Turning over a New (Political) Leaf

Earlier this week, I posted a teaser graphic about the differences between discussions and lectures. I’d like to expand on that post a bit, since it’s something I struggle with. It’s easy, I think, to become entrenched in my own personal beliefs and values, unwilling to listen to another person’s ideas and reconsider my beliefs in light of the discussion. And, I think that kind of entrenchment is exactly what’s wrong with America today.

Americans used to be able to discuss the important issues with respect. We could civilly “agree to disagree,” but we also recognized that we needed to leave our entrenched positions and meet in the middle to find solutions to our shared problems. The ideologues at each extreme weren’t ever happy with that, but each side compromised for the good of all. Today, no one is willing to compromise, ever. In fact, suggesting that someone “compromise” has somehow become twisted to mean, “You compromise and give me everything I want, but I won’t move an inch.”

I personally blame the political entertainers (or politicotainers as I will call them in this post) like Limbaugh, Maddow, Beck and Maher. And, I blame their followers, the people who watch those programs or listen to their radio shows on a regular basis. Fans of politicotainers like to say that these people serve an important role in politics. But, they don’t. These people are paid entertainers, and their only job is to make money for their advertisers. Most aren’t political experts, yet people listen to their shows and ape their comments and views without giving any of the material serious study.

We’ve become sheeple (that is, sheep-people) willing to stampede in whatever direction our favorite politicotainer points. I even lump Stewart and Colbert into the politicotainer category, since so many people get their “hard news facts” from those comedy shows. While Stewart and Colbert usually remember that they’re comedians first, they sometimes slip into the role of “political analyst” that Maddow and Limbaugh like to claim.

What’s the solution? The first step is easy, but it’s also hard. TURN. THAT. CRAP. OFF. Really. Turn off all those politicotainer programs we all listen to or watch on a regular basis. Those people aren’t really political experts, and they’re not interested in finding solutions to the country’s problems. They only make money if everything continues to fall apart. Then, they get paid for gleefully “reporting” on the decline. So, turn them off. Sure, it means disrupting a daily routine, but like any habit, repetition will make it easier.

The second step is much, much harder. It requires all of us to actively seek out information from all sides of a debate, perhaps in newspapers, magazines and books. Then, we have to read and think about that material, choosing what to believe and what to discount. The recent decline in journalism makes this harder. But, I also think that newspapers and magazines are dying because no one wants to do the hard work of reading widely and thinking deeply. We could put a lot of skilled journalists back to work here while also educating ourselves.

The third and final step is the toughest of all. We must then engage in a respectful discussion of ideas with those who hold the exact opposite point of view. That’s tough, and the chart I posted earlier this week has some excellent tips on how a respectful discussion works. (Since no one I know has practiced that art in at least a decade, including me, I hope the chart will be useful.) It’s only by entering into respectful discussions that we’ll be able to find common ground with those who hold opinions that counter our own. And, until we see what we have in common, we’ll never find the solution to our country’s problems.

This weekend, I’m going to scout out news sources that I can use for step two. It will be tough, since my attention will be on the Olympics and seeing “The Dark Knight Rises” with friends. But, I’m committing myself to this new course of action so I’m ready to cast an informed vote in November. Who will join me?

Discussion or Lecture?

I'm working on a post for Friday that will address the need for "discussions" in greater detail. As a teaser for that, I share this image, which is making the rounds online:

Between Faith and Ideology

In the July 15, 2012 issue of the New York Times, Ross Douthat criticized the current state of liberal Christianity. In the article, Mr. Douthat seemed to place a large share of the blame on the writings of John Shelby Spong, a retired Episcopal bishop and liberal theologian.

While I’m willing to admit that liberal Christianity has its problems, I’m not sure one man is responsible for its ills. Although I’m not Episcopalian, I’ve read a number of Bishop Spong’s books in my quest to understand and define my own personal beliefs. I don’t agree with everything Bishop Spong’s books said, but I do feel that those works demonstrate a careful studying of his religion and a set of beliefs informed by thought and reflection. His model is one I think every person of faith should follow, regardless of religious affiliation.

 I’m also not convinced that conservative Christianity is as healthy and strong as Mr. Douthat wants to believe. Truthfully, I think many of the world’s major religions are at a crossroads, feeling the pressures of an increasingly interconnected global economy and the changes wrought by technological advances.

