Christmas Blues

Listening to: The Indigo Girls - Retrospective (why? because it was the album Brandi listened to while she was making plans to leave)

This is the first year I can remember when I have had this kind of Christmas blues.

I've had Christmas blues before, of course. The year my mom left was a rough year. The year Jenny broke up with me, I dealt with some pretty serious post-Christmas blues (she broke up with me New Year's Eve). The year I left grad school was a tough year (I left right before Christmas).

This year has been different.

Maybe it's because I'm just much more aware and in tune when I'm feeling shitty. I don't try to pretend, anymore, that I'm feeling better than I am. Maybe it's because this is the first year Brandi and I are not talking anymore. And her leaving behind our friendship has hurt me more deeply than anything I've experienced in recent memory. I hurt worse when we broke up. But other than that, I can't think of many things that have hurt worse. Jenny and my mom leaving are the other two that really rank up there.

I'm sure it's all of this.

But I do have some serious Christmas blues this year.

I really don't know quite what to make of my life, these days. I'm not sure that my life has much meaning, these days. I'm not convinced that my teaching or my written work or my presence really makes much difference at all in the world, is the truth.

I'm afraid that I've made a serious mistake dedicating so much of my life to helping others when so few people seem like they really want to help or want the help, frankly. I've dedicated myself to high ideals around equitable and inclusive education that so few people really take seriously, honestly. The number of my friends and people in my life who take education really seriously, enough that they pursue it and their own intellectual growth with some enthusiasm or curiosity or seriousness, is very small, really.

I often feel like all of my efforts are wasted. I can't stand the idea of wanting to be with a girl who would want to be with me for money. And yet I am becoming increasingly aware of the more cynical motivations of women in seeking men, and the less my efforts are really seriously needed or appreciated by others, the more I think, "Why the fuck would I keep doing this shit?"

I really don't know why I chose this life, anymore. It's been nothing but hardship and misery for very little reward. I have lots of friends, but I don't have one person in my life who shares any of my more serious commitments with me. I don't have professors or teachers or parents to look up to, anymore, because they're all betting I'm wrong. Or they just don't care one way or another. Or they're all holding out for their right to bully me in one direction or another.

It's very lonely to take intellectual pursuits seriously. Because very few people do. And they're all always just a little tired of hearing you talk about this or that issue.

And I look at the political landscape, right now, and I think, "Why the fuck would I keep doing this?" There's nothing but cynicism and dissatisfaction and pressure and strong-arming out there, for me. "Who would want to keep doing all of this?" I wonder to myself, all the time. My colleagues and I are persistently pondering why we keep teaching, especially in an inner city school where we're being sanctioned for taking on the challenge that so few of the people who advocate for the sanctioning would or have actually taken on themselves.

And I'm not discouraged about just teaching, at this point. I'm discouraged by the whole thing. The teaching. The politics. The making a living in a world full of such cynicism that has absolutely no interest in facing it and taking stock of what a mess they've made of life with their cyncism in their outlooks and choices.

Maybe none of it really does matter.

Maybe I'm holding a flame that noone really wants a piece of.

What I know is that I don't really have anyone to share the idealism and commitment and love and passion for what I do with at my age. People my age have generally given up on all of that childish nonsense. I have been fighting a tide that I just can't fight my entire life. I need others to share it all with. I need a soulmate to share the trials and tribulations as much as the victories and excitement with.

I need to know that my life is something more than just a nice guy finishing last.

Because right now, that's what it is. I'm a nice guy with a big brain and big mouth that I'm not convinced has really made much difference in this world.

And I don't know what to make of my life with that.

I look back on my more unselfconscious idealism of 10, 5 years ago and think, "How naive of you to think that others might share that, or really give much of a shit."

I'm a nice guy from a white trash background and a third-tier university, who couldn't even complete one nevertheless two Master's degrees or a Ph.D. I teach kids that most people pity because they just don't know what else to do with them and I write work that is horribly naive because it lacks the cyncism and recrimination and enthusiasm for the use of force and the exercise of dominance that more tough-minded thinkers need to understand the world more adequately.

And 5 years ago, the person who I've cared about most in my life and my best friend walked out on me and married an insurance and banking man. And she stopped talking to me a couple months ago.

By any objective measure, I'm kind of a loser, who identifies with losers, which is exactly why my life is such a fuckin' mess. Because my whole life is dedicated to making sure that we look after the losers in life and not be so goddamned wrapped up in being and betting on the winners.

And it has condemned me to a life of losing in the name of a lot of folks who I think could give two shits about what I have to offer.

And I'd abandon it all today, if I didn't care so much about it. And what it means about me if I give it up. Even though noone else gives much of a shit, I don't think.

I have a couple of scholarships that require that I either teach special ed for 8 years, 4 years in Kansas, and I'm sure my liberal benefactors are convinced that these and their regulation of my work and the work of my colleagues and all the other ways that they can force my hand are what keep the universe in order. When the truth is that they are the most important reasons that would drive me out of the profession.

There is not much to celebrate about my life, right now. I am a modern day agnostic Job, wondering why the fuck I keep setting myself up for all of this shit.

Faith. And that is waning quickly.

Public service is hardly inspiring in a world where I am told to "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you're going to fuckin' do for your country whether you fuckin' like it or not."

But there is very little that is very inspiring, these days.

And as long as everyone seems quite content with that, it doesn't look like that's going to change anytime soon.

So that is the life that I get to share with the rest of this miserable, cynical little world.

Merry fuckin' Christmas.

Love,
Ben

Transcending partisan politics (make sure my funeral doesn't look like this)

I just happened by this link, today, for a review of the coverage of the funeral of Coretta Scott King back in February.

Everyone who cares about me: make sure my funeral isn't like this. It was an ugly partisan-fest. I understand why liberals wanted to use the occassion to criticize the President, after years of feeling like the President would not listen to criticism about the war or anything else. I agree with a lot of their concerns even as I have differences about how to address them.

But my major concern reading the coverage of this funeral was seeing just how tragically wrapped-up people get in politics. How it becomes the only or most important lens through which they see people. What a hard time people have just accepting that people have differences with them, that people just look at things in life differently -- with potential for a future reconciliation of views, rather than a foreclosed difference -- instead of assuming that people are in bad faith or trying to be destructive.

The problem is power, I think. When you want to use power to hurt peoples' friends, they tend to get pissed off. Everyone. So people do what they did at this funeral which is take pot shots at one another. Even people associated with a legacy as great as Coretta Scott King's and Martin Luther King's legacy.

One of the best things that has happened to me over the last 5 or 6 years is that I don't look at people through partisan lenses, primarily, anymore. I'm not really a partisan in any meaningful sense, these days. I don't think anyone or any group has all the right answers. And I know every group has plenty of wrong answers.

And what that has meant for my life is that I just have a lot of friends and family that I love, that I agree with much of the time, but that I also disagree with plenty, and with whom our common ground is always more substantial than our disagreements.

The idea that people would kill one another over partisan differences, as happened over much of the 20th century, or that they would kill and threaten revolution, as was supported by far too many liberals and conservatives and their more militant, radical counterparts in the 60's; the idea that people would threaten one another, prosecute and persecute one another, villify and embarrass them in public, insult them in a way that is meant to hurt them rather than enlighten anyone, strong-arm them, force their hands, or otherwise seek to hurt them or threaten them to win a political point is just ugly and certainly not a standard we should aspire to, from my vantage point.

Funerals should be a time to honor someone, their life, and their legacy. Not to tear down someone else.

So many people are filled with so much anger and rage and hate and envy and other destructive impulses towards one another, politically and otherwise.

It's so sad to me. That politics and religion and education and all kinds of high-minded aspirations get used by people to direct their rage and hate and envy at one another.

It's the saddest kind of rationalization, to my mind. To use high-minded pursuits to cloak one's ugliness and destructiveness. We all have nasty impulses. Everyone. No exceptions. And we need an opportunity to vent them or share them openly so that we can accept ourselves for them, despite them.

But so many people waste so much of their lives trying to pretend that they don't operate with such impulses. Or that those impulses are more nobel than they really are. Fearing that others wouldn't accept them or that they couldn't accept themselves if they admitted just how ugly their attitudes had gotten in the name of whatever self-righteous cause.

It is the basis for terrorism, Communism, Naziism, Fascism, authoritarianism, autocracy, genocide, apartheid and all of the worst evils of the history of humanity.

And it exists with more or less power in contemporary democracies and will continue to have much power as long as democratic citizens both fail to acknowledge it and allow themselves to be manipulated by it and to manipulate others with it.

Our great hope is that we have escaped this kind of ugliness in the past, and we can escape it in the future.

Almost 400 years ago, Thomas Hobbes wrote a book that students of politics still read today, The Leviathan, which was a comprehensive effort on Hobbes' part to help Great Britain escape the vestiges of religious partisanship and sectarianism that has torn apart his country in bloody civil wars.

Hobbes is recognized today as perhaps the first political scientist, attempting to account for political thought and behavior in a secular, scientific way rather than cloaked in religion -- though Leviathan has plenty of religious arguments as well; if you've not read it, I highly recommend it, especially in a modern political theory class with a professor as quality as Dr. David Ericson, my modern political theory professor at Wichita State University -- and in a way that was meant to transcend the bloody religious differences that had torn apart his country in 1642.

