (EGs) are the too-cool bunch—the rising technocrats.  Socialization is the primary process for the development of their cognetic disposition.  The world is their oyster.  Borders and convention are irrelevant and technology can solve virtually anything.  EGs are actually quite engaging people if you can get them to put down their smartphone and quit talking about themselves.  Thomas Friedman (cited above), who drives his Toyota Prius to and from DC from his energy-gluttonous, 11,400 square foot mansion just up the road from the Bethesda Country Club (where he is a member), is an EG patriarch.[3]  Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow are spokespersons.  If not for grooming issues, Michael Moore would be too.  Hip is important, pretty is essential.  Celebrities are the diplomatic ambassadors of EGs; knowledge and intelligence are defined by camera angle, not IQ.  While APs might call EGs lawless liberals, EGs see themselves as caretakers of liberty and the font of social invention.  FFs see EGs as interlopers who will be vanquished in the Rapture.  EGs look down on APs as pre-Mad Men-era carnivores, and see FFs as homespun curiosities who provide fodder for film festival documentaries.  Neither APs nor FFs will make an EG’s Facebook ‘friends’ list, unless accepted as a matter of charitable impulse.  No ideas are too big, or too grand to EGs.  America is limited only by its ability to re-imagine itself.  If it can be designed, it can be realized.  The United Nations, and both non-governmental and governmental institutions are good, and corporations are bad—unless an EG happens to own or run one, in which case it is assuredly green.  The institution of marriage is also important to EGs, if only for their homosexual friends.  Balancing a checkbook has never been a priority for EGs.  Public debt is a nebulous, transient, and essential component of economic development.  Religion is an inherited and quaint historical artifact that provides seasonal shopping opportunities, but is otherwise an archaic, albeit powerful source of conflict and oppression in an African nation they’ve never been to.  EGs who claim a relationship with a higher being describe it as spiritual, rather than religious.  God is love, not power.  While EGs eschew ideology and orthodoxy they are ardent subscribers to their own; and, they love their obscure, narrow special interests, which define who they are.  EGs want to be left to their own devices—and they have lots of them.  Social order is amoebic in the form of multi-dimensional integrated networks.  In other words, there is no social order.  EGs can be a powerful political block, and demonstrated as such when bound by hope and technology by team Obama, but by design they lack cohesion beyond their common fantasy to one day be on the cover of Vanity Fair.  They are confident, bright, quirky, self-indulgent, and bi-coastal.  They do not set their feet farther than 25 miles from either coast unless they are skiing in the Rockies.  If they’ve been to Kansas City, it was because their flight was diverted, and they will claim they never deplaned.  Their mantras are elongated monosyllabic exclamations like “Cooool!” and “Niiiiice!” and “Reeealy?!”

Transcendent Epistemists (TEs) are the (usually) quiet intellectuals whose cognetic dispositions are formed by education, which is a lifelong commitment.  APs like microphones, FFs like the pulpit, EGs the spotlight, and TEs just like books.  The eldest among them are described as wise and comprise the portion of the “Greatest Generation” who have not been co-opted by the purveyors of fear among the APs or FFs.  TEs live by the lyric of Lyle Lovett, “I live in my own mind / Ain’t nothin’ but a good time.”  They abhor certitude and cope by transcending the rabble of humanity where they can contemplate that which is not yet known.  Conversations about who, what, and how bore them.  They want to talk about why.  They view faith as the crutch of the common man.  TEs are areligious—mostly agnostics who have yet to hear a compelling argument by either theists or atheists.  Like Christopher Hitchens, they will not allow themselves to be saved on their deathbed when that day comes.  They indulge APs, FFs, and EGs regrettably, although they are at times both humored and terrified by each.  Their least favorite days of the year are holidays, when their focus on epistemology is interrupted and they are forced to endure the banality of socialization.  They don’t do Facebook.  They are inelegant, or worse.  Lousy guests, and lousier hosts.  Like EGs, they see the world as a borderless seamless system, and though they embrace the ideals of Immanuel Kant, they find the world is often better explained by the lessons of Thomas Hobbes and Niccolo Machiavelli.  They read the columns of fellow TEs like David Brooks and Fareed Zakaria, but know that knowledge seldom wins in the development of public policy.  They understand that to move the masses Dante’s sins must be teased and tweaked—titillation is essential.  But, they won’t descend into the muck to do it.  TEs are fiscally conservative and socially liberal, so neither today’s Republicans nor Democrats should waste their time with them.  TEs have few if any contemporary heroes in government; they simply view America’s liberal democracy as an experiment that has been hijacked by venal charlatans.  TEs believe entropy is inevitable, and even healthy.  They are, however, ironically optimistic.  They believe every question will be answered someday, and that today’s problems are absolutely solvable, if everyone would stop screaming and start listening.  They arguably get it better than APs, FFs, and EGs, but have no audience who’ll listen because of their unwillingness to subscribe to popular myths and contemporary orthodoxy.  Their silence is both contemptible and potentially tragic for America.  Their mantras are, “Question the givens” and “Leave me alone.”

