Columns
My Way Or The Highway
After writing this column for twenty-seven years I can easily delude myself into believing that the reason no one writes in with complaints is because people agree with my opinions. Of course, I am fully aware a more likely reason is because no one reads them.
Be that as it may, should you have read “Gavel Gamut” recently you know the general topic has been the state of discourse and discussion in America. More to the point, why do so many people seem so angry with people whose only sin is to voice an opinion with which others disagree?
While even every day conversations among friends now sometimes turn into shouting matches and hurt feelings, the worst practitioners of “My way or the highway” are the cable television news anchors and the editorial writers of large newspapers. These pundits with public pulpits who are purveyors of pusillanimous perfidy often take it upon themselves to state as a fact that some statement by some public figure is false. Frequently no foundation is laid and no leeway is given for a statement being a mistake.
Usually the public figure who is maligned as mendacious, not misguided, has no opportunity to respond. An attack is launched and in our contemporary world of instant Internet access by millions of ill informed users the attack becomes the reality.
An electorate that forms its opinions on such marshy grounds might support government actions which are anathema to our nation’s welfare. Also, a steady diet of such diatribes could result in a backlash against the First Amendment. That would truly lead to a national disaster.
I know calling for self-policing by the media could morph into a call for government policing of the media. So what alternatives do we have? There are many, of course, but I would like to suggest we encourage the application of a few self-imposed procedures that might help make our current hostile environment more positive.
These procedures are neither secret nor complicated and have been slowly and carefully crafted over many years. Well, maybe next week.
It’s Not Opinion; It’s Fact
Once upon a time one could read a newspaper or listen to the radio or watch television and get information on current events. One might hear a report about our nation’s involvement in a war for example. I was born in 1943 so my first war memory is from Korea. Perhaps Korea might provide war tocsin again.
Anyway, I recall news reports about General MacArthur and President Truman. I do not recall anybody calling anybody else a liar for expressing their views or positions. Issues as raw and visceral as Commander-In-Chief versus commander in the field were discussed and analyzed without resort to epithets. About the worst MacArthur ever said about Truman was he was only a captain in WWII and about the worst Truman ever said about MacArthur, even as he relieved him of command, was that MacArthur failed to salute him.
The conversations and arguments as to the relative merits of civilian control over the military and the authority of Congress to declare war were presented as honorable people with differing views. I do not recall my parents or my teachers in school using ad hominem arguments instead of evidence-based analysis. In other words, each side accepted their views were merely opinions based on facts, as were the opposition’s views. Neither side was so sure of its own omniscience and the other side’s venality as to assert its own opinions were synonymous with unmitigated facts.
While I was not sent to Vietnam I did serve in the military during that war. When I returned to my college campus after receiving my honorable discharge, the country was embroiled in a bitter and divisive argument about the draft and the war.
When Vice President Hubert Humphrey came to IU to present the Administration’s position on the war, students protested but without violence and without accusing the speaker of false motives. Most students were against the war and our government was supporting it. It took millions of arguments and another several years but finally we left Vietnam. I never heard Humphrey call any students liars nor did I or any of my fellow students attempt to prevent him from speaking. We certainly felt free to disagree and to loudly say so.
The media reports of the latter half of the 1960’s and first half of the 1970’s were often hard hitting on the recitation of facts with which President Johnson was confronted. But I never heard a national news figure say about the President, “He flat out lied!” Such argument quashing language was reserved for pool halls and bar room brawls.
So, assuming I may be at least somewhat correct in my impressions that our civil society is now just a society, how did we get here? You probably have a thought or two on this topic. If so, you probably have plenty of friends and family who never let you voice them. I know I do. Thank goodness I can get my views published in several newspapers. Well, at least, I think that’s a good thing.
Fighting Words
As lifetime members of the Indiana University Alumni Association Peg and I receive IU’s magazine which usually is devoid of substance and replete with solicitations for even more money. I normally toss it in the trash with a casual glance. However, this Fall 2017 edition contained an essay by C.J. Lotz titled “Fighting Words” which took up the issues surrounding the questions being asked by every Talking Head. Of course, no one really wants to know what anyone else thinks so right after the questions are raised the Talking Heads answer them for us as they wish. The main question is, “Are we becoming an ever more polarized society?” The question the Talking Heads deign to answer for us is, “Why?” It is simply assumed that we are.