It was clearly a noble cause from our vantage point, today. Leaving behind the vestiges of a destructive religious sectarianism that could never resolve itself in any meaningful way except in common ground. It was very similar to the destructive ideological partisanship that we experience today, where so many people claim to have found ultimate truth about matters that they clearly have not out of a self-righteous notion that they or their thinking about the world is superior to their neighbor.

It is our democratic commitments that have more consistently than not saved us from the fate of Hobbes' 17th century England. I'm not quite sure how America would have fared the tumultuous 60's with their violence and ugliness without a mature, committed democracy. Democracy cannot save us from civil war, always, as America learned in the mid-19th century (a civil war that I've increasingly wondered if it might have been averted with diplomatic intervention by the French or another party and differences resolved more peacefuly and substantially, rather than through so much bloodshed).

And the saddest part about studying that period in English history or any such similar period in history or any such similar situation, where bloodshed or force replaces reasonable engagement, like genocide or holocaust or apartheid or segregation or oppression or repression or colonization or occupation, is that it is always for naught. So many people die or are hurt for so little valuable a cause.

Noone looks back on 17th century Protestants and Catholics and celebrates the heroism of partisans. Noone looks at dominance of Hutus of Tutsis, of white South Africans of black South Africans, of the British or French or Spanish or Portuguese over their colonial subjects and thinks thank goodness they imposed their will. Noone looks back over any political period and says those Democrats or those Republicans always seemed to get it right and the other guy always seemed to get it wrong. At least not honestly.

But, for whatever reasons, we all get so caught up in our partisanship, trying to prove our true colors, our true convictions.

When you would hope that the reason we would even care is to make peoples' lives better, not to destroy them or hurt them.

But for whatever reasons, we get so lost in our destructiveness and our desire to prove that we are right.

When the irony of the strongest reasoning is that it does not try to prove that it is right. The strongest reasoning is characterized by disconfirmability. The strongest reasoning tries to test if it is wrong. It is open to challenge. It looks for ways to prove it is not true, knowing that only an idea that can withstand such a challenge can be more true.

Everything else derives from other, less noble impulses. The impulse for power or to exact revenge or to hurt those who you believe have hurt those you love.

And so the cycle continues, unabated. A self-fulfilling prophecy of hurt and hate and control and threats and ugliness.

And all for naught.

It is so sad to me that people would be so lost in their animus toward one another that they would do this.

As Pablo Freire writes, those who are hurt or oppressed are likely to take it out on those who have hurt them or others.

I've been really angry with Brandi, lately. I've been trying to let it go. She was my best friend, after all. And by breaking off communication she was doing what most women and men likely do when they get married.

I've just been feeling really hurt. Hurt at the idea that I would not be able to keep up with her life or know how she was doing.

But I don't want that kind of shit on my heart. And I don't want to take it out on others.

I just want to wish her well and hope she's doing ok.

Whether we like it or not, love is what animates our lives. And it is what needs to animate all that is best about us. It is what we all need, most, and need to share most.

Jesus was right 2000 years ago. It's too bad they crucified him. I bet he would have been a pretty decent guy to hang with, even with all that Messiah talk:). I would have had a beer with him and suggested that he tone down the Messiah stuff and maybe hang with the rest of our friends. Or maybe find a girlfriend. But keep teaching. Because he had a lot of good things to say.
I hate all this hate. I don't understand why we have such a hard time to learn how to treat each other decently. I don't understand why we are so mean-spirited with one another in the name of being good to one another.

Why we are constantly forcing one anothers' hands in the name of freedom or equity or democracy and goodness or decency.

"Can't we all just get along?" Rodney King asked 15 years ago (my freshman year of college).

Can't we all just get along?

It's a good question.

"And if we can't, then who really gives a shit about any of it?" is my question.

Here's to loving our friends and family and neighbors just because, and not because they agree with us.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Love,
Ben

All I want for Christmas is a new soulmate

I'm exhausted. I'm getting home ASAP and sleeping, I'm so tired.

You know what I want more than anything in life, I think?

Someone who thinks about and cares about the world like I do and who'll keep me company in that concern, support me in my efforts and in my life, and challenge me to do better, to think better, and to be a better person. Someone who enjoys a healthy lovelife and who has a kinky side would be nice, too:).

Most of all, I want a best friend. I want someone who shares my interests and whose interests I can share. I want someone that I want to spend all my free time with because she's just that fun to be around. I want someone who is constantly amazing me with her knowledge, understanding, love, compassion, courage and commitment.

I want to be with someone of substance who cares more about being a person of substance than any of the million more petty concerns that most people take up in life.

I want someone I respect to be my best friend and lover and all-around decent human being in my life.

I want someone in my life who I can persistently think, "I wonder what she thinks about this?"

I want someone who makes sense, generally, when we disagree and challenges me to make more sense in my own thinking and who agrees on all the important stuff that really matters.

I want a lover without pretension but who doesn't settle for second best as a human being. I want someone who engages in some friendly competition around who can be smarter, more decent, more loving, more charming, more reliable, and an all-around-great-mind-and-heart-to-spend-time-with.

What I want for Christmas this year is someone who will make my heart ache so badly when she passes on after years of marriage because the world so rarely sees such a decent human being.

I don't have many people, if at all, that I look up to, anymore. I have plenty of people I admire and respect and love. But rarely do I meet anymore and think, "God, they have all their priorities straight. That's someone whose wisdom I need to follow because my own priorities pale by comparison."

But that's who I want for a soulmate. Someone who inspires me and impresses me, or aspires to do all of these things.

That's all I want for Christmas.

Someone who senses my lonliness in a world where everyone seems to have a million excuses for why we can't make the world better in the big ways and who seeks to be my companion in making the world better despite the excuses of its inhabitants. Someone who likes thinking for its own sake. And who aspires to adopt my strengths and challenge them and me to get stronger, rather than try to make me feel bad for all the qualities that make me a great guy, I think.

This Christmas, I want someone who I think, "I think that is likely the best mom for my kids that I could ever meet." And who thinks the same about me.

Because, ultimately, I'm learning, that sums up everything I want in a woman. Someone who will be a mom for my kids, a best friend for me, and an amazing person in her own right, that I can bask in the glow of my admiration for what an amazing catch I have snagged.

Merry Christmas, everyone. Happy Hanukah. Happy New Year.

Love,
Ben

Some reflections for the Christmas season

As I've thought about the problems that America and the world faces right now, the more serious problems in finding resolution around them, and why so many good people keep facing so many dead ends...

I have become convinced that most of the problems that good people face and that persist are the consequence of well-intentioned efforts that don't go well. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and all that.

All over the world you see people do ugly things in the name of some cause with some notion of good purpose that resonates with others. Even terrorism and communism and authoritarianism have someone making excuses for why their ugliness are in the name of a good cause.

And if this were the exception, rather than the rule, then they would be alone in that distinction.
But they're not.

We all rationalize all kinds of things in the name of doing good. We make excuses for why we're such shitheads to one another for one good cause or another. We're all a lot of well-intentioned folks who too often fuck with one another's lives in the name of doing good by people. We do a lot of good for one another, too, to be sure. But we also undermine a lot of good in the name of good intentions. There are many noble intentions, I'm convinced. And all those noble intentions get fucked up by the rationalization of " by any means necessary," as Brother Malcolm would say.

What we need this Christmas and Hanukah and Kwanzaa and New Year is what we need every holiday time. We need more love. We need more understanding. We need more people walking in other peoples' shoes. We need more thought and engagement and communication and willingness to consider that we might be wrong or that we might not understand the world or other peoples' situations, enough. We need more decency and generosity and humanity.

We need a lot more of the very values that we know are our highest values.

And this is a great time to celebrate those values.

During a season that celebrates the birth of a man who led Jews and Christians and Romans and many others for millenia after his life toward a vision of love and compassion. During a season when Jewish leaders challenged a Syrian state that imposed its more Greek-inspired cultural values and stood for religious freedom and integrity. During a season that celebrates strengths and purpose in the African-American community. And the renewing of a new year and a new season.

Merry Christmas, everyone. Happy Hanukah. Happy Kwanzaa. Happy New Year.

Love,
Ben

Hearts, Minds, and Schools

A brilliant article by Lawrence Harrison of U.S. AID.

Hearts, Minds, and Schools

Very worthwhile read for anyone interested in the substantial possibilities and benefits for promoting education, freedom and democracy.

Cynicism, or why Vietnam and Iraq breed mistrust in Washington

I was working with my speech team, today, exhausted from the stress and pressure of the last few months and the last week, in particular.

And it occurred to me in the middle of it all why young people in the 60's carried the mantra: "Don't trust anyone over 30."

I have very few heroes at all, these days. The ones I have are academics and people with serious forethought and even those are few and far between.

I love and respect everyone who contributes to my and our general welfare. But heroes, people who have significant forethought and insight on our most difficult problems, are just very hard to find, right now.

They are definitely not found in the print or television press, who I think, along with a lot of cynical political leaders, are largely responsible for the cynical, highly aggressive, pressure-based bullying that is the cyncial subsitution for thoughtful policy that dominates the current political period and larger popular and general culture.