These groups will shape the narrative that emerges from the current crisis—that defines a ‘new’ America.  On first take, simply as a function of exposure, the battle appears to have already been won by the APs.  They are also likely to bring a large portion of FFs with them in their quest to save America.  But their message—denominated principally in fear—may not prove durable in the long run.  Fear seldom is.  And, they do not appear to have a prospective leader that can attract a majority of Americans to the polls.  Palin already didn’t.  Another question is will whomever occupies the White House matter anyway?  My guess is they still will, if not for policymaking, for the symbolism that plays its own significant role in identity.  EGs are probably too self-interested to come together again soon as they did behind Obama, unless of course Obama regains his voice.  Which leaves the TEs.  They may find their own voice when and if the fear-mongers fade, or the depth of crisis forces them from the sidelines and people become desperate enough to shut up and listen.  Knowledge is a far superior basis for decision making than fear or celebrity.  Meanwhile, we do indeed stumble forward toward a new America, whether we like it or not.  Individually, all we can do is be careful who we listen to and exercise the best judgment possible in our own decisions. And, every once in awhile, tug on the sleeve of the quiet ones and ask them what they think.

[1] Thomas Friedman, “Really Unusually Uncertain,” The New York Times, August 17, 2010.
[2] This is far from an exhaustive taxonomy.  There are many smaller groups, and most people don’t fit neatly into just one.  But, these are the big ones who will form allegiances of convenience or necessity to assert power during the current crisis.
[3] See Garrett M. Graff’s feature on Friedman, “Thomas Friedman is On Top of the World,” Washingtonian, July 1, 2006.

 

By |2017-05-27T18:34:32+00:00August 22nd, 2010|American Identity, General|0 Comments
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The Fear Response

There are numerous theories about why societies rise and fall, proffered by even more numerous scholars who attempt to connect the dots of evidence and massage them with nuance into coherent narratives.  Paul Kennedy’s The Rise and Fall of Great Powers, Jared Diamond’s Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Jeremy Black’s Great Powers and the Quest for Hegemony, and Cullen Murphy’s Are We Rome? offer some interesting and varied approaches to the question.  They are each well researched and include reasonable arguments to a complex question.  However, in my seemingly endless search for simplicity—to understand the American condition—I have settled on one question, ignored by most studies, that I believe explains a great deal about how societies “rise and fall.”  The question is: How do they respond to fear?

The fear response is related to Stephen Flynn’s theory about resiliency as a measure of national power: “a society that can match its strength to deliver a punch with the means to take one makes an unattractive target.”[1]  But resiliency has at its core a cognitive component that emanates from societal IBCs (ideas, beliefs, and convictions), which contribute to our collective character.  It is this character, which evolves continuously, that determines how we respond to fear like the attacks on Pearl Harbor in 1941, or the Soviet’s launch of Sputnik in 1957, or the attacks of 9/11.  It is fair to say that fear brings out the best and worst in a society no matter how strong the collective character is at any particular time.

