Too much certainty and not enough good faith and understanding in American politics and the world

Sebastian Malaby has a great column on the lack of trust in America and a reference to Francis Fukuyama's new book, Trust, in the Washington Post, today, that I think sums up a lot of the problems in American and international politics, these days.

I've been really frustrated with the hubris of liberal journalists, activists, and politicians in America, these days. I've read liberal after liberal completely convinced of their own strategies to resolve situations in Iraq, Iran, North Korea, among other issues, these days, without a serious enough humility about the limitations of theorizing versus complicated practical realities that has me seriously appreciating principled conservatives, right now. Especially the conservative principles of prudence and an appreciation for human limitations in a world perpetually beyond human understanding.

Andrew Sullivan is the first person I turned to because I'm pretty convinced that he is perhaps the best conservative journalist in America, right now, and is working on being one of the finest conservative thinkers in the world with his new book, The Soul of Conservativism, where he is attempting to craft an organized theory of conservative ideas and ideals that looks very promising, right now.

This recent entry citing Ghandi epitomizes why I appreciate Andrew so much.

On so many issues, Andrew's thinking and mine are fairly indistinguishable. Hate crimes against gays and African Americans and women (Andrew is gay and has been diagnosed with AIDS since 1993) are terrible things. But they also criminalize thought (while a violent or non-violent crime already exists to cover violence or destruction of property), which is a more serious problem than the hate crime, itself. Campaign finance reform is a laudable goal with a ineffective and unconstitutional means. Faith and reason are not only consistent, they are inseparable, in reality.

Andrew's consistent criticism of the Administration on its conduct of the war very early on, while supporting the President and the troops in a successful mission, his criticism of the President around its torture policies, and his support for John Kerry in the 2004 election are very powerful indicators of just how long Andrew has understood how seriously the Administration has misunderstood its position in Iraq.

I have work to do and don't have the time to go into all of Andrew's virtues as a human being or over the course of this war or his more libertarian conservative tendencies that I share, but suffice it to say that I think Andrew is perhaps one of the most principled and decent conservatives in America and in the world, today.

George Will is another favorite of mine. Andrew calls him "the best conservative writer in America today." I think George is most certainly among the best if not the best conservative journalist in the America, today. But I think Andrew may be a slightly more powerful thinker of the two. Francis Fukuyama and is one of the finest conservative thinkers I know. Francis is a policy scholar with some really powerful original policy work, e.g. multi-multilateralism. David Gergen is one of the most principled conservative thinkers and political advisors I have ever come across, with tenures in Democratic and Republican Administrations and with serious insight into American and international politics. I've always suspected that John Keegan, who is one of the finest military historians I've ever read, is a conservative, though I have never read any of his work that openly acknowledges my assumption and suspicion, and realize, today, that he, like I, may want to be thought of as an independent thinker more than an one with a particular ideological commitment. George Will and Andrew Sullivan are two of finest conservative thinkers and writers I know in America and beyond and are two of the finest thinkers and writers, period, that I know.

George's recent pieces, The Triumph of Unrealism, Questions to Guide an Exit Policy, and Togetherness in Baghdad are three of the most powerful I have seen written about the war in recent months.

William F. Buckley is another very important conservative journalist, thinker, and writer, as is John Derbyshire, Jonah Goldberg, Charles Krauthammer (though Charles' arrogance has always seriously put me off), and a million other conservative journalists and thinkers that I don't have time to reference, right now, since I'm working on deadlines.

Sebastian Malaby is a liberal whose columns have impressed me lately and there a million other liberals besides him. And Peter Beinart, of The New Republic, always has great things to say. Benjamin Barber is one of the finest international policy scholars in the business.

But right now is a period of serious hubris on the part of liberals as they are swooping in for a election upset and as their analysis gets distorted by their desire to force conservatives out of office.

If only liberals had all the answers. Or conservatives, for that matter. It would make this election and every election so much easier, wouldn't it? It would life so much easier, wouldn't it?

Alas, that world does not exist. And believing that it does is often more dangerous the plain fact that it doesn't.

I have identified as a liberal most of my life, so I think it's particularly important to criticize liberals when they are most power-hungry. I'm not a liberal, exclusively, these days, any more than I am a Christian, exclusively, these days. I am a liberal and a conservative and a Christian and a Jew and a Buddhist and a Hindu and a Muslim and an agnostic and an atheist and a secular humanist and whatever ideas that I damn well please to draw from.

I am an independent thinker, first and foremost. And a human being who identifies with and cares about other human being before that.

But when I read yet another arrogant liberal column about the war in Iraq and how much better liberals know what to do with that mess of a situation -- this most recent Trudy Rubin piece is case in point -- which they so plainly don't, necessarily, though there are many fine liberals and conservatives who have many good and not so good ideas about how to improve the situation in Iraq...

It all makes me seriously appreciate thoughtful conservatives like Andrew and George who, unlike Trudy Rubin or David Ignatius, at least have the balls to say that they don't necessarily know what to do to make the situation in Iraq better, but that thinking about how to improve the situation is a commitment that people can feel no matter what ideological gods they worship.

There are far too many great liberal thinkers and writers out there to count. Joe Nye is perhaps the best international policy scholar I have ever read. Amartya Sen is not only a Nobel Prize winning economist, he is one of the finest writers on international issues I have ever read. And Abraham Maslow, though dead, had as much influence on my thinking as any living liberal or otherwise writer. And Desmond Tutu is one the most thoughtful liberal leaders of this generation, I believe.

But the hubris of too many liberal writers, activists, and politicians, right now, in the efforts to check the hubris of the conservative Administration, but to offer very few substantial ideas to constructively deal with the problems they face -- other than to rationalize a liberal or Democratic take-over -- is really out of control, right now.

So it's nice to take a moment and appreciate why it is so important to have principled conservatives as well as liberals contributing to the public discussion, right now.

Good faith and understanding are in seriously short supply in America politics, right now. The wells of good faith are growing, but they are surrounded by a desert of cynicism and hubris and shortsightedness fueled by a far too confident commitment to pressure and force and superior power to resolve serious problems in the world. Democrats are eagerly awaiting a taste of that superior power, undaunted by a Republican party whose capture of power in all three branches of the U.S. government were unable to tackle successfully most of the very serious issues that they care about resolving. Democrats and liberals are better people, goes the reasoning. They aren't as corrupt. They aren't as rich. They know which power works and which power doesn't. And a million other rationalizations for power -- whether it resolves problems or not -- that liberals and Democrats are engaged in, right now -- which ignores the plain fact that, like every other period in humanity's history, this is a period of dissolving and disintegrating power, not force as a final solution.

Like the Roman Empire of antiquity, Great Britain at the beginning of the 20th century, and the Soviet Union at the turn of the 21st century (without equivocation between a power whose debates and traditions introduced the world to principles of civilization and protections for individual rights and a state committed to its own power over and above the freedom of its citizens), the United States is facing a dissolution of its power in world politics, as is the capacity for any group or government to willfully and arbitrarily use force to advance particular causes.

Such a dissolution doesn't mean that the United States is impotent in the field of international policy. It means that its power is derived from exactly where it should be derived: its ideals and its ideas. Force is a capacity that has power insofar as it is animated by better ideas about its use and about its limitations, including and especially a recognition that it should be used as little as possible, not as a bludgeoning tool to be wielded with every good (or bad) cause.

I have a lot to do and not enough time to elaborate on this, right now. But suffice it to say that I'm thinking a lot about our lack of humility in our own capabilities and our lack of faith in the good intentions of others, right now.

Conservatives are being appropriately humbled, right now, by the failures of this Administration and by a conservative monopoly on Federal power in America to resolve so many problems that conservatives care about.

Liberals are now also in need of a serious humbling. And their hubris is discouraging in the face of such serious problems in need of more humble and deeply considered thought rather than all-too-certain strategies for forcing our way to victory.

We need more humility and faith and understanding in politics and in the world, right now. Without it, we will continue to make similar mistakes as this Administration and as is par for the course for humanity in the face of deeply misunderstood challenges.

It is nice to note that many, many thinkers, right now, are working in that direction.

Love,
Ben

Faith and reason

Andrew Sullivan writes a really beautiful piece on faith and reason I thought worth reposting and in advance of his new book, The Soul of Conservativism, that I will definitely be checking out the next time I am in the bookstore.