There are many scholars who I respect, but the calloused disregard for thought and engagement and persuasion and other more democratic forms of discourse amongst even many of these scholars looking to bully their way through difficult international and domestic policy matters is very discouraging, to say the least.

Politicians are often the worst of both worlds: mindless and self-righteous pontification combined with power way out of proportion with their wisdom to use it.

Money and power and leverage and pressure and all sorts of cynical means of getting one's way dominate the culture and the politics, right now, in ways that should inspire noone and certainly cannot possibly reflect a better society, since it offers up milder versions of all of the worst features of our uglier, less free, less thoughtful and enlightened, more forceful and barbaric past.

And there are so many people on this foolish and ugly bandwagon of all sorts and of all education levels that it is just very difficult to find heroes amidst all of this low-minded bullying.

And it occurred to me, tonight, that this must be why young people lost faith in their leaders during the Vietnam war era, the civil rights movement, and during a similarly tumultuous era in the 1960's and 70's.

When young people have nothing to look up to in the culture and in political institutions because their leaders are so clearly rationalizing their own ugliest and most power-hungry and aggressive impulses, there is far too much darkness in all of that to find inspiration or idealism. And cynicism breeds mistrust, both existentially, because it preaches mistrust, and substantially, by breeding fear with force and pressure that divides and polarizes people rather than inspiring and teaching and committing and challenging and uplifting them, as more idealistic and accomplished eras create.

Noone could have possibly been inspired by a John F. Kennedy asking Americans to ask not what their country could do for them but what they were going to do for their country whether they fuckin' liked it or because he planned on forcing their hand to do so whether they thought it was a good idea or not. Ronald Reagan could not have possibly inspired a resilience in the face of the Soviet threat and a commitment to ending Communism with promises of rooting out red-leaning liberals and conservatives soft on the Communist peril and pressuring them to give up their Commie buddies. Franklin Roosevelt could not have possibly faced the Nazi threat without a willingness to persuade Americans to face that threat squarely rather than forcing them to enjoin against the Germans and the Japanese whether they were ready for such a commitment of military force or not.

The clear truth of the 20th century, more than any other, is that force as a governing philosophy is bankrupt, dangerous, and anti-democratic. Even within the context of a democracy, force as a governing philosophy is a serious compromise of the strongest democratic principles of thoughtful engagement which respects differences rather than seeking to trample over or bully those we disagree with.

And contemporary Washington, like Washington in the late 60's and early 70's, in particular, is awash in the cynicism that the compromise doesn't matter as long as the prevailing party gets its way and pressures everyone else to go along with their vision, whether it's been sufficiently explored and debated and engaged and whether it respect peoples' freedoms -- in particular, their freedom to disagree -- or not.

In 1998, I spent one of the most idealistic summers of my life in Washington, D.C., in love with a girl, and in love with a mutual commitment to improve the world.

In 2006, there is no way I could spend a comparable period in Washington, D.C. Because it is awash in cynicism and bullying, pressure-tactics and leveraging, power-hunger and the accompanying cynicism about the capacity to engage and understand and appreciate the perspectives of others we might disagree with. And to genuinely respect their differences, and to engage them without force, except in those more rare occassions when our immediate physical safety is in clear danger.

As with many young people in the 60's, I can understand why young people would not trust anyone over 30 (including myself; I'm 33). Because it's a cynical lot. And it is an especially cynical lot during a cynical political period when the ugliest visions of humanity are rationalized and rationalize our basest impulses and reactions.

It makes me sad, mostly.

Because what we need -- what young people need, what we all need -- is people we can believe in, far more than people who don't believe in themselves or, as is often the case, believe in themselves too much and one another stong-arming their way through the cynical life that they have chosen.

I will say this. No matter what excuses people give for cynicism and force as a governing philosophy, it most certainly is a choice in outlook. There are other choices.

An ideal world, I think most people would agree, is one where free people work together freely to solve their problems together and independently. Progress is judged by our capacity to fulfill that ideal, more or less.

And to the extent that we compromise that ideal with a commitment to a governing philosophy based primarily on force, which is mutually exclusive with that ideal, rather than a vision of freedom and force only when necessary, and then the least possible force necessary being the operating principle for our use of aggression, we engage in a more permanent and fundamental compromise of our liberal democracy in a way that cannot possibly fulfill its our our ideals or potential.

And that would explain why it is so difficult to find heroes in Washington and Washington discussions, these days.

Because so few people, these days, believe in the ideals that make that democratic discussion worthy of our trust.

Love,
Ben

Under Pressure

I am seriously thinking about playing the classic Queen/David Bowie collaboration every day in the background at Eisenhower as teachers and administrators and students deal with the new pressures being brought to bear by the No Child Left Behind Act.

My whole team just watched one of our math/science teachers, who is one tough cookie, cry in the middle of our content meeting, dealing with all of the stress and pressure of Annual Yearly Progress. Morale is paradoxically low and the teachers are rallying together. Administrators are simultaneously under pressure to put the screws to teachers and are lightening up, much more immediately aware that the stress is too much for everyone.

And all I know is that the friends of force have made a lot of enemies at my school, where teachers are simultaneously trying to meet the law's demands and resenting the shit out of everyone responsible for this stupid law and its cheerleaders.

And the bigger lesson for me is that people can claim credit all they want for their more forceful themes, but the people they've been abusing are very unlikely to give them credit. Or anyone else for that matter. You can pretend like you've been more responsible for a result than you really have, but the in the end, everyone who knows better will know what a shithead you were for making their jobs harder rather than helping them be more effective.

The funny thing to me is that the policy scholars and makers who debate NCLB can debate it like it's a real debate all they want. Teachers, on the other hand, are almost universally opposed to it. And you can only ignore the people implementing your bidding for a time until it just becomes perfectly clear to everyone that the Emperor is wearing no clothes.

Lots of people in Washington with lots of good intentions, marching everyone down a road to hell.

The most serious consequence of this foolhardy political period: less power in Washington, domestically and internationally.

The heydey of Washington D.C. as the center of power in the world, as Robert Samuelson wrote today in the Washington Post, will soon be behind us, I think.

But whereas Robert seems to lament the passing of Pax Americana, I am thinking, "It's about fuckin' time."

The truth is that is that is not just American power and Washington power that it waning. It is centralized power of all sorts. Old and wrong-headed legacies just die hard. But they die nonetheless.

And the reason why so many Washington insiders fail to see it or lament it's passing is that they aspired to get a piece of the action. But it is action that is losing its real capacity to effect change. And that is the only power that is really worth anything.

Happy Hanukah, even to Michael Medved, who is officially a fundamentalist nutjob

I don't think I've ever read a creepier Hanukah wish.

The Real Hanukah: A Celebration of the Religious Right

Michael Medved essentially uses Hanukah to make an argument for sectarian Judaism. Meaning he coopts a profoundly meaningful religious holiday for most Jews and for people like me who have a profound respect and appreciation for the Judaism and tries to argue that it means that all those people who celebrate Hanukah but who disagree with Michael are wicked.

I'm not exaggerating here. That's what he says.

If you celebrate Hanukah but disagree with me about what Judaism or Hanukah means, you are wicked and celebrating wickedness, is the clear and essential message of this column.

Creepy, huh?

Michael Medved is quickly becoming the Jerry Falwell and Osama Bin Laden of Judaism.

For all of those who are or are not familiar with the Hanukah story and the profoundly meaningful role that it plays in the history of Judaism and the history of religious freedom, as Jews threw off their Syrian-Green oppressors, you might check out

Chabad.org

Ba-ruch A-tah Ado-nai E-lo-he-nu Me-lech Ha-olam A-sher Ki-de-sha-nu Be-mitz-vo-tav Ve-tzi-va-nu Le-had-lik Ner Cha-nu-kah.

Happy Hanukah, everyone:).

Love,
Ben

Federal regulation means noone has to take responsibility

We just had another math meeting today.

And I have to say that I am convinced that Federal regulation means that noone has to ever take responsibility.

We have mandates on performance on state assessments built into the No Child Left Behind Act that come from the Feds. All of the district energy is spent pleasing the feds. All of the school energy is spent pleasing the district, and the feds.

The problem is that the feds have no intimate involvement in the situation at all. So when teachers say, "I don't think getting this particular thing done is realistic," or "we can't possibly do several of these goals all at once within this limited time frame," noone is around to listen. Because everyone is just trying to please the feds. And the feds are 2000 miles away.

So when the feds live with the illusion that they can force the kids to perform better than they will or can (at this particular moment) -- which they don't have to come to terms with in the same way teachers do because they don't have to work with the kids every day -- there's no reality check for them. They're just passing legislation under the very complex and highly pressurized environment of Washington politics.

And at the end of the day, noone has to be responsible.

Blame games ensue. Noone is responsible. People are threatened and pushed and cajoled. Noone is responsible. People are fired. Noone is responsible. People are unelected. Noone is responsible.
It's very much like the Iraq War. People keeping saying the same dumb repeated theme. Put the screws to people and they'll do what you want. Even if it doesn't work. And even if it is counterproductive. And even if it isn't sensitive to actual capacity. Even if it ignores all of the real and important people and logistical variables that are necessary to get the work done.

Noone is responsible.

It's the total irony of the situation and reflects the degree to which our rhetoric overwhelms our reason. Good intentions persistently get confused and defended as the same as good results.