After Pearl Harbor, American society demonstrated both its cohesion and determination in defeating Hirohito and Hitler, but it also interned Japanese Americans.  After Sputnik, Kennedy committed the United States to sending a man to the moon, but he and his successor, Lyndon Johnson, also over-imagined the Soviet and communist menace and nearly started a nuclear war in the Caribbean and did, unfortunately, convince Americans that if we didn’t stop the communists in Vietnam, a contagion would spread that would threaten the lives of every American for generations.  After 9/11, American flags waved from anywhere we could attach them, but our fear produced the worst of us as American Muslim mosques were burned, and our leaders became willing fear mongers engaged in falsifying intelligence, and even color-coding fear for systemic consumption.  And, while the jury is arguably still out on Iraq and Afghanistan, I’ll go out on a limb and suggest if we had a chance to do it over we wouldn’t have troops in either place today. The more interesting question, however, is what tips our fear response from best to worst?

This is admittedly a tricky question, but the worst fear response appears to have an inverse relationship with prosperity, measured by wealth and power; that is, the more prosperous we have become, the more likely a fear event produces the worst of us. In the three events mentioned above, our fear response was best when we were the least prosperous in 1941, and significantly worse in 2001 when America’s power and wealth were at an all-time high.  This seems counter-intuitive; after all, isn’t a wealthy and more powerful nation less fearful and more cohesive?  Apparently not.

Wealth and power provide their own toxic effects.  In 1941, fear inspired patriotism and produced self-sacrifice, discipline, diligence, and enterprise.  In 2001, our patriotism expired even before the flags faded; fear spawned hatred, jingoism, isolation, and hubris.  We have lashed out at the world and stand divided and vengeful at home.  We want to build walls at the border and persecute those who don’t think like we do, worship our God, or even look and speak like us.  And, we wag our fingers at each other and our government demanding our unfair share of what pie remains.  In our relative prosperity we have become poor of character.  FDR was correct in his day to claim, “all we have to fear is fear itself.”  Today, all we have to fear is ourselves.

I would like to argue, as Tom Brokaw has, that the “Greatest Generation”—those who stood tall after Pearl Harbor—were possessed of an intrinsically generous and courageous character, but I see too many of them screaming into the microphone at anger rallies today.  Their well-shined image has suffered with the rest of us, subject to the same toxicity of prosperity.  To add a further irony, our current national security complex is the largest most extensive security system ever developed with “1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies [that] work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.”[2]  Yet, we feel less safe than ever.

Maybe it’s not prosperity’s fault.  Maybe prosperity isn’t about wealth and power.  Maybe its about humility, responsibility, and self-restraint.  Maybe it’s about respect.  One thing becomes clear: if America is to retain its position in the world, we cannot afford our current sense of entitlement and certitude.  Personal responsibility and mutual respect for each other and the precious resources we enjoy deserve our better selves.  We must face fear with resolve, not color-coded fear mongering, lest we allow our worst selves to prevail.  It’s time to turn off the noise and recapture our greatness.  It’s time to stare in the mirror and ask more of ourselves.  The path we’re on will otherwise produce an unwelcome and painful poverty of economy, power and dignity.  It is time to rebuild our collective character.

[1] Stephen Flynn, The Edge of Disaster (New York: Random House, 2007), p. xxi.
[2] Dana Priest and William M. Arkin, “A Hidden World Growing Beyond Control,” The Washington Post, July 19, 2010.
By |2017-05-27T18:36:51+00:00July 29th, 2010|American Identity, General|0 Comments
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Our Messy Independence

The independence struck by our Founding Fathers was a chaotic, random, and messy thing; struck against the anvil of uncertainty, while scribed with the certainty of death on their minds.  They were suspended precariously between the end of their proverbial rope due to British oppression, and the aspirant ether of self-rule.  To a great extent theirs was a leaderless coup d’état.  Their spokesmen were neither statesmen nor politicians by volition, rather merchants, farmers, and products of apprentice-styled servitude. Most importantly, they provided a model for our next, and-again messy independence.

