A People So Good They Don't Need Good Leaders

Without fuel, as they say, the engine won't run. No amount of even the most American hope or optimism is likely ever to change that. And so I keep marveling at all the various things human optimists think we can do without - or even throw out the window - and still be a more or less healthy society.

For one thing, on the whole I'm much too pessimistic about human nature to believe even we Americans can manage things well without fundamentally decent people occupying our political and business leadership. And here I mean an almost tenderly human, ungimmicked, unpretentious kind of decency. One that isn't just humble, or considerate, or conscientious, but all these things combined. Even to the point of the closest self-examination. And even, on occasion, to the point of self-distrust.

And not just in private relationships - as in being faithful to and caring of one's spouse, but also in public affairs - as in being faithful to and caring of one's constituents and clients. Including, if I may add, those among them who aren't all that well-connected, or up-and-coming, or ideologically of your own persuasion. After all they're your voters and your customers too. But above all, I mean a kind of elementary decency that adamantly refuses to look down on, or string along, or otherwise take advantage of, your average man or woman - no matter how miserably either may fail to live up to your most exalted American expectations.

"Excuse me?" you gasp, mildly appalled. "Average?" Why yes, you know - the kind who aren't quite so politically astute or well-informed, or ambitious for power and influence, or bold and entrepreneurially-minded, as our obviously more enlightened leaders in politics and business. The fact that certain people seem more stupid than you or I (they may simply be more worn-out, or broken-down, or just plain confused and discouraged) is no excuse for either of us taking them to the cleaners. I keep thinking it was Chesterton(?) who wrote - in so many words - that a society which believes its chief moral function is to punish slowness and stupidity will soon find itself rewarding the most accelerated, arrogant and ultimately destructive forms of stupidity. In any case, superior initiative doesn't give you or me rights of ownership or exploitation over anyone - any more than the Biblical Cain, hard-working and enterprising as he was, had the right to take things out on his, let us say, more contemplative brother Abel, simply because his own honest efforts weren't getting the Divine recognition he knew they deserved. And if you think Cain overcame a bad start to finish up a roaring success, just consider how things played out over the next twelve generations (Genesis 4: 23-24; 6: 5-7). In fact, much like nowadays, the time-tested Cainite method of global management was to put only the must ruthless and unscrupulous people in charge of affairs (Genesis 6: 12-13). It must have seemed like a wonderful idea at the start. But I doubt if that was any great help or consolation to the bulk of mankind once a certain unprecedented - and alarmingly steady - rainfall began. And let's not forget that even now there are floods in human affairs that have nothing to do with water. My own best guess is we've been through at least four or five of this latter kind over just the past decade.

And speaking of the past decade, I'm aware that certain unique cultural pressures of our time (c. 1995 - present) are making the averageness of the average man or woman harder than ever to recognize. Indeed, I suspect the recent bent of our culture has been inclining more and more average people to pretend to be - or even worse, to become - far more politically aroused, and socially ambitious, and entrepreneurially aggressive than they are by nature. Or would be by nature, if allowed to follow a bent that was more natural and less culturally obligatory. But even our new self-assertiveness might prove rather a good thing if only these same folks were becoming more activist, ambitious, entrepreneurial, etc, in ways that were intelligent rather than just arrogant, and more considerate and respectful of the needs of others, rather than largely snide and mean-spirited and opportunistic. And even, on occasion, back-stabbing. In short, many of us have been doing our literal damnedest to imitate our political and economic leaders. And not because we've suddenly fallen in love with the rat race, but simply to keep our heads above (flood)water. And that, more than anything else so far, is what continues to amaze me: The extraordinary things we everyday folks are prepared to resort - or stoop? - to, when led to believe that not just our financial well-being but our economic survival is at stake. Like, for instance, taking out mortgages on homes we can't afford (I know, I know, "Where's your vision, man? Where's your optimism?").

But still more amazing to me is the next thing that happens. Because even when we average folks do embrace these "extreme" survival tactics, that in itself is no guarantee of greater respect from our public leaders. Indeed, if anything our leaders may feel all the more at liberty, and even morally justified, in "putting one over" on us. As in "Who cares how much the average jerk gets ripped off, or led down the primrose path? I mean, look at the way he lives. He's just a jerk anyway, right?"

Nor do I believe, even today, that our "newly assertive" average Joes are specially qualified to speak for all the rest of us. Even in these strenuous times, there will always be plenty of us regular folks who don't choose - or who fail miserably - to "better" ourselves in these demanding modern ways. And in that case my original question remains: Just who are even the smartest, most gifted, most driven politicians and businesspeople to step on the rest of us, or push us around, or hoodwink and sell us down the river? I mean, aren't they human too? And don't they therefore also have human - and by implication damnable - souls?