Certainly, the Roman Catholic Church is grappling with ideological divisions between liberal and conservative leaders. Most of the Protestant denominations face similar issues, as Mr. Douthat’s op-ed noted. In the past decade, Muslims have also found themselves at an ideological crossroads, with Western nations and liberal imams demanding that liberal Muslims denounce the activities of the September 11^th terrorists, while conservative imams have escalated their anti-Western rhetoric in response to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

To my mind, faith is a personal matter, and ideology should be too. Let me unpack that statement. I define faith as the set of beliefs that governs a person’s actions, the person’s moral and/or ethical compass in life. In contrast, ideology is the outward demonstration of that faith. I think that definition works for most of the world’s religions, and it seems to apply also to those who are agnostic or atheist.

Mr. Douthat’s article critiques the liberal Christian ideology that welcomes multicultural influences and pluralism. In leveling that criticism, he forgets that Americans have developed a firm belief in pluralism, using our multiculturalism as a source of strength. To abandon that in the pew or the temple or the mosque is to turn our backs on one of our country’s great assets.

Those of us fortunate to have friends who are Christian, atheist, Buddhist, Wiccan, Muslim, agnostic or Jewish see how interacting with believers from different backgrounds strengthens our own faith and deepens our connections to our own beliefs. The problem isn’t with multiculturalism. The problem is with an anti-intellectualism movement, which asks that people stop thinking for themselves and blindly follow another person’s faith and ideology. People of faith need to examine their beliefs to ensure that the inward faith and its outward manifestations are in accord.

Change, Nostalgia and Sentimentality

I read an article recently that talked about the differences between nostalgia and sentimentality. The writer argued that nostalgia is a realistic and appropriate reaction to change, while sentimentality is an inappropriate romanticizing of things that weren’t really good at all. The article went on to argue that New Yorkers, because of the constant changes around us, are better at handling nostalgia and sentimentality. That is, this writer claimed that New Yorkers don't feel sentimentality, which the article portrayed as a negative emotion built on false memories. Instead, we feel nostalgia, which is a loss for things that were good, an emotion the writer said made us better aware of how to accept life’s inevitable changes.

I’m not sure if I buy into the writer’s premise, but I can see that I’m learning the differences between those two emotions in my own life. Perhaps that's why I'm convinced I could never live in Tucson or Seattle again. That is, maybe I'm on my way to becoming a true New Yorker because I recognize every event, every activity, every change that occurs in our lives changes us profoundly. Because of those changes, when we leave the place that formed us and move somewhere else, the new place also makes impression upon us and it changes us too. In some ways, our new homes make it impossible for us to go back to where we started, which is why we’re told that, “you can’t go home again.”

I also think that those people staying in the same place their entire lives experience profound change, although they may not realize it. For those who live in the same area where they were born, the changes wrought by time are slower and less perceptible. In fact, many of them will argue that nothing about them changes, and they often find comfort in that belief.

For these people, having a relative move away is a scary proposition. When that person returns for visits, she or he doesn’t seem to be the same person anymore. That is, the person who has left the hometown has changed in ways that are far more obvious than the person who stayed in one place. However, the people who stay also change because change is inevitable. It just happens at a much slower pace, which makes the changes imperceptible to those living them.

The truth is, change happens no matter what we might do in our efforts to stop it. No matter how convinced we are that where we live never changes, it actually does. Even the smallest town or hamlet in America experiences change over time. Time is change, and the passage of time results in changes to people and the environment. Even in a small town, new businesses move in with a new family or an old business closes because the family who owned it goes away. Maybe the old man who ran the corner store finally succumbs to old age, and no one in his family is left to take over the store. All of these events, while small in the grand scheme of things, change the character of that town and all the people in it. That's why some of the greatest fiction deals with small towns and the people in them, focusing closely on what happens when one event affects everyone in that town.

 In some ways it's a law of physics writ large and turned into an acting agent upon the human condition. That is, it's a law of physics turned into a law of human nature. The people who stay in one place are like the objects at rest. Physics tells us those objects will not change unless acted upon by an outside force. And, the people who leave are like the objects in motion that won't stop unless forced to do so by an outside force. Where physics fails to apply to human nature is that even when staying in one place, change is inevitable. Human beings don’t like change; we prefer our schedules and to keep everything in comfortable sameness. But, change happens all the time, so we’d do well to learn to embrace it and channel its power to create new and better worlds for ourselves and those around us.