Our collective oppression today is the result of a weird entropic abdication of duty and responsibility by those we have trusted with our votes and tax dollars.  While the best no longer serve, the better-than-good have proven worse than expected.  They have quickly become courtesans of the loud-mouthed and/or moneyed jesters of paper democracy; the furtive face of Benjamin too easily exchanged for the soul of our republic.

What lurks around the corner from this Great Abdication (and Great Recession) is an even Greater Tuneout followed by the next messy independence.  Anger and withdrawal—the current popular modus operandi—will turn to disengagement, then re-imagination, and rebirth.  The next leaderless coup d’état is coming soon—probably sooner than later—due to the velocity of technology. The dissonance of disservice will come home to roost.  People will take control of themselves, their families, neighborhoods, communities, cities, states, and country.  Bottom up.  Washington DC will be designated a superfund site; so much toxicity in such a small place. Weirdness will not win, people will. Inspiration, empathy, and enterprise will rise again.  Cries of complexity—the politician’s shill for do-nothingness—will yield to elegant simplicity.  And, our penchant for independence will prevail.

By |2017-05-25T19:04:08+00:00July 2nd, 2010|American Identity, General|0 Comments
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Natural Law and Destiny

Natural law—those rules and conditions that are validated by nature and resistant to human manipulation—suggests that the destiny of any civilization is determined within an impervious web of complex variables, which interact in a rhythm beyond the sensory capacity of man.  Among other things, they suggest we control much less than we believe we do.  But, there are some natural laws that include us as actors and offer guidance (if not inspiration) as to how we might succeed.  Ironically (and also naturally), they are ignored under the weight of egotism during times of prosperity, only re-emerging during crisis.  This group of Homo-natural laws (H.naturals) includes a navigational set that offer clues as to how we might better set a course toward success. They include maxims like “You are what you eat,” Your bike, car, motorcycle, plane, (etc.) will travel in the direction you are looking,” and “You will become what you talk/think about.”  They are the fiber in our concept of will.

As the current political, economic, and social crisis unfolds, those who understand the H.naturals will do well.  Those trapped in the egotism of yesterday will fail.  What we consume, where we set our sights, and our prevailing narrative will define an identity that will ride H.naturals to a new destiny.  As orator and perennial Democratic presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan claimed, “Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for; it is a thing to be achieved.” Notwithstanding its inherent Homo-centrism, Bryan’s claim recognizes the role man plays within the reality of H.naturals.  He offered these words in the late 19th century when America emerged as a player on the world stage—after another crisis: Civil War and Reconstruction.  Like then, H.naturals will prevail today; and they apply to all of us, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, or national allegiance.  In other words, H.naturals don’t play favorites; the myth of American exceptionalism provides no surety of success.  Those societies who understand this will be the next great powers.  Those that don’t won’t.

It is critical then that we Americans consider carefully those matters that define us—that will conflate with H.naturals to set our course.  Here are some suggestions to consider as we re-design our future—our ameritecture.