Listening to Jesus

Money quote, as Andrew would say, from the fifth chapter of his book:

"The message of the Gospels seems to me to be constantly returning to this theme: those who set themselves up as arbiters of moral correctness, the men of the book, the Pharisees, are often the furthest from God. Rules can only go so far; love does the rest. And the rest is by far the most important part. Jesus of Nazareth constantly tells his fellow human beings to let go of law and let love happen: to let go of the pursuit of certainty, to let go of possessions, to let go of pride, to let go of reputation and ambition, to let go also of obsessing about laws and doctrines. This letting go is what the fundamentalist fears the most. To him, it implies chaos, disorder, anarchy. To Jesus, it is the beginning of wisdom, and the prerequisite of love."

Brilliant:).

Love,
Ben

Forgiving Brandi

I had a dream, tonight, that woke me up. So I'm writing.

I saw Brandi, again, for the first time in a long time. We were hanging out, being fairly friendly. I asked her why she stopped talking to me. She said, "We were on a path alone together," a reference to a beautiful Dar Williams song called February about the souring of a relationship.

I am currently engaged in one of the more difficult efforts of my life.

Forgiving Brandi.

Forgiveness is work. It can be tough work, depending on how recent and sore the wound is.

This work is hard, right now, because the wound is fresh and deep. Brandi was my closest friend just 5 years ago. And she had been my best friend for five years previous to that.

I want to say we dated, and that was the mistake. But that's not true. Plenty of people date and come out friends on the other side of that.

Brandi just kind of arbitrarily decided that she wasn't going to be friends. She says it has nothing to do with her marriage or her husband. It's just an arbitrary decision on her own part. "We're not in the same place," she says. She says she holds no grudge. Meaning, "I've decided to stop being your friend, but I'm not going to tell you why."

It's arbitrary and lame. It's one of the lamer choices Brandi has made, and she has made some doozies in the last couple of years.

I've forgiven a lot in my lifetime, so this too shall pass. It's just really, really painful, right now, because Brandi was someone I trusted more than most people. It's embarrassing to have strangers win your trust and then abuse it. It's far more painful to have friends and people close to you prove unworthy of trust and take no responsibility. Brandi was someone I trusted implicitly. It was a mistake, it seems. Either that, or Brandi just has a lot of reflection and responsibility to take about why she's behaved so lamely over the last couple of years. Guilt? Maybe. Who knows. I just know it hurts, right now.

I'm not the type of person, at all, who likes to hold onto pain or to engage in recrimination. People fuck up. Even cynically expecting forgiveness. They abuse trust. It's a part of life. I've done it a million times. And I forgive as I would want to be forgiven.

And I've watched a million people act badly out of guilt, as I am betting, right now, is motivating Brandi's behavior. I hope Brandi got married for the right reasons. I have all kinds of reasons to think that she didn't, and her most recent behavior only deepens that suspicion for me. And I think it's likely that she's treating me badly to avoid facing up. I've seen it a million times. I could be wrong. But I don't have a better explanation, right now. And Brandi offers none.

Pain is a part of life. It's not fun to go through. But it is a natural and necessary part of any relationship, friendship, family, or love. Pain is a part of love. And letting it go is a part of making love available to ourselves and to others. Holding onto pain and bitterness makes us less able to share love, and others less able and willing to share love with us.

I've never understood why people hold onto pain. It doesn't serve them or anyone else. Bitterness and recrimination serve noone. Not even ourselves, sadly. They undermine all of us. And are responsible, in their ugliest forms, for the worst crimes that humanity has to offer.

So I've got no reason to hold onto this pain. It's just fresh and deep. Because I trusted Brandi more than most people. And for whatever reasons, she has stomped all over my heart these last few years.

When Brandi and I were dating and after we broke up, I asked, at separate times, for Brandi to make two promises to me.

When we first started dating, I asked Brandi to promise that if we ever fell out of love, that we fall back in love again. It was a sweet and beautiful promise requested by a young man deeply in love.

Not living up to that promise is understandable. Many people make a go of a relationship and can't find it in themselves to make a second go.

When Brandi and I broke up, I asked and Brandi promised that we would not stop being friends or talking just because we started dating other people. Brandi and I had been best friends for more than a year with no sexual or relationship interest before we had started dating, after all. So it was important to me and I thought important to her, at the time, to maintain that friendship. For whatever reasons, it turns it was not so terribly important to Brandi, sadly.

Breaking that second promise is still understandable, in light of Brandi's marriage. Except that Brandi has said that this isn't the reason that she has broken off communication. So now it becomes less understandable and more arbitrary.

It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter how badly we are hurt or for what reasons. Forgiveness is always the only way forward. And when we give up on forgiveness, we give up on experiencing love fully in our lives. It's a foolish, foolish tradeoff that far too many people engage in, taking love for granted and the particular joy that it brings to life.

It's perfectly clear looking at the world, today, that so many people -- perhaps the majority -- give up on forgiveness and love, in this way. It's just the most tragic mistake that people can make, I think. Hubris is a serious mistake. But giving up on love, and the forgiveness that is at its heart, is the most tragic. Because love, true love, is one of life's rarer joys.

And because the bitterness that is the alternative serves noone. Not even ourselves.

I guess it's true that time will heal this wound as it heals all wounds. But working at it is important too. It just still feels fresh.

Maybe if I spend some time remembering the loving person I once knew, I'll feel better.

Love,
Ben

The tortured logic of force as a governing democratic philosophy

David Ignatius writes this really strained piece, today, in the Washington Post making the tortured case for why collective security is only something that rational folks like David can impose on rational, self-centered folks like you and me.

The Paradox Behind the Paralysis on Security

David cites this obscure economist named Mancur Olson Jr. and his equally obscure 1965 book, "The Logic of Collective Action," and argues that Olson has figured out what keeps rational, self-centered actors from pursuing collective security options that are in their best interests: they haven't yet been compelled to do so:).

Rational actors, David and Mancur argue, can't be expected to engage in collective security options that would be in their best interests. They're too busy being self-interested and rational to do something so clearly rational, or so the convoluted logic seems to go. The problem with China and the Bush Administration, David's logic goes, is that they've been dragging their feet on getting really tough with North Korea because they just haven't been compelled sufficiently enough to take the tough action.

It couldn't, of course, be the obvious, which is that the tough action hasn't worked. No, David argues. The problem is that the United Nations, not the United States, needs to be the group that imposes it's will (Kim Jong Il has apparently been signalling that the United Nations is the democratic authority that he trusts-- him being so committed to democratic principles and all -- and David, identifying the all too rational nature of the U.S. government, the Chinese, the Russians, the Europeans, and other U.N. nations, recognizes, immediately that they're problem is that they haven't been sufficiently compelled to do the right thing.

As I told David on the comments section of his Post piece: he and the Democrats that he favors will have ample time to prove his theory right in the coming years.

My question is, when it fails -- which it will -- will he and the Democrats be willing to give it up?

It is amazing to me, I must say, the tortured logic that people will employ in their pursuit of power and their right to pressure and force others to do their bidding.

The strongest societies are free societies, reasons David, because they just know the right way to use force. The Soviets and the Saddam Hussein just didn't know how to impose their will appropriately. Had they done so with David's wisdom, then they would have created the utopias or maintained the cults of personality that they sought. And all of it, by David's logic, would be equal. Because David doesn't suppose that any moral or decent or humane values be the handmaidens of force. No, David reasons. Force is the governing philosophy that should animate free societies. There is no reason for ideas to describe or limit how it might be used. Freedom is for suckers who don't really see the writing on the wall, David reasons. The truth is that rational people only do what they should do when they are made to.

Most amusing to me is that David is supposing that some obscure economist from the University of Maryland has somehow outthunk the smartest international policy scholars like Joe Nye and his colleagues at Harvard who have concluded that too much aggression, not too little, has undermined our efforts in Iraq, with Iran, and with North Korea.

The truth is that what created the atrocities of the Soviets, the Nazis, the Baathists, the North Korean and Cuban communist governments, and every other most horrific government that the world has ever witnessed is exactly the philosophy that David is arguing for.

There is another philosopher who had a more apt description of the problem that we see among advocates of pressure and force who are using so much of it so freely these days.

It was an idea coined by an obscure little liberal British historian and political philosopher at the beginning of the 20th century named Lord Acton:

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Those who argue for the use of power without a sense of its limits or that it should have limits are marching down a dangerous road. It is a road well travelled and littered with death and stagnation and every form of human ugliness.

What advocates of force to ultimately govern human relations rather than free will, morality, and intelligent discussion and debate, divided and limited power, decency, humanity, and compassion are most in need of is exactly what they are most cynical about:

A stronger conscience.