And noone is responsible.

You know what drives me most crazy? It's journalists and policy thinkers and academics and activists and politicians and a whole host of people who have no intimate knowledge or involvement in schools -- and in most institutions they regulate -- who create support for these mandates. And when it goes awry, noone is responsible.

It's so goddamn foolish.

So when we get to the end of this foolish goddamn political period where getting tough is confused with getting smart and communicating and engaging people and understanding their sitautions and listening and responding and being more generally responsive to their concerns and getting to resolution rather than always picking a fight and trying to force others to do our bidding...

My question is...

Who will take responsibility?

And you know what my bet is?

Noone.

Not until we all grow up a little bit and learn that responsibility comes from understanding and commitment, not from force. Force is something we have to use as little as possible on the road to building understanding and commitment. My very real and persistent experience is that those kids who are the least responsible are the ones whom have parents who use far more force than parents with kids who are better behaved.

And the supreme irony to me is that all of the toughest situations in the world, right now, demonstrate this principle far more effectively than the experiences of teachers with the No Child Left Behind Act, right now, but the tough people who are making recommendations around international affairs, right now, are just too stubborn to admit the failure of the principle.
I don't know why.

I just listened to Stephen Biddle from the Council on Foreign Affairs make recommendations on NPR last night around pressuring Iraqis in ways that their Prime Minister and popular opinion has consistently indicated was out of touch and, they and I think, arrogant and ignoring how overwhelming the responsibilities that were being imposed really were.

And I thought, "This is what Lord Acton meant."

What Lord Acton meant by power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, I think -- or at least the way I see it playing out -- is that power can begin with all kinds of good intentions. But then people with power become convinced that their use of power was what was responsible for any of the good that happened in the world during their tenure or that their pressure or influence made it so. They develop a relationship with people based on creating enough fear to compel their will. And then they ignore the frustrations of those they compel out an arrogant belief that they could not possibly know what is good for themselves.

And often, in democratic societies, popular opinion leads to this kind of abuse of power. The current political situation arose out of an popular attitude that America and the world hadn't gotten tough enough about its problems, rather than smart enough or communicating more effectively or setting limits more effectively through greater efforts at creating understanding, when possible, and force only when necessary.

America should at least have the balls to do what Palestinians and North Koreans and Syrians and Cubans never seem to be able to do: to admit that its' our fault.

I can share some blame in that. I advocated the No Child Left Behind Act before it was enacted into law. I believed that good intentions would lead to good results before I understood the problems more thoroughly. I believed more, at one point, that you could force your way to progress. That's why I identified more, at one point in my life, as a more conventional liberal. I thought guns could be cleaned up with tough gun control and campaign finance could be cleaned up with tough campaign finance laws. I was wrong. In a big way. I'm totally clear about that, today. But I believed those things in good faith.

And the NCLB is very similar.

What's scary to me is what our society looks like with people not willing to take responsibility for the failure.

How long do we keep running with this failed policy before we give it up, I wonder?

How long do liberals continue to see the splinter in the eyes of the Administration and Republicans and conservatives on this one but ignore the big ass beam in their own eye around the same principles?

"We can't force democracy abroad, but we can force democratic outcomes at home," liberals seem to be saying, if they would square their rhetoric on this one.

But they haven't thought this one through enough to call this a thorough philosophy. It's not a philosophy, in the sense that liberals or conservatives have really thought through all of the consequences from this idea. It is a political slogan that is being confused with a more thoroughly developed idea.

And the scary part for me is when do we give it up?

How long does it have to fail before we begin to face its failures and limitations?

How long do we ignore the concerns of those being forced upon before we acknowledge the corrupting arrogance that power breeds?

Never, is what many policy thinkers and journalists and politicians and activists seem to be saying, right now.

If they complain, you just make clear that their lives will be made miserable if they do not comply.

It's policy made mafia-style.

And noone seems to be recognizing the logical conclusion of this road.

Which is exactly what made the Soviets and the Nazis so scary. Because their political heads and true followers and even not so true followers kept making clear that they had no intentions of ever letting up on force as the means of promoting their vision of progress. Ever. And if anyone had a problem with that, then they would face death or imprisonment or ostracism or many very bad things before that would ever change.

It definitely inspires fear. The question is, "Is is progress?" And, "Does it inspire progress?"

The real answer to both of those questions is clearly no to anyone who cares more about genuine progress and about freedom and democracy than about getting their way.

The truth is that there is an awful lot of people right now who are much more interested in getting their way than in principles like freedom and democracy and progress, because they're convinced that the stakes are too high for them to take high ideals too seriously.

Which means they'll sacrafice the things that really matter to get what they want right now. And when it comes to the highest stakes situations, no fear is too small to rationalize that ugly abuse of power.

And that is exactly what Lord Acton meant by that phrase.

That maximum power in the name of alleviating fear is an excuse that has no end, even as it often creates more fear and more danger than it actually alleviates.

Our great hope, right now, is the war in Iraq, where people can see more clearly that forcing our way to progress has clearly been counterproductive, no matter how you try to rationalize it otherwise.

The question is can we see that this is true almost entirely across the board when it comes to forcing our way to progress?

Things looked bleak to me in 2003 when we first initiated that invasion. So maybe we can get it right, at some point.

But the trick will be that to do so will mean that we cannot scapegoat President Bush or Don Rumsfeld or Dick Cheney or the Republican Party.

The trick is that the American people, or at least a substantial number of them, will have to look themselves in the mirror and say, "I created this mess. I asked for this. I demanded this. And they gave it to me. Because I demanded it. And I am responsible."

The trick on this one is that the people most responsible for the major policy messes that we are in will have to take responsibility for them.

And the people most responsible...are all of us.

Love,
Ben

The most important problem people face

I am probably guilty of this as much as anyone else.

But after dealing with the school and district politics over the last few months (and the last year), I think I'm beginning to see the problem with school politics:

So many people are just in the habit of fighting all the time.

People who don't learn to listen and engage and discuss and politely debate with one another toward practical resolution of issues end up fighting all the time -- openly or not-so-openly -- until those issues get resolved.

And most people just fight about the dumbest shit because they aren't committed to listening and understanding one another enough to get to resolution on important differences.

It just became clearer today after a meeting with a colleague.

I've got a meeting to get to.

Love,
Ben

An uncompromised liberal democracy and cynicism as a lens for policy

You know what bugs me most in policy discussions?

How cynicism gets used as this circular lens for policy questions without ever having to defend itself, or consider alternative perspectives.

Realism is an important feature of policy discussions. In fact, it is often what distinguishes policy discussions from other discussions. It is the most important reason that I am so committed to policy as a study.

But, far, far too often, realism, in politics and political discussions, gets confused with cynicism.

Cynicism is not realism. Cynicism is disappointment with a world that doesn't live up to your expectations. Meaning, cynicism is a twisted function of idealism. "I was once an idealist," the reasoning goes, "but then I discovered how the real world works." Hence the pretense of realism.

But it's bullshit. The reality that is being referred to, generally, in that disappointment, is one that is clearly ugly or dysfuntional or otherwise in need of change. Hence the purpose of idealism, to hold an ideal that points the way out of a cynical reality. "It's the whole point of idealism, morons" I so often want to yell at cynics. "You wouldn't need idealism if the world already lived up to all your expectations, geniuses. You'd just have an ideal world and everyone would be happy and gay."

The whole point of idealism, as a practical matter, is the belief and commitment that cynical realities can and will give way to better realities and better options to get us to those better realities. It's the whole fuckin' point, really. There'd be no reason for the discussion, otherwise, for goodness fuckin' sakes.

The whole thing infuriates the shit out of me because it's so goddamn obvious to anyone who is really committed to changing changeable realities for the better, rather than defending why they've given up. Quitting is not realism. Quitting is quitting. You want to be a fuckin' quitter and face the ugly realities of the world and say there's nothing you can do, then so be, I say. Just get the fuck out the way of people who are committed to changing changeable realities. And defining an ugly reality as unchangeable is the last refuge for cynics resisting important change or quitting in the face of difficult obstacles.

As someone who grew up a liberal most of my life, one of the things that I admire most about Ronald Reagan is that he didn't give up the important and idealistic notion that the Soviet Union and Communism were not inevitable parts of the human political experience. That Soviet Communism was an ugly betrayal of humanity's aspirations and that it could and would fall with committed leadership and vision that worked in that direction. His discussions with Mikhael Gorbachev and his sustaining of that vision and idealism had much to do with the efforts of East Germans and citizens and leaders of the Baltic Republics and Boris Yeltsin and others to finally bring about the end of Soviet Communism from within. And during a time when liberal and conservative academics confused cynicism about the reality of Soviet domination of so much of the globe as unchangeable, Reagan knew that it could and would change with enough commitment in that direction.

Mohammed Yunus is a player in wealth equity discussions who understands that the complexities of wealth equity do not necessitate the cynical acceptance of inequities that dominates in the world, today. His work with microenterprises in Bangladesh both address many of the complexities of poverty, ownership and responsibility, and wealth and development and offers real hope for people most seriously impacted by the cynical realities that dominate around wealth equity in the world, today. His microenterprise work demonstrates that market can address wealth equity issues. The question is not whether we can commit ourselves to equity, but will we.

