Day 302, January 11, 2021
A Rubric for the Future
Tonight's soundtrack: The Miles Davis Septet, Jazz Jamboree, Warsaw, Poland,1983
The prevailing question from the people I've talked with today, in those moments before a Zoom meeting starts, or as one is wrapping up, is, where do we go from here? What comes next? And by this they mean, both in the next two weeks as we wait for whatever destructive action the President might facilitate in his remaining days in office, but also, what does it mean to face this ideology that has been planted, fertilized, and taken root in our country? What happens to all those thousands of people who gathered in Washington D.C. Wednesday when they return home to our respective cities, towns, and neighborhoods?
To a certain degree, it appears that the attempted coup was an awakening of sorts to people and corporations who had blindly followed the President with a benign profiteering perspective. He was, after all, the embodiment of capitalism, and how could that be wrong? To be anti-President, one must be supportive of social welfare, education, non-profits, and civil rights. I tease... a little, but it does seem disingenuous to have sat silent up until this moment. Perhaps the same could be said for all the people who sat still for the long list of despots who have wrestled or maintained control of people throughout time. Despots are only able to maintain control and power because we... the rest of the people around them, give it to them. People give despots power because they also hope to profiteer off of the despot's success. So that explains the McConnell and Cruz types. But what of the rest of the populace that seems to have been hoodwinked by fantastic hallucinogenic conspiracies?
I wonder what happens to the collaborators, the silent and active participants. How does a nation heal? I think of post-war Germany, postcolonial nations after independence, South Africa. How to we move back from the precipice? How do we privilege different voices of influence?
In Superior, Angela Saini shares Barry Mehler's warning:
I can hear the fear in his voice, an anxiety that political stability in even the strongest democracies rests ultimately on a precipice. “I saw anti-Semitism. I was really alienated in American society. I was a person that felt that racism and anti-Semitism were predominant, and that the United States could easily become vicious, racist, and go back to its racist history when push came to shove, if poeple were threatened enough.” The past, he reminds me, is always capable of repeating itself.
I haven't reached the redeeming conclusion of Saini's book yet, I am hoping that it helps give some direction to the moment. But it is hopeful that, despite mistakes, errors, and misdirections, there are people trying to do better, trying to learn from the past, trying to be more careful with how we interpret things, how we leave things open to interpretation.
At the end of one meeting, I shared that I felt more hopeful after our strategizing on a racial equity and justice curriculum for the coming semester. Not that I have an immediate solution, but that we know the work we need to do. It is not going to be easy or simple, but we know what it is that is needed, we just need to do it. There is no other way to move forward.
I saw a funny statement on Facebook today. The person wrote (I'm paraphrasing), "I am not always sure about my opinions and stances on issues, but I use Nazism as a barometer. If I am in a crowd of people and someone quotes Hitler, I am in the wrong crowd. If I am standing next to someone who wears a sweatshirt advertising a concentration camp, I am standing next to the wrong person..." and so on. There was also something funny about standing next to a person wearing buffalo horns with a painted face, but I forget that part. But I like how the statement started from a point of humility. We may not see the full picture, we are fallible. If we start from a point where we can question our standpoint, our reality, our perspective, and we can teach people how to question their own, then we can become better critical thinkers. Perhaps.
Simple to say, right? There are so many easier paths to pursue. Saini explains it simply when describing Gerhard Meisenberg:
Meisenberg’s tactic is simple: he uses people’s gut prejudices and casual stereotypes to undermine trust in mainstream science. If you feel it to be true, it must be.
It is the path of easy thinking, blind faith, indiscreet following. It is a way to affirm one's own experiences, travails, suffering, unhappiness, or lack of power. And of course, there are radical indiscretions on both ends of the political spectrum. (This is, by no means a push to the middle, but rather an acknowledgement that my most radical ideas and arguments have the potential to be misguided and misplaced.) A colleague put forth an idea of what might a simple test, like the Nazi test. She asked, What is the intent? Because that changes everything. I suppose it does.
Maybe the difference is moving from a fear of losing, to an epistemology of giving and service.
If we all believe we are right, if we all believe we know the truth... then, if we are not standing next to Nazis, if we can ask ourselves what is the intent of an action... if we can ask if we are being manipulated by fear... if we can start by thinking of others... perhaps that is a rubric for building a future.
Take care, be well, and stay safe,
Leo
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