Next, of course, you'll be telling me:
"Why, eternal salvation's got nothing to do with it - that's just the way the real world operates! And all of us, without exception, must needs adapt or die."

But in that case you must admit, the real world has been really running itself into the ground of late. And then what becomes of the poor earthly souls who must needs both adapt and die? Who must needs risk losing not only their souls in the next life, but their shirts - if not their very skins - in this one?

And yes, I'm fully aware that, for at least three decades now, the supreme maxim of our American culture has been "Hey, you snooze you lose." But now really, think about it: Haven't our most energetic, aggressive, enterprising souls been losing enough sleep already? And hasn't their insomnia already produced quite enough loss to go around for one generation? If not for our children? and our children's children?

Finally, there will always be those who argue that, our country having chosen a bad path - and I believe with all my heart we have - we deserve all we get down the road, and worse. But that in turn only makes me wonder: If a fundamentally sick public culture deserves only the sickest, most conscienceless public leaders, how's it ever going to get well?

Some Ideas That Could Be the End of Us All

I'm always uneasy when I hear educated and rational people - among them such luminaries as Dennis Prager, or Bill Clinton, or Barack Obama - describe the United States as primarily an idea, or an ideal, which ideally it is the job of each and every American to embody and live up to. And what's supposed to happen to those who don't, I wonder?

I'm reminded of those 20th-century movements whose partisans came to regard their own particular country as not just a flesh-and-blood people, or a physical territory, but as also, or even above all, as an idea. I'm thinking in particular of those German Nazis, and Chinese Communists, for whom it was not enough to be born German, or born Chinese; it was also a choice that had to be made. And made correctly. These were par excellence the sort of fellows for whom the degree of your Nazism was the measure of how authentically German you were, and the degree of your Communism the measure of how authentically Chinese. And while no doubt this is a development that can happen far more crudely and savagely in other countries than in America, I emphatically do not believe it is something that can't happen here.

I've got nothing against ideas, so long as they know their place. A good idea is always modest and quietly attentive in the presence of anything really real. And especially in the presence of that particular reality it seeks to approach, and love, and serve. Or even of the reality it seeks to change. In that respect it's not unlike the handmaid of the Biblical Psalmist, whose eyes are ever-attentive upon the every slightest mood or expression or gesture of her mistress. Even if her intent is to reform the woman who owns her, she understands that no amount of reciprocal contempt, of "badness" on her part, is ever going to make a bad mistress better. She knows that, in the realm of real human affairs, impatience, cruelty and disdain are only overcome by their Opposite. Only in physical nature, or in the more ethereal realm of human ideas, does fire ever actually fight fire.

Above all, a good idea never imagines it can do anything like justice to the complexity of even the simplest concrete, real, living thing (and only its Maker knows what wealth or poverty of life - or love - may residually subsist even in a lump of coal). Justice is a quantity no good idea ever presumes to be on intimate terms with - any more than a good plot-synopsis pretends to do justice to the human intricacies of a novel, or the most detailed map to the human geography of the smallest country. And just as no good honest handmaid would ever presume to play proxy or "stand in" for her mistress, so the good honest idea is always keenly aware of its inferiority to the indescribable thing it is laboring to put into abstract words. Indeed, I doubt if at its best the whole labor of abstraction has ever been other than hit-and-miss; after all, even our boldest, brightest, most hell-for-leather ideas occasionally miscarry. And even when they've largely "succeeded" at their labors, just think of the sometimes hideous monstrosities, as well as improvements, to which they've been known to give birth.

Take, for instance, the idea of capitalism. Take it, for once, not as the omniscient explanation of everything that goes right in a society, and the omnicompetent solution to everything that goes wrong. Take it, rather, as a decent, sensible, fruitful way of doing business, as opposed to merely thinking or preaching or obsessing about it. Or take it as a way of getting business done, and for the time being out of the way - as opposed to pretending that business alone is able to do everything in a society that needs to be done, all the time. Even in churches - or families. At its best, capitalism is always busy making its own distinctive and invaluable contribution to what I call the truly Good Society - in other words, to that blessedly real, tangible time and place (we've all known them) in which human creatures have so many more important things to think about than the sacredness - or the omniscience - of capitalism. At its worst, on the other hand, capitalism sees nothing either distinctive or invaluable in anyone's contribution but its own: it simply equates itself to the Good Society, leaving no remainder to the equation - as if profitable enterprise were the one active and constant ingredient in a medicine to which all else that had gone into it was mere replaceable filler.

Except, of course, that in real human affairs ideas don't do anything of themselves; they have no life at all apart from our wisdom or our foolishness. In real human affairs it is human beings who try to make capitalism into something more ideal than real; it is human beings who do the actual equating of capitalism with everything that makes a society not just maintainable but worth maintaining. My point is that in themselves good ideas are no different from any other good tool: they are morally neutral. Ultimately even the best ideas are only as good as the people who use them, or as bad as the people who idolize them. And no good idea is so flawlessly designed, so revolutionary and state-of-the-art, that it cannot have criminal or other destructive consequences when placed in the wrong hands. Which I think may be another way of saying that ideas don't kill or oppress; their worshipers do.