As I listen to so many political discussions, today, where thought, discussion, and engagement are being overwhelmed by force and organized propaganda and manipulation of rules and institutions to substitute for such engagement in ways that it never will really substitute, I am perpetually in awe of the staying power of cynicism and force around serious policy issues.

Make the reality shitty enough, people seem to reason, and people will have no other choice but to accept the shitty reality. Or rationalize that a shitty reality is unchangeable, and noone need be responsible for changing the reality. Or maintain a self-righteous notion of the world or an issue, and you'll never have to engage those who disagree with you honestly and with a desire to understand them and their thinking. You can always just strong-arm them into submission. Who needs all that tedious thinking and discussion and understanding.

It's an ugly, ugly way to operate in a democracy. And it is not only the only logical conclusion from a force-based philosophy of democratic governance, but it is this advocacy-based power-jockeying that forms the basis for force being treated seriously as a philosophy rather than as the most significant alternative to ideas animating a democracy.

The Soviets and the Nazis reasoned this way. If you successfully force others to comply with your vision of the world, they will have no other choice but to accept your imposition.

Except resist it. Which is exactly what I plan to do, as reasonably as possible, for as long as it takes until this "philosophy" of democratic governance is effectively dissolved.

There is no other discussion in policy and on social questions that is so reinforcing than cynicism as the lens for important policy issues. I create and/or reinforce a cynical reality out of my cynical lens on the world and that cynical reality becomes the basis for my argument that no other reality can prevail but the cynical reality that I created and reinforced with my observations.

It is Heisenberg's principle with a vengeance -- both literally and figuratively -- around policy and social issues, and issues of humanity. In psychological circles it is called a self-fulfilling prophecy and a vicious cycle. The virtuous circle of liberal democratic values if found in free thought and engagement and expression and disagreement, not in strong-arming. But the nature of regressive historical periods like the one we are currently experiencing is that the vicious cycle takes hold, and repression is rationalized in the name of progress.

And it is ugly.

And that ugliness is due to beams in our own eyes, rather than to the natural inclination for humans to carry around splinters in their eyes or for them to need us to remove them for them.

We have a much better legacy to offer our children, if we embrace it. A legacy that takes thought and engagement and understanding and deep reflection and wisdom as well as specialized and experienced knowledge seriously. A legacy that prefers argument to force and constructive engagement to strong-arming.

This political period more than most must leave many young people considering a university education asking themselves, "Why?"

"If force is more important and effective than education, engagement, understanding, and reflection, why would I or anyone else need an education (except perhaps to get the credentials necessary to force my thinking on others)?"

It's a really good question, actually.

The truth is that force and freedom are mutually exclusive. Force may be necessary, at times. But force as a philosophy naturally begs the question, "Why is a liberal education so important, then?"

If liberalism, in this sense, refers to free thought and engagement, why would an education that prefers these values be necessary in the world that not only operates primarily by force but is rationalized and actively supported and given intellectual heft by so many of its liberally educated thinkers and political actors?

And the cynical embrace of that reality must leave many others to wonder, "Then why were Communism and Fascism evil, if they were only more strident versions of our own force-based governance?"

Good question, would be my response. Assuming that someone with that question pursues a liberal education, at all, given the low value that so many liberal thinkers put on the values of free thought, engagement, expression, and conscience that animate that kind of education, but which naturally conflict with the governing philosophy of force that animates international policy and politics during this political moment.

The truth is that most liberal thinkers don't trust liberal values. Not fully. And certainly not more than they trust their own capacity to enforce their own more powerful wisdom.

It is the saddest realization by a young scholar more committed to the values of a liberal education than probably any of the values I hold in my life. To find out that so many, if not the great majority, of liberal thinkers that helped reinforce those values for me, as it turns out, do not really believe in those values, except when it conforms with their own enforced wisdom.

What I know is that such a compromise of the values of a liberal democracy and the liberal education that supports that democracy should be recognized for what it is: a compromise. It is not the full realization of those values. And the full realization of those values is by taking the freedom that is inherent in those values and the potential for genuine self-governance, self-determination, and self-actualization found in those values will only be found with more freedom, rather than less.

I have no interest in leaving a compromised legacy of liberal democracy and liberal democratic values for my children and calling it a fulfillment of those values that it is not, any more than I would want an American Constitution that reinforces the institution of slavery to be treated as more than the compromise that it was simply to alay the insecurities of its drafters that their compromise was consistent with their highest ideals.

We may choose a compromise of liberal democracy during this political period or even for a substantial period after this political moment. But like slavery, force as a governing philosophy will always be a serious compromise of liberal democratic values. And those values will never be fully realized until it is abandoned, except in situations where the least possible aggression is needed because immediate physical danger is otherwise unavoidable.

In a million years I would rather be the person who pointed to freedom in the face of slavery and oppression than the cynic who argued that slavery was the only alternative because freedom was too dangerous.

Freedom is fraught with risk and fear of the other side of that risk. But, more importantly, it brings opportunities. Specifically, the opportunity for a more genuinely self-governing liberal democracy. And that vision for liberal democracy is the only vision that more fully realizes liberal democratic values. Everything else is compromise.

There is only one vision for a liberal democracy that offers us the opportunity to fully realize our potential. And that is a liberal democracy that offers us the most freedom possible and with a government that is more fully engaging in those liberal democratic values rather than more forceful in its imposition of any particular idea.

Everything else is cynicism and compromise. And a short-sighted vision of what liberal democracies and liberal democratic citizens have to offer.

As a matter of democratic principle, I will accept compromises forced upon me. But much stronger than the principle of compromise is the principle of freedom and engagement and understanding and thought and expression and disagreement that underpins liberal democratic thinking.

Everything else is cynicism and compromise masquerading as the real deal.

Love,
Ben

Jesus is magic

If you have not seen Sarah Silverman's Jesus is Magic, yet, I highly recommend it. It is a little over an hour of hilarious and very politically incorrect fun, with footage in the bonus feature of Sarah's performance for a similar movie, The Aristocrats.

Together, Jesus is Magic and The Aristocrats are a very refreshing break from the strangle-hold of political correctness that has taken hold during this political period.

Silverman holds nothing back, breaking every major comedy taboo in the book. She does ethnic jokes, holocaust and Jewish jokes (Silverman is Jewish), outrageous porn and sexual humor, she makes fun of old people and young people and she does so in the most disgusting, politically-incorrect ways possible. It's a really nice departure from a political period run amok with self-righteousness and bullying to prevent offense or insensitivity (I've always found bullying on behalf of sensitivity a fairly peculiar combination of political strategy and purpose).

It was a great time for Melissa and Devang and I (and Melissa and I, in particular, who share a rather disgusting and very politically incorrect sense of humor).

What so many bullies and hypersensitive babies who have and seek power in the world right now need is someone to make fun of them. And Sarah delivers powerfully.

Enjoy.

Ben

The lingering consequence of force: mistrust

Today, as much of the arm-twisting that I have faced, recently, I am faced with the lingering consequence of force: mistrust.

The truth is, no matter how much I would want to see things differently, I don't trust people who have pressured and forced my hand.

It will take time for me to forgive and let go of the emotional consequences of all of the bullying people have been engaged in. And always will.

Getting your way always comes with a cost. As they say in What Dreams May Come, sometimes when you win, you lose.

There's a lot of folks in the world, these days, who I don't trust and/or trust less after this period. That list will grow as long as the popularity of force persists.

And the saddest consequence is that it will all be for naught. Because it fundamentally disrespects peoples' need for freedom of thought and conscience. Which means they will rebel and fight it. And we will only be better for the experience if we learn the lesson for good.

Love,
Ben

What it means to be committed

I had an interview, today. It was with a more affluent suburban district.

Lots of things I liked. Generally more motivated kids and parents. Fewer excuses. Better funding, which translates into more teachers and collaborative coverage (meaning special education and general education teachers in every classroom). A lot of coordination to resolve a lot of the problems that our teams persistently struggle with. A lot more proactive, supportive, and engaged staff resolving more problems and bitching about them less.

That last part -- a committed staff -- is the most attractive quality to me. My major problem at Eisenhower is not the kids or the pay. It is the overwhelming idea of overcoming the resistance of an entire staff and student population to let go of the excuses and to take seriously the idea that if we are going to get strong we are going to have to face our weaknesses honestly. We are going to have to face our faults, as teachers and students and parents and as a community -- including me -- more openly and honestly and readily if we are going to be competitive. And my goal at Eisenhower is to make us competitive. To be the best school possible. And, if possible, to the best middle school in the city, in the state, in the nation, in any nation in the world.

Inner city doesn't mean disabled. And that is the myth I am looking to sever. Inner city means a lot of inertia in terms of helplessness and giving up and finding excuses and a million other reasons why we do not achieve at the highest levels.

My goal, my job, is to remove those excuses, from myself as much as from the students and colleagues and the families that make up our community.

It is an overwhelming task, right now.

But after my interview, today, I am doubly determined to make it happen. Because it is why I got into this work.

And I am beginning to recognize that being a leader sometimes means that people depend on you to get the job done, whether you like it or not. Even as and if your job is to empower them, more, to do excel at the job on their own.

My job is to take a school which has been successful, has recently experienced some failure and disappointment, and to turn it into the strongest school I absolutely can (and to stretch far beyond my own immediate capabilities to do so).