The truth is that David's and Mancur's theory are one long excuse and defense for why selfishness is really rationality and not self-centeredness -- which is distinct from a more reasonable sense of self-interest as expressed in the classic Hillel wisdom, "If I am only for myself, what am I? If I am not for myself, who am I?" -- and why people like David and Mancur have really figured out problems resolving matters in Iraq, with North Korea, and with Iran because David, at least, has figured out the right group to use force, not a serious asterick and reason to question if whether imposing our will works in these situations very well at all. Clearly military force is necessary in Iraq, which is why I support General Casey's commitment to a sustained U.S. presence and more troops, if they are needed, and a larger commitment to a political solution in the form of a sustainable peacefully-committed democratic government in Iraq. But clearly, to anyone who is looking at that situation squarely, what Iraqis resent about the American presence, as much as anything else, is that the situation was imposed upon them without their input or consent and without respect for any of the basic democratic principles that the invasion purports to have as its purpose.

What really bothers me is why David hasn't consulted folks like Joe Nye or Francis Fukuyama or the Harvard JFK School of Government faculty that recently and publicly talked about the need for a less aggressive foreign policy.

It bothers me just as much if not more than when President Bush would not consult such people, because David acts with the pretension that he is really thinking and concerned with better ideas when the Administration is not. When the truth is that David, like the President, is trying to find arguments to support his preconceived ideas about the matter rather than doing what is hardest with intelligent reflection and engagement: to seriously question one's premises.

And it is that pretension which was at the root of the arrogance of power that animated the Soviet Union, the Nazis, the Baathists, and almost every dictator or totalitarian government of the 20th and now 21st century.

That good people just didn't know what was good for them until they were compelled to do so. And that those who challenge that idea just wouldn't understand not because freedom and equity is the highest values, but because they are naive about just how brilliant the insight of those imposing their will is into what will create a better, safer, more decent world. Meaning, poor saps cannot possibly be good people and behave well and/or exceed expectation because, being our own rational selves, we can't possibly know what is good for us. We must be condescended and compelled to do good because otherwise we would just remain naive of David's superior wisdom.

The truth is that David has thought far too little about what makes for a good society and good people and for policy to govern both. David is not a bad man. But he is arrogant about his ability to compel his way to a safer or better world. And it is the arrogance of folks like David and the Democrats he favors, right now, that very much concerns me about Democrats seizing power this election.

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely is a much more abiding bit of wisdom than "Rational people are selfish and must be compelled to do look after their best interests," a serious distortion of economic theory and of Adam Smith's moral observations about the need for people to have freedom to look after their self-interests and to freely and voluntarily look after the interests of others as it benefits their interests. People will look after the interests of others, reasoned Adam Smith much more powerfully than Mancur Olson, as they discover the self-interest in doing so. Freedom serves the interests of all because it allows them to discover how their interests are mutually served by their cooperation and their willingness to look after the interests of those who look after their own.

It's an important bit of wisdom that could provide a breakthrough in Iran, North Korea, and Iraq, if we would stop rationalizing our will to power.

Perhaps the North Koreans and Iranians would stop their pursuit of nuclear weapons if we stopped acting so provocatively in opposition to their interests and began to more genuinely work on behalf of the interests of their people, including promoting more genuinely the values of freedom and equity and democratic engagement, engaging them in free and open discussion and diplomacy about their nuclear weapons' programs, their relationship with the United States, the West, and the democratic world, whether their use of force and constraining the freedom of their peoples -- and the constraining of the freedom of the peoples of the United States and West, as well, if we were to have a more credible conversation where we acknowledge our own faults as well -- actually serves their interests or the interests of their people or any of us.

Such was the on-going conversation that Ronald Reagan had with Mikhael Gorbachev in the 1980's which precipitated the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union.

It seems straightforward enough, doesn't it? That democratic engagement, at its base, means discussion and engagement and persuasion rather than force. Force is certainly necessary by democratic peoples' at times, especially in cases of self-defense or when force is the only way to remove an overwhelming power. But force is not a governing philosophy, in and of itself. If it were, democracy would never be necessary. Most of the history of humanity has been governed by far more force than we use, today, not less. We are just too arrogant to face that ugly legacy. We are too drunk with power.

But I have to say that it is as if an entire segment of our population has so blurred the distinction between freedom and force, between persuasion and compelling will that they believe that if they assert the superiority of the latter, enough, that they will never have to seriously engage the question of persuasion and free will in a democratically engaged society. It is as if they are beside the point.

Because the real point for people like David is that they get their way. By any means necessary, as Malcolm X, the hero to so many liberals and radicals like David, might say.

This is the ugliest political period that I have ever witnessed personally in my lifetime.

And it is ugliest because a group of people that I was proud to associate myself with and identify with most of my life -- liberals -- have decided in the last 6 years that they can and will rationalize and excuse any means necessary to get their way this election and, in some distorted way, as THE legitmate governing philosophy.

How ugly. And wrong. And marching on the path to the road of power and corruption of power.

What an ugly period we are living through.

And our best hope is that such a philosophy will inevitably fail.

It was the final downfall of the Soviet Union. It will be the downfall of dictators and totalitarians over the course of the 21st century.

And, luckily, free peoples (and I hope unfree peoples) will not tolerate it in America or the democratic cultures of the West and will not long tolerate it in the maturing and emerging democracies the world over. If and when Democrats abuse power, democracy will offer us the opportunity to remove Democrats from power as it has offered us the opportunity to remove Republicans from power. And so we will continue, building a culture more committed to freedom all the while.

If David or Mancur were right, there would be no need for a democratic discussion or process at all. We would always only need to compel our way to good purposes. We would see important goals, and compel our way to our objectives. There would be no need for thought and discussion and debate. That is the reason that the most and even the least thoughtful histories and political studies have emphasized the important distinction between thought and debate and discussion and brute force. Humanity has been using compulsion for purposes of collective security, more than any other reason, for most of the history of the world. And it has meant ruin and death and destruction for most of that history. If liberals, like conservatives, who argue for force as a governing democratic philosophy were correct, there would be no need for any philosophy whatsoever. Because there would be no need for reason or thought or engagement whatsoever. We would see what we wanted, collectively, and pursue it with as much or as little force necessary. But force is not a philosophy. We must certainly think about how we use force and power. But force and power, of themselves, are not philosophies. In the great majority of cases when force has been used and abused in the history of humanity, it has been the opposite of thought or philosophy. It has been brute action to aggressively acquire or compel. And it has been the basest impulse that human beings have indulged.

And the single most important correction to that impulse has been and always will be free and democratic engaged debate, discussion, and thought.

Our mistake is not that we have not had enough compulsion. Nor that we have not been rational enough.

Our mistake now and perpetually is our hubris. Our belief that we are the generation who has finally figured out how to wield force and power correctly to make the world in our own perfect image.

Hubris. Our greatest weakness, our most common sin, our most consistent mistake.

And the mistake that we are most reluctant to acknowledge.

Because it means acknowledging that we make mistakes at all.

And that, really, is the most serious and persistent mistake of humanity.

Love,
Ben

Do you know how exhausting it is striving to be a really great teacher?

Really exhausting.

I've been dead tired all week. And overwhelmed and overstressed in a serious way.

And striving to be a great teacher is not only part of my job. It is a life-time commitment as a father, a teacher, a professor, and an human being that I take more seriously than perhaps any other aspiration that I might take on.

I am humbled by the efforts of military officers, police officers, firefighters (including the 4 who died today), political representatives (as much am I frequently frustrated with counterproductive policies they initiate), civil servants and the whole range of people who engage in public service for salaries that are frequently less than they might bring home if they pursued their own private interests in the market with the same ambition that they often give to public service (as the Cato Institute recently researched, civil servants can make good money, depending on where they work; but rarely if ever will you find a Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, or Carlos Slim Helu among civil servants).

But if there is one set of public servants that have always impressed me most, both because of their commitment to treating people with the some of the most serious love and appreciation, but also because of the long-term impact that they have on a culture and on individuals (especially when they have important ideas), it is teachers.

Teachers at the K-12 and university level are the people I've spent most of my life with, and they are the people I most admire when it comes to a genuine commitment to children and people for their own sake and not for self-interest (though there is plenty of self-interest in education and plenty of self-sacrifice outside of schools and universities), and for their commitment to thinking and thought, which is the foundation and always dynamic basis for our growth as individuals and as a culture.

People who are strong thinkers and strong teachers are a difficult combination to find, but they are important to the growth of the culture and to our growth as individuals.

And it is really exhausting striving to be both. And well worth it, as far as I am concerned. Because it means the difference between supporting a culture and individuals that aspire to actualize their best selves and a culture that misses that opportunity in the name of lesser, smaller aims and selves.

I have a lot of teachers to thank in my life who I completely took for granted when I was studying with them, I'm afraid, but who made important differences in my life and the lives of all of my friends and family.

A big thank you to teachers everywhere, no matter where you might find yourselves these days:).