In the End was the Idea

I

There just aren't enough good writers these days. There just aren't enough writers who make you stand up, take notice of, respect not just what they say, but the words they use to say it. Almost as if the words themselves mattered. Writers who know that even the "cruelest," harshest message may sometimes find its way deep into the stubbornest heart, provided it can find words kind and pleasant enough to ease the entry.  

By "good" writers, then, I mean those few who care about the receptiveness of their readers, and not just the penetrativeness of their message. But much more than this, I mean writers whose words grow on you, almost like a living thing you've grown reluctantly fond of - grow in interest, liveliness, multiplicity of color and shade and hue - the more you read them, and the more closely you inspect them. The sort of writers whose practised verbal ear - whose patience, heedfulness, humility in the presence of even the humblest words - I find in shorter supply than ever during this cold-as-death post-Cold War "peace" we've been enduring.  

Though I suspect the technical reason behind the shortage is a rather basic one, and mostly unintended. In any age the best writers, the ones most worth reading, are also the most heartfelt. After all, if you don't really "care all that much" about what you have to say, why should I? But the most passionate of today's writers, even when they ambush and assault you (as is their usual custom) with their best points and themes, tend to come running out in full strength too quickly. So that soon there's nothing left of them to discover and explore. And unlike a conventional military assault, the whole purpose of a literary attack is that you the writer should be invaded and explored, and in being occupied, eventually occupy your reader.   

But worst of all is today's writers tend to pull the meanings out of their words and throw them at you, like hand-grenades, as if all the impact were in the so-called meaning or idea, and the "mere" word, together with all that words enclose - sound and lilt, voice and music - were simply a detonating-pin to be kept back from the reader, and then thrown away as quickly as possible.  

Whereas good writers, I find, have a way of creeping up on you unawares just when you think you've got them surrounded. They are no less brilliant - or explosive - for being quiet and unassuming in their choice of subject matter, or uncontentious in their mode of delivery. Above all, they do their best to ensure that even their simplest words - words like dove, ripe, soft, wound, lamb, dust, wheat - are full of hidden surprises, if not of a seemingly inexhaustible depth and resonance of association. Even more strangely, this very richness of association can seem, at times, as much imbedded in the "pure" sound of the word, as in what we call its meaning. Indeed, I have no doubt there are some outwardly unassuming writers whose secret power is such that, could we but read even their simplest words as closely, and as freshly, as they meant themselves to be read, we should be quite taken aback at what we'd find. Or rather, at what has found us. And sometimes even Who.

II

Take the example of a personal favorite of mine, Walter de la Mare - a writer whom not a few today might consider an essentially lightweight children's author and weaver of fanciful tales and verse. In any close reading of his critical prose, I wonder how many of us would be shocked to find that, for him, the relation between words and things need not be the usual modern one of arbitrary violence, in which our words are forever trying to impose themselves on things, and our things perpetually trying to wriggle out from underneath. To the contrary, in many places he gives the distinct impression that certain words, when used in their best settings - their native habitats, so to speak - are on such natural terms of ease and intimacy with the things they describe, you'd almost swear they'd been admitted into the very homes of those things, and allowed to explore every room, and forgotten shelf, and secret staircase, as opposed to being left standing (like most of our less violent words today) awkwardly in the doorway. And given the very run of the place, not just for a day or two, but for weeks and even months on end. Again and again I find this casual, easeful intimacy between word and thing cropping up almost everywhere I look. And even where the author hasn't found it you can nearly always tell he's been looking. Virtually everywhere in his critical prose, de la Mare suggests our very best words are those which, far from offering themselves as either harsh overlords or bloodless substitutes for the things they describe, actually give an enhanced - because more intent and appreciative - sense of the things themselves. And that regardless of whether the thing-in-question be a caterpillar or a cocoon, or a country; a poplar-tree or a politician. Or an economist. Almost as if the "mere" word itself were a kind of affectionately-remembered name - "decoy" I believe is de la Mare's own favorite term - to which the thing-in-itself was not only capable of responding, but actually happy to respond.  

Alright, so de la Mare was clearly no Kantian. But that's not half the strangest part of it. Most outrageous of all, he seems to believe that there are many such words; that we could find them growing in abundance if only we took the time to watch and wait, and listen; and that, once gathered, many if not most could be fitted, rather like gloves, to all sorts of topics covering nearly every human situation. That such words, indeed, could be used to enrich and illuminate not just his own familiar worlds of childhood, or imaginative literature, or that strange world - and word - we call Nature, but just about every human field of endeavor and aspiration. Perhaps even (one occasionally gets the hint here and there) human politics, and economics.    