  1. In the future, national power will be gained referentially; attraction will prevail over coercion.  The United States has the sole capacity via its military might to destroy any and every adversary.  This is a good thing, as long as we don’t use it—as long as we protect the myth behind the curtain of Oz.  Given this perception-cum-reality, it should not be surprising that our adversaries will choose alternative modalities to compete.  As we have seen, some will continue to choose violent means, albeit asymmetrically, through terrorist networks using improvised explosive devices and suicide bombers.  Others will buy our debt and subvert quasi-American institutions by offering more attractive alternatives to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Still others will look to exploit the weakness of our critical infrastructures through cyber-warfare to compromise our communication, power, and water systems. Boots on the ground, bombs in the air, and nation building, will not defeat these efforts.  Ironically, through our predominance, we have rendered them obsolete.  Today’s threats must be met by new means of power.  We can succeed if most of the world sees America as its advocate—as a critical factor in its success.  What Harvard’s Joseph Nye calls “soft power” must be applied through what I have termed enlightened altruism to defeat our adversaries. The people, from Xinjiang, to Naypyidaw, to Peshawar, to Abuja, to Caracas must all believe their future is better assured by having a positive relationship with the United States.  They must have a basis of attraction to grant power to America referentially. They must be our new advocates—they must have a vested interest in our security.  Every time we destroy another village, temple, or city our effective power declines and our national security is compromised.  This is not peacenik talk. This is the new global realism.
  2. Government is not the answer, people are.  Reagan had it half right: “government is not the answer,” but neither is it the problem, unless we allow it to be.  We make it the problem by the abdication of personal responsibility.  We ask it to do for us what we should be doing for ourselves.  Government’s role should be re-cast—limited—to providing basic public goods like security and the rule of law; to protect us from external threats and internal mischief.  While some government programs are arguably public goods, they diminish and at times subvert people and their communities.  And, they collapse under the corruption of government operatives.  Moreover, too many laws protect civil predators like health insurance companies and Wall Street grifters.  We must reject the constellation of false choices partisanship promotes. For example, healthcare is neither a right nor a privilege; it is a public good. We are all better off when our neighbors are healthy too.  But, it is a public good that is fiscally unsustainable under the legacy structure imposed by our government.  It is a prime example of a failed distribution system—one that can be fixed only if our leaders muster the political will to breakup the cartel that is strangling families and communities and return the power of choice to the people.
  3. Openness and inclusion is the soul of American liberty; fear is the tool of tyrants. America is the most open society in the world.  Both our beauty and warts are on display for all to see.  Notwithstanding frequent embarrassments, this allows a fluidity of ideas and opportunities unmatched in the global system.  We must fight to maintain this virtue in the face of those who seek to curtail it for their personal political, economic, or social benefit. Today, many extremists from many venues are attempting to close our society invoking fears of security, religious subversion, and racial or ethnic conflict.  As with all bullies, fear is their weapon, currently amplified in an environment of crisis.  They use glittering generalities and moronic simplicities while twisting historical fact to gain influence and serve themselves.  They claim they are patriots, but like the wolf in a sheep’s headdress, they are the enemy within.  They must be identified and exposed for what they are; they are America’s biggest threat.  Common targets for their ire are immigrants, although race and religion may be their true concerns.  While all historical data suggests immigrants are the lifeblood of the American system, these extremists would like to slit America’s throat with their jingoistic, ethno-centric, fear-based, vitriol.  Each of us must stand up to sit them down.
  4. If we do nothing else well, we will succeed if we do education well. In a global system intelligence trumps geography, demography, and natural resources.  Intelligence is everything. But, we must acknowledge there are different types of intelligence, each making their particular contribution to civil success.  Currently, there is significant and justified hand wringing over test scores in math and science as well as painful cuts in resources due to our financial crisis.  But if we compromise our capacity to generate future intelligence—comprised of both critical and creative skills—we will lose our competitive advantage and fail.  Budget cuts today are reflexively aimed at non-quantitative, non-analytical courses as if math and science is enough to face future competition in a global economy.  This is a potentially tragic mistake, especially considering our legacy-advantage of invention and innovation.  Many nations perform better at math and science, but none exceeds the United States in the creative application of intelligence.  We don’t need to be like everyone else.  We need to be like us.  We need to continue to invest in the engineer and the artist.  It is through both these skill-sets—the analytical and creative—that America will continue to lead the world.  We must apply both competition and cooperation—‘coopetition’—to leverage our intelligence and assure our future success.

We can’t control H.naturals, but we can make wise decisions on crafting our identity to maximize the likelihood of civil success.  We can summon our heritage of liberty and diligently protect our capacity to out-innovate the world if we take care to suppress those who have succumbed to fear and oppression.  We must understand that the world changes every day and that our old methods—particularly in the projection of power—may not serve our future interests.  Above all, we must take personal responsibility, possessed of both courage and humility, to make our world (however large or small) better every day. Our destiny depends on it.