And I decided, today, that I am up to that challenge.

Jaime Escalante was a great teacher. But my job is to take his idea -- that all students could succeed at the highest levels -- and make it true for all children, disability label or not.

Full inclusion does not just mean that everyone is involved. Full inclusion means that every student, as much as is realistically possible, is achieving at the highest levels, whether we or they anticipated that for themselves or not.

My larger goals is a school full of Ph.D.'s and generally brilliant, creative, talented, courageous, and extraordinarily achieving folks. I will have to accept less as long as people do not make the choices that make this goal a reality. But we will raise everyone's sights by setting and working powerfully and realistically towards the goal.

But I will never settle for less in my heart until that goal is achieved. For any kid, person, or any school I work with.

Love,
Ben

Freedom and love

By the way.

It's completely clear to me, at this point, that all of my success, all of my learning, all of my commitment, all of my drive is due to two things in my life:

The amount of freedom I have and that I'm able to generate in my life.

And the amount of love that I have and that I'm able to generate in my life.

No ifs, ands or buts.

Freedom and love. Those are the essences of all things good, and thoughtful, and decent in this world. Period.

Love,
Ben

Fire in the belly

After a PTA meeting, tonight, about how 8th grade students can pass our new 8th grade math benchmarks and the enthusiasm that parents were catching about the need to have them reach high, it is beginning to occur to me what it is that I have that is so different from most people (and most teachers) I meet:

Fire in the belly.

I am one driven s'um bitch.

I used to see it in the grimaces that people got when I opened my mouth or when I had something idealistic to say.

Now I see it as they are starting to soften up and and let go of their defenses and resistance.

I have been dealing with defenses. And the last 2 weeks or so, I've been watching people let them go.

And now I understand what is different about my commitment.

I heard it as I was talking, today, about getting kids to success.

I am one driven s'um bitch. I got fire in the belly in a serious fuckin' way. There is no holding me back. And the more people soften up and the less defensive they are, the more driven I get. And the more driven I get, the more they soften up and get excited, again, about achieving big things.

Maslow has a famous quotation about why it is that babies start out so loving and cheerful and then the same people end up on subways 20, 30, 40 years later, beaten down.

The answer, I think, is that we make life too tough for people to succeed. And that life is just really fuckin' tough until we figure out how to make it easier.

And that what people need to catch fire in the belly, to get wrapped up in that enthusiasm, to maintain their idealism, to uncover their passion for life:

Is too care that fuckin' much about making it happen.

And I care that fuckin' much about making it happen.

I got fire in the belly, in a serious way. And it's not for this election cycle. And it's not for money. And it's not for recognition, because even that I could do without. It's not for anything tangible (though there are always implicit promises of all of these things in my future).

My fire comes from the fact that I really do care that fuckin' much about making it happen.

And it is fire that I have maintained far longer than most people. And fire that I will maintain far longer than most people.

Because I really fuckin' care that fuckin' much.

That kind of fire comes from caring. And from being cared about. And, consequently, from caring.

It is a passion that burns bright when we love what we are here to do in life more than we love anything else.

And I am here to make this world as stellar a fuckin' place to live by the time that I am done as I possibly fuckin' can, in my all too short a lifetime.

Life is a lot of FUBAR (Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition). And the only way to love it despite all of the FUBAR is to care about making it right more than anything fuckin' else in the world.

And I got that fire in my belly.

And that is how we are going to get that much closer to a world of genuine peace and decency and humanity by the time I am spent all my time here and pass that torch on to someone else. Because we care that much. And, hopefully, I can inspire a few kids and adults and friends and family members to care that much too.

I have two kids on my debate team that are getting ready to win some tournaments and who are getting the fire.

And that's where it starts.

When people care enough to get it done.

Love,
Ben

Knowing your own shit stinks

I have lesson plans and grading to do.

But I wanted to write for a moment on the nature of humility.

As a young adult, I've come to learn that humility is a quality that you don't come by abstractly. People who have humility for real get it by screwing up, by being arrogant and having to face themselves and their limitations.

Humility is not some notch in the belt of perfection. That's called pride. It's the opposite of humility, actually.

Real humility and real virtue and decency, from that, comes from knowing that your shit stinks. Because you've fucked up and you've faced up.

The older I get, the more important I realize it is to spend as much time as possible with this kind of decency and real humility. The older I get, the more I realize it's probably more important than other virtues, if for no other reason that it means dealing with someone who knows their own and others' limitations and their more prone to accept you for yours' as much as always trying to improve you.

That's probably the reason why I am closer with the my dad's family than with the my mom's family, as much as I am becoming closer with my mom's family, lately.

You just have people in your life that you can trust more that when when your shit is stinking that they will love you for it and despite it and not hold it against you.

And generally, the people with this kind of real humility and virtue come by it because they know their own shit stinks. And so they're not trying to prove to you and everyone else just how righteous and virtuous they are all the time.

Fucking up, paradoxically and counterintuitively, I think, can actually make us better people, I think. It means exploring our limits and figuring out our weaknesses and limitations as a human being. And it leads us to accept better the weaknesses and limitations of others, as well.

And I want to spend the bulk of my life with people who know their shit stinks. And more importantly I want to spend my life with a woman who knows her shit stinks and doesn't have to constantly prove to me or to herself otherwise.

Love,
Ben

The superior moral virtue of pressure politics

If I have to listen to one more NPR report touting the virtue of left-wing pressure politics, I think I'm going to vomit.

"Oh, look at how awful the world would be without me forcing the world to be good," I have to listen to a million liberal journalists on NPR tout every day.

"If it weren't for my superior virtue," I have to listen to liberals sounding like Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell, "the world would never be such a good place."

Makes me want to vomit. Not least of which because it's bullshit.

I swear to God that every liberal journalist in the country, right now, thinks that they uniquely are responsible for every good thing this earth has to offer, so self-centered are they in their "superior virtue." There is no virtue outside of liberal pressure politics reason these radicals in sheep's clothing. "If it weren't for us," these liberals reason, "the world would be a cesspool of non-liberal virtue."

Makes me want to spit my guts up.

I appreciate liberals pressuring me to be politically correct as much as I appreciate conservatives pressuring me to morally upright.

What's disgusting about both camps is the self-righteousness of it all. There is noone virtuous outside of our camp, our group, our ideology, our activism. There is noone virtuous outside of us.

Noone has a right to my mind or my labor or my conscience. Fuck you. And on the stuff that matters, I will kick the living shit out of your piss-poor fuckin' expectations, liberals and conservatives.

Pox on both their houses, I say.

Being liberal used mean something to me. Now what it means is being a bully for pick your left-wing cause. And I want nothing to do with that ugliness.

Real progress doesn't come out of bullying.

Real progress comes from changing hearts and minds, as a real liberal, Martin Luther King, argued 40 years ago.

A million liberals think that they have somehow outthunk Dr. King. He was assassinated because he was such a pussy, these arrogant, self-righteous radicals reason. Dr. King just wasn't willing to kick enough ass, these nasty, narrow-minded little activists argue. He just didn't understand the power of Malcolm X's hate and spite and racism.

Love and thought and debate and engagement are all good and all of that, they reason. But really what we need is someone like Hugo Chavez or Noam Chomsky or Charlie Rangel to really kick some serious conservative ass.

The whole thing makes me want to vomit.

And definitely convinces me that I don't want to be a part of that gang anymore then I want to be a Blood or a Crip.

This is why liberals gain so little traction in the culture. Because so many liberals really don't respect that people disagree with them. Disagree with us all you want, reason so many liberals these days. But you're gonna do what the fuck we say.

And I say, "Fuck you, you fuckin' bullies."

And fuck everyone who reasons this way with no respect for my freedom and my conscience.

Love,
Ben

I need a partner

I've got a ton of work to do. I want to do it. And I'm feeling unmotivated. I need a partner in my life.

I guess what I'm wanting is someone to share my passion for my work with. Absent that, I just don't feel as motivated.

In the past, I've had coaches and teammates and friends and girlfriends and occassionally family.

Most people don't share my passion. For education. For politics. For people. For life.

And I just want someone to share it with me and to help me sustain it.

Maybe the passion of my red hot youth has passed from my life and now I'm entering a period of patient moderation, even in the passion I have for my work.

But I have to say that when I have kids and teachers and people committed, even in part, to ideals around education or politics or whatnot, that I feel far more committed than when I am on my own.

I like having a team. And I like best being around people who are highly committed to doing their best.

Things have gotten much better around Eisenhower since we got back from Thanksgiving Break. People seem to much more genuinely want to be here and to want to build relationships with kids and one another to do a good job. Which is great, because it's exactly what we need.

I will learn what I need to learn over the long haul if I take a more patient route.

But I would love to have the passion I feel when I have a team of people supporting me or when I have a girlfriend who shares my passion for life or when I'm in a room of kids and I'm feeling committed to brighter futures for them, even if they are only lackluster in their commitment.

It does feel lame feeling unmotivated for lack of support/commitment from others around me. But it's also been a reality of life for me that I've had a hard time escaping. I've always been more motivated than a lot of folks I work with, but I also feel much more motivated the more I am around people who want to do well, who like being good at what they do, who like to win, who take achievement and success seriously, even if it is not the end-all of life.