I can't be sure of this latter point, because these are topics on which he touches very seldom. And then only indirectly and suggestively. But if I'm right, then it's small wonder to me, given the ponderous ways in which we tend nowadays to write on these sacred subjects, that we take such slight academic interest in de la Mare; small wonder that, although his popular readership may be wide as ever, he has attracted so little serious critical attention since his death in 1956 - and much of that half-hearted and perfunctory.

It's not as though we haven't allowed time for the dust to settle. 2012 will mark the centenary of the book that put him on the literary map of his day: The Listeners and Other Poems. But then a good deal else besides dust-settling can happen in a hundred years. And to the best of my reckoning, we of the latter half of that century have largely gone our own way, both in our tastes in poetry and fiction, and in our estimation of the strengths and uses of words. Right off the bat, I'd have said ours was a far more modest estimation than that of, say, early 20th-century Britain. But then I remembered our own current, strangely passionate faith in the political - to say nothing of economic - manipulability of words. Or "spin," as I believe it's become known in recent decades.   

In brief, these days we pretty much like our words to stop complaining, sit down, shut up and do as they're told. "And no funny stuff!" Which is to say, we don't take any too kindly to quaint old reminders of how independently powerful and evocative, and echoing, mere words can be. And least of all the many basic, often one-syllable words that have come down to us, largely unchanged in sound and use, since Shakespeare's time, if not Chaucer's. Words that, across many centuries, and through untold numbers of stories, have somehow managed to lose neither their soothing loveliness nor their power to pierce and unsettle. Anyhow, here is de la Mare himself, in a quiet tribute to both the Bible and its King James Version (in which, last time I looked, there was no shortage of monosyllabic words, and remarkably few "pure" abstractions):

All that man is or feels or (in what concerns him closely) thinks; all that he loves or fears or delights in, grieves for, desires or aspires to is to be found in it, either expressed or implied. As for beauty, though this was not its aim, and the word is not often used in it - it is "excellent in beauty"; and poetry dwells in it as light dwells upon a mountain and on the moss in the crevice of its rocks. In what other book - by mere mention of them - are even natural objects made in the imagination so whole and fair; its stars, its well-springs, its war-horse, its almond-tree?   


And here, introducing a professor of literature's 1943 lecture on "Shakespeare and the Dictators":  


The aim of this essay is to deduce from Shakespeare's treatment of his tyrannical characters his own personal convictions; to show also that the Plays are not only "experiments in human nature," but that they are illuminated also by "flashes of prophetic poetry" - which may be compared with those that may light up for their instant the region of waking dream, of the under-mind, of the mystical, and with other inspirations of genius. To imagine, however feebly, our latter-day tyrants as characters in a play of Shakespeare's is surely to be in no doubt as to their status as specimens of humanity, or of their fate. He [emphasis mine] would pierce to their essence . . .   


And again here, in exploring (what else?) our common human experience and recollections of childhood:

For most of us, strange veils almost completely hide away those "early days," though, now and again, some small experience may vividly evoke them: a glimpse, for example, of a horse, with its long tail, grazing in a field of buttercups, or a glance up at the towering boughs of an oak or an elm tree, or that first morning look through a window at at wintry morning in the hush of daybreak and deep in snow.

What I find astounding here is not just the vividness contained in so few words of such apparent simplicity, but the sheer presence, the composure, the peace. Doubly amazing to me is that this last passage was written in a world of quite unabatedly brewing and surging unrest (c. 1930). In other words, right square in the the middle of a "lull" between two world wars.  

Not, of course, that this gets de la Mare in any way lightly off the great political hook of his day. Indeed one may argue that, for all the genuine giftedness of his generation - whether in the writing, the refining or the appreciating of children's literature - they were all dismal failures in one key endeavor: namely, the securing of that notoriously insecure peace of 1919. But before you get too high-mindedly denunciatory, I invite you to look a bit further down the road, to the achievements of some others at most half-a-generation behind: To the peacemakers of 1945 - Churchill and Roosevelt, Truman and de Gaulle. Whatever of good literature these later statesmen may or may not have enjoyed, I would submit that, in their essential views on life and politics, and on the political implications of human decency, they had far more in common with the generation of Kipling, de la Mare, Chesterton, Buchan, etc, than with those shining democratic humanitarians of our Modern Literature, Yeats and Pound, Lawrence and Eliot. And as for the political legacy of Churchill & Co - if I'm not mistaken - even we of the post-Cold War era are still drawing on some portion of that peace dividend.  

Meanwhile, do we global post-moderns think to consolidate their work? Do we presume to maintain and extend peace in the world, what with all our magickal G-2s and WTOs and b-i-NGOs? Why, we don't even know how to write it - no, not even to children.  