Love,
Ben

A free, decentralized, information-age economy

Robert J. Samuelson writes a really fascinating article in today's Washington Post that should be interesting reading for anyone concerned with the shape of the emerging market economy.

Capitalism's Next Stage

It's really captivating piece on business scholar Alfred Chandler and his observations about the development of capitalism in the 20th century.

We referenced a really excellent economic history text when I was studying economic history in undergrad by Robert Heilbroner and Aaron Singer titled The Economic Transformation of America that I highly recommend (I don't share Heilbroner's socialist commitments, but I do appreciate his review of 19th century economic history from the perspective of someone committed to wealth equity in an era of enormous wealth inequities and fierce economic and political conflict;
Heilbroner has, sadly, since died and I look forward to reading his widely read Worldly Philosophers when I get a chance).

I have an I.E.P. to finish, but I did think it important to note that, dovetailing Chandler's observation at the end of Samuelson's article, the next stage is a much freer, more decentralized, more information-based economy. The internet, more than any other technology or medium I have ever studied or witnessed, has freed up the economy immensely, to the dismay of many who wish that it did not provide as many opportunities as it does to circumvent many of the legal, political, and cultural limitations of the past and even the present era.

It is the freest, most decentralized economy that I have ever studied that we are experiencing currently. And the information base that it revolves around makes a strongly educated citizenry and peoples both more readily available and education a more useful element of a prosperous and productive life, to speak nothing of a well-lived life.

Such decentralization will make ideological demarcations increasingly less useful as a much more intelligently-engaged citizenry make more independent judgments about political, economic, cultural, and other affairs. And the internet is the primary vehicle for engagement that will drive political and economic decisions in increasingly complex and uncertain patterns.

The internet has potential to free up engagement and make for a much more honest, open line of communication about important political, economic, and cultural matters. It is potential that people will increasingly use for those purposes, but which, like most technology, they will likely use as much if not more for entertainment and more passive purposes. Ce la vie. But the potential for a more intelligent, engaged, and committed citizenry to take a more active role in discussing, engaging, tackling, and working to resolve important issues in more decentralized ways, especially in a more decentralized non-profit as well as for-profit economy is one of the most promising opportunities of the early 21st century.

The internet provides one of the most remarkable opportunities for citizens to bypass traditional political parties and institutions to tackle important problems of their own accord without government oversight (not necessarily, that is, depending on how politicians and citizens approach this issue; though, thusfar, the direction is definitely toward a decentralized, hands-off approach to the internet). Non-profit and for-profit enterprises, like schools, are important institutions as well, but the advantage of the internet is a much freer, less regulated means of tackling important problems outside of traditional institutions or the economy.

Having a place where people can communicate ideas with fewer of the restrictions of more traditional institutions is an enormous advantage that the internet offers citizens and neighbors and interested groups that traditional institutions need to and will incorporate over time.

It is one of the more unambiguously progressive and positive developments of the 21st century. And its progressive role is completely independent of party or ideology or political group, while much more true to liberal democratic ideals, offering plenty of room for all groups to participate in discussions, debates, engagement, sharing and economy that are the heart of its progressive offering.

I've got work to do, and will try to write more later.

Love,
Ben

Threatening our way into oblivion

I just got out of a Wednesday afternoon inservice. The district administrators have decided that they are going to remove Dr. Ogburn (who is the best teacher in the building, with few exceptions) from giving the inservice and instead have our instructional coach give the inservice (who is a nice woman, but not Dr. Ogburn).

What's been happening, I'm realizing, is the the school may not make AYP (adequately yearly progress) this year. And that threat is now being held over the head of every teacher and administrator in the building.

And moral is low.

It's not low because people don't have hope and aren't making all kinds of efforts to create student success. They are.

Moral is low because everyone in the building, no matter how much more self-sacrificing they are than almost anyone else engaged in school reform discussions, are now being threatened with some kind of external take-over of some operations or coerced action if the school does not meet AYP.

And this afternoon was just a taste of what that might look like.

I just want to note that no matter how such efforts fail, I seriously doubt you will ever hear a district administrator or a local, state, or federal politician take responsibility.

Because they are not in the business of creating school success. They are in the business of blaming schools and teachers when do they do not. Which is exactly what the very dysfunctional and punitive political discussion about school reform has wrought.

And when it fails -- which it undoubtedly will -- you will hear Democrats and Republicans alike do exactly with this effort what the Administration has done with the war in Iraq:

Never accept responsibility.

Even though the punitive efforts associated with the No Child Left Behind Act are exactly the kinds of measures that undermine school success.

And I will be making that argument as clearly and as openly as possible until people start facing up.

I'm starting to realize that the trust that I was feeling work its way through the faculty, today, is based upon a common recognition that the only way that we will all get through this miserable experience is if we start doing this work for all of the noblest reasons. And fuck George Bush, Ted Kennedy, and the fuckin' No Child Left Behind Act in the meantime.

Fuck them and their demands for results that none of them, noone involved with the school reform discussions -- noone; no exceptions -- know how, with certainty, or have even come close to demonstrating that they know for sure how to produce.

We will be producing results. And George Bush, Ted Kennedy and every single person involved with passing that act will get absolutely zero credit for our work.

Because the truth is that when we do it, we will be doing it despite their impossible demands, not because of them. And they can fuck off if they will be looking for any credit.

You cannot force and threaten your way to progress. And when you try, and progress gets made despite you, noone will be supporting your self-celebrations. You can cheer for yourself all you want. But noone will be giving you credit except for yourself.

Eisenhower is going to succeed. And we will be doing it often despite our district administrators, and local, state, and federal politicians (even as all of these people provide some limited support to our efforts).

And I don't care how much they cheer for themselves. They will not be getting congratulations from me, and I doubt from any of my colleagues. I'm sure they will be paid far better than our faculty. But none of them will be getting credit for our work.

In the meantime, the NCLB (No Child Left Behind Act) just became a much more serious obstacle to success in our school, no matter how much Margaret Spelling, our Secretary of Education, and apologists for this very bad legislation, are defensive about its failures.

This situation just gave me much more substantive reason to swear off any party affiliation. They're not corrupt. They're just all self-centered as the day is long. It's a byproduct of a punitive world and an aggressive political climate.

I cannot feel any loyalty to people who avoid responsibility at the expense of me and my friends, colleagues, and students. I can love them. And pity them. But I will not pretend that they are helping when they are clearly in the way. And I don't give a shit, anymore, what party such arrogance derives from. It's all hubris to me.

As my friend, Earl, said the other day: it's teachers who are the real heroes in the world, these days. In a world obsessed with controlling people in the name of helping them (a theme straight out of Orwell, when anyone would stop to think about it), teachers are the people most committed to education rather than force as the means to improving the world.

Our faculty is being seriously tested in that regard, these days.

And something tells me that we are likely to pass tests that district administrators and politicians never imagined we would face. Because we are about to pass tests that noone ever demanded or forced us to take.

We are about to pass tests that can only be faced by people choosing to be better than their situation.

Love,
Ben

Our potential, good and bad

I'm starting to see, this morning, that what we've been going through at Eisenhower is growing pains.

Teachers not taking responsibility. Kids not taking responsibility. And all kinds of folks loading me up with responsibility to compensate for and blaming me for their failures. People pressuring for procedural issues and for results that I am stretched beyond my limits to provide at this point, even as I am completely in good faith.

It's been really overwhelming the last couple of weeks. It's been so overwhelming that I've been on the verge of quitting for some time now.

But lately, slowly, I've been noticing a change. I've been noticing an adjustment in peoples' direction. And if the adjustment comes out right -- meaning a school where each of us -- teachers, students, etc. -- take more responsibility freely, over and above required minimums, which is the way that too many people operate in the world, and taking on the really big challenges more openly and straightforwardly, then all of this insanity I've put myself through and that I've been put through will be worth it.

Last night, a kid on my special education caseload got first place in his chamber at our Congress tournament. It was a really big deal. And was really humbling for the smartest girl on our team who did not place at this tournament. It was a good experience for both kids and for all the kids, I think.

And I'm feeling caught, right now, between a microcosm of an emerging brilliant world where everyone has a shot at being smart and excelling in school and in life and where we all look after one another that I'm seeing on my speech and debate team and in some classes and the chaos of a world where kids and adults only look after themselves and everyone gets left behind, as a consequence, and where I'm always feeling caught in the crossfire.

As I say this, I'm listening to Rosemary Dugan give this really great lesson in her family advocacy class about kids imagining a better quality of life and being better people, the role that education plays in those dreams, and the need for us to trust one another to make those dreams reality.

I think, perhaps, our folks in our school are going through the growing pains of learning to trust one another.