By |2017-05-25T22:11:46+00:00March 21st, 2010|American Identity, General|0 Comments
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Rebooting “We the People”

We the People of the United States of America are in trouble.  Our democratic experiment is in peril, dominated by demagoguery and corruption.  The concerns of our Founding Fathers have come to fruition as ‘errant man’ has prevailed in the institutionalization of mercenary-grade rapacity.  Congress continues to get nothing done (albeit at great expense), and our Supreme Court has now put the final nail in the coffin of our liberal democracy by ruling that our Constitution really meant to read We the Corporations.  While liberty was once our common bond, anger has taken its place. Unless we find a way to reboot our democratic values we will soon enter the Pantheon of former superpowers.

While this may sound like a jeremiad, we have got to find a way out of this.  Our government still has power and money, but no longer has its people; who have and always will be its principal source of strength. If anyone could have succeeded in rebooting our democracy, President Obama arguably had the best shot, but a wide mandate evaporated in the quagmire of Washington DC.  Someday we may come to realize Obama was the canary in the coal mine, a sign that bright young leadership could no longer produce reform and renewal.  The system is ungovernable. It now exists as little more than a host for parasites.

Smart people with big money those at Goldman Sachs have made their risk assessment and are deeply discounting the capacity of the United States government.  While many rail against what they believe is a greedy behemoth, the reality is the folks at Goldman are simply doing a better job of pursuing their self-interest.  And, they have made their bet: they don’t believe the government can do anything to govern them.  They know what the rest of us are now realizing; our government—once a model for the free world—has a terminal case of constipation, which has immobilized its power. The partners at Goldman Sachs know they will always be able to out-smart and out-maneuver regulators in Washington.

There is a way out, however, thanks in part to new technologies that offer us new ways to form new modes of collective action.  While our government may be entering a slow but certain period of entropy, we have the capacity to form new relationships and associations to solve seemingly intractable problems.  The solution starts by taking a page out of Goldman Sachs’ game plan and learn to ignore our government.  Turn our back and, to the extent possible, quit feeding/funding the monster it has become.  Each of us must pick an objective—education, healthcare, alternative fuels, security, communication, technology, whatever.  Set out to organize those with common interests, whether or not they too are Americans.  When a solution is found, pursue its execution with all the energy and resources available, with or without government support or approval.

“We the People” can form more perfect Unions.  The time to get started is now.

By |2017-05-25T22:45:10+00:00January 22nd, 2010|American Identity, General|0 Comments
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The Anger Party: Bring on Devolution !?

Last week, while I was watching a YouTube video of the September 12 “Tea Party” march on Washington—between my amusement and disgust—I was struck by more than the ignorance, racism, and piety, I was most impressed by the anger.[1]  The marchers were not minorities, young radicals, or those who have marched for the rights of gays or the unborn—not like we’re used to seeing. They were Boomers and Tom Brokaw’s “Greatest Generation.”  They were against anything with President Obama’s name attached to it and took extreme liberties in modifying his name on their placards and posters. But it was not at all clear what they wanted—what they were for.  When interviewed they mostly stumbled to take a position or articulate a point of view on any issue.  They were just plain mad.  They were white and over fifty. They were like me. Well, sort of.

Introducing: The Anger Party, committed to devolution!?  Notwithstanding a few bigots, racists, and evangelical misfits, these are mostly good people—patriots chanting “U-S-A” who are concerned about the future of America and, moreover, their position in it.  They represent the angry margin that was once the center of American culture.  The country they knew, or thought they knew, has changed.  And they are scared.  They blanche at the term “revolution,” although they embrace the historical notion of a tea party. What they want is devolution; they want power taken away from our federal government and things put back the way they were.  Most claimed the Republican Party, but many more claimed no party. They are the newly disenfranchised. They are the Anger Party.

Our Founding Fathers worried about this and struggled to produce an organic Constitution to allow for self-correction.  They strived to protect us from our “errant selves” and warned us of the danger of “factions.”[2]  More recently, Fareed Zakaria illustrated our slide toward an illiberal democracy in The Future of Freedom and argued for a rebalancing of liberty and democracy before restoration becomes impossible.[3]  It was clear to him, as it is to more of us now, that our form of collective action—our government—serves the few at the expense of many.  The Anger Party just wants to be put back on the list of the few.