Though even if we could, we'd be hard-put to find a more arresting writer than de la Mare - and especially on his choice themes, like human innocence and weakness and wickedness, or the unimpeachable dignity of the humblest living things, or the strange, untraceable thread that binds imagination and compassion. And even more hard-put, I should think, to find a writer more kindly and unassuming in his manner of arrest. Which in turn makes me wonder if, when all is said and done, we global post-moderns don't take any too kindly to kindness or modesty either.  

There's no need to jump to conclusions, of course. But, again, suppose for the sake of argument that I am right about what I perceive to be our post-Cold War fashion of "cruelty to kindness." In that case, I think it goes a long way towards explaining much of the uniquely strenuous, angry and callous nature of our post-Cold War life, both public and private. And of course we may go on indefinitely in this merry way, seeing less and less practical point to what the Book of Proverbs might have called pleasant words that are pure, or soft words that break a bone - or cut to the heart. In which case we'll continue to bludgeon each other verbally, and wonder why all our vigorous scorn and venom and caustic invective keep failing to "get through " - keep having, in short, so little practical effect. For my part, I find it hard to resist the conclusion that nowadays either we're ashamed of the power of kindness to change hearts, and win souls - and yes, even profits - or we've grown stubbornly (i.e., stupidly) ignorant of it. And that more than explains to me the repeated failures of even our grandest, most comprehensive mere ideas - monetarism, New Economy, neoliberalism, the Chinese model, etc - to achieve anything like the economic paradise, much less the geopolitical peace, so triumphantly forecast at the end of the Twentieth Century.

The Coming America

I don't hate America. But I do wish our Officially-Sponsored American Culture would stop behaving in the misleading and confusing ways that it does. I wish, in other words, that our culture would stop behaving as if, however ardently it may love, and admire, and gush over the glorious things human beings do, it rather hates - or regards as wholly expendable - those humbler creatures who do them. In particular I hope, one day, our American leaders and opinion-molders will discover that the best way of making our glorious achievements more humanly digestible is to do a better job of loving - rather than spitting out - the achievers. To say nothing of those lesser beings - workers, parents, teachers, pastors, etc - who help to make their achievements possible. You will not long derive any real benefit from things that are done if you go on treating the doers as so much cannon-fodder.

Speaking of soldiers (of one business or other) I'm reminded here of a story of how, on the eve of World War I, much of the press of Western nations was in an uproar concerning the destructive power of the new German zeppelins. The French and British press were especially worried over the danger the new weapons might pose to the civilian populations of Paris and London. Much of the American press was equally anxious over the possible threat zeppelins posed to the new Panama Canal. Talk about life, liberty and the pursuit of property. And since much of our current and previous US leadership appears to be in a similar - though not nearly so unabashed - frame of mind, I'm naturally hoping they'll grow out of it sometime fairly soon.

And (odd as it may sound coming from me) I believe they will. Someday I believe it will be evident to us - for I really do think we Americans will be the first to see it - that America is neither the hope of the world nor its despair, neither the deliverance of the world nor its prison: we are just over-rated. Indeed, I wonder if we won't prove to be about the most over-rated culture, or country, or civilization, or whatever it is we are, that has ever ruled the world since Rome. And by no means primarily by ourselves either. I find progressive-minded Europeans in particular to be second to none in their practical admiration of American culture. In fact one may argue, so abysmally ashamed are many Europeans of their own failures (you know, racism, colonialism, aggressive war, and all those other human blights of which our US history is so blessedly free), and so grudgingly - and hence honestly - worshipful are they of our success (and how American is that?), that they seem to be quite literally un-reproducing themselves out of existence.

Of course others will argue that the reverse of over-rating is at least as much true in our case. And yes, I was about to say that in some quarters the US is also the most over-demonized nation. But no, on second thought, in that category we only come a close third, with Russia slightly in the lead. And, of course, every generation gets exactly the kind of demoniac Russia it expects, and fears, and deserves. Yet I notice even the Russians, reliable as they've been in their Most Hated Nation spot for well over two centuries, are in recent years holding only a distant second to that sprightliest of newcomers, Israel.

But there is one chief reason why I say America is over-rated rather than over-hated. It is that for any national culture to be accurately rated, and revered, and imitated as we have been for the past two decades, it would have to be a kind of collective messiah. And if America is to be the earth's Collective Messiah, then frankly I dread with all my heart to see the earth's Collectivist Heaven.* There is just only so much even America can save and redeem; only so much that brashness, and eagerness, and uncritical love of novelty and ingenuity can purify and perfect; only so much that a shameless, remorseless contempt for history and memory, and for the whole reflective and contemplative life of Man can do for the good of mankind, before it starts seriously undoing much of the good that has already been done. Or, worse, before the unintended bad we do eventually outweighs or overtakes the intended good.