It never occurred to me that this was something that my teachers and adults didn't do, growing up. But I'm learning that many, many adults don't trust one another or younger people or others in the world around them. They've been burned. They've been hurt. They've been scared. And they've learned to stop trusting.

That's what Maslow meant when he talked about the flyer with the photo with babies on one side and of adults on a subway on the other.

What babies have that too many adults lose is their capacity to trust the world.

Obviously we can all have our trust taken advantage of. We not only can have our trust taken advantage of. We do. Regularly. And that's what leaves us so mistrustful.

But we can't function in this world without trust. We can't function always wondering if we are the ones who are going to be left behind. Because, truth be told, it's not just kids in special education who are afraid of being left behind. It's all of us. No matter how smart or decent or worthy.

And if we want to be able to function in this world, we're going to have to learn to trust one another. And earn the trust of one another.

And to the extent that we fail to do that, life for all of us -- everyone; all of humanity -- will continue to be the giant mess that we've all created today.

And that mess will not be cleaned up by creating more rules or laws. That mess will only be cleaned up by everyone acting with stronger conscience in the face of their freedom do what they choose, good or bad.

We are living in a time of self-awareness of our capacity for free will, good and bad. And our saving grace is that our self-awareness makes us aware of the consequences of choosing against our consciences as well as choosing to abide our consciences.

And both choices have consequences for us to learn from.

And it is the learning from which humanity will thrive.

Love,
Ben

Mr. Sullivan is hot

Found on Eisenhower girl's bathroom wall:

Mr. Sullivan is hot

(I am otherwise known to kids who can't pronounce my name as Mr. Sullivan)

I can't say I can argue.

One person makes a difference

For the last week or so, I've been seriously thinking about quitting. I've made my peace with it, I've thought seriously about it, I've made plans for it, if necessary. And most importantly, I've worked through the heartache of giving up my life love for the last 15 years -- inner city school reform.

And, this week, one person made a difference.

My principal, Dr. Freda Ogburn, may be the strongest leader I have ever worked with. Ever. She is more realistic, more humble, and a better person that anyone I can think of that I have worked with.

And in the pinch, she came through for me, this week.

I've been more seriously thinking about leaving the teaching profession, this week, than any time in my life as a teacher.

I only got into teaching, truth be told, to do inner city school reform. I've always known that if this was not the challenge I was taking on, then I should probably take on bigger challenges like policy (international policy if I were to have to choose) or even go into something more lucrative, if the more noble purposes in schools or policy were going to be perpetually swamped in the less noble purposes of power, self-interest, pettiness, etc. If everyone is going to be more self-centered and act like it doesn't matter, I've reasoned, then no need for me to get in anyone's way. If you can't beat them, join them.

But Freda has persuaded me not to go in that direction quite yet.

Yes, it is true that everyone in both public schools, day to day, and public school reform, have all kinds of personal and often petty and political agendas that I find small and distasteful. Yes, it is true that this is not likely to change, at all in one fell swoop -- many, many people seem very resistant to even committing to a more thoughtful life, period, nevertheless to think about schools or society more rigorously and in ways that they are unfamiliar with, largely because most people I work with don't think very much about anything at all, frankly, except they're day to day lives. So, as my great friend, Carson, says, being an intelligent person in a world that often doesn't take intelligence nearly seriously enough often feels like Sisyphus, rolling the boulder up the hill only to have it fall back down, perpetually, with no immediate notion of when it might change course.

The personal advantage of working in suburban schools is that I would get the chance to work with great people like Carson's wife, Sherry, who I adore and who is, easily, 100 times the teacher than most of the people I work with (and who doesn't have need to be a martyr, because she's focussed on being great at what she does, not on making excuses about why she's so shitty). It's been nice talking with Sherry and seeing that good teachers are both kind -- clearly, to anyone who remembers being a student -- and smart and who create learning environments where people feel safer to grow and learn without being controlled and hammered, all the time.

Working in inner city schools is a double edged sword.

On the one hand, it is annoying and upsetting as hell working with teachers, parents, and students who are perpetually rationalizing their shittiness; why they're so nasty to others, why they don't take school seriously (many teachers included, sadly), why the community is the mess it clearly is to anyone not trying to defend it, why the often poor quality of inner city schools has everything to do with the craziness of inner city communities, the inability of teachers to develop clear and open-hearted commitments to kids and families regardless of their circumstances (and kids and parents to develop similar clear and open-hearted commitments to teachers and schools, and to one another), why so many excuses are made for all of the failure of inner city communities and inner city schools, and why everyone seems to think that more of the hard-edged and polarizing policies (the drug war, for instance) of the past will someone solve many of the problems that they have often exacerbated.

It's shitty to work with people who are often being shitty and making all kinds of excuses for why they are that way.

And it's only the presence of someone like Freda Ogburn that keeps me around, at all. This last period taught me the importance of Freda's presence in this school better than any period I have been at Eisenhower.

On the other hand, it is all of that shittiness that is the reason I am in a school like Eisenhower, at all. Meaning, if noone intervenes in all of that shit and offers kids and people some substantial hope of escaping all of this ugliness that comes with rationalizing why people are such bad teachers, often; why community members are, perpetually, in such bad straights; why so many people throughout the school system spend so much time looking after themselves (administrators and teachers, contrary to popular myth, actually look after the community, generally, more than many parents and teachers and others who generally live, more often, in the community; but they still look after their own behinds much more than they would like to admit, and far too often more than they genuinely look after kids or families, truth be known); and why everyone keeps pretending that their lives are really better than they are or that they are entitled to more without working harder or smarter at making life better for themselves or others.

So there's all kinds of shittiness in the inner city community that necessitates somebody give a shit.

On the other hand, I'm not the type of person who likes to be taken for granted. I don't like to stick around in any relationship or friendship where I am treated badly. I am definitely treated better at Eisenhower, by my principal, primarily, than by any job I have ever worked outside of school, and even than in schools I worked in Wichita.

But I still hate being around people who are constantly making excuses for how shitty they are to me and to others and acting like it's no big deal.

And working in schools with faculties like Sherry, who is a real sweetheart, seems very, very attractive to me, right now, given my frustration with the lack of genuine commitment to facing honestly the problems in inner city schools and inner city communities.

If people don't want to face up to their problems, I reason these days, no need for me to be trying to solve them for them. I can't. I've come to terms with that. Only individuals can solve their own problems with input and influence from others, but ultimately based on their own thoughts and choices. Everything else is illusion.

And why I wouldn't take a more lucrative, more supportive, probably more thoughtful or at least appreciative position in a place like Desoto rather than continue to swim through the bullshit in an inner city community where too many teachers, parents, and students are constantly making excuses for what asses they are is beyond me, most days anymore.

But then there's Freda Ogburn. Without Freda's support, I'm quite sure I would have left by now.

That way my experience when I was studying in poor urban schools in Wichita, Kansas. When you grow up white trash in the white trash side of town, you often encounter people who are scared and mean and intimidated by intelligence and what it means about their own shortcomings.

And I never would have returned had I not had some confidence that kids like me needed teachers like me as a break from all of the ugliness, and that if communities like Kansas City, Kansas are to get better, then they will need some honest voices to talk about why it is in such a mess so that it can clean the mess up, rather than everyone living defensive of the community in perpetuity.

I didn't get into poverty work to tell poor people that there really was no hope either because they were being screwed and there was nothing that could be done (poor people are screwed, often, but there is plenty that can be done by all of us including poor people, especially in a liberal democracy like the U.S. which takes equity and opportunity more seriously than most countries in the world, and who often have quite a bit of responsibility for their situations, whether they want to face that or not). Nor did I get into poverty work to find ways for them to help people make more money without some kind of genuine commitment to the idea that thought and higher values and education for its own sake and a million other important ideas about humanity and the world, generally, mattered quite apart from the material benefits that education provides. I genuinely believe in the value of education and the larger values of humanity, and my education was centrally important to nurturing those values, even as many of the people from the community where I grew up took all of those values and that education for granted.

I never romanticized urban schools and communities because I grew up in one and I was quite frustrated most of that time with how little people in my community took seriously values that sustained the world more substantially, including and especially intelligence.

It's funny. The biggest reason why I've learned not to be afraid of being fired is because I only came to this job because I genuinely cared. There's a million different jobs I could take if I cared more about myself than others. I just wanted to make a difference in a community like the community where I grew up in and to demonstrate that poverty and hopelessness are not the natural byproducts of urban communities. Poverty and hopelessness are clearlyfixable, if we will invest our thought and our energies and our money and our care and concern in one another more than in our own self-centered agendas. We just have to take the idea of looking out for others seriously and not constantly rationalize what selfish shitheads we can often be.