The Artist and the Abyss

Nietzsche said if you stare into the abyss too long, the abyss stares back into you. That statement is especially true for artists, and I believe that all great artists – painters, sculptors, poets, novelists, photographers and so forth - often stare into the abyss. The abyss is the human condition, the human soul, the human experience. Artists look into the deepest, darkest part of the human soul or human nature, and they reflect back what they see through their art. The best art works like a mirror, showing us what we truly are as human beings. When a work of art touches upon truth, it’s because the artist successfully stared into the abyss and captured a moment that is universal to humanity. Those seeing this artwork see something internal, as if the artwork is a mirror to the person’s mind and soul. The artwork gets inside that person, showing her or him a truth that perhaps wasn’t understood until she or he saw that work of art.

I am not talking about the flawed concept that humanity has something common, a shared “human nature,” because I think that idea has been thoroughly debunked. To me, the concept of  “human nature” is, at its root, the thing that makes us all animals. That is, I think the only thing that is universally true for all humans is the thing that makes us animals. We all need food, water and shelter to survive, but that’s something that can be said for every species on the planet, whether animal or plant. Each being needs certain conditions to be met in order to survive, so “human nature” doesn’t raise us above the other animals. Instead, it marks us as another living being, but not one that is special or superior to the others.

No, what marks human beings as unique among the natural world is our craving for truth and our attempts to demonstrate “truth” through art. The catch here is that “truth” is a fraught concept, one that is constructed culturally and may change over time. I don’t believe in universal truths, which is the idea that something is always true regardless of location or cultural mores. Instead, I believe that truth is a cultural concept, an idea that only exists within its cultural moment. Truth, to me, is as flexible and variable as “right” and “wrong.” All three concepts are cultural constructs. That is, someone in Omaha may think that it’s wrong to steal food from a grocery store. In another time and place, that act of theft would be condoned (or perhaps celebrated) if the culture surrounding the act had different social values. The idea that “human nature” means that certain things are always right and other things are always wrong is at the heart of every war over religion or politics. The mistaken belief that “we’re right and they’re wrong, so we must conquer and free them from their wrong ways of thinking” has brought more horror and tragedy to the world than we can possibly understand.

To me, an artistic truth is the closest we get to a shared “human nature” or “common human condition.” That is, artistic truths frighten us because great art can transcend its cultural moment and touch us across time. That’s because the artist has to grapple with the abyss. By staring into the abyss, she or he has faced down the deepest, darkest parts of the human psyche, and she or he has also stared in the bright, full sunlight of humankind’s most beautiful aspirations. These events occur every time the artist created new piece of art. If the artist is successful at staring into the abyss, she or he will create a great work that touches many people, a work that withstands the cultural shifts and reaches across the things that divide us from one another. But each attempt to look into the abyss risks the artist's soul, her or his creativity and perhaps even the artist’s very life. For if the artist grapples with the abyss and loses that battle, no art is created. In this instance, the artist may well go mad like Ernest Hemingway did.

Each time the artist approaches the abyss, she or he sends up a silent, secret prayer - “Please let me create something truly worthy this time. Let this experience bring forth a work of art that can withstand the tests of time and transcend my cultural moment. And, if I don't survive this interaction with the abyss, then please grant me enough time and sanity to finish this work of art. If the abyss should win, let this final work of art stand as a witness to my struggle with the abyss, a monument to the creative endeavor.”

American society often cuts its funding for artistic endeavors when economic times are tough, and our current moment in history is no exception. However, we fail to recognize the importance of artistic endeavor, particularly at moments of great social change. American society is facing economic and social pressures that will reshape our nation, changes that will shape and change what America stands for, for all time. Funding artistic endeavors is crucial to understanding exactly what we face and how it may shape us. Without artists gazing into the abyss for us, without their efforts to envision the best and worst possible outcomes of our present challenges, we won’t know which path to choose. Art shows us what we are and what we can be, both the good and the bad. Without artists gazing into what could be possible, we are walking along a dark path unguided.