* And yes, I do believe there's such a thing as an American collectivism. Show me another modern society in which propietary domain is more eminent, or in which private organizational power is more deferred to, esteemed and respected as the indispensable engine of progress (not by Hollywood, of course; but then, much as we all sometimes enjoy their products - Avatar, etc - who among us really cares what they think?). From what I can tell, our US collectivist tendency is rooted in a certain time-honored mental habit we have, to which we're mostly oblivious. This habit, at which I hinted in the first paragraph, consists of:

(1) The high value we place on the dignity of individual human effort, initiative, ingenuity, enterprise, etc, things which are of their nature repeatable and replaceable; and
(2) the relatively low emphasis we place on the dignity of individual human beings, who are by nature wholly unrepeatable and irreplaceable, and so of a value incommensurate with whatever things they do.

(What? You're saying I've got my valuations completely backwards? That in reality, human efforts and achievements are the things of incommensurate value, and that human beings are utterly replaceable and interchangeable? In that case, why, I think you've proved my point.)

One Day, however, I believe we shall have the means of forming a more just and less hysterical estimate of who we are, and of what we have been. And by "we" I mean both America and the whole world, including - one can only hope - the hysterical Europeans. And then, at last, America shall begin to realize the remaining three-quarters - or more likely, nine-tenths - of that truly glorious potential we've been sitting on and suppressing for the better part of at least two centuries.

My guess is we've been in the grip of a major collectivist phase for at least 15 years now. In other words, I believe it will become clear - with sufficient hindsight - that when we soundly thrashed the Totalitarian Beast in the '80s and early '90s, we did not so much liquidate the Beast's assets as turn them over to new (i.e., more intelligent and efficient) ownership and management.

A Truly Heroic Feast of Cynicism

You've really got to hand it to this anything-is-possible country of ours. Even today. Because even now - as things seem more than ever to be crashing down round our American ears (but is anyone listening, I wonder?) - even now, I'd swear we Americans have managed to become wiser than ever before in our history: wiser, I mean, in the ways, and in that ever-popular knowledge, of good and evil. And particularly in all those clever ways in which evil - or what we'd surely recognize as evil in any situation but the one we're in - nearly always trumps good, or makes good seem fussy, or redundant, or irrelevant. Or, worst of all, obstructive to growth and progress.

Fortunately most of the time the trumping evil does is for good's own good, so to speak. The whole problem with Good, you see, is that he's really a very stubborn and ignorant little boy, who too often fails to remember his place, and who has a habit of asking many extremely ignorant, embarrassing and uncomfortable questions. And who, as a result, often stands in the way of our getting so many things done. Not just any old tiddly-wink things either, but things pretty much all of us would like to do - if only we had, we feel, the sufficient gumption and drive. Yes, even big, important, world-shaking things, like amassing great power or wealth, or political influence (and by no means always in that precise order). After all, who's this little punk to get in the way of our dreams? And as for the very worst of the little boy's questions - as to whether these grand things we'd all like to do are really likely to effect anything good, or make anyone's life better - why, you insufferable little snot, where's your spirit of adventure, and opportunity? You never know till you try, right? Surely we can sort out all your precious ethical concerns later? And in the meantime, haven't we all got a solemn moral duty to keep things going any blessed way we can? And doesn't that sometimes involve the breaking of a few unfortunate eggs?

In this clever way, as I've said, what would otherwise be known as evil, along with its seemingly much greater fund of practical knowledge and experience, increasingly trumps the good. Until soon there becomes less and less of anybody worth believing in, or trusting, or taking the word of. And even if we bothered to look, I mean, where would we find the people? or they find the time? We're all too busy thinking of ourselves, or taking advantage of the stupid and the suckers, or in general just trying to get and stay ahead, to be a rock for anyone to lean on. And just as well too, since only by pushing ourselves ahead do we move anything else along. Particularly in the public, the business and political, arenas. Seriously: Would you trust a man who always told the truth to get anything done?

Meanwhile, those few whom - whatever their political instincts or allegiances - we find genuinely worthy of our trust and belief are soon consigned to a lovely, museum-like irrelevance. How many of us remember Illinois governor Richard Ogilvie?

And again, why should we? By now the reason not to should be obvious to anyone with half-a-brain working. It's that we've grown up. We no longer have time for the obnoxiously honest little boy with his heroes and role models. Indeed, we haven't just grown very adept at tarnishing heroes, or at perfecting that process which ensures that all our leaders get tarnished (aka corrupted) eventually. We're way past that point now. We're so grown up, in fact ("I said get that little boy OUT of here!"), that we see very little practical point to heroism of any kind. I mean, this is the enlightened 21st century, right? Progress forbid there should still be anyone entering business or politics with the aim chiefly of serving the public. And least of all one who intends to keep true to her very oldest, most stubborn, most inborn sense of decency, fair play and compassion, and that to all human beings for no other reason than because they're human. Really, who does she think she is anyway - GOD?