And doing so means building communities that are genuinely strong -- like suburban communities that urban dwellers constantly bemoan, sometimes for good reasons, often taking their strength for granted -- rather than being defensiveness about all of the clearly dysfunctional and foolish qualities of weaker communities.

Freda's one of the honest people who really makes working in a place like Eisenhower something worth doing. I hope that remains the case. Because I am damned tired of teachers and parents and students and people in this community acting like it doesn't matter to be smarter or wiser or more thoughtful or decent in life.

Without Freda, I couldn't possibly imagine staying at Eisenhower or any similar school or job. Because spending all your time with people who spend all their time making excuses for why they haven't taken excellence in their jobs more seriously, and making you feel bad that you have is really one of the most miserable and frustrating experiences that you can have in life.

The only thing that's prepared me for it, at all, has been an entire life growing up in such communities always being around people who never really quite took being smart and thoughtful and sensitive and loving as seriously as I did.

At some level, for me, the community I live in that I feel lives that way is the bigger world.

And strangely enough, working in a community where those values are taken less seriously than the university town I live in, for instance, or the suburbs that my close friends live in, just makes me all the more appreciative of how important those values are for everyone's lives, whether they take thought and compassion and decency and the deeper truths of life more seriously or not.

I just got a couple of emails from Brandi, this week. I don't really quite understand Ms. Fisher, anymore, except that she's just a lot more self-centered than the Brandi I knew and loved years ago. Either that or she was always that self-centered, and I just didn't realize it because I was so blinded by love. A definite possibility. I just know that I'm tired of trying to figure her out and I'm beyond tired trying to be friends with her, anymore. She's gonna have to grow up, someday, and seek me out. Because at this point, I'm tired of being such a good friend to someone who, paradoxically -- because at one point she was the best friend I had ever had -- has turned out to be such a thoroughly shitty friend. And I just don't want to be her friend until she can clean up her act, is the truth.

From now on, I live life up to my standards, and not down to the standards of others.

And I know what a difference I make and my life makes. And I know better than to think any less of my contribution to the world.

Because Frieda Ogburn has definitely taught me just what a difference one person can make.

Love,
Ben

Making my peace with quitting

I've spent the last week dealing with an insane amount of pressure. Pressure from teachers, pressure from administrators, pressure from kids, pressure from parents.

I've finally decided that if this keeps up, then I am leaving. I will write about the failures of public schools honestly, as well as a whole host of other policy issues, obviously. And I will write about possibilities for reform given a less aggressive posture toward measures meant to reform schools.

Specifically, I'll be writing about more freedom and a stronger non-profit and for-profit market for schools and a public education, with charter schools, vouchers and autonomous public schools of choice being at the forefront of those much more promising measures.

The current emphasis on pressuring and forcing our way to change is doomed. It hasn't worked in any major socialist, communist, Nazi, fascist or any other state organized program or bureaucracy and it will not succeed in public schools or any other bureaucracy, for that matter, in the democratic world, either.

Like with those governments, it will take time for Western democratic governments to face that failure. But the beautiful thing about democracy is that it offers us that opportunity more readily than any other form of government or culture in the history of the world. And figure it out we will.

Choice and markets are not the cutting edge and consensus as the most preferred means of public school reform in the most prestigious universities and scholarly communities for nothing. Terry Moe and John Chubb long ago wrote Politics, Markets, and America's Schools, which is a brilliant primer in the problems of public school bureaucracy, especially with respect to school reform. Public school monopolies limit more decentralized, diverse, innovative, and autonomously responsible efforts to improve and reform public schools and schools of all kinds. And I have gotten a first hand look, these last two years, at why that is so.

I still believe in public schools. And I believe in inner city public schools like Eisenhower.

But they have to prove themselves on their own merits, have to have support from parents and communities in ways that are realistic, forward-looking rather than backwards-looking, faciliate genuine discussion, dialogue and give-and-take, and which solve problems for real rather than hoping that bureaucracy can care for the substance of school failures.

And most importantly, they need more support and less condescension and external mandate from people who don't identify with inner city communities.

Genuine freedom and choice are fundamental to inner city school reform and improving American life, not incidental. As with liberal democratic societies, generally, freedom may be taken for granted, but it is the foundation for the culture whether we acknowledge and nurture that or not. And more of it, not less, if key to our common futures.

If I can't get support in this particular school and school district, I'm moving on to another school district until I fulfill my teaching scholarship obligations -- Desoto is looking like a nice district, these days, given the really wonderful teacher I know who works there -- and writing about the futility of public education reform until I see public school districts that begin to take more seriously the need to embrace freedom and choice as fundamental to their reform efforts and their dealings with families, kids, and teachers.

Inner city school reform has been the love of my life, up till this point. So it will be sad to leave it. But I'm not tied to anyone or anything that would treat me badly and act as if it's no big deal. And my little school district will need to decide in the near future whether or not it can learn to treat me as well as I treat those I work with and for, or learn.

And really, all you can realistically expect from people is that they learn from their mistakes, not that they don't make them:).

I hope everyone has a great week:):).

Love,
Ben

Have we achieved our goals?

I think it's appropriate that Haaretz brings us this bit of sanity amidst a paranoid and somewhat dangerous moment for the Israeli and American governments as they float threats of military invasion and press for tough and largely counterproductive action against Iran and North Korea, and never seem daunted by failure or even willing to consider that perhaps they have chosen the wrong path.

It's appropriate because it was an Israeli diplomat that once said on a documentary on the founding of Israel I once watched something to the effect that "Governments try all the wrong options first before they get to the right one."

And I have to say that I never, in my lifetime, quite witnessed a political moment when that observation about government policy was more true, by my lights, than today and as it concerns Israel's and America's policies vis a vis Iran and North Korea. No matter how many times they make the same mistake -- provoking both governments more with threats and tough action, both countries clearly pursuing nuclear weapons more ambitiously the more they are threatened, overriding each country's self-determined right to defense policy, no matter how paranoid and dangerous and provocative that policy may look to us and may be in reality -- Israel, America, and those who agree with their policies just keep foolishly taking the same path that has made the situation with both countries so much worse in just a few years, by any objective measure.

Neil Ferguson, on the other hand, makes the defensive argument for that so clearly failed policy, by my lights, ignoring the concerns of Russia and China and, as the Bush Administration did with France and Germany over the course of the Iraq War, impugning bad motives to people who think their policies might likely be counterproductive (as the Iraq War has proven to be, in so many ways). No matter how much those who disagree with forceful action and threats make clear that they're concern is one of effectiveness of the action, hawks and other advocates of a more forceful foreign policy can just never get their heads around the admittedly complicated but nevertheless important notion that perhaps aggression and force often prove counterproductive, over time, rather than more effective (necessitating, I believe, a commitment to the least possible necessary aggression; least, possible, and necessary being the crux of this very thorny question, right now). And the only way that the counterproductiveness and ineffectiveness of a more threatening and forceful non-proliferation policy towards North Korea and Iran could be missed, I think, at this point -- because the reality is just so plain, by any objective measure -- is out of a defensive attachment to a more forceful policy, no matter how much it fails.

The Soviets went for 70 years with this foolish attachment to bad policy. The Nazis were convinced it would help them conquer the world, only to lose in battle to their more liberal and democratic neighbors, in league with their Communists neighbors to the North. Castro and Cuba have remained attached to this failed philosophy for almost half a century. And the governments of Iran and North Korea govern with such philosophies, regularly, in ways that are repugnant to freedom-loving peoples of the West.

But for some reason, too many in the West still romanticize the capacity to force change more than it has proven capable of delivering.

So what distinguishes the use of force among democratic countries like the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, and the like and the non-democratic countries like North Korea or authoritarian democracies like Iran?

We are more liberal in our democratic commitments. Meaning, we have more freedom. Meaning we use less force. And why we would not take seriously the principles that underly that reality is indecipherable to me, except that we are convinced, in some arrogant way, that we have struck "the right balance" between force and freedom.

What liberal democracies need is a greater appreciation both for their freedom and for more genuine democratic engagement (meaning, we listen to the concerns of our partners in democratic institutions like the United Nations, the U.N. Security Council, NATO, etc. rather than arrogantly assuming that the only good motives are the ones that we have monopolies over) and for democratic principles like self-determination (especially when it comes to the defense policy of a sovereign nation and people, as we would very much expect ourselves). Can you imagine the U.S. rolling over if the European Union demanded that we stop building nuclear weapons or if the U.N. Security Council passed resolutions calling for tough sanctions on the U.S. if it does not scale back it's arsenal? Of course not. We just assume that because we think we know best how the world should be ordered, then our demands for the order we deem best be met, no matter how unreasonable such demands would seem if they were directed at us.