Frequently someone opines that we are in the midst of the most fractured, volatile social and political environment America has ever experienced. Such a priori statements reek with irony. The people who boldly assert such an evaluation are themselves adding to the fracturing. Often there is neither citation of facts nor any attempt at logical analysis. The nearest thing to a thought process is an assessment of blame. Targets might include everything from a nasty election to Hurricane Harvey being the wrath of the gods for the outcome of the election.
While Hurricane Harvey has neither mind nor soul, it does remind one of the kind of natural disaster the gods of the Bible or those of Ancient Greece might use to send a message. Harvey’s destruction struck at the just and unjust without discrimination. Such an approach is similar to the types of statements you can hear every day in our national and interpersonal discourse. You will notice I did not say we were engaged in argument. Arguments entail clashing viewpoints. What we so often witness today are simple pronouncements as if from Olympus.
The past two years have witnessed the kind of hyperbole and vitriol one might expect from the buildup to a professional boxing or wrestling match. Take the recent bout between the boxer, Floyd Mayweather, and Mixed Martial Arts fighter, Conor McGregor. Mayweather made $300,000,000 and McGregor $100,000,000. With four letter words and gross threats of physical harm the pre-fight “conversation” sounded like two twelve year olds in a school yard. It reminded me of CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and FOX’s Sean Hannity yelling out fake news. On the other hand the banal invective did help gin up lots of money from red meat loving fans, which of course, is the objective of the news media too.
Fighting words by groups and individuals are our society’s replacement for the kind of physical fighting that once was used to quell disagreements. Each side of a dispute would choose a champion, a mounted knight for example, then the two champions would fight to the death of one of them. The survivor won the argument. In other words, might did make right or as we might observe today, one side was right because it won, not won because it was right. There are often no nuances to our contemporary verbal clashes. It is all or nothing.
What is more concerning are the motives each side projects onto the other. It is simply assumed the opposition is lying and venal. The possibility of an honest mistake or another reasonable alternative is not considered.
Perhaps such a development in our national and personal discourse is itself subject to interpretation as suggested by the IU publication. So, if you have nothing of particular interest to do for awhile perhaps you might want to take an Odyssey with me for a week or so in search of constructive conversation.
Ohio State 13, I.U. 14 (Half Time)
After treating me to 8 weeks of basic training in the Texas summer heat the United States Air Force extended the misery by subjecting me to Indiana University football. In 1963 the Air Force stationed me in Bloomington to learn Hungarian. First they gave me a Top Secret Security Clearance. Silly me, I thought the reason was to keep secrets from the Soviet Union. I discovered the only secret being protected was that there are two halves to a football game; I.U. often plays only the first.
From my first IU football game in 1963 through 7 years on campus up to last night, August 31, 2017, I have repeatedly had my hopes raised in the first half only to see them crushed on the shoals of reality. At least IU has often been inventive and original in finding ways to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
My most painful memory is the game we lost after it was over. Yes, over! What happened was Indiana went ahead with less than thirty seconds left to play and was so excited, and surprised, to be ahead the team started celebrating during the kickoff and the other team ran the kickoff back for a go-ahead touchdown as time ran out. That was the first IU game I saw. It was an omen, a harbinger, a curse.
On the other hand I have watched numerous football games where we led at half time. What is it about IU football and the second half? We often play well and smart and tough the first half then have to invent a way to lose in the second. Perhaps our approach has been misguided.
Indiana University is a fine academic institution with a beautiful campus and generous support from Hoosier taxpayers. We have smart students and even smarter professors and we require our football players to go to class. Maybe we should demand a rule change based upon the empirical evidence. I suggest we simply walk off the field at half time and not come back. Then such debacles as 13 (Ohio State) to 14 (IU) at the half will no longer turn into 49 to 21 at the end.
Feet of Clay
William Shakespeare had Marc Antony preach these words at Julius Caesar’s funeral:
“The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.”
Act III, Scene 2
Antony went on to list Caesar’s accomplishments in addition to his being ambitious. There was some good, some bad. Perhaps the citizens of Rome should have erected a partial statue of Caesar honoring just the good parts.
This could be a solution to our current controversy over monuments to historic figures. A committee could be composed of people who admire the works of a now dead leader and those who find the figure’s behavior flawed. A few examples might be helpful.
George Washington survived Valley Forge, presided over the Constitutional Convention and refused the opportunity to be named an emperor. On the other hand he owned hundreds of slaves and helped enshrine slavery into our legal system. The Committee might consider cutting the Washington Monument in half.