Oh, I'm aware some may argue that if she genuinely believes these things, and is happier believing them, where's the harm? But honestly, do you know anyone half-way competent who does? and who is not mentally and physically the worse for it? And even supposing she were boneheaded enough to adhere to such muddled, antiquated sentiments as the incalculable worth of every human creature in the sight of God, just what would she hope to accomplish by it? Certainly whatever can be said in such notions' favor, they're hardly any self-respecting way of taking Life's bull by the horns. Why, at that sort of rate nothing much of any substance would ever get done. Or else it would get done much more slowly, or kindly, or considerately. And since when has any great man (much less woman) ever got that way by being kind and considerate?

Again, we all want to be great, right? The only thing that hinders most of us, as I stated earlier, is lack of nerve or opportunity. So why get in the way of someone else's nerve and opportunity? He's only doing what you would do if you had half the spine, or one-quarter of the character. Of course you're free to be as childishly noble-minded as you like. Go ahead, lie to yourself all you want: you know you'd be as big a "bastard" - if not altogether worse - if only you had a decent-enough chance of never getting caught. Meanwhile, if someone else of real backbone is aiming at success, why should you care a fig how he gets it? And if the real aim of all of us is to win, why give a damn how any of us plays the game?

Call it cynicism if you like. But even so, you must admit, it's cynicism of a far more buoyant, hearty, zestful, even life-affirming kind than most of our other variations on that theme. Indeed, it is to me if anything a kind of reverse-cynicism, in that those same human vices that traditionally have made us most pessimistic about man's prospects - our pride and impatience and effrontery - are made the very basis of our hope. What shall we call it then - the flip side of our famous optimism? Or better yet, the fuel that drives it? For my part, I'm convinced our "new" American cynicism is not just inseparable from our recently unbridled optimism: it is its bone and sinew. For here's basically how it goes. On the one hand we're all "bastards" under the skin (unless we're psychotics or otherwise mentally impaired). On the other hand, where would humankind be without "bastardy" - other than still in swamps and caves? It's what gets things done and keeps them going: what opens every door and washes every floor. All things are possible to him who deceives.

Thus do we get - in case it's escaped your attention - exactly the kinds of business and political leaders (to say nothing of business and political commentators) we deserve. And then we wonder at how their continued success continues to mean failure for most of the rest of us. And we marvel at how they go on winning what may be the biggest high-stakes game of our time: The game of making our country less and less unified, and more and more confused, conflicted and ineffectual, in our actions abroad anywhere. While meantime the whole world is graced and blessed with:

(1) global ideological - and religious - movements, many of a kind unimaginable even thirty years ago;
(2) global organizations of every kind and purpose and ambition, both profitable and not-for-profit;
(3) global syndicates driven by some of the vilest ambitions imaginable to anyone.

And all of them entities, please note, in whose delicate hands human beings may yet prove - or are already proving - to be far more interchangeable, malleable and disposable things than they've ever been for any mere country. Best of all, what with the gross vacuum of power we patriotic Americans are cheerfully creating, more and more of the globe is being parceled out for these newcomers' playgrounds, to which all the other "kids" must quickly adapt or die.

"What?" you sputter and mutter with indignation. "Entire countries being sidelined, or even relegated permanently to the margins by these new players? For heaven's sake, what about CHINA? Or even [note the more subdued, cautious tone] India?"

Well, frankly I wish I could be sure how India is going to escape the ever more vise-like grip of an expanding China and an exploding Pakistan. I only pray and hope she does, and quickly. And without becoming more fanatically "Hinduist" - in other words, more globally armed and dangerous herself - in the process. As regards a possible third Asian "giant," let me just say for the record that I'm much more worried over Russia's future than India's. On the one hand it is possible - just - that Russia may again become a kind of regional hegemon or even superpower (though I have the strangest feeling that, whatever future eminence she may attain, it will be one that is closely if not inextricably yoked with Germany's and China's). On the other hand, Russia is at least as much capable of disintegrating - or decomposing - as the result of certain bold and stupid things she initiates, as on account of the bold and stupid initiatives of other parties.

As for the thing we call China, that for me is an entirely different animal. The People's Republic is neither a nation nor a country, but rather a politically-organized (indeed, for the most part politically-brutalized) civilization. And that is something vastly different from the rest of us, for all the many superficial resemblances (though we in the US may be playing a strange game of catch-up in this department - more on that in the last paragraph). Indeed, all prevailing signs suggest China is becoming, once again, the kind of ambitious, aggressive, self-vindicating civilization with which history is so nauseatedly familiar: the kind out of which great empires are made, and whose ordinary folks are bought and sold a dime-a-dozen. And in particular (unlike the case of even, say, Imperial Japan) those folks who make up the empire's "own people." The reason is that in mainland China we have an entity not only fully capable of covering every part of the globe - in one fashion or another - but one that will essentially keep on going, and covering, until it bumps into something or somebody equally strong and worthy of (its) respect. The problem is that, before that happens, it may well have succeeded in covering more or less all of us. And I suspect the more of us it covers, the better will be the opportunities for those three most engaging global monsters I mentioned earlier - or at least those among them who have the biggest stake in the Success of China Inc.