Luckily, democracy has no such requirements for agreement or unanimity. Democracy necessitates, first and foremost, honest and open and good faith engagement of our disagreements. Russia and China, or South Korea, would be remiss in their democratic responsibilities to just roll over for U.S. demands when they have legitimate and I think, ultimately, accurate concerns about the counterproductivity of U.S. policies. We are damned lucky that they are around to check our hubris, frankly. And the less proponents of tough policy engage the disagreement honestly, the more they deserve to be engaged and ignored in their persistent whining that everyone doesn't agree with them and checked until and as they begin to engage the disagreement more honestly.

The U.S. government is not in bad faith. And there is no reason to suspect, any more than the U.S. Government, that the Russians and the Chinese are in bad faith in their concerns (even as their governments do not take nearly seriously enough democratic institutions and commitments; neither do we, truth be told, without having to equivocate the stronger, more mature and intellectually and institutionally diverse democracy in the United States with the totalitarian rule of Communists in China or the autocratic democratic rule of Vladimir Putin in Russia).

The virtue of democracy is that it checks our hubris in our certainty about right policy and creates both an ethic and institutions that challenge us to consider the ideas of those we disagree with us. Particularly because we may be wrong and they may be right. It certaintly has been true of me as often as not in my own lifetime. And is true of anyone who is intellectually honest; and conversely is untrue only when people are not engaged in democratic conversations with a genuine commitment to intellectual honesty.

And in this particular case, as amazing as it may seem to the people and governments of mature democracies in the West, Russia, China, and South Korea likely have the better thinking about how to handle North Korea's nuclear proliferation. Similarly, those willing and able to face the failure of Israel's recent incursion in Lebanon are most likely right about the need to recognize, as Haaretz recognizes in its article, that a unilateral future is not an option. Neither is a hegemenous or quasi-hegemenous future.

The only future available to us that offers any potential for mutual peace, prosperity, freedom, liberal democratic government, cultures, institutions, and commitments is one that takes its own democratic principles -- like self-determination and intellectual diversity and engagement -- seriously rather than as afterthoughts to the pursuits of governments in power and those with particular agendas.

None of the players involved with the current dramas on the international scene are acting with total good faith or a total commitment to high ideals.

And that is all the more reason to hold them accountable to the highest democratic ideals, as they act less than nobly.

And most importantly, that means us, the citizens and governments in more mature liberal democratic countries, holding ourselves more accountable those principles, namely the self-governing need to hold ourselves to our highest values and ideals if self-government and self-determination are to be meaningful principles in a free and liberal democracy.

And the basic foundation for those ideals is intellectual honesty.

The most honest question for us to ask ourselves with respect to Iraq, Iran, and North Korea -- the Axis of Evil -- right now, is, "Have we succeeded in achieving our goals?"

And if the answer is no, as it clearly is, we must consider alternative options and better paths.

Love,
Ben

Fixing the world is like grading math homework

As I've been grading papers, this weekend, I've been realizing that so much of what I'm seeing that just seems so foolish in the world to me is people doing exactly what I see on math papers all of the time:

People making the same mistake again and again.

And as I grade papers, I realize how easy it is to do that.

I have kids who consistently multiply zero times whole numbers as if they are multiplying one times whole numbers. It's an easy mistake, but it's a mistake that will mean a lot of wrong answers.

And that's what I see happening in the world today.

Lot's of people making a lot of mistakes because they just don't understand what they're doing, very well.

Except, in politics, the mistakes you make affect everyone, not just you. One of the primary reasons to leave as much freedom to make choices about life to individuals, as much as possible, and not mandated for everyone.

But the bigger reason is that people resist anything they don't understand or agree with or trust when it's imposed. And that people value their freedom whether you seek to take it away from them, or not, generally for good reason. And the most important reason for valuing that freedom is because they know that it is fundamental to the development of conscience.

We just perpetually take that fact of moral, intellectual, and personal development for granted.

And it's a mistake that gets made again and again in every culture, and democratic cultures are no different.

Democratic cultures are no different except in the respect that they provide us with ways to change those mistakes more readily, to check those with power with divided power, and to more readily both codify protections for freedoms and, far more importantly, build cultures committed to freedom, equity, and other important values. Thus the importance of education in liberal democratic cultures that perpetually take the value of education for granted.

Our culture, right now, is in the midst of an extended period of regression based on this very basic and perpetual mistake that democratic cultures make: romanticizing their less thoughtful, more forceful, more brutish histories.

It's just like watching my students multiply zeroes times sevens and answering seven. It's wrong. It's a very easy mistake to make.

But you won't get to the right answer until you see the mistake.

And that is where we are stuck, right now.

And we won't get unstuck until we see the mistake.

At some level, policy work is very much like mathematics or auto mechanics. If you want the problem fixed, you have to find where the problem is at and fix it. And if you don't find the problem, you aren't a bad person. You'll just keep dealing with the problem until you get it figured out:).

What most political leaders need are some good teachers to help them understand their mistakes, better, so they can fix problems. Joe Nye and Francis Fukuyama are two such teachers around international policy issues. I think I am too. Noone has all the answers. But some people have more answers than others. And good teachers, generally, have more of the right answers. And that's true in math, in auto mechanics, and in policy.

Here's to fixing the problems instead of self-righteously getting stuck on the wrong solutions:).

Love,
Ben

I'm thinking about quitting

Today was an insane day. I have a fellow special education teacher who is seriously undermining me. And I just can't handle the bullshit, anymore. She doesn't give a shit about the kids, really. She only cares about herself. And she's become a serious pain in my ass. And I just think that maybe what my school needs is for me to move out of the way and let people like this teacher lead the way.

You know what the truth is about why inner city schools are so notoriously bad? You want to know why so many problems in the world go unresolved?

Because people don't really give enough of a shit, is why.

And noone wants to face up to that.

You know why we don't have a commitment to universal health care coverage in the U.S? Because people don't really care enough.

You know why power and wealth equity issues are still not taken very seriously by most of the world? Because people really don't give enough of a shit.

You know why we don't have a peace agreement in the Middle East or why the Administration hasn't figured out better ideas for handling Iraq or why they can't seem to face the failure of their policies in Iraq or North Korea or why their opponents can't seem to face up to the fact that they're pressuring and strong-arming the administration has failed so miserably?

Because people don't really give a shit.

Not really.

Because if they did they would look more seriously at the clear and plain reality that strong-arming our way to those goals has failed, and change course. But they are more committed to their strong-arming and the power than they are to resolving those issues.

There's plenty of that problem in any career, and with far too much of the world, in general. And there's plenty of that in suburban schools and private schools and all kinds of other schools that have better reputations.

But most of the people I work with just don't really give enough of a shit. Most of the parents don't give enough of a shit. And many of the kids (though I have become close with a lot of exceptions to this rule) do not give enough of a shit.

The truth is that about most things that matter...

Most people care more about themselves and about covering their asses and about looking good and about looking after their own wants and needs than they do about resolving the important problems.

The truth is that most of us just don't really give a shit.

And then we wonder why shit is all fucked up.

And I am tired of being taken for granted.

I work harder than most people. I confront realities more fully. I think about issues more seriously (which significance really is the big issue that a lot of people dont want to face). I'm more selfless.

And most people are just kind of dicks, really. They're constantly looking after themselves, covering their own asses, acting as selfish as they want to, and then acting like it really doesn't matter.

And right now, we are a huge mess. We are all acting like such dicks and acting like it doesn't matter.

And maybe, I'm thinking, I just need to leave people who don't care enough to their own devices.

The kids, now, really are my most serious point of connection.

But I can't do it with the kids, alone.

I need staff who support me. I need a team committed to doing a good job and trying hard. And most people, these days, are just being dicks. And they just don't want to face up.

And I'm just tired of pretending like people are being better than they are.

Everyone is covering their ass, these days.

And I just don't know why I care so much when others really don't.

It's such a discouraging reality to face about the world and about people and about schools.

And the current political moment has everything to do with it.

You threaten people all the time, people start to look after their own rear ends and stop thinking so much about helping one another.

And we just can't face it.

And I just want to escape and spend time with more people who care more about life and what they do.

I am tired of people constantly forcing my hand because they just can't face being wrong.

I am extremely good at what I do. And I thinking about quitting my profession because I just can't handle people holding me back, anymore, because they just can't face that they are wrong. And that all too many people give a shit about is themselves.

Love,
Ben

Things I expect out of life

There's that list of things that we all know is the stuff that we all will never feel quite right about the world until our expectations are met. Today, I was talking about some of those expectations with friends, and I thought I should share them.