While it is unlikely The Anger Party will prevail—especially without any sense of mission—the sentiment they represent (when you strip out the ugliness) is real.  It’s legitimate.  And, it’s a harbinger of things to come.  More people will become angrier more often as those who help themselves continue to ignore that they were elected to help others too.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUPMjC9mq5Y&feature=player_embedded#t=11
[2] See The Federalist Papers – particularly the writings of James Madison.
[3] Fareed Zakaria, The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2003).
By |2017-05-27T16:46:18+00:00September 21st, 2009|American Identity, General|0 Comments
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Healthcare: A Matter of Identity & Destiny

In the midst of cries of socialism and death panels on one side, and predictions of national bankruptcy and moral appeals on the other, lies a tug-of-war of historic proportions to settle a larger issue: who are Americans?  American identity has always been a contested issue.  Lest we forget there were both ‘Federalists’ and ‘Anti-federalists.’  Occasionally, a seminal issue bubbles to the surface that re-fashions identity. Sometimes they are moral issues like slavery, at other times they are political issues like imperialism (circa 1900), and other times economic—New Deal or no deal?  The current debate on healthcare is such an issue—not just because of its underlying moral nature—because it defines our future economic stability.

Ironically, when we ignore the town hall loudmouths and fears of collapse-by-taxes we find a challenge in healthcare that is imminently fixable.  It is, quite simply, a big distribution problem: who gets what, when and how and, who pays?  The good news is there is plenty of money in the system.  We know this because we see other countries accomplish more than we do with much less money.  We know that what they do is scaleable too—size is not an issue.  As actuaries know, size should actually allow us to do better for less.  We also know that we have plenty of non-financial resources: hospitals, doctors, technicians, equipment and drugs.  And, even though they may be unevenly distributed, remember: there is plenty of money in the system—we can fix that too.

The fact is many of us have too much healthcare—are over-served—while others have none.  Many of us have ready access to medical care, albeit with many unnecessary tests and treatments.  Others have none and/or are forced into overcrowded emergency rooms, which makes the system even less efficient.  Those of us who are over sixty-five, employed by a medium to large company, can afford it on our own anyway, or are a child who qualifies for S-CHIP are covered.  Some forty to fifty million others (depending who you believe) have none.

So, all we need to do is hire a bunch of those IBM-ers to sort out a new distribution system, right?  But, that’s not really what we are fighting about.  If we fail it will be over a larger question: who are Americans?  We must decide if we are a nation that believes our government should design basic support systems that address the bottom rung of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, or are we a nation that believes exclusively in self-determination and private enterprise?  Is healthcare a utility like power, water, and security; or, is it an industry free to serve its customers for as much money as the market will bear?  Most of the world sees Americans as selfish and powerful.  Are they right? Or, are we a misunderstood nation of rugged individualists?  The reality is messy, as realities are.  We are neither.  We are somewhere in-between.

Unfortunately, staying the course assures disaster.  One thing we cannot continue to afford is the financial reality.  We have thirteen trillion dollars in current debt and fifty-three trillion in unfunded liabilities (principally from healthcare and social security).  We know we can’t meet those obligations, especially as the states that have been buying our debt are already pursuing other investment strategies away from the dollar (like China). We may not agree to smooth out our distribution system with a team of IBM-ers, but we must deal with at least this: we must get more for our healthcare dollar by restructuring the ‘over-served’ problem.  The patient must have a stake so discipline is introduced into the system.  Patients must question tests and procedures and maybe even embrace the concept of diet and exercise.  Those of us who have healthcare must step back from our sense of entitlement and realize that we do not need all those tests and that maybe there is something fundamentally wrong with all those ‘ask your doctor about _____’ advertisements.

We may not decide to serve those who have none, although I hope we are better than that. (I think the IBM-ers can prove all can be served for less.)  But, at the minimum, we must decide we cannot continue to serve ourselves the way we have.  If we don’t, our identity may be defined for us—as a one-time superpower that met its demise at its own hand; still selfish, but not so powerful.

By |2017-05-27T17:06:18+00:00August 31st, 2009|American Identity, General|0 Comments
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