It is a really nice feeling to be around people who are committed to success and a great quality of life, no matter where they find themselves at. And it is a feeling that it easier to nurture the more we nurture it in one another as well as in ourselves.

Somehow, I've got to find that kind of partnership and support for my passion. I watched my Principal getting really heated with kids today in the lunchroom because they couldn't be quiet when they were asked and it was electrifying to see someone else care that much about this job.

And that's what I need in my life. Others in my life who care that much about this work and this life. So my life doesn't always feel like such an uphill climb.

Love,
Ben

Robert F. Kennedy's Statement on Dr. King's Death - Montage


Where our truer ideals lie.

Love,
Ben

Idealism and the Iraq War

Dana Milbank has an excellent and honest article in the Washington Post, today, that I think deserves an honest discussion.

One War, No Answers

I've actually seen excellent discussions about security and political matters in Iraq by folks like Frederick Kagan, Elliot Cohen, Jeremy Greenstock, Joe Nye, and a whole lot of folks.

But I have to say that what's becoming clearer to me is that what those discussions have in common that the current discussion about the situation in Iraq lacks is a sincere commitment and belief in the possibility of a free, equitable, democratic Iraq where democratic principles are taken seriously and animate the imagination of the Iraqi people, even as government policies may or may not fulfill those ideals.

It is becoming clearer to me that that what America is most in need of, right now, is not more power to control events in Iraq or the world.What America needs, right now, is some serious soul searching.

America is dealing with a crisis of confidence in its own ideals. And force is a popular if shortlived substitute that those who lack faith in those ideals are romanticizing right now in absence of that kind of soul searching. Force is a substitute for ideals in the same way that drugs are a substitute for a substantial commitment to a future and higher purposes. Meaning it's no substitute at all. It's a place-holder as people do the difficult heart and mind work to prepare themselves to living up to their sincerest values.

What's becoming clear to me, right now, is that what we are missing in Iraq is not necessarily a lot of new ideas (though these would be helpful, and certainly stronger thinking about how and when to use force and aggression would serve us well), but a renewed commitment to our strongest ideals.

Iraq is likely to disappoint those ideals when this is all over with. Just as America disappointed those ideals after the Revolution.

But disappointment is not reason to give up on ideals. Ideals are the standard by which disappointment is measured. Disappointment is reason to persevere in developing our thoughts and commitments, our hearts and minds, in setting the stage for ideals to be realized and for people to face the difficulties and setbacks that inevitably come with setting their sights high.

The bottom-line in Iraq is that we need a democratic government that will be crafted as a function of a political compromise that cares for the most serious concerns of Iraqis, right now, and that can deal with other concerns as they come up, over time, in a democratic fashion.

Sunnis, Shias, and Kurds, and their alligned militias, need to invest themselves in a political solution to the conflict where political and cultural concerns are resolved non-violently, either through government or through a freer Iraqi culture.

To do that, they will need a security situation that is stable enough for Iraqis to trust that such a government can provide basic safety, end ethnic violence, and provide a safe enough space for Iraqis to work out concerns together without violence. Americans will need to help with that situation, for now, both in training Iraqis to do a better job of caring for such concerns and in providing the support of a military capable of handling conflict too overwhelming for the Iraqi military (and perhaps supplying the Iraqi government with weapons, equipment, and any other support that they might need to carry out this mission).

What they don't need is Americans bullying them or anyone else, anymore, about how to go about doing that. They don't need Carl Levin bullying them anymore than they needed George Bush bullying them.

Iraqis and Americans need leadership that is genuinely committed to a successful Iraqi democratic government and the nurturing of a more authentic free and equitable democratic culture in Iraq, meaning a culture premised upon freedom and equity and thoughtful reflection and engagement with serious issues as a means of promoting self-governance and self-determination among average Iraqis as the basis for a sustainable democratic future in Iraq.And what we all need to provide that leadership is some serious soul searching. Some genuine belief in democratic ideals, even as the world perpetually falls short of our idealism.

Me too. As I've watched Democrats fall short of so many of my own democratic ideals, I've been prone to cyncism, lately. The idea of a world where I am forced to do the bidding of anyone who can find the means to compel me is so discouraging, that I've lost some fire and spirit, lately, as I search deep for faith and hope in a world where so many people lack both in the most serious ways.

It is so strange to me that a generation in America that was nurtured in the commitment to love and compassion and equity by the likes of Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, John Lennon and the Beatles, Abraham Maslow and later Bill Clinton, Joe Nye, Amartya Sen, and U2 and courage and freedom, by the likes of Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand, Ronald Reagan, George Will and Andrew Sullivan and the rock band Rush and would take such legacies so for granted in a world where the popularity of force as a political philosophy has substituted political imagination with obsession with power.

America, having lost track of their democratic ideals, has been engaged in a political civil war for the last 6 years. And she wonders why Iraq is embroiled in a civil war, herself, with that example to follow.

America needs to set a better example.

And a better example is set with a more honest and genuine commitment to democratic ideals.

The ideas about how to achieve those ideals follow a more genuine commitment to their fulfillment.

This is an aside. But it's funny. I've been single, meaningfully, for about 5 years, now. I've dated several women in there, but I've not been in love since I dated Brandi.

And the reason why I haven't found love is because the idealism that animated Brandi's and my relationship was more substantial than any of the relationships that I have had since that time. Idealism is not thought without action. Idealism is thought in action, with on-going thinking and reflection and engagement and dialogue and friendships and relationships and compassion and understanding to develop new ways of thinking about those to expand them to more people and to expand our ways of imagining a world that successfully navigates the challenges that we all face together.

Idealism is the only most substantial commitment that I've ever been able to count on amongst friends and colleagues. The extent to which they have it is generally reflective of the degree to which they have persisted in stronger purposes despite the obstacles that life has to offer.

Cynicism is borne of disappointment. And it becomes the most serious obstacle, itself, to a more ideal world than any obstacle that our idealism may originally encounter. Cynicism is the source of almost all of the most serious obstacles to more powerful ideals.And then cyncism scoffs like the bully at the ideals that it has knocked to the ground and says, "Told you so." It's an ugly pattern. And it only ends when we give it up.

I've decided that I will not date anyone who lacks the idealism that Brandi and I brought to that relationship we committed to when were too young to know just how ugly the world was and how long people would defend that ugliness. That includes Brandi, as she has settled in the last 5 years or so, who lost track of that idealism several years back, at this point.

Because no matter how much I try to pretend otherwise, I will always know that any other kind of love is not real. It is counterfeit. It is pretending to believe something to look more savvy of the world than I or anyone really is. That is what cynicism is, too often. A big front for how savvy one can look about the realities of the world, borne of the fear to acknowledge that one knows far less about the world and is far more afraid and confused in the world than one wants to admit.

And I'm just not interested in spending the rest of my life with someone like that. I want someone like the girl I fell in love with in the summer of 1997. That girl I have not seen for many years, now. But I just won't settle for less. Because everything else is bullshit. It's not real love.

The same goes for Iraq. As long as Americans are not honestly committed to the highest democratic ideas either in Iraq or in their relationships with states and countries in the rest of the world, their leadership is not genuine and they should expect mistrust from Iraqis and the rest of the world, which is the most substantial element to this whole situation that is undermining the success of a democratic government and a democratic culture and future in Iraq. Iraqis mistrust us because we have earned their mistrust. And the more we act like they are pawns in our efforts rather than people we care about worthy of our commitments, we will continue to earn that mistrust.

It is this failure on our part -- out failure to care about people for their own sake and not for how they can be of use to us -- that both is responsible for so many of our problems in America, in Iraq, and in the world and which blinds us to the heart of so many of those problems, as we rationalize why we try to force people to care, which is not possible, and which undermines the genuine caring that we need to solve so many of the problems that we face.

I will not settle for someone who does not love me, genuinely, for me and not for what I can do for them, what insecurities I keep at bay, how I make them look, what I can get for them, what I can do for them sexually, materially, or otherwise.None of those things is real love. And I have real love to offer. And so I expect the same in return and do not feel insecurity or desperation for something less than that. And if I were to settle, I would always know that I have given up on real love for something less.

I have no interest in settling for less than love in my marriage and relationships. And I have no interest in settling for anything less than the highest democratic ideals in Iraq, in America's relationship with her neighbors in the world, and in how we aspire to live as free and democratic citizens in the international community.

The irony in the discussions of the strength of Malcolm X and the weakness of Martin Luther King (and Bobby Kennedy or John F. Kennedy) and all of King's talk about love and compassion and turning the other cheek, is that King was, by far, the more courageous and strong of those two leaders. The courage to love and to show compassion for those who would withhold freedom from you is far more courageous and involves far more strength than railing against them as "devils". Hating those who would oppress you is far less courageous than loving them, expecting better, and engaging in constructive (and as non-violent as possible) conflict to promote one's freedom, or, in the case of Iraq, a democracy that will secure that freedom and the hope for a freer and more equitable democratic future.

Love is borne of genuine concern for others. Americans and most people lack that. For Iraqis, for the world, for each other, and most importantly, for themselves.

And I am holding out for a woman who has that kind of love. For herself. And for me.

And that is the only way forward in a world lost in its excuses for why it doesn't take that love and compassion and understanding, so basic to our dealings with one another, seriously enough.