Thomas Jefferson was responsible for the Bill of Rights that guaranteed individual liberty but only to twenty-one year old white males. He also owned slaves and had children by one of them. Today such an employer/subject relationship would result in severe censure. Perhaps the Committee might recommend the Jefferson Memorial be closed every other week.
As we search for unblemished heroes to honor we could consider Abraham Lincoln who issued the Emancipation Proclamation. However, he at first averred slavery would be preferable to the disintegration of the Union and the Proclamation did not free all slaves just those in the states of the Confederacy. The Committee could maybe have a disclaimer added as a placard around his statue’s neck.
Andrew Jackson committed adultery, captured Seminole Indians under a flag of truce and as president created The Trail of Tears. On the other hand, he was a courageous and victorious military leader. A short bronze bust could replace his heroic sized statue.
As for Mount Rushmore the Committee would have to remove at least 3 of the 4 figures. Of course, Teddy Roosevelt had a penchant for shooting animals which might upset the ASPCA; so all 4 might have to be erased.
Right here in Posey County, Indiana we have a dilemma about what to do with our most famous citizen. Alvin Peterson Hovey was once Posey Circuit Court Judge, a Civil War general for the Union and our only governor. Unfortunately, he also was instrumental in helping to cover up the murders of seven Black men in October 1878. One of those Black men was shot and stuffed into a hollow tree on a farm owned by Hovey. Will the Committee have to remove the glowing patina from Hovey’s bronze in the Indiana State House?
One might look to Jesus as the paragon of virtue but even he got angry and threw the moneychangers out of the temple. He, also, voiced his hope that the cup of his great travail might pass from him. On the other hand, apparently no one knows what Jesus looked like unless one believes the Shroud of Turin is a clue. I guess the Committee would not be able to find any statues of Jesus to modify.
It appears that history has not provided us with any perfect examples to honor. Maybe the Committee will have to suggest that all statues be modified by substituting feet of clay.
Cultural Cleansing
A nation is its culture and experience, its history. That is what determines its character. The same is true of the world. We learn or do not learn from the mistakes and accomplishments of ourselves and those who have preceded us. If we learn, we can accomplish more. If we do not learn, we may repeat mistakes. To learn from the past we must know and understand it. If we hide the past, we do not change what has happened but we may live to regret that we no longer remember it.
ISIS or ISIL, the Islamic State of Iraq or the Islamic State of Syria, has been culturally cleansing the ancient Middle East for several years. Its members are offended by statues, monuments and artifacts that once, before ISIS destroyed them, carried within them thousands of years of human knowledge and culture. ISIS could not bear to allow memories of ancient or even contemporary peoples who had the temerity to have different beliefs from ISIS. This is particularly puzzling with religious differences since ISIS’s belief system is based on its particular interpretation of Islam which could not have existed before Mohammad who lived from 570 A.D. to 632 A.D. Yet ISIS viciously attacks the artifacts and history of cultures thousands of years old.
Of course, ISIS as all such denigrators of history, is not changing the facts of history. ISIS is merely proving their own ignorance of it. Such actions are much as children who put their hands over their eyes or duck their heads under the covers in an attempt to convince themselves that because they do not see something it never existed. Or as ISIS and some other people do, they destroy historical artifacts and try to convince themselves and others that a certain history never happened. Of greater concern is the very real possibility their actions will lead to the loss by future generations of an opportunity to learn from that history.
To preserve and observe a historical artifact, a temple to Baal that was 5,000 years old or a Christian church that was 2,000 years old for example, is not to worship Baal or Jesus but is to build upon and learn from history. To destroy artifacts of a nation’s past does not change that past but it may result in the nation repeating past errors because those errors are out of sight and therefore out of mind.
History teaches us that power waxes and wanes and that who is on top today may be oppressed tomorrow. The burning or banning of books, say the Bible for example, does not invalidate a book’s content. It does validate the lack of vision of those who arrogate to themselves the sole interpretation of truth or history.
Each of us has the right to venerate or denigrate whatever philosophy, religion or creed we wish. However, just because what happened in history may be offensive to us does not mean we should attempt to establish such history never occurred. Haven’t we lived through enough of such culture destroying behavior to recognize the danger in such a course?
Perhaps next week we can revisit such a revision of history that occurred right here in Posey County, Indiana and delve into what that revision might mean to us today