1) I expect a world where people get treated and rewarded decently, fairly, humanely and where everyone's most basic, urgent, and deepest needs are met, getting met, or help is on the way.

I know this doesn't happen today. I know every excuse that cynics have for why it can't happen. I don't give a shit. I expect this kind of world, and until I see it and until the world sees it, we're always going to know that the world is raw deal. And the more it's a raw deal, the more that cynicism and all the worst as well as all the more innocuous consequences that result from that cynicism become reality and often get worse before they get better.

2) I expect an apology (and some sense of their remorse, at least) from people who have sold me out, wronged me, or otherwise hurt me in some significant way that has seriously interrupted our relationship, as much as possible. I expect me to give apologies when they are due, as much as possible. And I expect that everyone who owes apologies to offer them to those they are due to.

Brandi and her abandonment of my closest friendship comes to mind immediately, here. My mom didn't live in the same town with me and had little contact with me after I was 12, and has kind of been a vindictive bitch, at times, much of my life. I have some grad school profs and an advisor who really let me down for reasons that I understand but which still has created significant distance in our relationships. I have two bosses who fired me arbitrarily that I'll probably never seen again (one has already apologized). I have two youngest siblings, a brother and a sister, who come to mind (unless they have a good reason to cut off communication that I don't know about and/or can't think of, can come up with a great excuse for cutting off communication or they can grow up -- they're both pretty young -- whichever comes first). And I am tired of the million compromises I have to make with people who can't learn to grow up and be decent and responsible because its the right thing to do.

3) I expect people to be responsible for their bullshit.

Bitterness, hate, repressed anger, control issues, pettiness, etc. I expect people to let that shit go. And when they can't, to expect to be ignored until they do. I expect people to forgive. And when they won't, I expect them to be loved and accepted for their weakness and fragility, but not to have their weakness and fragility to be confused with real strength. I expect people to have priorities based on what really matters in life and not just based on what really matters in their own personal lives. I expect people to pitch in and help out with important matters of life. I expect people to pitch in and help out with all the thinking and brainstorming and other hard work that comes with solving most of life's most serious problems. I expect people to be more honest, more open, and more real. And I expect that when they are not more honest, open, and real, that life will be just as much of a fucked up mess as it often is today.

4) I expect that people will at least see through other peoples' bullshit and lying to themselves and others, even if they have a hard time seeing through their own.

Much of how fucked up our perception and understanding of social reality is is based on how much we lie and hide what we're really thinking. To ourselves. To one another. And the ways that these lies overlap and fuck up our ability to get more honest with one another about life so that we all have a more accurate picture of what that life looks like. All the ways we hurt one another fuck up our honest expression and honest communication, which is the big reason why we should stop fucking hurting one another all the fuckin' time since this is what kills the mutual engagement that is so central to a more honest and decent life.

And at the very least, if President Bush is not going to get more honest about how much his international policy is fucking shit up and making many, many things in the world worse, at the very least, the rest of us should be able to look at his fuck-ups (most of which too many of us have cheerleaded with far too much enthusiasm) and say, "Hey, you're fucking shit up." I was in a similar situation, recently, when the classes I teach were having problems and we needed some changes in course. People didn't know quite what to say to me to get things moving in a better direction. But they did know to tell me that shit was not looking good. And that's a good instinct, even when it is less than ideal in its expression.

We lie to ourselves and one another all the fuckin' time. It is the persisent fuck-up of humanity that has fueled and maintained so much of our own destructiveness towards one another and toward ourselves. And if that cycle is to end, we are going to have to get more honest.

I very much understand that that is easier said than done. I, for one, have many things to come cleaner on in my life which I have tried to be as honest as I felt safe to be honest about in my life. And I want, personally, and for us, as humanity, to get more honest with ourselves and with others about life. But it will take less aggression, less hurtfulness, less punishment, less destructiveness and less self-destructiveness to get us there, as well as some courage. I've shown a lot of courage, I think, but I'm not a fool. And we are going to need a lot more courage and to create a lot less fear so that we don't all have to be Jesus Christ or Martin Luther King or Ghandi and give our lives or sacrafice ourselves to move humanity forward when it's in the kind of rut that it's in today (and always has been, really, but with more opportunity to correct our course).

5) I expect that a world where I can trust people more and where I'm not always looking over my shoulder wondering who I have to fear today. I expect people to know the difference between a better world in that direction and a worse world in the direction of more fear, control, punishment, and force and to help turn us all in the better direction. Fear, control, punishment, and force will not move us in a direction of less fear and more trust. Clearly the contrary is true, to anyone not lost in their bullshit on this one.

We undermine the social fabric the more we turn ourselves against one another. We undermine our sense of trust and community the more we try to scare people into submission rather than appealing to their consciences. Every law that gets passed that assumes bad faith on my part, every arbitrary imposition that assumes that I don't care, every effort to clamp down on my freedoms on the arrogant notion that someone knows better than I do is a tear in that social fabric and in a more authentic sense of trust and community. Every time anyone proposes to force me to do a goddamn thing other than, in the moment, to not be physically destructive towards others they undermine the kind of more authentic trust that is the only path forward for humanity.

Every time we work more out of fear than out of hope, we tear at that social fabric. And right now, it's in tatters. Because we've all taken it so much for granted.

And if we want that to change, we have to change course in a direction that takes seriously our responsibility to strengthen and more genuinely secure that social fabric. Guns and weapons and armies and police are all important for securing our basic safety needs. But they cannot substitute for the strong relationships and love and self-actualization that is needed to more authentically strengthen and secure our lives and our futures.

Every time we lie to ourselves and to one another about our need to love one another and be more honest with one another and be more decent with one another and be more equitable with one another and respect each others' freedom and choices and to just be better with one another...

Every time we do that, we make our lives and our neighbors' lives shitier.

And we need to cut that shit out if we want the world to get better.

And we need to start being the people that we know we want to be and can be, if we give our hearts and minds to that cause.

Those are 5 expectations I have for life. I just want to put
them out there. If people don't live up, then so be it. But that's my expectation, whether people (myself included) choose to live up to that expectation or not. But they are expectations that would significantly improve our lives and our futures, whether we choose to think about that and face up to that fact of life or not.

I am tired of all of the fear and the pain in my life and in all of our lives. I am tired of acting like it is better than it really is or that it is less scary and painful than it really is. I am tired of the stress and exhaustion that come with threats and pressure as the means of compelling action and all of the ways that this has significantly undermined the progress of America and humanity, just as it did/has in the Soviet Union, Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Cuba, Syria, and every other force-driven regime in the world and throughout world history.

It is no mistake that the onset of humanity's most remarkable achievements occurred with the promise and fruits of liberal democratic, freer, more open and more equitable societies. Freedom and openness and equity create the space for us to do great things. So it is no mistake that our greatest leaders, thinkers, and citizens have been its strongest advocates.

If we are going to be great and to do great things, we need the freedom to fuck shit up and to make shit better. Without that freedom, we cannot be great. We will always be a petty, small species of intelligent primates too clever by half and not nearly intelligent enough to be honest with themselves or one another about their deepest needs and interests and to solve their mutual problems in light of that understanding.

What I need right now is sleep. So I'm going to go home and get some. I have grading due by Friday. But I need some sleep at this moment.

Have a great week, everyone:).

Love,
Ben

Dialogue around school violence

We had an emergency committee meeting in my school, yesterday, where we talked about what to do in case of an intruder emergency. We're relatively prepared, but not prepared enough that I feel secure should someone come into the building with the intent and the weaponry to do harm.

I studied school violence in grad school. Rob Horner is the name, I believe, of the special education/developmental psychology scholar out of Oregon whose work in this area so impressed me. I also bought a book I'm trying to track down from a friend I lent it to written by a Harvard policy researcher, I believe, about how schools and communities have dealt with school shootings in their communities.

The solutions are not as simple as security measures, though these are very important and something I'm intimately involved with here at Eisenhower. The solutions involve the way we relate with one another, with students, with families, with people in the community, and the ways that those interactions either strengthen people and the community or leave people alienated, scared, and willing to do something drastic to act out those dark impulses. Schools are not to blame for these tragedies. But there is much they can do to be more responsible for making them less likely.

The recent spate of school violence is surely something that we can come together around, as a nation, engage in the national sharing of ideas that the Administration is initiating, and come together around the common ground of keeping our children safe.

If there was any domestic issue, right now, that I wish we had dedicated people like Brandi Fisher or Theo Brown or Carolyn Lukensmeyer working to initiate dialogue on, this is the one, right now.

We've started the discussion at my school. I hope the nation takes seriously the need to rally together around this banner to make our schools and communities more genuinely safe.

Love,
Ben