Bobby Kennedy's eulogy for Martin Luther King upon his death in April of 1968 is one of the strongest testaments to that idea amidst a time of cynicism and violence and the ugliest human impulses that I have ever heard.

Perhaps we can rediscover those ideals amidst a time when we need them most.




Love,
Ben

I miss being in love

A colleague of mine just got flowers for her birthday.

And I'm reminded that I miss being in love so much.

I love giving flowers. I love receiving them. But I love giving them more.

That feeling when you want to give your heart freely to someone all the time is a great feeling.

It just occurred to me something really amazing:

For all of our fighting and all of the difficult times, Brandi and I really never lost the romance or the sex. The sex was always hot, I think Brandi and I have both acknowledged, and I never stopped bringing flowers or doing romantic dinners or romantic times together.

There was just a ton of passion in our relationship, and much of that came out as fighting, unfortunately. I didn't even really believe we would break up, I was so in love.

Amazing, as I look back now. And more amazing the more I see older friends who complain of fizzling romance and relationships.

One thing is for sure for any woman who is with me that I fall in love with. It's a mighty love. And it's a hard one to fizzle out.

I need love and passion and romance in my life again.

I need to give flowers to someone.

Love,
Ben

Making peace with a world of manipulation and control

I have spent a lot of time in the last 5 years or so thinking about the psychology of control. Why people want it, despite never having it in the most meaningful ways. How people rationalize it, no matter what ugly consequences its pursuit creates (except in circumstances of physical aggression where the threat is genuinely eminent and no other means is possible). What role it plays in all of the most serious tragedies and crimes against humanity in long-standing and near-term history.

And most difficult of all, I have thought about all of the ways that others will and do rationalize controlling me and anyone else, no matter how well they lead their lives and no matter what quality of person they might control -- no matter how much a world that tries and went to great lengths to control and dominate Jesus of Nazareth, the Buddha, Martin Luther King, Mohatma Ghandi, and Desmond Tutu seems perverse and distorted, and yet how the rationalization persists despite that distortion. I have thought long and hard and I think I'm beginning to finally come to terms with the fact that if I want freedom to live my life and to champion the cause of freedom and to work to excel beyond my own and others more minimal and smaller expectations for myself and people, then I will have to embrace that freedom despite the efforts of others to control me, not wait for their permission.

Freedom and the responsibilities that come with its higher ideals, I have decided, is a cause that will have to be pursue of my own accord despite the efforts to control and manipulate and pressure and otherwise bully me without respect for my conscience and free thought and choices.

It is a moral cause as much as it is a concern for stronger solutions to humanity's problems.

And last night and today, I think I am finally coming to terms with my need to embrace the freedom that is necessary to be a genuinely good human being (and not just be fearful and repressed and persistently trying, fruitlessly, to control what I fear) regardless of what others think, regardless of how I fit in or do not with people, regardless of whether my freedom is respected or not by others.

This is the only life I've ever dreamed of. And whether or not it manifests itself ideally or not in my own lifetime, I intend to live a life committed to my own freedom of thought and conscience and where love rather than power or wealth or control or darker desires are my center.

That is where our truer center is found. Our moral center. Our political center. It is found in the heart. It is found in our more genuine love and compassion for others and the understanding that develops out of that compassion. And it is that compassion, hence, that those who live out of fear and control fear most; fearing that they are weak the more they love. Because love does not control. And love challenges us to let go of fear and our need to control.

If you love something, set it free.

It's a principle that those who seek to repress and control fear because it means opening up beyond their defenses -- which are useless in the biggest sense, no matter how much they buttress them -- and make them vulnerable to a world full of pain but also full of life and love. Love and pain come hand in hand. And it is pain that people waste so much precious time trying to protect themselves against with controls that make it all the more likely, sadly.

Luckily, we seem to find our way out of the shadows that we too often mistake for sunshine, as Plato observed, and to be led by love more than by fear, as Martin Luther King insightfully noted.

Today and last night, I have been making my peace with a world where some people will persistently try to manipulate and control me, no matter how much respect for my freedom and the freedom for others is fundamental to a responsible life, a responsible politics, and a responsible morality and humanity.

And it is the most freedom that I have felt in a long time.

Love,
Ben

Joe Biden is a scary motherfucker

Biden: Blame immigration woes on Mexico

Speaking of people who operate out of insecurity and D-values.

Joe now favors a fence on the Mexican border to deal with immigration and the dreaded drug trade.

Joe Biden is now officially a scary motherfucker.

Thank God this guy will never be President. Now if we could only get him off of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Where is Dick Lugar when you need him?

Our worst natures

The darkest feature of our free will, I'm learning, is that we can rationalize anything with a cover of being righteous.

Abraham Maslow was right. Most people operate with D-values, meaning values of insecurity. All of us operate with D-values, at some level. But some people operate more out of this level of values rather than out of higher B-values or our higher values and ideals.

And the most basic need that impedes our growth and that is so easily manipulated and exploited is our desire to be viewed favorably by others. All of us have this tendency, and we are either more or less honest with ourselves and others about how much we want to look good at the expense of being honest with ourselves and others, which would better facilitate our actually being good and better people.

And the worst feature of this insecurity is when we enforce our fear of who we might really be, inside, on everyone, because staying our fear is more important than growing beyond them.

Fear is both the most dangerous and notorious weapon of the weak and the most serious impediment to our growth.

Our saving grace is that fear cannot lead to anywhere where we can thrive.

And eventually, we need real nourishment.

We must fumble around in our own internal darkness, I am discovering, before we can finally see the light. All of us. Without exception.

And the most fearful and insecure among us fumble for longer than others because they keep mistaking the darkness for light. Fear for understanding.

Fear of understanding mistaken for weakness and reflective of our own weaknesses we prefer to remain blind to is one of the most serious obstacles to personal and cultural learning, growth, and progress.

We only find strength and understanding when we let go of weakness rather than defending ourselves against its presence. And this weakness most of all -- our propensity to protect our ego from facing our weaknesses for fear of acknowledging them-- is the most pernicious frailty of all.

Love,
Ben

You know what I'm proudest of?

I just happened by this blog about this female professor talking about tenure and her concerns about the process.

And I just realized that something really extraordinary that I am really proud of with this book and my work is the one thing that was hardest:

That I broke away from the university and its politics to write something that I thought needed the freedom for me to write for its own sake, rather than to appease any political environment, including the university, to be as honest as possible.

University politics are some crazy politics to navigate when you care about honest scholarly work. And it creates blindspots for academics that I want, as much as possible, to be able to recognize, shed light on them, and to create understanding in their place.

Life is political in a way that perpetually shuts down honest discussion, political or otherwise. Fear is our biggest obstacle to making progress, and fear both blinds us to our failures and shuts down discussion and debate and engagement and dialogue and understanding that might help us illuminate them.

Fear undermines honest understanding because it shuts down the communication and engagement that makes honest understanding more possible.

And universities, like life in general, are full of politics inspired by fear that undermine honest communication, engagement, and understanding.

The best way out of that fear is for us to let go of it and our foolish notion that we must inspire it to scare away all of our fears.

But absent that, since that is a very tall order, we can find freedom to share understanding outside of the purview of power dynamics that inspire fear and undermine engagement and understanding.

This is a time where we have foolishly romanticized inspiring fear in others to solve problems that fear can never solve since it undermines the understanding that is necessary to resolve most serious issues.

But there are always ways around the fear and those who monger it for whatever purposes.

Universities are the best institutions in the world, in my experience, for opening up our opportunities to share understanding without fear. And they still fall short. Every group, every institution, every relationship falls short as we learn to treat one another better and trust one another better as the foundation for supporting our mutual understanding and engagement to tackle and resolve serious problems that we face together.

And I'm proud of the fact that I have had this time outside of even the most open institution to consider the blindspots of all groups and institutions, even the most honest and decent and genuine, like universities.

I'm exhausted. I need a nap in a serious way.

Love,
Ben

Do you know what I miss?

From an email I wrote to Melissa, today:

"Do you know what I miss, Melissa? You what feels missing every day of my life and has felt missing for more than 5 years, now?

A feeling of inspiration because people around me feel similarly inspired.

That's what's gotten better at school. People seem to be taking the job as seriously and caring about the kids closer to the very genuine concern that I have for them.

That was the feeling I had when Brandi and I were together that I miss so badly. Working on something important with someone who cares about it as much as I do and with whom I can share my passion and enthusiasm. I haven't felt that in a long time. And it feels missing every day of my life that I don't have it.

It's something I can't do on my own, I'm learning. It's something either you share with someone else or you don't. I miss it. And I live for it when it's around. And no amount of money can replace it."

It is awesome and amazing what two young people can kindle that together when they don't have the cynicism of older adults weighing them down.

That's the feeling I miss in my life more than any other. If I could have that feeling again, I wouldn't give two shits about anything else: money, prestige, influence, fame.

Nothing else matters when you feel that kind of love.

I have to hope it's out there. Because it would be a tragedy if no woman had the courage or love in her to step up to the plate and experience that kind of love and inspiration.

No matter how much of the other stuff I might come by, life will seem empty if I don't have that kind of love again.

It's the only thing worthy of my life. And love.

Love,
Ben