This, in short, is the deliciously slick, clever, cocky little hyper-Americanizing world we've fashioned, in which for some mysterious reason there is less and less room for any coherent, sovereign, self-functioning entity known as the USA. Or likely even - eventually - any sovereign country. A world whose most endangered species consists of citizens who know how to respect one another's common humanity, as opposed to hating or despising each other for something as shallow and trivial as a mere opinion. In sum, just the kind of world we need - don't you think? - to prepare us for confrontation with real evil, real tyranny, real inhumanity. And what a nourishing feast of righteousness and peace for the globe's burgeoning populations! So if nothing else, I hope you've brought yourself a decent appetite. And please don't wait to be seated, but go straight to the buffet-table. See, and taste, the fruits of our wondrously optimistic American cynicism; savor the rich harvest of (roughly) four decades of "Attitude" and "Yeah, right," of "Been there, done that" and "Ask me if I give a s***." Above all, be encouraged. As mere Western nations go, our American influence and credibility in the world, our global leverage and prestige may be nearing their lowest points in the lifetime of anyone living. If not their final expiry dates. But as a defiantly post-Western, world-debilitating, world-corrupting civilization, why, there's no telling what depth of longevity - or depravity - we may reasonably expect to enjoy. All the more reason, it seems to me, for us to thank whatever god we really believe in that our good old American "smarts" - our snide, knowing, ever-so-worldly wisdom - is at an all-time premium.

Towards a Leaner Body

Whatever Today's Visible Church may be or fail to be, or do, or fail to do, I think few of us would deny that as modern institutions go it's very busy. Indeed, when I imagine the American Church today - and by that I mean pretty much any and every visible US church - about the most vivid image that comes to mind is that of a vast, unbroken, and not only unbreakable but largely uninterruptible stream of activity. And certainly one that appears to be covering immense ground in its pursuit of that Great 21st-Century Project known as doing more with less. Which, in practical terms, usually translates into trying to do more in five years than any mere organization should ever contemplate doing in fifty. And with less of just about everything one needs to run a church well: Less judgment, less patience, less understanding, less discernment, less charm, less delicacy, less passion, less truth . . . but above all, less people.

And that in turn - assuming my experience is not atypical in the extreme - usually translates into less help, and more bitterness, cynicism and self-pity.

What I fear more than ever nowadays, concerning a Church adrift in the (corporate) World, is more and more of her priests and other religious, her ministers and other workers, getting caught up, pulled along, and so immobilized by the irresistible momentum of the machinery of their work, that they can neither step outside of it, nor reach up (to God), nor reach down (to man), but must keep on doing what they've already been doing, ever more rapidly and mindlessly. Until at length both they and others are locked, so to speak, between the multiplying gears and sprockets, and "crushed."

What I fear, in short, is an organizational Church not only:
(1) less and less able to give much in the way of help to anyone (other than, of course, the usual advanced-reservation parties of six or more); but also
(2) less willing to ask for help; and even
(3) less willing to accept help when it's offered (as in "we happen to like our feelings of overwork, stress and burnout, thank you very much").
And of course
(4) always willing, like any good perfectionist, to pick to pieces whatever help it does bother to enlist. Thereby lending a new and wholly unexpected meaning to the ever-popular phrase "lean and mean."

Or even, perhaps, restoring to that phrase its very oldest meaning of all?

But don't take my word for it. Here's what St Paul had to say to the Galatians:

"But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another." (Galatians 5: 15 - KJV)

And yes, I know, that passage is commonly read in light of the verses that preceded it - i.e., against the backdrop of 1st-century "Judaizers" ' demands for Gentile Christian circumcision, and the inevitable doctrinal wranglings that followed. But isn't there a wealth of evidence from the rest of Galatians 5 (to say nothing of I Corinthians 8-13!) to suggest that Paul was also addressing the simple, day-to-day business of believers getting along with each other, and learning to work together, in the same House?

Cravings without Consequences; or, The Fine Line Between Pet and Pest

What a warmly, tenderly animal-loving society we've become! And how unprecedentedly well-attuned to our animals' various needs! Or so at least one might be disposed to judge, from the sheer number and volume of our animal-rescue operations. But what are they being rescued from?

Evidently many of us are about as apt to indulge a craving for a new-born kitten as for a hot-fudge sundae. And to become equally bulimic in our final assessments of both.